IV
A LITTLE MILLIONAIRE
"Gabrielle."
"Oui, mademoiselle Hazel," came in shrill yet muffled tones from the depths of the dressing-room closet.
"Bring me my white silk kimono."
"Oui, mademoiselle."
The order, in French, was given in a weak and slightly fretful voice that issued from the bed at the farther end of a large room from which the dressing-room opened. The apartment was, in truth, what Doctor Heath had called it, "a nest of luxury."
It was a bitter Saint Valentine's Day which succeeded the Doctor's evening visit. The wood-fire, blazing cheerily in the ample fireplace, sent its warmth and light far out into the room, flashing red reflections in the curiously twisted bars of the brass bedstead. At the left of the fireplace stood a small round tea-table, and upon it a little silver tea-kettle on a standard of the same metal. Dainty cups and saucers of egg-shell china were grouped about it; a miniature silver tray held a sugar-dish and a cream-pot and a half-dozen gold-lined souvenir spoons.
On the richly carved mantel stood an exquisite plate-glass clock, the chimes of which were just striking nine, and, keeping it company to right and left, were two dainty figures of a shepherd and shepherdess in Dresden china. The remaining mantel space was filled with tiny figures in bisque,–a dachshund, a cat and kittens, a porcelain box, heart-shaped, the top covered with china forget-me-nots, a silver drinking-cup, a small oval portrait on ivory of a beautiful young woman, framed in richly chased gold, the inner rim set round with pearls. A blue pitcher of Cloisonné and a tray of filigree silver heaped with dainty cotillion favors stood on one end; on the other, a crystal vase filled with white tulips.
Soft blue and white Japanese rugs lay upon the polished floor; delicate blue and white draperies hung at the windows. Dressing-case and writing-desk of white curled maple were each laden with articles for the toilet and for writing, in solid silver, engraved with the monogram H.C. A couch, upholstered in blue and white Japanese silk, stood at the right of the fireplace, and all about the room were dainty wicker chairs enamelled in white, and cushioned to match the hangings.
The bed was canopied in pale blue covered with white net and edged with lace, and the coverlet was of silk of the same delicate color, embroidered with white violets and edged like the canopy, only with a deeper frill of lace. The occupant of this couch, fit for a princess royal, was the little mistress of all she surveyed, as well as the mansion of which the room formed a small part; and a woebegone-looking little girl she was, who called again, and this time impatiently:–
"Gabrielle, hurry, do."
"Oui, oui, mademoiselle Hazel;" and Gabrielle tripped across the room with the white kimono in one hand and fresh towels in the other. She had just slipped it upon Hazel when there was a knock at the door. Gabrielle opened it, and Wilkins asked in a voice intended to be low, but which proved only husky:–
"Nuss say she mus' jes' speak wif Marse Clyde 'fo' she come up, an' wan's to know if Miss Hazel will haf her breffus now or wait till she come up herse'f."
Before Gabrielle could answer, Hazel called out, "You may bring it up now, Wilkins; and has the postman come yet?"
Wilkins' broad smile sounded in his voice, as it came out of its huskiness.
"Yes, Miss Hazel, ben jes' 'fo' I come up. I ain't seen no hearts, but dey's thicker 'n spatter by de feel, an' a heap o' boxes by 'spress!"
"Oh, bring them up quick, Wilkins, and tell papa to be sure and come up directly after breakfast."
"Yes, for sho', Miss Hazel," said Wilkins, delighted to have a word with the little daughter of her whom he had carried in his arms thirty-two years ago up and down the jasmine-covered porch of an old New Orleans mansion.
In a few minutes, he reappeared with two large silver trays, on one of which was the tempting breakfast of Hamburg grapes, a dropped egg, a slice of golden-brown toast, half of a squab broiled to the melting-point, and a cup of cocoa. On the other were boxes large and small, and white envelopes of all sizes.
Gabrielle cut the string and opened the boxes, while Hazel looked on, pleased to be remembered, but finding nothing unusual in the display; for Christmas and Easter and birthdays and parties brought just about the same collection, minus "the hearts," which Wilkins had felt through the covers. The only fun, after all, was in the guessing.
Just then Mr. Clyde entered.
"Oh, papa! I 'm so glad you have come; it's no fun guessing alone." She put up her peaked, sallow little face for the good-morning kiss; and her father, with the thought of his last night's struggle, took the face in both hands and kissed brow and mouth with unusual tenderness.
"Why, papa!" she exclaimed, "that kiss is my best valentine; you never kissed me that way before."
"Well, it's time I began, Birdie; let's see what you have for nonsense here. What's this–from Cambridge?"
"Oh, that's Jack, I 'm sure; he always sends me violets; but what is that in the middle of the bunch?" With a smile she drew out a tiny vignette of her Harvard Sophomore cousin. It was framed in a little gold heart, and on a slip of paper was written, "For thee, I 'm all 'art."
"Jack 's a gay deceiver," laughed her father; "he 's all ''art' for a good many girls, big and little. What's this?–and this?"
One after another he took out the contents of envelopes and boxes,–candy hearts by the pound in silver bonbon boxes, silk hearts, paper hearts, a flower heart of real roses ("That's from you, Papa Clyde!" she exclaimed, and her father did not deny the pleasant accusation), hollow gilt hearts stuffed with sentiments, a silver chatelaine heart for change, and last, but not least, an enormous envelope, a foot square, containing a white paper heart all written over with "sentiments" from the girls in her class at school.
"Come now, Birdie," said her father, after the last one had been opened and guessed over, "eat your breakfast, or nurse will scold us both for putting play before business."
"I don't think I want any, papa," said Hazel, languidly, for, after all, the valentines had proved to be almost too much excitement for the little girl, who was just recovering from weeks of slow fever; "and, Gabrielle, take the flowers away, they make my head ache,–and the other things, too," she added, turning her head wearily on the pillow.
"But you must eat, Hazel dear," said her father, gently but firmly; and therewith he took a grape and squeezed the pulp between her lips. Hazel laughed,–a faint sound.
"Why, papa, if you feed me that way, I shall be a real Birdie. Yes," she nodded, "that's good; I 'll take another;" and her father proceeded to feed her slowly, now coaxing, now urging, then commanding, till a few grapes and a half egg were disposed of.
"There, now, I won't play tyrant any longer," he said, "for your real tyrant of a doctor is coming soon, and I must be out of the way."
"Are you going to be at home for luncheon to-day, papa?"
"No, dear, I 've promised to go out to Tuxedo with the Masons, but I shall be at home before dinner, just to look in upon you. I dine with the Pearsells afterwards. Good-bye." A kiss,–two, three of them; and the merry, handsome young father, still but thirty-seven, had gone, and with him much of the brightness of Hazel's day.
But she was used to this. Ever since she could remember anything, she had been petted and kissed and–left with her nurse, her governess, or a French maid.
Her young mother, a Southern belle, lived more out of her home than in it, with the round of gayeties in the winter months interrupted and continued by winter house-parties at Lenox, a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean, an early spring-flitting to the mountains of North Carolina, and the later household moving to Newport.
In all these migrations Hazel accompanied her parents; in fact, was moved about as so much goods and chattels, from New York to the Berkshires, from the Berkshires to Malta, from Malta to the Great Smokies, from the mountains to the sea; her appurtenances, the governess and French maid, went with her; and the routine of her home in New York, the study, the promenade, the all-alone breakfasts and dinners went on with the regularity of clockwork, whether on the yacht, in the mountains, or in the villa on the Cliff.
So now, although she wished her father would stay and entertain her, it never occurred to her to tell him so; and likewise it never occurred to the father that his child needed or wished him to stay. Nor had it ever occurred to the young mother that she was not doing her whole duty by her child; for she never omitted to go upstairs and kiss her little daughter good-night, whether the child was awake or asleep, before going out to dinner, theatre, or reception.
She died when Hazel was nine, and it was a lovely memory of "mamma" that Hazel cherished: a vision of loveliness in trailing white silk, or velvet, or lace,–her mother always wore white, it was her Southern inheritance,–with a single dark-red rose among the folds of Venetian point of the bertha; always a gleam of white neck and arms banded with flashing, many-faceted diamonds, or roped with pearls; always a sense of delicious white warmth and fragrance, as the vision bent over her and pressed a light kiss upon her cheek. And if, in her bliss, she opened her sleepy eyes, she looked always into laughing brown depths, and putting up her hand caressed shining masses of brown hair.
But it was always a good-night vision. In the morning mamma did not breakfast until ten, and Hazel was off to the little private school at half-past nine. At noon mamma was either out at lunch or giving a lunch-party; and in the afternoon there was the promenade in the Park with the governess, and sometimes, as a treat, a drive with mamma on her round of calls, when Hazel and the maid sat among the furs in the carriage. Then Hazel played at being grown up, and longed for the time when she could wear a reception dress like mamma's, of white broadcloth and sable, and trip up the steps of the various houses, and trip down again with a bevy of young girls laughing and chatting so merrily.
All that had ceased when Hazel was nine, and the young father had made her mistress in her mother's place. It was such a great house! and there were so many servants! and the housekeeper was so strict! and it was so queer to sit at the round table in the big dining-room and try to look at papa over the silver épergne in the centre!
When she was eleven, she entered one of the large private schools which many of her little mates attended. Soon it came to be the "girls of our set" with Hazel; and then there followed music-lessons, and violin-lessons, and riding-lessons, and dancing-class, and riding-days in the Park, and lunch-parties with the girls, and theatre-matinée-parties, and concerts at Carnegie Hall, and birthday parties, and sales–school and drawing-room affairs–and Lenten sewing-classes; until gradually her little society life had become an epitome of her mother's, and when she began to shoot up like a bean-sprout, lose her round face and the delicate pink from her cheeks, uncles and aunt and cousin and friends whispered of her mother's frail constitution, and that it was time to take heed.
Then it was that the physician, who had helped to bring her into the world, was summoned hastily to prevent her early departure from it. This was the "curious case" that so bothered him; and this pale, languid girl of thirteen in the blue-canopied bed was the one he intended to transplant into another soil.
A short, sharp tap announced his arrival. The nurse opened the door.
"Good-morning, little girl–ah, ah! Saint Valentine's Day? I had forgotten it; all those came this morning?" he said cheerily, pointing to a table on which Gabrielle had placed all the remembrances but the flowers.
"Yes, Doctor Heath; but my best valentine, you know, is papa, and after him, you."
"Hm, flatterer!" growled the Doctor, feeling her pulse. "Pretty good, pretty good. Think we can get you up for half a day. What do you say, nurse?"
"I think it will do her good, Doctor Heath; she has no appetite yet, and a little exercise might help her to it."
"No appetite?" The two eyebrows drew together in a straight line over the bridge of his nose, and, from under them, a pair of keen eyes looked at Hazel.
"Well, I 've planned something that will give you a splendid one, Hazel,–the best kind of a tonic–
"Oh, I don't want to take any more tonics. I am so sick of them," said Hazel, in a despairing tone, for although she adored the Doctor, she despised his medicines.
"You won't get sick of this tonic so soon, I 'll warrant," he said, unbending his brows and letting the full twinkle of his fine eyes shine forth,–"at least not after you are used to it. I won't say but that it may cause a certain kind of sickness at first; in fact, I 'm sure of it."
"Oh, will it nauseate me?" cried Hazel, dreading to suffer any more.
"No, no, it won't do that, but–"
"But what do you mean, Doctor Heath? Are you joking?"
"Never was more in earnest in my life," replied the Doctor, rubbing his hands in glee, much to Hazel's amazement. "Hazel," he turned abruptly to her, "papa is a splendid fellow; did you know that?"
Hazel laughed aloud, a real girl's laugh,–Doctor Heath was so queer at times.
"Have you just found that out?" she retorted.
"No, you witch,–don't be impertinent to your elders,–I have n't; but really he is, take it all in all, just about the most common-sense fellow in New York City."
"What has he done now, that you are praising him so?"
"Just heard to me, my dear, and agreed to do just as I want him to," said the Doctor, demurely.
"Why," laughed Hazel, "that's just when I think he is a most splendid fellow, when he does just what I want him to. Is n't it funny you and I think just alike!" And she gave his hand a malicious little pat. The Doctor caught the five slender digits and held them fast.
"Now we 're agreed that you have the most splendid, common-sense father in the world, I want you to prove to me that your father has the most splendid, common-sense daughter in it, as well."
Again Hazel laughed. She was used to her friend's ways.
"That means that you want me to take that old, new tonic of yours."
"Yes, just that," said the Doctor, emphatically; "and now, as you don't appear to care to hear about it, I 'm going to make a long call and tell you its entire history."
"Have you brought it with you?" asked Hazel, somewhat mystified.
"No, I can't carry around with me in a cab five children, a hundred acres of pine woods, a whole mountain-top, and a few Jersey cows."
"What do you mean? You are joking."
Then the physician clasped the thin hand a little more closely and told her of the country plan.
At first, Hazel failed to comprehend it. She gazed at the speaker with large, serious eyes, as if she half-feared he had taken leave of his senses.
"Did papa know it this morning?" was her first question.
"Yes, my dear."
"Then that is why he kissed me the way he did," she said thoughtfully. "But," her lip quivered, "I sha'n't have him to kiss me up there, and–and–oh, dear!" A wail went up from the canopied bed that made the Doctor turn sick at heart, and even the nurse hurried away into the dressing-room.
Somehow Doctor Heath could not exhort Hazel, as he had her father, to use common-sense. He preferred to use diplomacy.
"You see, Hazel, a year won't be so very long, and it will give your hair time to grow; and perhaps you would not mind wearing a cap for a time up there, while if you were here you certainly would not care about going to dancing-school or parties in that rig; now would you?"
Hazel sniffed and looked for her handkerchief. As she failed to find it, the Doctor applied his own huge square of linen to the dripping, reddened eyes, and tenderly stroked the smooth-shaven head.
Hazel had her vanities like all girls, and her long dark braids had been one of them. After the fever, she had been shorn of what scanty locks had been left to her, and many a time she had wondered what the girls would say when they saw her. After all, the new plan might be endured, for the sake of the hair and her looks.
She sniffed again, and this time a good many tears were drawn up into her nose. The Doctor, taking no notice of the subsiding flood, proceeded,–
"My patients always look so comical when the fuzz is coming out. It's like chicken-down all over the head–"
"Fuzz!" exclaimed Hazel, with a dismayed, wide-eyed look; "must I have fuzz for hair?"
"Why, of course, for about five months," was the Doctor's matter-of-fact reply. "Then," he continued, apparently unheeding the look of relief that crept over Hazel's face, "you are apt to have the hair come out curly."
"Oh!"
"Yes, and it really grows very fast–that is," he said, resorting to wile, "if any one is strong and well; but if the general health is not good, why–hem!–the hair is n't apt to grow!"
"Goodness! I don't want to be bald all my life!"
"No, I thought not, and for that very reason it did seem the best thing for you to get into the country where you can get well and strong as fast as ever you can."
"Shall I have to eat my breakfast and dinner alone up there?" was her next question.
Doctor Heath laughed. "What! With all those five children! You will never want for company, I can assure you of that. And now I 'll be off; as it's Saint Valentine's Day, which I had forgotten, I 'll wager I have five valentines from those very children waiting for me at home."
"Will you show them to me, if you have?"
"To be sure I will. Now sit up for half a day, and get yourself strong enough to let me take you up there by the middle of March."
"Oh, are you going to take me? What fun! Are they friends of yours?" she added timidly.
"Every one," said the Doctor, emphatically. He turned at the door. "You have n't said yet whether you will honor me with your company up there."
"I suppose I must," she said, with something between a sigh and a laugh. "But I don't know what Gabrielle will do; she 'll be so homesick."
"Gabrielle!" cried the Doctor, in a voice loud with amazement; "you don't think you are going to take Gabrielle with you, do you?"
Before Hazel had time to recover from her astonishment, Gabrielle, hearing her name called so loudly, came tripping into the room.
"Oui, oui, monsieur le docteur;" and Doctor Heath beat a hasty retreat to avoid further misunderstandings.
In the afternoon, Hazel received a box by messenger, with, "Please return by bearer," on the wrapper. On opening it, she found the Doctor's valentines with the following sentiments appropriately attached.
I
By Rose-pose made, by March adorned,
'T is not a Heart that one should scorn:
For use each day, the whole year through,
Where find a Valentine so true?
II
Cherry Blossom made this fudge
(Buddie made the box).
Eat it soon, or you will judge,
She made it all of rocks.
III
Baby May has made this cookie;
Mother baked it–but, by hookey!
I can't find another rhyme
To match with this your valentine.
Your loving Valentines,ROSE, MARCH, "BUDD AND CHERRY," MAY BLOSSOM.(We're one.)MOUNT HUNGER, February 14, 1896.
V
TRANSPLANTED
It was the middle of April, yet the drifts still blocked the ravines, and great patches of snow lay scattered thickly on the northern and eastern slopes of the mountains.
Not a bud had thought of swelling; not a fern dared to raise its downy ball above the sodden leaves. Day after day a keen wind from the north chased dark clouds across a watery blue sky, and now and then a solitary crow flapped disconsolately over the upland pastures and into the woods.
But in the farmhouse on the mountain, every Blossom was a-quiver with excitement, for the "live Valentine" was to arrive that day.
According to what Doctor Heath had written first, Mrs. Blossom had expected Hazel to come the middle of March. She had told the children about it a week before that date, and ever since, wild and varied and continuous had been the speculations concerning the new member of the family.
Both father and mother were much amused at the different ways in which each one accepted the fact, and commented upon it. At the same time they were slightly anxious as to the outcome of such a combination.
"They 'll work it out for themselves, Mary," said Mr. Blossom, when his wife was expressing her fears on account of the attitude of March and Cherry.
"I hope with all my heart they will, without friction or unpleasantness for the poor child," replied his wife, thoughtfully, for March's looks and words returned to her, and they foreboded trouble.
Her husband smiled. "Perhaps the 'poor child' will have her ways of looking at things up here, which may cause a pretty hard rub now and then for our children. But let them take it; it will do them good, and show us what stuff is in them for the future."
Mrs. Blossom tried to think so, but March's words on that afternoon she had told the children came back to her.
They were dumb at first through sheer surprise. Then Rose spoke, flinging aside her Virgil she had been studying by the failing light at the window.
"Oh, mother! we 've been so happy–just by ourselves."
"Will you be less happy, Rose, in trying to make some one else share our happiness?"
Rose said nothing, but leaned her forehead against the pane, and the tears trickled adown it and froze halfway.
Mrs. Blossom proceeded, in the silence that followed, to tell them something of Hazel's life. Then Budd spoke up like a man.
"I 'm awful sorry for her; she 's a little brick to be willing to come away from her father and live with folks she don't know. I 'd be a darned coward about leaving my Popsey."
There was no tablecloth handy to hide the squeeze he wanted to give his mother's hand, and Mrs. Blossom, knowing how he hated any public demonstration of affection, reserved her approving kiss for the dark and bedtime. But she looked at him in a way that sent Budd whistling, "I won't play in your back-yard," over to the kitchen stove, where he stared inanely at his own reflection in the polished pipe.
For the first time in her life, Cherry did not echo her twin's sentiment. She was already insanely jealous of the new-comer who seemed to claim so much of her mother's sympathy and affection. And she was n't even here! What would it be when she was here for good and all?
At this miserable thought, and all that it appeared to involve, Cherry began to cry.
Now to see Cherry Blossom cry generally afforded great fun for the whole family; for there never was a girl of ten who could cry in quite such a unique manner as this same round-faced, pug-nosed, brown-eyed Cherry, whose red hair curled as tightly as corkscrews all over her head, and bobbed and danced and quivered and shook with every motion and emotion.
First, her nose grew very red at the tip; then, her small mouth screwed itself around by her left ear; gradually, her round face wrinkled till it resembled a withered crabapple; and finally, if one listened intently and watched closely, one could hear small sniffs and see two infinitesimal drops of water issue from the nearly closed and wrinkled eyes.
But to-day no one noticed, and Cherry sat down in her mother's lap, and mumbled out her woe between sniffs.
"I can't help it if Budd does want her; I don't, Martie. Budd will play with her, and you 'll kiss her just as you do us, and it won't be comfy any more."
"That does not sound like mother's Cherry Blossom," said Mrs. Blossom, smiling in spite of herself. "I think I 'll tell you all why it comes to mother and father as a blessing."
Then Mrs. Blossom told them of the mortgage on the farm; how it had been made necessary, and what it meant, and how it was her duty to accept what had been sent to her as a means of paying it off.
Rose came over from the window. "Oh, why did n't you tell us before, Martie," she cried, sobbing outright this time, "and let us help you to earn something towards it during all this dreadful year? To think you have been bearing all this, and just going about the same, smiling and cheer–oh, dear!" Rose sat down on the hearth-rug at her mother's feet, and her sobs mingled with Cherry's sniffs.
March, who had listened thus far in silence, rose from the settle where he had flung himself in disgust, and, going over to his mother, stood straight and tall before her. His gray eyes flashed.
"I 've been a fool, mother, not to see it all before this. You ought to have told me. I 'm your eldest son, and come next after father in 'home things.'" And with this assertion he made a mighty resolve, then and there to put away boyish things and be more of a man. His mother, looking at him, felt the change, and tears of thankfulness filled her eyes.
"What could you do, children? You were too young to have your lives burdened with work."
"I 'd have found something to do, mother, if you had only told me. About the girl–" he hesitated–"of course I 'll look at it from the money side, but it 'll never be the same after she comes–never!" And with that he went off into the barn.
His mother sighed, for March was looking at the matter in the very way which, to her, was abhorrent.
"Don't sigh so, Martie," cried Rose; "I 'll take back what I said, and do everything I can to help you by making it pleasant for her. Budd has made me ashamed of myself."
"That's my own daughter Rose," said Mrs. Blossom, leaning over to kiss her parting, for Cherry was awkwardly in the way.
"Did you hear Rose, Cherry?" whispered her mother.
"Ye-es," sniffed Cherry.
"And won't you try to help mother, and make Hazel happy?"
"N-o," said Cherry, still obdurate.
"Very well; then I must depend on Rose and Budd and little May," replied her mother, putting her down from her knee. By which Cherry knew she was out of favor, and, not having Budd to flee to for sympathy, ran blindly out into the woodshed and straight into Chi, who was bringing in two twelve-quart milk pails filled to overflowing with their creamy contents.
"Hi there! Cherry Bounce! Steady, steady–without you want to mop up this woodshed."
"O Chi! I 'm just as miser'ble; a new little girl's coming to live with us always, and we 'll have no more good times."
"That's queer," said Chi, balancing the pails deftly as Cherry fluttered about, rather uncertain as to where she should betake herself in the cold. "I should think it would be the more, the merrier. When's she comin'?"
"This very month," said Cherry, opening her eyes a little wider, and forgetting to sniff in her delight at telling some news. "She 's a rich little girl, but very poor, too, mother says, and she's been sick and is coming here to get well. I suppose she 's lost all her flesh while she 's been sick, like Aunt Tryphosa; don't you? That's why she 's so poor."
"Hm!–rich 'n' poor too; that's bad for children," said Chi, soberly.
"Why?" asked Cherry, surprised into drying her small tears and forgetting to sniff.
"Coz 't is. You see, all you children are rich 'n' poor too; so she 'll keep you comp'ny, as she 's poor where you 're rich as Croesus, 'n' you 're poor as Job's turkey where she's rich."
"Why, what do you mean, Chi?"
"You wait awhile, 'n' you 'll find out." And with that, Cherry had to be content.
As the woodshed was too cold to be long comfortably mournful in,–Cherry decided to go inside and set the table for tea, wondering, meanwhile, what Chi meant. Ordinarily she would have gone straight to her mother to find out; but just to-night Cherry felt there was an abyss separating them, and she hated the very thought of the newcomer having caused this break between her adored Martie and herself before having stepped foot in the house.
But Hazel's arrival had been delayed a whole month: first, on account of the unusually cold weather of March, and then on account of the Doctor's pressing engagements. To-night, however, this long waiting was to be at an end.
Mr. Blossom had harnessed Bess and Bob into the two-seated wagon, and driven down three miles for them to the "Mill Settlement;" and there he was to meet the stage from Barton's River, the nearest railway station.
As the time approached for the light of the lantern on the wagon to glimmer on the lower mountain road, which ran in view of the house, the excitement of Budd and Cherry grew intense. March intended to be indifferent, yet tolerant, but even he went twice to the door to listen. As for Rose, she was thinking almost more of Doctor Heath, with whom she was a great favorite, than of the coming guest. Chi had done up the chores early with March's help, and sat whistling and whittling in the shed door with his eye on the lower road.
"They 're coming; they 're coming!" screamed the twins, making a wild dash for the woodshed, that they might have the first glimpse as the wagon drove up to the kitchen porch.
"Chi, they 're coming!" they shrieked in his ear, as they flew past him.
"Well, I ain't deaf, if they are," said Chi, gathering himself together, and going out to help unload.
"Chi, how are you?" said the Doctor, in a hearty tone, grasping the horny hand held out to him.
"First-rate, 'n' glad to see you back on the Mountain."
"Here, lend a hand, will you? and take out a Little somebody who has to be handled rather gently for a week or two."
"I ain't much used to handlin' chiny," he replied, "but I 'll be careful."
He reached up his long arms and, gently as a woman, lifted Hazel out of the wagon on to the porch.
By this time, Budd had found his bearings and had the Doctor by the hand.
"Halloo, Budd! here you are handy. Just take Hazel's bag, and run into the house with her; she must n't stand a minute in this keen air."
Budd's heart was going pretty fast, but he faced the music.
"Come along, Hazel; we 've been waiting a month to see you."
"And I've been waiting longer than that to see you, Budd." The gentle voice made Budd her vassal forever after.
"Here, Martie, here's Hazel!" he shouted quite unnecessarily, for his mother had come to the door to welcome her guests. Cherry, hearing the shout, disappeared in the pantry, and was invisible until called to supper.