Abbie Farwell Brown

“ Norma would sing, Hugh would black-up and do a negro song and dance; Nancy would tell a fairy story. But they needed one more “act.” Then Nelly had her great inspiration. “Anne! You dress up in that sweet Columbine costume and do your dance. You said you danced Columbine at a party?”
“Oh, I can’t!” protested Anne in horror. “I don’t know the children here. They don’t like me. I heard the Maguire children say so one morning when they brought the eggs.”
“They will like you when they know you; when they see you in that lovely dress!” cried Nelly eagerly. ”

“ But the best part of a rainy day at camp—​like the best part of many a speaker’s address—​is the end of it. By evening everybody in camp is tired of being busy and of moving about. Everybody wants to keep still and be amused.
After supper the boys heaped up a great fire in the fire-place, and everyone drifted into her favorite seat or onto his favorite rug or cushion. Anne Poole retired into a dim corner, where she could watch the faces in the firelight without being watched herself. ”

“ Republics, such as ours, may not be the last word in political freedom, and democracy, and holiness; there may be newer forms of government in which people may have a better chance to be holy, democratic, and free than they have in ours; all history shows how men and governments have grown and changed, down the ages; to grow is to change. But so long as we do think that our ideals have a better chance in a Republic than in anything else, we can keep our government a Republic; for it is we who [Pg xxi] choose what America shall be; it is we who cast the votes. ”

“ Breathless Nancy was toiling up the slope, carrying the great ball of fluff. Her eyes were shining and she laughed out loud with happiness as she shouted “I’ve got him! I’ve got him! The prodigal son!”
“Where did you find him, Nancy?” asked Anne dropping her dish towel and running to stroke the soft white fur of the blinking cat.
“Right in the middle of the path!” said she. “I went down the same way we took last night, to the shore. And there he lay just above the spot where we saw Sal Seguin, under a little juniper bush, right in the path. He just lay there, too tired to move. ”

“ The camp was in an uproar. Never had Patsy been out at night. It could not be allowed! The Twins went off in one direction, the boys in others. The girls scattered through woods and along the shore. Nancy knew his favorite haunts. But Patsy was not under the great beech tree where the squirrels chattered. He was not cushioned in the fragrant cedar-bushes over the wall in the country of the field-mice. The dell under the great pine told no news of him. Dick found no print of little feet in the mud of the brook, or in the sand of the bathing beach. ”

“ Patsy gave a winsome little purr and ran up to Anne’s outstretched hand, as if to welcome the newcomer, and rubbed against her knee.
“You are a darling!” cried Anne, picking up the roly-poly fellow, who wasn’t so very big after all, being mostly fluff, like an icecream [Pg 34] soda. Patsy licked her cheek with his pink tongue. And Anne smiled. It was the first time Nancy had seen her smile, and she thought how pretty Anne could be.
“He is a fairy cat,” announced Nancy. “White cats are always fairies, you know. Look out he doesn’t bewitch you, Anne!” ”

“ But these narrow-minded, narrow-hearted, unvisionary people forget that if our America is a free, a democratic, a holy place, one hundred years from now, the American Stock will still be rooted true in the old ideals. And it is by ideals that countries live and are judged.
To Americanize a person means to find out how much, or how little, he knows and cares about freedom and democracy and holiness, and then to help that much or little grow. ”

“ But I have decided already,” said Anne firmly. “I know I am doing right. If Grandfather wants me, I am going to stay with him and Nelly. I shall do as he says, about school and everything.” And she told Tante what she hoped to be, when she should grow old enough to help in the world.
“I think you have chosen right,” said Tante. “But the children will be disappointed. Your Grandfather and I shall have to do some planning together.”
“Oh Tante! It is so nice to be wanted!” said Anne fervently.
Then the Twins came racing up. “Hooray, Anne!” cried Freddie. “Come and play Indian with us, will you?” ”

“ They saw her get into her canoe and paddle silently away towards the Harbor. Her skilful strokes made no sound.
“What do you suppose she was doing down here?” asked Cicely, the first to speak.
“I hope she hasn’t got Patsy in that bundle!” shivered Anne, unable to conceal her fear any longer.
“Patsy! Oh, she couldn’t keep him in there!” cried Nancy. “He is too full of life and temper. You would know if you had ever tried to put him in his traveling basket, Anne.” ”

“ We shall all be glad enough,” grinned Nelly. Anne waved her out of sight. Then she sat down on the piazza steps at Tante’s feet. It seemed as if she had been gone a week. But Tante acted exactly as if nothing had happened. Tante always treated everybody the same at one time as at another; which was one reason why everybody loved her so much. She told Anne some of the things the Club had planned for the next two weeks. Then she said quite casually that of course the Camp would be closed in September, and not opened till another summer. ”

“ Anne did not mention this discovery to Dick. But it troubled her greatly. It fitted in disagreeably with her forebodings.
“We’d better get away,” said Dick. “Moonshiners are as bad as pirates when you spy their secrets. We must tell Cap’n Sackett and have them smoked out, while they’re at the game.”
“Yes,” agreed Anne. “I ought to have told him before. That may be the very rifle that nearly killed Beverly!” she thought with a shudder. “And what will they find out about Father?” Her only comfort was that Captain Sackett himself was to be the investigator. ”

“ Anne followed his gaze. A motor boat was making her way in towards the beach, rapidly. There were two men aboard. The canoe lay still in the shadow of the trees while the boat disappeared around an island. Then, before it should reappear in the cove, Dick gave some swift strokes of the paddle that took them out behind another reef. Evidently they had not been seen. The steersman was busy threading the narrow, difficult channel. The other had seemed to be absorbed in a newspaper. Anne had had a chance to see both faces clearly.
“The tall man is the one who brought me home!” ”

“ In a Democracy, every man is our neighbor.
[Pg xix] It is the A B C of freedom, because freedom is “getting together” with the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” You can’t be free by yourself; not in America; not in the world. Even if you were a self-supporting hermit, or a Robinson Crusoe, you wouldn’t be free. Solitude isn’t freedom. You wouldn’t be free to marry, alone on a desert island. A man is free when he is at peace with himself. But no man is really at peace with himself so long as some other man is not at peace. ”

“ CHAPTER IX NELLY SACKETT’S HOME Over another stile in the handsome wall clambered the Round Robin, and the girls found themselves in simple pasture-land once more. This was land that Captain Sackett would not sell to the rich man who had wanted to own and enclose for his sole pleasure the whole shore line from the Harbor to Camp Round Robin. The little path was almost lost in a tangle of blueberry bushes, juniper and sweet fern, where the wild roses were already in bud. But it led inevitably to the Cove at the head of which stood the old white house. ”

“ The old quilts are the old kingdoms of Europe, Freddie.”
“It’s a funny kind of story!” said Eddie dubiously, agitating the popper, and not to be distracted by Freddie’s whispers.
“But this quilt I’m telling about,” went on Tante, “this new quilt was made up of pieces out of nearly all the old ones; fresh, bright pieces, most of them, the best and strongest part of the many-colored counterpanes of the world. Every one of these pieces was needed to make up the new pattern, sewed with the thread of old tradition, law and order. ”

“ Patsy isn’t likely to cross the brook. Cats don’t like running water, you know.”
“Neither do fairies!” murmured Cicely,
“I was thinking of that, too,” said Nancy. But Anne Poole said: “He might be up in the top of a tree.”
They crept through the silvery meadow, along the little path that Patsy loved, for by day it was full of pleasant crawling, creeping, hopping things. The girls did not like to think of this just now. They kept calling the cat under their breath. But no Patsy answered. ”

“ Tante knew quite well that Gilda had been making candy all the previous afternoon; and Gilda knew that she knew. But it was a secret all the same.
“Now, what do you want to do, Mother?” asked Hugh, following the second camp rule. “We are your slaves to-day. Choose what you would like best”
“I would like best to do exactly what I always do!” laughed Tante. “A little work, and a little play, a little reading, a little walk, and a little rest. Nothing could be better than that, for me. Every day is like a birthday, you see, at Round Robin. Only we shall also have a party this evening.” ”

“ How unselfish she was!
“We’ll be like sisters anyway,” she said impulsively, “but the Captain—​Grandfather—​couldn’t support another big girl like me?”
“He isn’t poor,” said Nelly. “We can both learn to do something. Then some day we can both pay him back. What will you be, Anne?”
Anne had never really thought of being anything until this moment. “Be? Why—​I’d like to be a teacher,” she said suddenly. The idea popped into her head like an inspiration. “I’d like to teach foreigners how to become good ‘squares’ in the Patchwork Quilt, as Tante calls it. Oh yes! ”

“ Tante looked thoughtfully at Dick. “Of course you know all about clam-bakes, Dick,” she said. “I know how you helped Cap’n Sackett last week. But—​hadn’t we better take some luncheon besides? We never seem to have too much food on our picnics; and perhaps someone may not care for clams.”
“Anne doesn’t,” Norma volunteered.
“All right.” Dick looked a little disappointed. “I thought we’d got everything ready, and for once the girls needn’t bother. There will be clams enough for everybody who likes them. But if anyone is fussy—​all right-o.”
“Lend a hand, girls,” said Tante. ”

“ I do most awfully want to get what is best for my Country. I have always tried to do that, have I not, Columbia?”
“Yes; but you are apt to set too much store by book-knowledge; and you’re apt to think that anyone who did not come in the Mayflower like yourself is the ‘scum of the earth!’” retorted Norma.
“The Pilgrims made things ready for the later emigrants,” said Nancy. “But you do more complaining than we did.”
“Come now!” said Columbia, “I must have no quarreling under my Flag. The Stars and Stripes give peace and shelter to all kinds of children. ”

“ To be sure, Dick was the only one who went for the morning swim. He declared it was drier in the salt water than on land. To-day nobody was interested in going to pick the wild strawberries which were growing sweeter and ruddier every day in the meadows back of the Fairy Ring. But the boys went about looking like fishermen in their yellow slickers and hats; for the mail had to be fetched from the village and the milk from Maguire’s farm, rain or shine. Cicely also put on her mackintosh and went forth as usual to “botanize.” You cannot keep an English girl indoors just on account of rain. ”

“ I have taken care of it all myself for ever so many summers, ever since I was a tiny tot. I never let anyone else weed it. And here is my herb garden behind it; but that does not look so well.”
“I didn’t know you ever worked, Anne,” said Nancy innocently, “even in a garden.”
“Work in a garden is only play,” said Anne.
“We will remember that!” chorused the Round Robin. “Our vegetable garden never gets half enough attention,” explained Nancy. “We’ll introduce you to-morrow!” But Anne was bending over the little plot she called her garden, fingering the plants lovingly. ”

“ Nancy began to call through the woods and to give the little shrill whistle which the white cat always understood and answered with his agreeable miaou.
But this time there was no answer. Patsy did not come. Patsy was not to be found. Not even the lure of lobster set appetizingly out for his supper, nor the tempting sound of a plate being scraped with a knife, which had hitherto been an unfailing charm, recalled the white kitten to his mistress. ”

“ It was better that her own grandfather should tell Anne about it all; that fine old man!”
“Then Anne never was a Golden Girl, after all,” said Eddie, who had overheard and half understood what was being said. “Nor even gilded,” added Freddie.
“Hush! she may be gold inside,” said Nancy, thinking of an ending for her fairy story.
“I wish I had known this before I wrote Mother,” Beverly mused as she walked away. “I’ll have to add a codicil.”
“I’ve already telegraphed Father,” Norma whispered to Gilda in their tent. Girls do like to tell news! ”

“ It is the A B C of democracy because democracy is “getting together” with your fellow-men: “And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Fellowship, brotherhood, equal opportunity, all these come from loving thy neighbor as thyself. Government of the people, by the people, for the people, must fail just so long as we fail to love our neighbor as ourself. Democracy means loving all the people all the time; not just one kind of people, the rich, or the poor, or the bankers, or the bakers, or the people who live in our street, but all the people, all the time. ”

“ The heat of the day, which had been unusual for the region, had brought out the spicy scent of the woods, and mingled it with the salty fragrance which makes the essence of Maine. But into the natural blend of outdoors came creeping another odor, not exactly unpleasant, but very different; a stinging disquiet for which the forest creatures have no name, only an instinctive fear. ”

“ For it is a mistake to record your impressions of any place until you have spent at least one whole day and one entire evening there.
That first evening after supper, it being warm and dry, with a young June moon, the Round Robin gathered on the piazza; all but Hugh and Victor who had taken the canoe and had gone out on the water for a little. Perched on the piazza railing, snuggled in the Gloucester hammocks, curled on the grass mats, the Club purred like contented kittens after a good supper. First they played “I’m thinking of something.” ”

“ Nothing loth, the Club raced up the path to the house with its trim lilac bushes on either side of the door. Aunt Polly, plump and motherly, was waiting for them, with Nelly grinning over her shoulder.
“Come in! Come in!” said Aunt Polly hospitably. “I’m right glad to see you. I’ve been expecting you before this; but we know how fast the time goes with young folks who have so many nice things to do. Now, isn’t it lucky I’ve just made some fresh cookies? Nelly, you run into the pantry and bring a pan of those cookies for the girls.” ”