Annie Hamilton Donnell

“ Up went the sagging old head, up the sagging old shoulders! Old '61 was back in "Georgy," marching through mud and pine-barrens, in cold and hunger and weariness—with the boys, from Atlanta to the sea. Hurrah! hurrah! the flag that made them free!
He was not old, not alone and forlorn and cumbering the earth. He was young and straight and loyal, defying suffering and death, with glory and fame, perhaps, on there ahead. His country needed him—he was marching through Georgia for his country.
Billy played it over and over, untiring. ”

“ Laura Ann's is art. Oh, you needn't laugh—need she, girls? One of these days we're all going to a 'hanging,' and it'll be Laura Ann's! Billy's talent everybody knows. She can play wicked folks good, if there's a piano handy. Well, what is my talent? Don't everybody speak at once!" The girl's flushed face defied them. It was bitter with longing to be a Talented One.
"Dear!" It was like gentle Loraine to begin with a "dear," and like her, too, to cross the room to T.O. and touch her little bitter face with cool fingers. "Dear, don't you worry—your talent is there." ”

“ Little by little the story of the B-Hive and the quest for an Eldorado came out. Emmeline Camp sat and nodded, and clandestinely wiped her eyes.
"I see—I see, deary! Now, don't you talk any more and get faint again. I'll talk. You no need to worry about anything in the world—not yet! When it's time to commence, I'll tell you. How does your foot feel now? Dear, dear! When I was fussing over it, it seemed just as if it was my little Amelia's foot! ”

“ Billy said, a little tremulously. "Right here. Make believe I'm rows and rows of people! Now will you please favor us by 'Marching through Georgia'?".
He went at once to the little gayly-bedecked instrument and began to play. The dignity and pride of the shabby old figure redeemed its shabbiness—the fervor of the pounded notes redeemed the tune. The audience—in "rows and rows,"—listened gravely, and at the end burst into genuine applause. The sound swelled and multiplied oddly, and then they saw the three figures at the gate who had listened, too. Billy was discovered! ”

“ Yes, I am Emmeline, though I might've been Sophia or Debby Jane! Namin' people is sort o' accidental. I always wished they'd named me somethin' prettier by accident! But I guess Emmeline will have to do."
It was long after this before any explanation was made. The fact that it was Emmeline was enough for those first hours.
"Now, you kind of bear on to yourself, poor dear! This boot has got to come off!" the kind voice crooned. But, in the awful process of "bearing on," the Talentless One shot out into the dark, as if pushed by a heavy hand. ”

“ John doesn't know she came—Amelia never makes a mite of trouble! But everywhere I go she goes, my dear. I shouldn't tell you if I didn't feel you'd understand. If he hasn't painted it yet, the blue paint is on a shelf in the woodhouse, and you can paint it. I'm afraid Jane Cotton's Sam won't ever amount to much. Poor Jane!"
Thomasia read the letter aloud, and at this point Loraine interposed warmly: "Jane Cotton's Sam is abused! It's a shame everybody groans over him—I like him. If there isn't a lot of good in him, then I don't know how to read human nature, that's all." ”

“ If so, why was it not a little white flag of truce that gave her a right to say "How do you do?" to the woman? The Talentless One suddenly felt a little lonely.
"Ticket to Placid Pond, please," she said, when her turn came. The very sound of the peaceful little name gave her courage. Placid Pond! Placid Pond! Could any place be more indicative of rest? Then she bethought her of the Wicked Compact, and felt almost impelled to hand back the ticket—Placid Pond could not be the right place to be bad in! ”

“ Wish somebody'd say, 'Won't you have another piece of pie?'"
"Won't you have another piece of pie?" laughed Loraine, and nothing further was said of an embarrassing nature.
The summer days grew into summer weeks. Patiently and joyously Old '61 plodded his way to the sea. He practiced nearly all his waking hours, and when he was not at the little organ, practicing, he went about humming the beloved words. Pride and love, rather than any melody of his cracked old voice, made a tune of them. ”

“ For T.O. had no talent, and who would call selling handkerchiefs from morning till night a "calling"? Even sheer, fine handkerchiefs, warranted every thread linen!
"Talentless One," she broke out startlingly. "You want to know what 'T.O.' stands for—that's it!" And the amused look in the girls' eyes changed quickly to understanding at sight of her face. "Well," she challenged, "why don't you say what an appropriate name it is? It's a wonder you talented ones didn't guess it long ago! Listen! Loraine's talent is writing—we all know she'll be an author some day. ”

“ You'd be out to the gate waiting, the way people's daughters wait for them. And mebbe you'd have the kettle all hot and we'd have a cup of tea together just as if I was the mother and you was—Amelia! All the way home I should be thinking about your being there. It's queer, isn't it, you went limping in that gate first, and now it's me? A good many things are queer, and some are kind of desolate. I've decided, my dear, that daughters have to be the kind that are born, to stay by a body in trouble. They have to be made of flesh and blood, my dear—and Amelia wasn't! ”

“ Placid Pond. Placid Pond."
"Oh, she's a dear—she's an artist!" cried Laura Ann, who measured all things by their relationship to art. This was an own cousin!
"Read on—somebody hold the letter still!" Billy cried excitedly. And they read on: "Take the only road there is to take, and keep on to a house that's painted green. It will be Emmeline's house, though they might have named her Sophia, she says, by accident. But you will be glad she is Emmeline. She has a beautiful daughter that never was born and never will die—oh, girls, come as quick as ever you can!" ”

“ Loraine, the last, traced three words in her tiny handwriting at the head of the paper.
"The Wicked Compact!" read Billy over her shoulder, and nodded agreeingly. "That's a good name for it. Doesn't it make you feel lovely and shuddery to belong to a Wicked Compact! Oh, you needn't think I shall go back on the rules and regulations! If somebody gets down on his knees and implores, 'Which note shall I flat?' I shall turn coldly away, or else say, 'Suit yourself, my dear!' But, girls, oh girls, I hope there won't be any pianos in Eldorado!" ”

“ What kind of an Eldorado was this that was called Placid Pond, and was full of mysteries? How could they wait! They must pack up and go at once!
"'Talented One,' indeed!—she's a genius! See how she's left us to guess things, instead of explaining them all out in a nice, tame way—oh, girls"—Laura Ann's eyes shone—"won't we have the greatest time!"
"What I want to know is, who is Emmeline—"
"Yes, who is Emmeline?" "And who can her daughter be? She sounds so lovely and ghostly!"
"Everything sounds lovely and ghostly. When can we go, girls?" This from practical Loraine. ”

“ It was.
"Be it known," read Laura Ann, flourishing her pencil, "that we, the undersigned, having endeavored, up to the present, to be good, consider ourselves entitled to be selfish during our summer vacation. That we mean to be selfish—that we herewith swear to be! That we do not mean to 'do good unto' anybody except ourselves! Inasmuch as we have faithfully tried to do our several duties hitherto, we feel justified in resting from the same until such time as we may—er—wish to begin again. ”

“ She could hear their voices coming up the road—Billy's excited voice, Laura Ann's gay one, Loraine's calm and sweet. She longed to run out to meet them. Next best, she sent her own voice, in a clear, long call.
"That's T.O.! Girls, let's run!" she heard Billy say.
"Why doesn't she run?" Laura Ann demanded severely. "That would be perfectly appropriate under the circumstances."
"'Tis queer, isn't it, that she didn't come to meet us?" Loraine added. In another moment they had reached Emmeline Camp's little green-painted house and found the Talented One waiting impatiently at the gate. ”

“ In gay-hued pictures, seen by childish eyes, blue pumps accord with green grass and trees—in nature, seen by maturer eyes, there is something wrong with the colors. They look out of place—either the green growing things or the gay blue pump do not belong there. The girl's loyalty to little, kind Emmeline Camp would not let her admit that it was the blue pump that didn't "belong." ”

“ The little, old woman was sewing patchwork near by.
"Oh," laughed the girl, "I always did want a pump that was painted blue. I saw a picture of one once when I was a little mite, and it impressed me—such a lovely, bright blue! I thought it went beautifully with the green grass! But I can get along without it, I guess."
"We have to get along without having things painted to suit us," nodded the little, old woman philosophically. But she remembered the blue pump. There was a can of paint out in the shed room, and there was Jane Cotton's Sam. ”

“ Anyway, Amelia's dead, my dear. Sometimes I think mebbe I'd ought to be, too—a lone little woman like me, without a chick or a child. Old women with children can afford to tumble downstairs, but not my kind of old women. John is real good. He wants me to stay here, but I can't—I can't, I can't, my dear! I've got to be where I can limp out to the old pump and the gate and the orchard, on my crutches—I've got to see the old hills I was born in, and Old '61 marching past the house, and the old neighbors—I've got to die at home, my dear. ”

“ Loraine's commands were always obeyed, Laura Ann said, because her name was such a queeny one. Nobody else in the little colony—the "B-Hive"—had a queeny name.
"Though I just missed it," sighed Laura Ann. "Think what a little step from Loraine to Laur' Ann! I always just miss things."
T.O. was apt to be late. She never rode, and, being short, was not a remarkable walker. To-night she was later than usual. The three other girls got into kimonos and slippers and prepared tea. In all their minds the Grand Plan was fomenting, and it was not easy to wait. ”

“ She had had her breath of space and freedom and green, growing things, and exulted in it while it lasted. Now she pined for her native streets. But all the sympathy and gratitude in her went out to the little old woman who was coming home to a lonely home—whose one dream-child was dead. ”

“ Billy and Laura Ann went off to mail it.
"Do you begin to feel lonesome?" laughed Loraine softly, as she and T.O. sat on the steps in the dark. "Thinking of being left all alone in the Hive, I mean? The rest of us begin to feel lonesome, thinking of being left out! We had a grist of good times all together, didn't we? Remember the little 'treats' when you always brought home olives, and Billy sage cheese? Laura Ann used to change about—sometimes eclairs, sometimes sauerkraut! ”

“ Loraine chimed in dreamily, "and a little dimple in her chin."
"You needn't any of you lie awake nights imagining. I can tell you," the Talented One said. "She has blue eyes, but her hair is brown and the dimples are in her cheeks. Her hair just waves a little away from the parting—it is always parted. She sits very still, sewing patchwork—her mother told me," added the Talented One quietly. "She said she wished she knew how to paint so she could paint Amelia's picture. ”

“ Dear girls, I'm going to stay. I never was needed before, but I guess I am now. And maybe you'll think it's funny, but I'm wanted! An imaginary daughter can't wait on a poor little cripple—it takes the flesh-and-blood kind. ”

“ There weren't any pianos or schools or photograph salons or handkerchiefs in it!"
"Then we'll go there!" the Talentless One cried.
Loraine was busy cutting strips of paper. She cut four of varying lengths and dropped them into an empty cracker-box.
"Somebody shake them up, everyone shut her eyes and draw one," she ordered. "And the person that draws the longest slip must be the one to find our Eldorado."
They shut their eyes and fumbled in the cracker-box. The room was oddly quiet. Laura Ann, who always drew the fatal slip, breathed a little hard. ”

“ Thomasia O., living all alone in the dear, shabby little rooms, presented a funny picture, for of them all she was least fitted to live alone. Even Billy could do better.
"The rest of us will live together," laughed Laura Ann. "There's nothing to prevent that, if we live outside the old B-Hive. We'll start a new B-Hive! ”

“ Loraine decided gently. "The one who gets the longest slip will go—but mercy! I hope I sha'n't be the one! Girls, there really ought to be one to—er—oversee the drawing of the lots—"
"Hear! Hear!" from T.O.
"You will take your chances with the common herd, my dear," Laura Ann said firmly. "You really need not be alarmed, though, for I shall draw the fatal slip. I always do. Then I shall go up-country and engage four boards at a nice white house with green blinds, and forget to ask how much they will cost—the 'boards,' I mean—and whether they'll take Billy at half-price. ”

“ I thought mebbe she'd feel more at home to come to alone. I've got her ankle all dressed nice, but it would make your heart ache to see it! The poor dear won't walk again this one while—"
"But, Emmeline Camp, what are you going to do with her all that time?" The second voice was a little shrill.
"Sh! I'm goin' to doctor her up, just as if she was the little girl the Lord never gave me. I've always known what I'd do if my little girl broke anything—There! you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Williams, while I take this cup o'tea in." ”

“ Back at the picnic spot the girls were waiting for her. They went home in the late, sweet twilight.
A letter was tucked under the screen door where some friendly neighbor had left it. "Miss Thomasia O. Brown," Billy read aloud, and waved the letter in triumph, for the secret was out. The 'T' in T.O. stood for Thomasia!
"Well?" bristled the Talented One, "it had to stand for something, didn't it? ”