Barbro

“ Barbro, maybe, found it best to give way a little; she laughed, and answered: "Well, you are serious today — I can't help laughing! But if you want me to put on the rings and wear them out weekdays, why, I will!" And she got out the rings and put them on.
But seeing him look all foolish and content at that, she grew bolder. "Is there anything else I've done, I'd like to know?"
"I'm not complaining," answered he. "And you've only to be as you were before, all the time before, when you first came. That's all I mean."
'Tis not so easy to be always together and always agree. ”

“ A thankless creature was Barbro this evening. A new silver ring — she might at least have thanked him nicely for it. It must be that clerk with the town ways that had turned her head. Axel could not help saying: "I'd like to know what that fellow Eleseus keeps coming here for, anyway. What does he want with you?" ”

“ But a gold ring it was not, and that he had never promised her — 'twas an invention of her own; silver it was, with gilt hands clasped, real silver, with the mark on and all. But ah, that unlucky voyage of hers to Bergen! Barbro had seen real engagement rings — no use telling her!
"That ring! Huh! You can keep it yourself." ”

“ Young hearts have their unfathomable depths, and after what had happened, likely enough he did not care about staying on with Barbro as a neighbour. ”

“ Axel was pleased with the results of his summer help, and took in a paper. He also bore with the frequent visits of the Brede family, who were constantly dropping in at his place and eating and drinking. He was anxious to show that he appreciated this servant-girl of his. And what could be nicer and homelier than when Barbro sat there of a Sunday evening twanging the strings of a guitar and singing a little with her hoarse voice? Axel, was touched by it all, by the pretty, strange songs, by the mere fact that some one really sat there singing on his poor half-baked farm. ”

“ Well, what can you expect of folk at Maaneland? we're not so great and fine as you — no."
Oh, she could go to the devil, what did Eleseus care; her face was visibly dirty, and her condition plain enough now even to his innocent eyes.
"Can't you play a bit on the guitar?" he asked.
"No," answered Barbro shortly. "What I was going to say: Sivert, couldn't you come and help Axel a bit with the new house a day or so? If you could begin tomorrow, say, when you come back from the village?"
Sivert thought for a moment. "Ay, maybe. But I've no clothes." ”

“ But when Brede saw that this plan would never come to anything, he hit on another. After all, there was no great catch in marrying into Inger's lot — Inger who had been in prison. And there were other lads to be thought of besides those two Sellanraa boys — there was Axel Ström, for instance. He had a farm and a hut of his own, he was a man who scraped and saved and little by little managed to get hold of a bit of live stock and such-like, but with no wife, and no woman to help him. "Well, I don't mind telling you, if you take Barbro, she'll be all the help you'll need," said Brede to him. ”

“ XLIII The days were pleasant enough at Furze Farm, with Barbara gaining in health and color, and in a womanly winsomeness that made even Mrs. Jennifer wonder. It was as though the real soul had come to life in her again, and her heart, that had been a thing of moods and sorrows of old, had warmed into a richer consciousness of life, so that the beautiful shell began to glow with the light of the beautiful spirit within. ”

“ You just look the other way. I'm going to shed my dressing-gown and shin up to the porch roof and wake Ned.”
“Well, but please be careful and don't make any noise,” I begged.
“Oh, what's the difference? We might just as well ring the door bell, I suppose, only Aunt Myra would have a conniption. Here goes.” I heard him scrambling up the post and then crawling over the edge of the roof. “All right,” he called down. “Don't forget my gown.”
Two or three minutes later the door swung open. Larry had wrapped a quilt around him and come down. ”

“ Yes, yes; Barf is as happy as a boy now, but I remember when he was back-set and fore-set with trouble. In life every thing goes round like a cart-wheel. Eh? What?"
In a short time they reached the outer wall of the farm. They were eight hundred feet above the valley; and looking backwards upon the woods from their airy shelf, the tops of the trees appeared like a solid green road, on which they might drop down and walk. Stone steps in the stone wall admitted them into the enclosure, and then they saw the low gray house spreading itself in the shadow of the noble sycamores—
... ”

“ Any new men going in? Yes there's—No, it isn't, either. Blessed if every man isn't going back! Oh, hang!"
"Some of them won't be there long, I guess," said Roy.
"Well, I must go back and get some noise. The lazy chumps don't half cheer. Hope you get on, old chap. So long!"
Presently the Ferry Hill cheer was ringing across the field, and Chub, his coat thrown aside, was out on the side-line leading as only he could. Over the fading white lines the two teams arranged themselves. From the Hammond side came a last burst of noise. Spectators scurried back to points of vantage. ”

“ It was still early when John Gore brought the horses to the gate after breakfast and lifted Barbara into her saddle. She wore a plain black riding-habit that morning, a black beaver with a black plume curled round the brim, and a collar of white lace about her throat. The life at Furze Farm had tinted her skin with a brown, pearly haze. She was never a girl for much color, but her lips were red and generous, and her figure more rich in womanliness than of yore. ”

“ I’ll make you wish you had a grain or two of common-sense; hear?”
“I hear ye,” muttered the farmer, “I hear ye. I guess what you fellers need is a few years in jail, and, by gum, you’re going to get it! Watch ’em, Carlo!”
They heard him go stumping down-stairs and out of the house at the back. Roy went to the window and after much grunting, managed to open the lower sash. Chub joined him.
“We can’t get out here, that’s certain,” he said. “It’s thirty feet to the ground if it’s an inch. Look at the old fool!” ”

“ I don't mind, Chub, as long as we win."
"Win! Thunder, we aren't going to win! We're going to get everlastingly walloped!"
"No, we're not," answered Roy hopefully. "We're going to win; you see."
"Look here," said Chub after a moment's silence, "you didn't poach on Mercer and I didn't. Who the dickens did?"
"I can't imagine. I dare say it was some fellow from the village."
"With a crimson sweater on? Not likely. I suppose it couldn't have been your sweater, eh?"
Roy shook his head.
"How do you know?" pursued Chub.
"'Cause mine was locked in my trunk." ”

“ BARBARA appears, pale and beautiful;—richly dressed in white, with flowing locks. She is wan and exhausted.—The dance-mania, as it seizes her, makes her circle slowly and dazedly with a certain pitiful silliness. The nuns and monks accompanying her point in horror. But they, too, dance off with each other, willy-nilly,—like leaves in a tempest. BARBARA is left alone, still circling slowly. The piping sounds softer. She staggers against a tree, and keeps on waving her hands and turning her head, vaguely, in time.
MICHAEL looks forth from the well; then climbs out and approaches her. ”

“ Roy was silent a moment. Finally,
"Well, I don't care so much now that I've got my sweater back," he said thoughtfully.
"Care about what?" asked Jack.
"Oh, the rest of it; being on bounds and—and not playing to-morrow," answered Roy. "You see, I'd just about made up my mind that I wasn't going to play, anyhow."
"Well, you're going to play," answered Chub cheerfully. "And I'm pleased purple. A few of those nice long hits of yours to-morrow will do a heap of good, Roy." ”

“ Barbe, as a literary man and critic, always professed a desire to live in a quiet neighbourhood. Therefore, as I approached his house, on the almost inaccessible slopes of Campden Hill, I was amazed to see a large and increasing crowd assembled in the vicinity. Pushing my way through, I saw that St. Barbe's windows were broken, glass was in a weak minority in the panes, and, what was more singular, the breakage seemed to be done from within! Objects were flying out into the garden, and those objects were books. I had the curiosity and agility to catch a few as they fell, and to pick others up. ”

“ But Roy didn't seem to hear.
"No one knows about this but you and Jack and me?" he asked.
"That's all," replied Chub.
"And if we don't say anything about it, then, no one else will know."
"Don't say anything about it!" cried Chub. "Are you crazy?"
"No, but there's the boat race to think of, Chub; we don't want to lose that, I guess. And if they take Horace out—"
"Now don't you be a silly ass!" interrupted Chub in alarm. "Let them lose the old race! I reckon we don't want to lose the ball game either, do we? Now don't get sentimental and sloppy; Horace deserves all that's coming to him!" ”

“ Now and then a shot sounded far away, but clear and sharp, from where the guests of my lord of Barfield were killing time in the warren.
A labouring man, smock-frocked, billy-cocked, gaitered, and hob-nailed, was clamping down the frozen lane, the earth ringing like iron under iron as he walked. By his side was a fair-haired lad of nine or ten years of age, a boy of frank and engaging countenance, carefully and even daintily dressed, and holding up his head as if he were a lord of the soil and knew it. ”

“ Folks who can’t stand a speck of dust on their automobile will get out and eat their lunch and leave the place looking like a pigsty. Ought to be brought back and made to eat every scrap of the mess they leave behind them.”
“Right-o,” agreed Bob, “but I don’t believe these folks were automobilists, Ned. It’s a long way up here from the road.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Ned, “whether they came in a car or walked; they’re hogs just the same.”
“Well, let’s sit down and get our breaths,” said Polly, suiting action to words. “That’s a [149] perfectly frightful climb, isn’t it. ”

“ If you’ve got any silly idea in your head that Bob and I are going to buy a house for Miss Comfort to spend the rest of her days in—”
“Don’t be an ass,” begged Laurie.
“All right, but why the locked door, then? And why all the—the talk about it?”
“Nod’s got a scheme,” said Bob, and he beamed trustfully at Laurie.
Ned grunted suspiciously. “Bet you it calls for money,” he said.
“It doesn’t,” replied Laurie. “At least, only a few pennies. The price of a telegram to Sioux City, Iowa, and, divided among the three of us, that won’t amount to anything, I guess.” ”

“ What made you think of that?”
“I don’t know,” answered Dan, puzzled.
“I do,” said Tom. “You’d just told the man you got him at Barrington; see? Barry—Barrington.”
“I guess that was it. Mr. Barry, of Barrington. Well, that isn’t such a bad name.”
“It’s easy to say,” responded Bob. “Here, Barry.”
But the terrier only wagged his tail in a friendly way.
“He’ll learn his name quick enough,” said Dan. “I wonder, though, what his real name is.”
“Let’s see if we can find out,” suggested Bob. “We’ll call him all the names we can think of and see if he answers to any of them.” ”

“ Roy dropped his oar and sprang out.
"Say, someone strike a light!" suggested a voice. "I'll see if I can find the boat-house lantern."
An exclamation of pain and a crash told the rest that he had gone in search of it; and at the same moment Roy's companion shoved the boat they were in up on shore and rushed toward the platform, leaving Roy alone with the boat, while the attention of the others was centered upon the effort to get a light.
"I've got a match," called a boy, and Roy dove wildly into the darkness just as a tiny point of light flared up. ”

“ The Vagabond lay peacefully at anchor at the mouth of Hempstead Harbor. It was almost midnight and a ragged-looking moon was tingeing the quiet water with silver light. In the cabin the crew were preparing for bed. Spencer had finished his narrative of events and was sitting on the edge of Bob’s berth looking almost happy.
“Then we guessed right about the empty boat,” said Nelson.
“Yes,” answered Spencer. “They seen me from the Henry the first thing. And when they had me aboard the captain told Joe—that’s the feller with the rings in his ears—to stave a hole in the bottom of your boat. ”

“ Nelson bowed impressively, hand on heart, and Barry barked loudly.
“Then Bob’s first mate,” said Nelson, “and you can be second, Dan. Tom’s going to be cook and purser.”
“How about Barry?” asked Bob.
“He’s the Sea Dog,” said Dan. “But look here, fellows; if we’re really going to get off to-morrow, we’d better be moving. What’s the programme for this afternoon, Nelson?”
“Buy supplies and get them down here. We’ll get dad to tell us what we need. It’s almost twelve o’clock, and we’d better light out now.” ”

“ When one was strong one wasn’t fidgety, and a union with a species of calm goddess would of course be a source of repose. Lady Barb was a calm, was an even calmer goddess still, and he had a much more intimate view of her divinity than on the day he had led her to the altar; but I’m not sure he felt either as firm or as easy.
“How do you know what people are?” he said in a moment. “You’ve seen so few; you’re perpetually denying yourself. If you should leave New York to-morrow you’d know wonderfully little about it.” ”

“ The noisy motor was stilled, and the man hailed again.
“Looking for dad?” he asked. He was a tall chap of possibly twenty-two or three years with copper-red hair that curled closely about his bare head. His face was long and thin and chiefly remarkable for a lazy, good-natured, and very wide smile. The boys explained their errand while the little launch floated close to the inshore end of the wharf.
“Dad’s over to Hamlin doing a job of work. But I can give you a tow. Where’s your launch?” Bob told him. “Huh?” asked young Mr. Wilkins, his smile almost fading. “The old P. Q.? You bought her?” ”