Carolyn May

“ The forest was a seething furnace. Smoke drifted out over the lake in a heavy cloud. Dead embers showered about them. Prince rolled and burrowed in the damp sand at the edge of the water. Cherry filled his throat with a long, cool, satisfying draught.
“My, Uncle Joe! you are just the bravest man!” declared Carolyn May, finding her voice. “Isn’t he, Miss Mandy? And, see, his arm is all burned. Dear me, we must get home to Aunty Rose and let her do it up for him.” ”

“ I know your uncle must love you.”
“Do you s’pose so?” queried Carolyn May, trying not to cry.
“He must! How could he help loving you? Immersed as Joseph Stagg is in business and his own selfish projects, he cannot be so hard-hearted as not to love his only sister’s child.”
Carolyn May clutched at her, suddenly and tightly.
“Oh, Miss Mandy!” she gasped, “don’t you s’pose he loves other folks, too? You know—folks he’d begun to love ever so long ago?” ”

“ I am sure, Carolyn May, that your Uncle Joe has no intention of drowning your dog.”
“Oh, Miss Amanda! Are you pos’tive?”
“Positive! I know Joseph Stagg. He was never yet cruel to any dumb creature. Go ask him yourself, Carolyn May. Whatever else he may be, he is not a hater of helpless and dumb animals.” ”

“ She liked to shell peas, and Aunty Rose had more in her pan than the little girl had ever shelled at one time at home.
Prince whined and lay down. He had begun to realise now that this was no play, at all, but punishment. He blinked his eyes at Carolyn May and looked as sorry as ever a dog with cropped ears and an abbreviated tail could look.
The hutch was under a wide-branching tree. It was shady, and the bees hummed. A motherly hen with thirteen black chickens paraded by.
“I wonder,” thought Carolyn May dozily, “how the mother can be so white and her family can be so black. ”

“ Delighted, Carolyn May ran to get ready. Spring was far advanced and the woods were very beautiful. And to stay all night—two whole nights—in a log cabin seemed wonderfully attractive to the little girl.
Aunty Rose let her go because she knew that Uncle Joe would approve of it. Indeed, they had talked the matter over already. Carolyn May missed Miss Amanda so that the hardware dealer had already agreed to some such arrangement as this. Mr. Parlow would drive over on Sunday afternoon and bring the little girl home. Of course, Prince had to go along. ”

“ Carolyn May and Freda were playing one Saturday afternoon in the long shed that connected the blacksmith shop with Mr. Lardner’s house, and Amos Bartlett was with them.
Carolyn May did not often play with little boys. She did not much approve of them. They often played roughly and it must be confessed that their hands almost always were grubby. But she rather pitied Amos Bartlett because he had been endowed with a nose so generous that the other children laughed at him and called him “Nosey.” ”

“ Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda would be just as Aunty Rose had hinted—so deeply engaged with each other that they would have no time or thought for a sunny-haired and blue-eyed little girl 301 who had brought, all unknown to herself, a new creed into the lives of many of the adults of The Corners.
Carolyn May was not a sly child, but she was a secretive one. There is a difference. She had many thoughts in her little head that her adult friends did not suspect. She studied things out for herself. Being a child, her conclusions were not always wise ones. ”

“ By-and-by Prince began to get very uneasy. It was long past his dinner hour, and every time he heard the screen door slam he jumped up and gazed eagerly and with cocked ears and wagging tail in that direction.
“You poor thing, you,” said Carolyn May at last. “I s’pose you are hungry. It isn’t going to do you a bit of good to eat; but you don’t know it. I’ll ask Aunty Rose if she has something for you.” ”

“ Carolyn May laughed politely, but she could sympathise with poor Chet. He did look hungry, he was so long and lathlike. So they chatted throughout the meal, and the little girl began to feel better in her mind.
“I think you are lovely, Miss Amanda,” she said as she helped wipe the dishes after the carpenter had gone back to the shop. “I shall always love you. I guess that anybody who ever did love you would keep right on doing so till they died! ”

“ It was like a surrendering sob.
“It’s not too late, is it, Mandy? Say it isn’t too late!” he pleaded.
“No, it’s not too late,” she whispered. “If—if we’re not too old.”
“Old!” almost shouted Joseph Stagg. “I don’t remember of ever feeling so young as I do right now!” and suddenly he stooped and kissed her. “Bless me! what fools we’ve been all this time!”
“Oh, Uncle Joe! Oh, Miss Amanda!” cried Carolyn May, standing before them, and pointing with a rather grimy index finger. “You aren’t mad at each other any more, are you? Oh, I am so glad! so glad!” and her face showed her pleasure. ”

“ The door had been left open by the surprised janitor.
A burst of voices came into the apartment. Uncle Joe turned wonderingly. Miss Amanda stood up. Carolyn May flew out of bed with a shriek that startled them both.
“My papa! My mamma! I hear them! They’re not drownd-ed! God didn’t let ’em be lost at sea!”
She was out of the room in her nightgown, pattering in bare feet over the floor. A brown man, with a beard and twinkling blue eyes, caught her up in strong arms and hugged her swiftly—safely—to his breast. ”

“ Not far beyond the schoolhouse Prince began to growl, and the hairs stiffened on his neck. 98
“Whatever is the matter with you, Prince?” demanded Carolyn May.
In a moment she saw the cause of the dog’s continued agitation. A roughly dressed, bewhiskered man sat beside the road eating a lunch out of a newspaper. He leered at Carolyn May and said:
“I guess you got a bad dog there, ain’t ye, little girl?”
“Oh, no! He’s us’ally very polite,” answered Carolyn May. “You must be still, Prince! You see,” she explained, “he doesn’t like folks to wear old clothes. ”

“ Stagg began to read a future which had little to do with the dull prospect of the hardware store itself.
“Look up!”
The thought came to him while his countenance was a-smile. His reverie had surely inspired a pleasanter feeling within and a happier expression without. Carolyn May’s reiterated phrase rather startled Joseph Stagg.
“Why, the child’s right,” he murmured. “It’s looking up makes a man dream of happiness. But—it’s only a dream, I reckon. Only a dream.” ”

“ Her mother had slept in this very bed—had looked into that cunning, clouded glass over the dressing table—had 29 sat in this very little rocking chair to take off her shoes and stockings—had hung her dress, perhaps, over this other chair.
Carolyn May kept repeating these things as she divested herself of her garments and got into the nightgown that Mrs. Price had freshly ironed for her. Then she looked at the high, “puffy” bed.
“How ever can I get into it?” sighed Carolyn May. ”

“ Everybody in the neighbourhood was interested in the affair and eagerly curious; but Carolyn May could not talk about it. They thought she had been instructed not to speak of the matter, but the little girl only felt that she would cry if she talked of this event that was to make her uncle and Miss Amanda so happy and herself so miserable.
“Oh, Prince!” she sobbed, clinging around the dog’s neck out under their favourite tree in the back yard of the Stagg place, “nobody wants us. We never ought to have come here. Maybe it would have been better if we had gone to the poorhouse. ”

“ But little Carolyn May was perfectly frank and ingenuous.
“Humph!” ejaculated Chet’s mother. “He never says nothing about bein’ in love with Mandy, does he? They was goin’ with each other steady once.”
The little girl looked puzzled.
“When folks love each other they look at each other and talk to each other, don’t they?” she asked. 64
“Well—yes—generally,” admitted Mrs. Gormley.
“Then my Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda Parlow aren’t in love,” announced Carolyn May with confidence, “for they don’t even look at each other.” ”

“ Joseph Stagg and the little girl went on across the stepping-stones, while Prince splashed through the water. Carolyn May was thinking about Miss Amanda Parlow, and she believed her Uncle Joe was, too.
“Uncle Joe,” she said, “would that bad old snake have stung Miss Amanda?”
“Huh? No; I reckon not,” admitted Mr. Stagg absent-mindedly. “Blacksnakes don’t bite. A big one like that can squeeze some.”
“But you were scared of it—like me and Prince. And for Miss Amanda,” said Carolyn May, very much in earnest. ”

“ You don’t ever seem to have time to look up and see the sky, or stop to hear the birds sing.
“Seems to me, Uncle Joe,” concluded Carolyn May, giving a happy little jump on his lap, “that if you let your mind sort o’ run on—on something besides hardware once in a while, maybe you would have time to show me how much you loved me. Then I wouldn’t have to ask.”
The man looked at her somewhat blankly. Then he turned his head, ran his hand through his bushy hair, and gazed away meditatively.
The little girl had awakened his heart. And that heart was very, very sore. ”

“ Parlow,” gasped Carolyn May, quite amazed, “it isn’t for Uncle Joe, you know!”
“What ain’t for your Uncle Joe?” demanded Mr. Parlow.
“The dog-house.”
“Why ain’t it? His money’s goin’ to pay for it, I reckon!”
“Oh, yes, that’s so,” admitted Carolyn May. “But Prince is going to live in it, and, you know, Prince is a friend of yours, Mr. Parlow.”
“Wal, no gittin’ around sich logic, I do allow,” grunted the old man, his eyes twinkling, and the flush of anger dying out of his cheeks. “I s’pose it is fur the dog. And the poor beast ain’t nobody’s enemy. Wal!” ”

“ After all, it is the appearance of a snake that terrifies some people. They do not stop to question whether it is furnished with a poison sac or not. The very look of the creature freezes their blood.
Carolyn May was shaking and helpless. Not so Prince. He repeated his challenging growl and then sprang at the vibrating head. Miss Amanda uttered a stifled scream and jumped up from the log, whirling to see what was happening behind her.
Joseph Stagg dropped Carolyn May’s hand and leaped forward with his walking-stick raised to strike. ”

“ Things won’t be the same for long. I know Joseph Stagg for what he is.”
“What is he, Aunty Rose?” asked Carolyn May in some trepidation, for the housekeeper seemed to be much moved.
“He’s a very determined man. Once he gets set in a way, he carries everything before him. Mandy Parlow is going to be made Mrs. Joseph Stagg so quick that it’ll astonish her. Now, you believe me, Carolyn May.”
“Oh!” was the little girl’s comment. ”

“ She had to divide her desk with another little girl, Freda Payne. Freda was a black-eyed, snappy little girl who could whisper out of the corner of her mouth without the teacher’s seeing her do it. She instructed Carolyn May from time to time regarding this new world the city child had entered into. 91
“Goodness me! didn’t you ever have a slate before?” she whispered to Carolyn May.
“No,” the little city girl confessed. “They don’t let us use them where I went to school. They make too much noise. And, then, they aren’t clean.” ”

“ They aren’t mad at each other any more.”
“No, I should say they’re not,” Aunty Rose observed with grimness. “Far from it. It’s a fact! I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. They haven’t got eyes for anybody but each other.”
“Oh! Haven’t they, Aunty Rose?” queried Carolyn May with sudden earnestness.
“I should say not, child! Holding hands in there like a pair of—Well, do you know what it means, Carolyn May?” ”

“ What’s that for?” demanded the other little girl.
“Why, to get the water out of. Isn’t there a cold-water tank? And don’t you have paper cups?” demanded Carolyn May. “I didn’t see a thing like what we use in our school in New York.”
“Mercy me, Carolyn May!” fairly hissed Freda. “What are you talking about? We don’t have water laid on in the schoolhouse like they do at home. The pump’s in the yard. And whoever heard of paper cups? Why, paper won’t hold water!”
“Yes, they do,” the other little girl said eagerly. ”

“ He was fond of children, and he and his childless wife gave much of their attention to the Sunday-school. Mrs. Driggs taught Carolyn May’s class of little girls. Mrs. Driggs did her very best, too, to get the children to stay to the preaching service, but Carolyn May had to confess that the pastor’s discourses were usually hard to understand.
“And he is always reading about the ‘Begats,’” she complained gently to Uncle Joe as they went home together on this particular Sunday—the one following the presentation of Prince’s new collar—“and I can’t keep interested when he does that. ”

“ Carolyn May was hurt by the teacher’s tone and words, and she knew Prince felt bad about it. He fairly slunk out of the schoolyard by her side, and some of the pupils laughed.
She pulled his collar up a hole tighter and begged Prince to be good and remain at home till noon. Yet, ten minutes after the session had again opened there sounded a rattling on the porch floor, and into the school marched the dog, having drawn the staple with which his chain had been fastened to the bole of the tree in Mr. Stagg’s back yard. ”