CHAPTER II
PLANNING IN THE TWILIGHT

It was a rainy August day, and the children were having a glorious time up in the old garret. Over the house-part there were two rooms; but this above the kitchen was kept for rubbish. A big wheel, on which Granny used to spin in her younger days, now answered for almost any purpose, from a coach and four, to a menagerie: they could make it into an elephant, a camel, or a hyena, by a skilful arrangement of drapery.

There were several other pieces of dilapidated furniture, old hats, old boots, a barrel or two of papers; in fact, a lot of useless traps and a few trophies that Joe had brought home; to say nothing of Charlie's endless heaps of trash, for she had a wonderful faculty of accumulation; herbs of every kind, bundles of calamus, stacks of "cat-tails," the fuzz of which flew in every direction with the least whiff of wind.

The "children" had been raising bedlam generally. Joe was dressed in an old scuttle-shaped Leghorn bonnet and a gay plaid cloak, a strait kind of skirt plaited on a yoke. Granny had offered it to Florence for a dress, but it had been loftily declined. Kit was attired as an Indian, his "scalp-lock" bound up with rooster feathers; and he strutted up and down, jabbering a most uncouth dialect, though of what tribe it would be difficult to say. Charlie appeared in a new costume about every half-hour, and improvised caves in every corner; though it must be confessed Joe rather extinguished her with his style. He could draw in his lips until he looked as if he hadn't a tooth in his head, and talk like nearly every old lady in town.

Such whoops and yells and shouts as had rung through the old garret would have astonished delicate nerves. In one of the bedrooms Granny was weaving rag-carpet on a rickety loom, for she did a little of every thing to lengthen out her scanty income; but the noise of that was as a whiff of wind in comparison.

At last they had tried nearly every kind of transformation, and were beginning to grow tired. It was still very cloudy, and quite twilight in their den, when Florence came up stairs, and found them huddled around the window listening to a wonderful story that Joe made up as he went along. Such fortunes and adventures could only belong to the Munchausen period.

"Dear!" exclaimed Florence, "I thought the chief of the Mohawks had declared war upon the Narragansetts, and everybody had been scalped, you subsided so suddenly. You've made racket enough to take off the roof of the house!"

"It's on yet," was Joe's solemn assurance.

"O Joe!" begged Charlie: "tell us another story, – something about a sailor who was wrecked, and lived in a cave, and found bags and bags of money!"

"That's the kind, Charlie. Flo, come on and take a seat."

"Where's Dot?"

"Here in my arms," replied Hal; "as good as a kitten; aren't you, Dot?"

Dot answered with a contented grunt.

"Oh, let's all tell what we'd like to do!" said Charlie, veering round on a new tack. "Flo'll want to be Cinderella at the king's ball."

Florence tumbled over the pile of legs, and found a seat beside Hal.

"Well, I'll lead off," began Joe with a flourish. "First, I'm going to be a sailor. I mean to ship with a captain bound for China; and hurra! we'll go out with a flowing sea or some other tip-top thing! Well, I guess we'll go to China, – this is all suppos'n, you know; and while I'm there I'll get such lots of things! – crape-shawls and silks for you, Flossy; and cedarwood chests to keep out moths, and fans and beautiful boxes, and a chest of tea, for Granny. On the way home we shall be wrecked. You'll hear the news, and think that I'm dead, sure enough."

"But how will Flo get her shawls?" asked Charlie.

"Oh, you'll hear presently! That's way in the end. I shall be wrecked on an island where there's a fierce native chief; and first he and his men think they'll kill me." Joe always delighted in harrowing up the feelings of his audience. "So I offer him the elegant shawls and some money" —

"But I thought you lost them all in the wreck!" interposed quick-brained Charlie.

"Oh, no! There's always something floats ashore, you must remember. Well, he concluded not to kill me, though they have a great festival dance in honor of their idols; and I only escape by promising to be his obedient slave. I find some others who have been cast on that desolate shore, and been treated in the same manner. The chief beats us, and makes us work, and treats us dreadfully. Then we mutiny, and have a great battle, for a good many of the natives join us. In the scrimmage the old fellow is killed; and there's a tremendous rejoicing, I can tell you, for they all hate him. We divide his treasure, and it's immense, and go to live in his palace. Well, no boat ever comes along; so we build one for ourselves, and row to the nearest port and tell them the chief is dead. They are very glad, for he was a cruel old fellow. Then we buy a ship, and go back for the rest of our treasures. We take a great many of the beautiful things out of the palace, and then we start for home, double-quick. It's been a good many years; and, when I come back, Granny is old, and walking with a cane, Florence married to a rich gentleman, and Dot here grown into a handsome girl. But won't I build a stunning house! There'll be a scattering out of this old shoe, I tell you."

"Oh, won't it be splendid!" exclaimed Charlie, with a long-drawn breath. "It's just like a story."

"Now, Hal, it's your turn."

Hal sighed softly, and squeezed Dot a little.

"I shall not go off and be a sailor" —

"Or a jolly young oysterman," said Joe, by way of assistance.

"No. What I'd like most of all" – and Hal made a long pause.

"Even if it's murder, we'll forgive you and love you," went on tormenting Joe.

"O Joe, don't!" besought Florence. "I want to hear what Hal will choose, for I know just what I'd like to have happen to me."

"So do I," announced Charlie confidently.

"I don't know that I can have it," said Hal slowly; "for it costs a good deal, though I might make a small beginning. It's raising lovely fruit and flowers, and having a great hot-house, with roses and lilies and dear white blossoms in the middle of the winter. I should love them so much! They always seem like little children to me, with God for their father, and we who take care of them for a stepmother; though stepmothers are not always good, and the poor wicked ones would be those who did not love flowers. Why, it would be like fairy-land, – a great long hot-house, with glass overhead, and all the air sweet with roses and heliotrope and mignonette. And it would be so soft and still in there, and so very, very beautiful! It seems to me as if heaven must be full of flowers."

"Could you sell 'em if you were poor?" asked Charlie, in a low voice.

"Not the flowers in heaven! Charlie, you're a heathen."

"I didn't mean that! Don't you suppose I know about heaven!" retorted Charlie warmly.

"Yes," admitted Joe with a laugh: "he could sell them, and make lots of money. And there are ever so many things: why, Mr. Green paid six cents apiece for some choice tomato-plants."

"When I'm a man, I think I'll do that. I mean to try next summer in my garden."

"May I tell now?" asked Charlie, who was near exploding with her secret.

"Yes. Great things," said Joe.

"I'm going to run away!" And Charlie gave her head an exultant toss, that, owing to the darkness, was lost to her audience.

Joe laughed to his utmost capacity, which was not small. The old garret fairly rang again.

Florence uttered a horrified exclamation; and Kit said, —

"I'll go with you!"

"Girls don't run away," remarked Hal gravely.

"But I mean to, and it'll be royal fun," was the confident reply.

"Where will you go? and will you beg from door to door?" asked Joe quizzically.

"No: I'm going out in the woods," was the undaunted rejoinder. "I mean to find a nice cave; and I'll bring in a lot of good dry leaves and some straw, and make a bed. Then I'll gather berries; and I know how to catch fish, and I can make a fire and fry them. I'll have a gay time going off to the river and rambling round, and there'll be no lessons to plague a body to death. It will be just splendid."

"Suppose a bear comes along and eats you up?" suggested Joe.

"As if there were any bears around here!" Charlie returned with immense disdain.

"Well, a snake, or a wild-cat!"

"I'm not afraid of snakes."

"But you'd want a little bread."

"Oh! I'd manage about that. I do mean to run away some time, just for fun."

"You'll be glad to run back again!"

"You see, now!" was the decisive reply.

"Florentina, it is your turn now. We have had age before beauty."

Florence tossed her soft curls, and went through with a few pretty airs.

"I shouldn't run away," she said slowly; "but I'd like to go, for all that. Sometimes, as I sit by the window sewing, and see an elegant carriage pass by, I think, what if there should be an old gentleman in it, who had lost his wife and all his children, and that one of his little girls looked like – like me? And if he should stop and ask me for a drink, I'd go to the well and draw a fresh, cool bucketful" —

"From the north side – that's the coldest," interrupted Joe.

"Hush, Joe! No one laughed at you!"

"Laugh! Why, I am sober as an owl."

"Then I'd give him a drink. I wish we could have some goblets: tumblers look so dreadfully old-fashioned. I mean to buy one, at least, some time. He would ask me about myself; and I'd tell him that we were all orphans, and had been very unfortunate, and that our grandmother was old" —

 
"'Four score and ten of us, poor old maids, —
Four score and ten of us,
Without a penny in our puss,
Poor old maids,'"
 

sang Joe pathetically, cutting short the purse on account of the rhyme.

"O Joe, you are too bad! I won't tell any more."

"Yes, do!" entreated Hal. "And so he liked you on account of the resemblance, and wanted to adopt you."

"Exactly! Hal, how could you guess it?" returned Florence, much mollified. "And so he would take me to a beautiful house, where there were plenty of servants, and get me lovely clothes to wear; and there would be lots of china and silver and elegant furniture and a piano. I'd go to school, and study music and drawing, and never have to sew or do any kind of work. Then I'd send you nice presents home; and, when you were fixed up a little, you should come and see me. And maybe, Hal, as you grew older, he would help you about getting a hot-house. I think when I became a woman, I would take Dot to educate."

"I've heard of fairy godmothers before, but this seems to be a godfather. Here's luck to your old covey, Florrie, drunk in imaginary champagne."

"Joe, I wish you wouldn't use slang phrases, nor be so disrespectful."

"I'm afraid I'll have to keep clear of the palace."

"Oh, if it only could be!" sighed Hal. "I think Flo was meant for a lady."

Florence smiled inwardly at hearing this. It was her opinion also.

"Here, Kit, are you asleep?" And Joe pulled him out of the pile by one leg. "Wake up, and give us your heart's desire."

Kit indulged in a vigorous kick, which Joe dodged.

"It'll be splendid," began Kit, "especially the piano. I've had my hands over my eyes, making stars; and I was thinking" —

"That's just what we want, Chief of the Mohawk Valley. Don't keep us in suspense."

"I'm going to save up my money, like some one Hal was reading about the other day, and buy a fiddle."

A shout of laughter greeted this announcement, it sounded so comical.

Kit rubbed his eyes in amazement, and failed to see any thing amusing. Then he said indignantly, —

"You needn't make such a row!"

"But what will you do with a fiddle? You might tie a string to Charlie, and take her along for a monkey; or you might both go round singing in a squeaky voice, —

 
'Two orphan boys of Switzerland.'"
 

"You're real mean, Joe," said Kit, with his voice full of tears.

"Kit, I'll give you the violin myself when I get rich," Florence exclaimed in a comforting tone, her soft hand smoothing down the refractory scalp-lock; "but I would say violin, it sounds so much nicer. And then you'll play."

"Play!" enunciated Kit in a tone that I cannot describe, as if that were a weak word for the anticipated performance. "I'd make her talk! They'd sit there and listen, – a whole houseful of people it would be, you know; and when I first came out with my fiddle, – violin. I mean, – they would look at me as if they thought I couldn't do much. I'd begin with a slow sound, like the wind wailing on a winter night, – I guess I'd have it a storm, and a little lost child, for you can make almost any thing with a violin; and the cries should grow fainter and fainter, for she would be chilled and worn out; and presently it should drop down into the snow, and there'd be the softest, strangest music you ever heard. The crowd would listen and listen, and hold their breath; and when the storm cleared away, and the angels came down for the child, it would be so, so sad" – and there was an ominous falter in Kit's voice, "they couldn't help crying. There'd be an angel's song up in heaven; and in the sweetest part of it all, I'd go quietly away, for I wouldn't want any applause."

"But you'd have it," said Hal softly, reaching out for the small fingers that were to evoke such wonderful melody. "It almost makes me cry myself to think of it! and the poor little girl lost in the snow, not bigger than Dot here!"

"Children!" called Granny from the foot of the stairs, "ain't you going to come down and have any supper? I've made a great pot full of mush."

There was a general scrambling. Hal carried Dot in his arms, for she was fast asleep. Two or three times in the short journey he stopped to kiss the soft face, thinking of Kit's vision.

"Oh, we've been having such a splendid time!" announced Charlie. "All of us telling what we'd like to do; and, Granny, Joe's going to build you an elegant house!" with a great emphasis on the word, as Charlie was not much given to style, greatly to the sorrow and chagrin of Florence.

Granny gave a cheerful but cracked treble laugh, and asked, —

"What'll he build it of, my dear, – corn-cobs?"

"Oh, a real house! He's going to make lots of money, Joe is, and get shipwrecked."

Granny shook her head, which made the little white curls bob around oddly enough.

"How you do mix up things, Charlie," said Joe, giving her a poke with his elbow. "You're a perfect harum-scarum! I don't wonder you want to live in the woods. Go look at your head: it stands out nine ways for Sunday!"

Charlie ran her fingers through her hair, her usual manner of arranging it.

"Granny, here's this little lamb fast asleep. She's grown to be one of the best babies in the world;" and Hal kissed her again.

He had such a tender, girlish heart, that any thing weak or helpless always appealed to him. Their sleek, shining Tabby had been a poor, forlorn, broken-legged kitten when he found her; and there was no end to the birds and chickens that he nursed through accidents.

But for a fortnight Dot had been improving, it must be confessed, being exempt from disease and broken bones.

"Poor childie! Just lay her in the bed, Hal."

There was a huge steaming dish of mush in the middle of the table; and the hungry children went at it in a vigorous manner. Some had milk, and some had molasses; and they improvised a dessert by using a little butter, sugar, and nutmeg. They spiced their meal by recounting their imaginary adventures; but Granny was observed to wipe away a few tears over the shipwreck.

"It was all make believe," said Joe sturdily. "Lots of people go to sea, and don't get wrecked."

"But I don't want you to go," Granny returned in a broken tone of voice.

"Pooh!" exclaimed Joe, with immense disdain. "Don't people meet with accidents on the land? Wasn't Steve Holder killed in the mill. And if I was on the cars in a smash-up, I couldn't swim out of that!"

Joe took a long breath, fancying that he had established his point beyond a cavil.

"But sailors never make fortunes," went on Granny hesitatingly.

"Captains do, though; and it's a jolly life. Besides, we couldn't all stay in this little shanty, unless we made nests in the chimney like the swallows; and I don't know which would tumble down first, – we or the chimney."

Charlie laughed at the idea.

"I shall stay with you always, Granny," said Hal tenderly. "And Dot, you know, will be growing into a big girl and be company for us. We'll get along nicely, never fear."

Some tears dropped unwittingly into Granny's plate, and she didn't want any more supper. It was foolish, of course. She ought to be thankful to have them all out of the way and doing for themselves. Here she was, over fifty, and had worked hard from girlhood. Some day she would be worn out.

But, in spite of all their poverty and hardship, she had been very happy with them; and theirs were by no means a forlorn-looking set of faces. Each one had a little beauty of its own; and, though they were far from being pattern children, she loved them dearly in spite of their faults and roughnesses. And in their way they loved her, though sometimes they were great torments.

And so at bed-time they all crowded round to kiss the wrinkled face, unconsciously softened by the thought of the parting that was to come somewhere along their lives. But no one guessed how Granny held little Dot in her arms that night, and prayed in her quaint, fervent fashion that she might live to see them all grown up and happy, good and prosperous men and women, and none of them straying far from the old home-nest.

I think God listened with watchful love. No one else would have made crooked paths so straight.