*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56170 ***

THE SURPRISE BOOK


[Illustration: _Marjorie might hold the lantern and he’d see what was
there._ (_Page 167_)]




  THE

  SURPRISE BOOK


  BY

  PATTEN BEARD


  _Author of
  “The Jolly Year,” “The Bluebird’s Garden”
  “The Good Crow’s Happy Shop”_


  _Illustrated by Alice Beard_


  [Illustration]


  THE PILGRIM PRESS

  BOSTON      CHICAGO


  COPYRIGHT 1918

  BY PATTEN BEARD


  THE PILGRIM PRESS
  BOSTON




[Illustration: THIS BOOK OF STORIES ABOUT THE BOYS AND GIRLS WHO ARE MY
FRIENDS I DEDICATE TO

Nall Candler

BECAUSE HE HAS ENJOYED “THE BLUEBIRD’S GARDEN” AND “THE JOLLY YEAR,”
AND I WANT HIM TO HAVE THIS BOOK FOR HIS VERY OWN]




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                                            PAGE

     I. The Surprise Book that Dotty Made                             3

    II. The December Surprise, The Telephone Santa Claus             13

   III. The January Surprise, The Penny Bank Window                  35

    IV. The February Surprise, Angelina’s Valentine                  51

     V. The March Surprise, Buttinski, Peacemaker                    63

    VI. The April Surprise, Angelina’s Bird-Flower                   77

   VII. The May Surprise, Marjorie’s Mystery                         91

  VIII. The June Surprise, The Two Little Bates Girls               103

    IX. The July Surprise, Arne’s Fourth of July Battle             115

     X. The August Surprise, The Blackberry Adventure               129

    XI. The September Surprise, Betty Crusoe                        147

   XII. The October Surprise, The Magical Circle                    159

  XIII. The November Surprise, Ermelinda’s Family                   173

   XIV. The First December Surprise, The Directory Santa Claus      185

    XV. The Second December Surprise, Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly
          Christmas                                                 195

        Conclusion                                                  209




  _The Surprise Book That Dotty Made_




_I_

_The Surprise Book That Dotty Made_


The Surprise Book was Marjorie’s, but it really belonged to Dotty also,
Marjorie said. It was Dotty who had made it once upon a time when she
had not been able to go to school because of a snowstorm and a snuffy
cold. The combination of cold and snowstorm was more or less a lucky
mixture, so Marjorie argued. At any rate, if it had not been for these,
maybe there never would have been Marjorie’s Surprise Book. You shall
hear about it.

It began just after Marjorie, wrapped in storm-coat and arctics,
had left for school. Dotty was sitting upon a carpet hassock by the
fireside. The fire snapped and crackled pleasantly but Dotty frowned.
“I wanted to go to school with Marjorie, too,” she said for about the
forty-eleventh time since nine o’clock. “There isn’t anything to do!”

“Nothing to do!” exclaimed Mother. “Why not make a Surprise Book, Dot?”

“How?” inquired Dotty, turning around to face Mother in sudden
interest. “_How?_”

“Oh, it’s quite simple,” Mother returned. “You will find it ever so
much fun. I used to make Surprise Books when I was a little girl.
They’re made in scrapbooks. You know how to make a scrapbook, Dot,
don’t you?”

Dotty nodded. “I just take some brown wrapping-paper an’ fold it ever
so many times an’ then I cut the folds into leaves. When I have ever so
many leaves, I cut a cover for ’em an’ I tie the cover to the leaves
with a ribbon. It goes through the centre of the book an’ ties at the
back like a sash.”

Mother nodded. “That’s it. To make a Surprise Book you first make a
scrapbook that way. Then, one at a time, you fold each leaf of the
scrapbook twice. You begin by taking the first leaf. You fold its
upper corner down till its edge runs parallel with the centre of the
scrapbook’s leaves. Then you take the lower corner and fold this up in
the same way. It makes a pocket and one can put things into this pocket
and seal them tight with a pretty paper seal like those used to seal
Christmas packages.”

“What do you do it for?” asked Dotty. “Why do you put things into the
pockets and seal them?”

Mother laughed. “Why, Dot,” she explained. “You put the things into
the pockets as surprises because you give the Surprise Book away to
somebody that you love very much. Every pocket holds a surprise when it
is sealed fast. You write on each pocket the exact time when it is to
be opened and the one you love very much must open the pockets and find
the surprises only when the time falls due. Do you see?”

Dotty beamed. “I see,” she chuckled. “I’m going to make a Surprise Book
right away. What can I put into it for Marjorie to find?”

There was a silence while Mother rocked back and forth in the big
old-fashioned rocker as she ran her needle in and out of the hole she
was mending in Marjorie’s stocking, and thought. “Suppose you cut nice
stories out of magazines and put one in each pocket,” she suggested.
“There’s a pile of story-papers up in the attic. I’ll get them for you.
You might find twelve stories, one for every month of the year, and you
might make the Surprise Book for Marjorie’s Christmas present.”

Dotty jumped up and down. “Oh, hurry, hurry!” she begged. “I want to
begin right away. Marjorie will be coming home soon and she mustn’t
know anything about it. Can I put other things into the pockets of the
Surprise Book too? What can I put in?”

“All manner of things that one could put into small space like
that--picture-cards, paper dolls, transfer pictures, little verses and
games that you find in magazines--’most everything that will lie flat.
You can try it and think of things to put into the Surprise Book’s
pockets.”

Hooray! That was an idea! Dotty knew of a flat penwiper that she could
make out of flannel. _That_ would go in flat--and there might be a
penny all wrapped up in paper, maybe. Such a thing as this would be
simply a splendid surprise. Each pocket should hold something new and
wonderful except the pocket that was to be for April Fool’s Day. That
pocket should hold only a blank piece of paper folded up tight to
feel as if it were going to be a surprise. There’d be nothing at all
in it, when Marjorie broke the seal! What a joke! And every month’s
holiday should have a pocket, too! Dotty chuckled. Old Christmas cards
would now find a new use. Valentines and Easter gift cards would go
into the Surprise Book, too. And every month there would be a story
pocket in the book! What fun! As soon as she had made the brown paper
scrapbook, she fell to work folding its leaves--first, top corner over
and down; next, lower corner up toward it to make a three-cornered
pocket. The book had twenty-four leaves, two surprises for every
month. First of all, Dotty put the penwiper into the first pocket for
a Christmas surprise. She sealed it with a holly seal. Then into the
next pocket, she put a January surprise and a January story followed.
So it went through all the year. It was exciting trying to find stories
that fitted the different months, but the story-papers helped because
Mother had kept them in file, month by month. Dotty had only to look
the papers over and cut out the story she imagined might best please
Marjorie. She worked very hard indeed. All day she worked, while it
snowed outside. It seemed quite lucky, then, that Marjorie stayed away
so long. It wasn’t really lonely without her!

And at last, with some help and suggestions from Mother, the Surprise
Book was done! It was a big three-cornered book that seemed quite
bulky. As Dot held it, she felt that Marjorie would surely like it and
she couldn’t bear to keep it till Christmas. Christmas was so far away
yet! There were four more days till Christmas Eve! But, nevertheless,
because the Surprise Book was to be a Christmas present, Mother and Dot
did it up, finally, in nice, fresh, white tissue paper and tied the
parcel together with bright red ribbon. It was a splendid present!

When Christmas came, the Surprise Book was placed under the tree and
Dotty left all her own presents while she urged Marjorie to open the
big package that was tied with red ribbons. “You’ll like it,” she
laughed. “I made it for you. It’s a book of surprises that last all
through the year--it really is a Surprise Book because there’s so much
fun in it!”

Then Marjorie tore off the paper and red ribbon. When she saw and
understood jail about it, she said she would make Dotty a promise and
the promise was that every time there fell due a story, she’d read it
aloud to Dotty each month.

So, here in this book are the stories that Marjorie read to Dotty,
the stories that were in Marjorie’s Surprise Book, together with the
penwiper, the Valentine, the St. Patrick’s favor for March, the April
Fool, the paper May-basket, the four-leaf clover for June. Beside
these, there were a great many other nice things that came in the
pockets that were not filled with the stories. You shall hear about
them all yourself, as you turn the pages here.




_The Telephone Santa Claus_


_THE DECEMBER SURPRISE_

_Of course, you know as well as Dotty that there was a penwiper in the
first Christmas pocket. The writing on that pocket said,_

    “_Not to be opened till after you have seen all your presents from
    the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve._”

_Marjorie liked the penwiper ever so much. She said it could be used
at school. It was made of round red circles of cloth and had a button
sewed at its centre. The story pocket was quite bulky and it said,_

    “_Open on Christmas Eve for a bed-time story._”

_Marjorie read it aloud as she and Dot curled up in a big cosy
comfortable at bed-time. They had to have a very special dispensation
from Mother. She said that the Surprise Book story that came on
Christmas Eve might keep the bed-time light lit till it was finished.
So Marjorie read aloud, “The Telephone Santa Claus.”_




_II_

_The Telephone Santa Claus_


The shops were full of Christmas toys. There were Christmas greens
and fir trees everywhere. Big ribbon-trimmed holly wreaths began to
appear in front windows and everybody in the streets carried Christmas
bundles. At this time, too, Mary Louise, who lived in the large and
beautiful house with mother and daddy, and who was the only little girl
they had, began to plan what she should ask Santa Claus to bring her.

Can anybody ever have too many toys? Mary Louise had a whole toy closet
full. There were certain “very best toys” put by nurse on the top
shelf for special occasions and there were countless “every day toys,”
some of them a bit broken, but a great many of them quite whole and
splendid, ever so much nicer than the toys that Mary Louise’s little
friends had to play with. Still, Mary Louise wanted more toys. The list
that she was now writing in her round, wiggly handwriting had already
covered several sheets of large pad paper that nurse had given her.

Mary Louise sat at the big flat desk in the library. Her velvet dress
was almost lost in the big arm-chair that was daddy’s favorite. Behind
her was a cheerful fire on the hearth and it snapped and crackled
joyously. Mary Louise’s blue eyes travelled about the room as if
seeking fresh inspiration in the objects that they rested upon. She
already had everything, but she wanted more, and so she put the pencil
on the paper and continued the letter to Santa Claus.

“I want two new Teddy bears, the biggest you have, Santa Claus,” the
pencil said. “I want one that is pure white like snow and another that
is furry and brown. Both should have a squeak and if you have any that
will growl, I’d like that kind, too.

“I want a white doll carriage lined with pink satin. They have them
at Bunty’s Department Store, for I saw them once and they cost
twenty-five dollars. I want a big doll to go in it. I want a whole
wardrobe of clothes for it, a new doll cradle, and it must have a pink
silk dress, too. I want a doll that will open and shut its eyes--one
with real hair. It must talk, too.

“You can bring me, beside this, a boy doll with a sled and all the
different kinds of clothes that a little boy ought to wear. I want a
real toy automobile with a horn and a lamp--not the kind that is like
a tricycle, because I already have one like that--I mean the real kind
that runs with gasoline. They cost a hundred and twenty-five dollars,
maybe a little more, but I don’t think you mind what they cost.

“I want a doll house that is nicer than the one you gave me before. It
ought to be big enough for me to go into myself and I would like to
have it built up in the garden like a real house. You can put it down
by the greenhouses because it will be too big to bring into our house
or carry down the chimney, I know. And then too I want--”

Mary Louise’s blue eyes considered the ceiling for a space of time:
“I want a ring like mother’s--one with a blue stone in it,” she added.
While she was trying to think of something else to ask for, the door of
the library opened and in walked Mary Louise’s big daddy. He glanced
for a minute at Mary Louise and he took up the telephone.

Mary Louise’s daddy was busy there several minutes. He watched Mary
Louise nibbling the end of her pencil and he looked over her shoulder
at the letter. As he did so, a smile crossed his face. “Writing to
Santa Claus, Mary Louise?” he asked when he put down the receiver.

“I was wondering what to ask for next,” Mary Louise informed him. “I
think I’ll ask for another pony. Nibbles is very nice, of course, but
I’d rather like one that will trot faster. I think I’d like a white
pony with a white kid harness and a white basket-cart.”

“You’re asking for a great many things, aren’t you?” daddy suggested.
“Maybe it might be well to close the letter now. I’ll take it with me
and mail it on the way down town--better address the envelope.”

“I might think of something more,” remonstrated Mary Louise. But she
folded the six sheets of pad paper and put them into the envelope that
daddy held out. Then she addressed it to Mr. Santa Claus, Santa Claus
Land, Santa Claus Country, North Pole, exactly as nurse had told her.

Daddy put it into his overcoat pocket as Mary Louise had seen him put
letters that he posted for mother. Then as the library door closed, she
plumped herself down upon the thick black fur rug in front of the fire
to look at a picture book.

She had not been there very long when the telephone bell rang. James
didn’t come as he ought and Marie was upstairs, so Mary Louise
incommoded herself by getting up from the rug to answer it. It had
already rung three times and she was quite ready to scold Marie for not
answering it. But she did not have the chance as Marie still did not
come. So Mary Louise took up the receiver. “Hello!” she called.

“Hello,” came a cheery answer.

“What is it?” inquired Mary Louise.

“I want to talk to Miss Mary Louise Snow,” came the answer. “I’m Santa
Claus.”

“Oh, I’m her!” gasped Mary Louise. “I’m--I’m her!” Never before had
Santa Claus called Mary Louise up by telephone! Never had she spoken to
him except for a few brief minutes at a Christmas party celebration.

“You are,” returned the voice. “Well, I’m glad you are at home, Mary
Louise. There’s something very special that I want to talk about. It’s
almost time for me to receive your usual Christmas letter. I suppose
there are a great many things that you will want. Have you been a good
little girl this year?”

“Sometimes,” Mary Louise faltered. “I have tried very hard not to have
tantrums. Maybe I did once or twice but I tried not to say things when
Marie _would_ unsnarl my hair.”

“Have you learned your multiplication tables?”

“Up to sevens,” answered Mary Louise. “I think I can say them, but I
can’t _always_ remember what seven times nine is and I forget seven
times twelve.”

“That sounds as if you had tried fairly well,” the voice of Santa
Clause commented. “There are a great many Christmas presents that you
would like, I suppose?”

“Yes,” returned Mary Louise, “Oh, yes, Santa Claus! I just wrote you my
letter and I hadn’t quite finished it when daddy came in and took it to
mail, so maybe I’ll write another later on. I didn’t ask for any games
or things. I might send another letter when I think of what I want.
If you like, I will tell you the things that I asked for in my first
letter if I can remember them. I want a big, big doll that can talk,
and it must have real hair and shut and open its eyes and it must have
blue eyes and real eye-lashes too. I asked for a pink silk dress and
gloves, I think--I can’t remember. And there were to be two big Teddy
bears with a growl and a squeak _both_--very big bears, one pure white
and the other furry and brown. I want a white pony, too, and a white
cart and harness. The letter will tell you all about _that_--I forget
all that I said in the letter,” she explained. “It was ’most six pages
long of big pad paper.”

“That was rather long,” chuckled Santa Claus.

“Yes,” smiled Mary Louise, “but I think I forgot to say that I wanted
gloves for the doll.”

“I’m not sure I can bring the gloves,” Santa Claus said. “I think,
however, that I might get the doll to you. Would you rather have a doll
than the two Teddy bears?”

“I want _both_,” replied Mary Louise. It seemed strange that Santa
Claus should not understand a thing, as simple as _that_! “Teddy bears
are very po-pular, I know, but I guess you must have ever so many and
you’ve usually brought me nicer things than you’ve given other little
girls that I know.”

“Well, maybe I can bring a Teddy bear, if there’s one left over, Mary
Louise, but I’m not at all sure I can bring the pony this year, you
know. I’m afraid I’ve got to cut down on your presents, Mary Louise.
That’s why I called up. I have something very, very important to ask
you. I want to know if you can help me? I’m trying to distribute my
gifts more--more properly this year. You know, of course, Mary Louise,
that there are ever so many little children that do not get Christmas
presents, especially in war time.”

“Are there?” inquired Mary Louise. “I suppose it’s the children who
have been naughty.”

“Oh, no.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s not because I forget them or because they are naughty,”
explained Santa Claus’ voice. “It’s because too many goodies go to the
rich little children. Then the poor little children who would like
toys--they have nothing.”

“Oh,” gasped Mary Louise. “Then, I suppose you’ve given me more than my
share?”

“I’m afraid so,” answered Santa.

“Don’t the poor children have _anything_?”

“Sometimes I’ve given to the wrong people,” came the evasive answer.
“You see, I have a great deal to do. I ought to have a lot of people
to help me. How can one person do it _all_! Sometimes I don’t find the
right children and I use up the things that grow in the Santa Claus
Land and then I have nothing left after the long, long lists are made
up for the very particular little rich children.”

“Oh, dear!”

“Yes, that’s why. Do you want to give up some of your things this year
so that they can go to the poor children?”

Mary Louise reflected. “Which?” she asked. “Do you mean the doll or the
pony or the automobile or the new doll house?”

“You have about a hundred dolls, haven’t you?”

“No,” corrected Mary Louise, “only just seventy-six, counting the
little bits of china ones in the doll house. Without these there are
about forty--but only twenty are big ones.”

“Well,” chuckled Santa Claus, “that seems to me a good deal too many.
You _could_ give up the doll, I think. Suppose that _you_ were a little
girl who had never had any doll ever!”

“Well, but I’d like the pink doll--”

“I’ll tell you what,” Santa Claus suggested. “You think things over.
Maybe I’ll find that I _can_ spare a pink doll for you, after all. But
I want you to help me look out for some of the poor children this year
and I want you to buy at least six presents out of your very own money.
I want you to find some children that I ought to know about. I want you
to help them for me. I’ll telephone you some addresses where there are
little poor children and you must write these down and keep them and
see that the boys and girls have proper Christmas presents. Will you do
it?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Santa Claus, gladly,” returned Mary Louise. “I have
nineteen dollars in my bank, I think. My daddy will help me.”

“No, I don’t want your daddy to help you. It’s to be your very own
money!”

“All right. I’ll not ask him. Of course I want to help you, Mr. Santa
Claus. I’ll love to do it.”

“Well, good-bye. If I can, I’ll come on Christmas eve to your tree. You
do the very best you can, Mary Louise, and invite the poor children to
share your tree!”

The receiver was hung up at the other end of the line and Mary Louise
stood bewildered before the library table where she had just written
her long Christmas list. She stood there thinking it all over from
beginning to end. She, _she_ had been asked to help Santa Claus! It was
a great distinction! Poor overworked Santa Claus had appealed to her as
a very rich little girl who already had everything--and she mightn’t
get the pink doll at all!

Then Mary Louise could not keep the secret any longer and she dashed up
the stairs to mother’s room. She wouldn’t let mother go out of the room
till she had told her the whole story and mother had a very important
engagement and was all ready to go out in the car. Together they
emptied Mary Louise’s bank and counted out exactly nineteen dollars and
fifty-three cents. Mary Louise wanted to take it and start right out
in the car to buy the presents, but with difficulty mother explained
that she had better wait till Santa Claus sent in the names and she had
found out what the children wanted.

And Santa Claus did telephone the names. Mary Louise was at dinner and
James answered the telephone. Mary Louise felt badly that she had not
been called, but there was no need to take her away from dinner; James
had the addresses on the telephone pad, mother said. She was sure they
were right.

Mary Louise wished daddy were home. It seemed to her that he would
never come. As she felt sure she would need to buy a tree for the
Christmas party, she got nurse to take her to that shop in the
afternoon. But it is wonderful to think that a Christmas tree costs
money! Before this, Mary Louise had never considered the subject. It
was a very tall tree and it was an expensive tree. The charge for it
ate into the nineteen dollars and fifty-three cents considerably. The
things that went onto the tree must all be new. Santa Claus must see
that Mary Louise had bought new ones to please him. So she bought
ever so many-stars and birds, and balls of red, yellow, blue, green,
white, silver, gold. And there was need of tinsel. If Mary Louise had
had her own way, she would have spent almost all the nineteen dollars
and fifty-three cents just on that tree without thinking of the
consequences. Why, if she had, how could she have bought any presents
for the poor children?

Next day, after having told daddy all about it, she wrote to the
addresses that Santa Claus had given her. She wrote the letters in ink
and used her very bestest best blue note-paper. All the letters were
sealed with a Santa Claus sticker. It did take a great deal of time, I
assure you.

The invitations were to Mamie and Johnnie and Toby Smith. They were to
Tony Pettino and Lily Wicks and Benny Wicks who lived in a part of the
city Mary Louise had never seen. Nurse said it was a very sad part of
the city. When Mary Louise asked if she might go there and see it and
see the children, nurse said she guessed Santa Claus didn’t know what
he was talking about--she guessed _not_. Mary Louise insisted, but all
in vain. Santa Claus had told her what the children’s ages were and
left the gifts to Mary Louise’s selection.

When daddy had taken the letters to the poor children in his overcoat
pocket to mail, Mary Louise fell to planning about the gifts. Only one
little girl--all boys! How dreadful! But mother helped Mary Louise by
suggesting things that little boys might like. From her own playthings
Mary Louise selected her biggest doll for Lily and would have given her
ever so many other dolls, had not mother thought that Mary Louise might
add other little girls to her Christmas list of poor children and make
the helping of Santa Claus more equally distributed among those who
might otherwise be forgotten.

How fast the nineteen dollars and fifty-three cents did go--just buying
the tree and the fixings, and the sled and the overcoat and mittens,
and skates, and carts, and baseball bats! It was a tragic moment when
Mary Louise suddenly discovered that Benny had been neglected and
didn’t have as many gifts as the others. She consulted daddy, as there
were no boys’ toys among her playthings and nothing seemed right. Daddy
said--well, he said she might work and earn the money to buy Benny a
present.

Never in her life had Mary Louise worked to earn money! “How can I earn
money?” she asked.

Daddy thought. “If you will learn the seven times seven table, and the
eight, and the nine and any of the others, I’ll give you a dollar for
every one you can say perfectly. That’s very special, Mary Louise,
because it’s Christmas, you know.”

Dear me! To think of having to sit down quietly in all the excitement
of Christmas rush and learn horrid multiplication tables! If anything
was work, that surely was!

But where there’s a will there’s a way and Mary Louise did it. She
did it so well that she remembered all of the seven table perfectly.
She also went on and learned the eight and nine table and the ten
table--that was easy. Then, being quite enthusiastic, she tried hard at
the others and mastered the twelve table after keeping at it a steady
day. With the proceeds of these earnings, paid gravely by daddy, she
was able to buy Benny a game, and when she went to buy it and found
some little poor children right by the car that stopped at the entrance
of Bunty’s Department Store, she was able to invite them then and there
and go right in and buy presents for them. They needed woolen scarfs
and mittens, and Mary Louise had found presents on the toy shelf among
the toys kept for very special occasions. These would do for them.

When once Mary Louise had started to help Santa Claus, there was no
knowing where she would end. Whenever she went out, she saw little
children whom she was sure Santa Claus had forgotten because they
looked so wistfully in at shop windows. Some of them nurse let her
speak to and she added these to her list for the party. There seemed
to be no table of thirteens to learn but daddy gave a dollar for every
poem she could recite and Mary Louise knew ever so many and it was easy
to learn short ones.

Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How the time did fly! Before Mary Louise knew it,
Christmas Eve was there! There had been all the fun of fixing the tree
and daddy and mother had helped. Mary Louise hoped Santa Claus wouldn’t
disappoint her! She hoped that he surely would come! She was very much
relieved when James came in and said that he had just been asked to
deliver a message that came from Santa Claus over the telephone. It was
a telegram and it said:

    Will be at your Christmas party Christmas Eve eight o’clock.

                                                    SANTA CLAUS.

After that, Mary Louise didn’t worry. She let Marie take the tangles
out of her hair and help her into her very best pink silk dress and
then she dashed downstairs to wait for all the guests who had been
invited to come. She wanted to play games with them and she wanted
to tell them all about Santa Claus and she hoped they would like to
sing carols and dance around the tree--but most of all she hoped that
they would like the presents she had arranged for them at Santa Claus’
suggestion. Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to see Santa Claus give out the big
white Teddy bear and the big brown fuzzy bear and the pink doll and the
cart and the skates and--and--

But here the doorbell rang and there was a scuffle of happy feet. It
was Lily and Benny and Tony and all the rest. They were as happy as
happy could be. Mary Louise greeted them all and then they beamed upon
her almost as if she were Santa Claus herself, but I just wish you
could have heard the shrieks of delight when the front doorbell rang
and James ushered in Santa Claus himself! It was just too bad that
daddy wasn’t there to see all the fun, though mother did hope that
maybe he might be able to come later. Oh, what a good time they all did
have! It was the very best and happiest Christmas that Mary Louise had
ever, ever, _ever_ had! It was wonderful!

Why, Mary Louise had such a good time that she forgot all about the
pink doll till Santa Claus came and gave it to her, after giving
out all the other gifts. It was the very doll that Mary Louise had
wanted, but she asked Santa Claus to be sure he could spare it and
that he had neglected nobody else to give _her_ the doll. He said he
guessed not--at least he hoped not, and then they sat on the sofa
and ate ice cream together while Santa Claus joked and told stories.
But he couldn’t stay very long, he said, and he had to go. Then just
afterwards, alas, in came daddy, who might have met Santa Claus, if
only he had got there a wee bit sooner! And the children danced around
the tree and sang carols. And then they all wished Mary Louise a Happy
Christmas and went home with arms laden with packages that they hugged
tight and smiled and chuckled over.

After the children went, there was just mother and daddy left. They
both kissed Mary Louise and vowed that they’d have another party again
next year, maybe. Then daddy took Mary Louise upon his knee and put a
little blue ring upon her finger. It was the kind of a ring that Mary
Louise had wanted--one just like mother’s, only little. And mother
told Mary Louise that _her_ Christmas present was the doll house. It
was coming as soon as possible. It was so big that one could play
inside and it was to be placed right close to the garden greenhouses.

It was a Christmas that Mary Louise never forgot and couldn’t forget,
even if it had not been for the blue ring and the multiplication
tables!




_The Penny Bank Window_


_THE JANUARY SURPRISE_

_The January surprise pocket had held a little picture calendar.
Marjorie had opened it according to directions that said_:

    “_Open sometime when you want to write a letter._”

_As there was a Christmas thank-you letter to write upon the very first
day of January, Marjorie had opened that pocket and found the calendar.
Then she had looked to see just when she might open the story pocket.
The writing on this one said_:

    “_Open on some Saturday afternoon, when you are sitting by the
    fire._”

_The very first Saturday afternoon that came in January, Marjorie took
the Surprise Book and went to the fireside. She could not wait to find
out what was in the story pocket. She told Dotty that the time had come
for the story and Dotty curled happily at her feet on the rug while she
read “The Penny Bank Window” that was the January story._




_III_

_The Penny Bank Window_


“That penny bank is to blame for it all,” said Billy Williams. “If it
hadn’t been for the bank, nothing would have happened.” The bank was
quite full of pennies that Billy had been saving carefully ever since
his birthday. It had been given him then with nine times nine bright
pennies to put into it. That was because Billy was nine years old.

One afternoon Billy took up the china bank and shook it to hear it
rattle. Really, when the bank rattled, it made Billy feel tremendously
rich. There was almost a whole dollar in the bank by now! But right
here, out fell one dull penny and it rolled along the floor.

Billy let it roll till it stopped and the rattle of the bank seemed
quite as big without the missing penny, so he suddenly decided to spend
it--but for what? Why, just at that very minute, Billy felt hungry.
Mother was off at work and would not be home to get their dinner till
six. Billy was all alone in the rooms over the drygoods shop where he
lived with his mother. He had eaten the bread and butter that she left
out for his lunch and he was hungry. It suddenly dawned upon him that
he wanted a lollypop and that he could find a nice, sweet, red one at
the candy store around the corner. “All right!” beamed Billy. He put
the dull penny in his pocket and raced off to get the lollypop.

If it hadn’t been for the bank, there would not have been the lollypop.
If it had not been for the lollypop, there would have been no penny
bank window. So, you see, the bank _was_ responsible. Hardly had
Billy bought the red lollypop and torn the paper off than he became
quite absorbed in eating it--and he stepped down from the curb at the
street corner quite without looking. It was a careless thing to do,
for he didn’t see what was coming. What was coming happened to be an
automobile that rounded the corner without tooting its horn!

The doctor felt Billy all over and pronounced him a very lucky boy
indeed. “There might have been nothing left of you, my son,” said he.
“But there happens to be a good deal left in spite of the fact that
your foot got bumped into. You’ll have to keep quiet for a while; then
you’ll be as good as new.”

“I suppose I mightn’t be so lucky another time,” grinned Billy, “but
I guess I’ll be more careful in crossing streets. It’s the fault of
the lollypop.” But it didn’t seem very lucky to be hurt and have to
sit all day in a chair while mother was away. It was fearfully lonely.
Even though Mrs. Finger from the next-door flat brought in magazines
and two picture books; even though, after school, some of the boys came
in to play checkers and dominoes and they stayed as long as they could
when they really wanted to be outdoors with the other kids. Even though
Billy learned to knit for the soldiers; even though he snipped pillows
for the Red Cross, it was frightfully lonely till mother came home from
work.

After he watched the children pass on their way to school one morning,
his eyes roved across the yard where the leafless trees beyond shut
off the view of the roofs of other houses. Below in the quiet street
hopped sparrows. It was cold out there and they found nothing to eat.
Billy bent forward and lifted the window. From his breakfast tray that
mother had left, he took a slice of bread and tossed it far out. The
sparrows darted for it and chirped and twittered. Billy laughed. “Don’t
I wish they’d come up here to the window,” he sighed. “Guess I’ll try
it an’ see if they will.” And there was one venturesome sparrow who did
come! Billy was still watching him when the doctor came for his morning
visit.

“If I were you, Billy Williams, I’d start a bird window,” the doctor
suggested. “My little girl knows all about bird windows and she’s made
several at home. The birds come every day. That foot looks as if it
were doing well--suppose I ask my little girl to come in and make _you_
a bird window?”

Billy said he’d like it jim dandy. It really was awfully lonesome.
Nothing ever passed in the street. If there were birds to watch, it
would be fun. “You won’t forget about the bird window,” he cautioned,
as the doctor took up his grip to go. And the doctor said he surely
wouldn’t.

Knitting progressed that day rather slowly. All Billy’s bread went into
the street to the sparrows. But Billy had reached almost as far as the
end of his gray muffler in the afternoon--and the boys had come in
from school for a hasty, “Hello, kid, we’re glad you’re alive and gay!
We can’t stop because--” Yes, of course, they couldn’t come every day
but it was lonesome. Then there came a knock at the door and in came a
little girl. She was as bright and cheerful as her crimson cloak.

“Hello,” she greeted. “If you’re the boy that ate the lollypop and got
run into, I know all about you. I’m the doctor’s little girl. I came to
help you make a bird window--bird windows are my specialty, you know,”
she laughed.

“I’ve got some money, if you need to buy anything,” Billy announced.
“I want a real jim dandy window! You’ll make me a nice one, won’t you?
I like birds and animals, don’t you? I never had any pets but I always
did want a bird or something. Maybe I can tame the birds when they come
to my window. How do you fix it?”

“Well, you have to have a shelf of some kind--a box that is shallow
will make _that_,” explained the doctor’s little girl. “I brought some
nails and a hammer with me and I brought a lump of suet that the cook
gave me. She sometimes won’t give it to me but this time I told her
about you and she gave it without another word. She says she’s sorry
for you and so’m I. I’m going to fix you up a splendid window.”

The doctor’s little girl thrust up the sash of Billy Williams’ window.
“I’m awfully hard up,” she pursued, “or I’d have bought some sunflower
seed to bring with me. You ought to have sunflower seed to sprinkle on
your bird-shelf, for it brings the chickadees and the purple finches
and ever so many other kinds of birds. The woodpeckers come for the
suet and if you have peanuts, beautiful big blue jays will come and
carry them off. Could I have twenty cents to buy sunflower seed, do you
suppose? It costs ten cents a pound at the druggist’s.”

Billy showed her the penny bank and they shook it and shook it till
there was really more money than twenty cents--“If it hadn’t been for
the bank, I’d have been running about now,” Billy grumbled. “That
bank’s got to give me something nice now anyhow!”

“Well, I’m shaking it to punish it,” laughed the doctor’s little girl.
“I’m shaking it ever so hard. I don’t believe it likes to be shaken.
You did have ever so much money in it. I don’t wonder that you wanted
the lollypop!”

She slipped the money into her purse and went off to make purchases.
Billy told her to get anything that the money would buy. He wanted
a bird window that would be the best anybody could have. He waited
anxiously for her to come back and when she came, her arms were full.

Billy had to laugh. She had a small evergreen tree that she had bought
for thirty-five cents. She had two pounds of sunflower seed that had
cost twenty cents--oh, ever so much seed comes for that price and it
will last a long time, too. She had a shallow grocery box that was long
and flat and without any cover. It was about the length of Billy’s
window ledge. She had a package that came from the ten cent store.
When it was undone, it showed two tin strainers at five cents apiece.
Now, what did all this mean?

The doctor’s little girl rolled up her sleeves and put on Billy
Williams’ mother’s blue gingham apron. First, she took the shallow
grocery box and nailed it to the window ledge. Billy was surprised to
see that the doctor’s little girl could drive a long nail almost as
well as he himself!

“That’s the bird-shelf,” she explained. “You sprinkle sunflower seed
on it every day. The birds can light on its rim. Some days you’ll have
as many as twenty at a time. The chickadees are darling and the purple
finches are beautiful and they sing too.”

She took a handful of striped gray and white sunflower seed and
sprinkled it on Billy’s new bird-shelf. “You’ll have to wait a while
till the birds find out about the shelf,” she said, “but it doesn’t
take them long.” Then she took the little green fir tree and some stout
cord. She tied the wee tree to one side of Billy’s blind. She tied its
trunk at top and at bottom with several twists of heavy string. It made
the window pretty--almost as if one were looking out over the top of a
fir tree. The doctor’s little girl paused after her work and smiled at
Billy. “I think that’s nice, don’t you?” she asked.

Billy nodded. “What’s it for?” he inquired.

“You tie bits of suet lumps to its limbs,” she explained. “The birds
will light on the branches. Suppose you cut up the suet into two or
three-inch lumps. Tie string around each and tie the lumps to the
different branches. Can you do it?”

Yes, Billy could. The little girl had to help a bit, but not so very
much.

“The strainers are to be tacked up. You put seed into them. When it
rains, the seed doesn’t get soaked. Birds don’t like the soaked seed,
you know.” The strainers went at the other side of Billy’s blind,
opposite the fir tree.

It seemed as if the bird window was all done but it wasn’t! The
doctor’s little girl took a good-sized tree-twig that she had brought,
and nailed this against the window frame to make a perch. There were
three perches made this way. She put them near the two strainers and
tied suet to each perch. She said that the woodpeckers would come to
these tree-perches; they didn’t come to the fir-tree because--well,
woodpeckers couldn’t.

When all this was done, the doctor’s little girl took something else
from her pocket. It was what Billy thought--bird-seed. It was a mixture
of seed: millet, wheat, rape, cracked corn. She said that one could get
it mixed at a grain store--eight cents a pound. If Billy wanted her to,
she’d buy some and bring it to him tomorrow, but for today all was done.

It was twilight and almost dark by now, so they shut down the window.
The birds must all have gone off to shelter. It was too late to expect
anything of the bird window that day, but the doctor’s little girl
promised to put a bit of suet on a bush under Billy’s window as she
went home. It was to attract the birds and call attention to the window.

That night when mother came home, she thought the bird window a
splendid thing. Billy dreamed of it all night. Indeed, he could not
wait for morning to come. He woke at four o’clock and kept wondering if
any birds would come. Then, because he was so drowsy, he fell asleep.
He woke with a sudden start just at sunrise. Was it true?--Yes, yes!
Knock--knock--knock! What kind of bird was it? There was a bird at the
suet that was tied to the perch at the window. _That_ must be it! Billy
sat up in bed and bent forward to look. There on the perch that was
highest was a black and white bird with a bright scarlet cap--it was
brother woodpecker busy eating a breakfast of suet!

My, how exciting! Billy hardly dared to draw a breath, he was so afraid
that the woodpecker would see him and fly away. Billy had hardly been
in his chair near the window for more than a few minutes when there
was a flutter of wings and a strange little slate-gray bird lit upon
another perch and circled it, making queer, cheerful little noises. The
bird had a black head and it seemed full of sociable curiosity. Billy
wondered what it was. He did not remember ever to have seen a bird like
it before! He resolved to ask the doctor’s little girl what it was. And
then came wee little birds that called dee--dee--dee. They were the
chickadees, little gray birds with black hoods. They seemed very tame.
They came in a cluster and besieged the limbs of the little green
fir tree. While they were there, came birds like sparrows, too. They
were _not_ sparrows though--some of them were rosy red in color. Oh,
they must be what the doctor’s little girl had called purple finches!
My, how exciting! How they quarreled! What fun! They were all over
the bird-shelf, eating the striped sunflower seed in a very hungry
way. When a big blue jay came screaming toward a near-by tree, they
flew off in a hurry and the blue jay with his crest acock carefully
reconnoitered the premises and decided to eat from the bird-shelf too.
Oh, wasn’t it gay! When the doctor came, he quite agreed that it was
jolly and he brought a bird book from his little girl and a package of
the mixed seed that he laughingly called “medicine.”

It must have been medicine, for Billy’s foot, so the doctor claimed,
grew well in a wonderfully rapid manner from this time on. And the
time passed so quickly at the bird window that really the days went
by before Billy had time to be lonely. The birds were great company.
The same ones came from day to day--the little Miss Chickadees
were the tamest. They really learned to take shelled peanuts from
Billy’s fingers and to sit upon his warm hand while they ate. Brother
Woodpecker and his wife came early. They needed no alarm clock to wake
them. Billy heard the knock--knock before he was in his chair of a
morning. Then the curious little nuthatches,--those strange little gray
birds with the funny noise that sounded like quack, quack--they came,
too, regularly. In snow and sleet and rain and sun, Billy had his bird
friends. He had the doctor’s little girl, too, some days. They sat
by the window and played games while she told him all she knew about
birds. Then, when his foot got so well that the doctor let him go out,
Billy’s first trip was to the drugstore to buy more sunflower seed with
her.

Everybody came to see Billy’s window and the fame of it spread far and
wide. Billy always declared afterwards that it had almost been worth
the red lollypop accident, but it was the penny bank that really did it
all, you know!




_Angelina’s Valentine_


_THE FEBRUARY SURPRISE_

_Of course, anybody might guess that the valentine card came in the
first pocket of the Surprise Book in February. It did! It was a red
heart cut from bright red paper and it had a verse upon it, too. The
story for February was a valentine story, too. It was in a pocket that
was sealed with an embossed rose. The writing said:_

    “_Open after school at 3.30 on Valentine’s Day afternoon._”

_Marjorie and Dotty watched the clock till the exact seconds had
ticked. Then, with the arm of her own Valentine about her, Marjorie
read aloud the story of “Angelina’s Valentine.”_




_IV_

_Angelina’s Valentine_


The ten cent store was the first to show valentines. On the very first
day of February, its windows were filled with bright red hearts and
wonderful pictures made with lacy gilt papers. Some were of little
birds and some were of little boys and little girls, and there was
one that showed a sleek gray pussy-cat like the one that belonged to
the Parillo family. Twice a day, coming to school and returning home,
Maria, Louisa and Angelina passed by the beautiful valentines in that
window.

“Maria,” begged Louisa, “let us go in--just a little minute! We need
not go right home today!”

“Please,” wheedled Angelina. “Please, Maria, do let us!”

“Valentine’s Day is still a long way off,” returned Maria. “There
is work to be done at home. I must see to the fire and wash and iron
Angelina’s dress and then get supper. We cannot stop.” This was the
way it happened every afternoon that the three little Italian girls
passed homeward from school. It was Maria who had taken her mother’s
place. She was the mother of the family now. Was it not she who cooked,
washed, cleaned? Was it not she who with twelve years of wisdom
governed Louisa and Angelina? Did not her father trust her to do the
marketing? Maria with her duties at home was superior to valentines.
Valentines were meant for children. Maria was duty bound, and so every
day the three little Parillos marched past the ten cent store without
stopping to go in. They lived in the three rooms of the brown tenement
on the outskirts of the town. There was a corner to turn after one
had passed by the ten cent store. Often Louisa and little Angelina
hung back and peeped in at the valentines, waiting till Maria should
reach the corner. Then they dashed after her lest she turn and scold,
“Angelina and Louisa, come at once! There is no time to loiter. The
fire in the stove will have gone out if you do not hurry. It will take
time to build another and the rooms will be cold--come, I say!”

“We saw them,” Louisa would announce, almost out of breath, quite as
if Maria were interested. “If I were rich and had money I would buy
the valentine that is beautiful with red roses. I would give it to my
teacher at school.”

“And I would buy more than one,” Angelina would smile. “There is one of
a pussy-cat like ours. I would give it to Marguerite Santos and I would
give her many others beside.”

“The idea!” Maria interrupted. “Marguerite Santos! The unmannerly
child! She is a class behind you in school and you do not know her.
The Santos think themselves better than the Parillos and they will not
let her play with you--all because their father has a fruit store with
candy and peanuts and a telephone!”

“It is because Angelina has the cross teacher this year that she wants
to give valentines to Marguerite,” suggested Louisa. “Her teacher is
not nice and Marguerite has a beautiful red plush cloak--”

“She smiles at me,” defended Angelina. “I like her. I would like to
know her and play with her. I do not think she is at all unmannerly,
Maria.”

But Maria was fitting the key into the home lock and she took her time
to reply. As she hung over the kitchen stove to poke the slumbering
fire, she gave it more than one dig. “The Santos child is unmannerly
and I have seen it,” she insisted. “She did a most unmannerly thing
only the other day as she passed by on the road here going homeward
after school--”

Angelina’s eyes flashed. “Tell me,” she broke in, “tell me what it was,
for I do not believe it!”

“She did! She said _shoo_, it was just like that: she said it to our
good gray cat who was peacefully sleeping in the sun at the doorstone.
It was very unmannerly to shoo our cat!”

Angelina sniffed. “That was nothing,” she defended, “I shoo cats, too.
Marguerite likes cats even as I do, but I often say shoo, shoo! I do it
to see the cat blink its eyes and look at me. Some cats will jump and
run. One does not know what they will do--and I have seen Louisa--”

But here Maria put a hand over Angelina’s mouth. “I do not care what
Louisa has done,” she admonished. “Go get me the soap that is by the
basin in the bedroom so that I may wash the dress. There is no use to
start a quarrel. There is no money to buy valentines at all, either for
Louisa’s teacher or for Marguerite Santos.”

But if the subject of valentines subsided once in a while, it was
sure to start again on the next day when Maria, Louisa and Angelina
passed homeward by the wonderful windows of the ten cent store. There
was never time to stop. Only a hasty glimpse did Louisa and Angelina
snatch. Oh, the joy of going into the store to see the piles of candy
on the candy counter! Oh, the happiness of gazing at bright colored
ribbons and wonderful toys! And the valentines that lay on the counter
in hundreds, what fun to see them, even though one could not spend
money to buy any! Alas!

But it happened that Angelina had received a good mark in spelling
on the day before Valentine’s Day and Maria wished to reward it. “I
promised,” she said. “It is true, Angelina--tomorrow, on Valentine’s
Day, you and Louisa may stop at the store and go in while I go home.
You may stay till the sun sets, but no longer. Today I must hurry home
and I need you to help with the sweeping.”

The gray cat was on the doorstep in the sun as they reached the brown
tenement by the roadside. Angelina lifted it in her arms and Maria
turned the key in the lock. They were home again. Tomorrow would be the
great day to visit the store and see all of its splendor. That night
she dreamed of beautiful valentines and of Marguerite Santos’ red plush
cloak.

The morning of Valentine’s Day dawned with pink and gold happiness
of sunlight. On the way to school, Louisa and Angelina sang and when
school was out they dashed into worn brown cloaks and caps to wait for
Maria, who took her time gathering books and pencils for home-work
at night. “Hurry, hurry!” they implored. “It is four o’clock. The
sun will set by half past four and there will be no time to see the
valentines!” And so Maria hurried. At the ten cent store they left
her--joy!

Hand in hand they pressed into the crowd. “See, Louisa!” and “Look,
Angelina!” they called to each other every minute. But it was Angelina
who caught the first glimpse of the valentines. There at the counter
was the beautiful red plush cloak of Marguerite Santos bending over the
valentines!

Together they pressed past the other children who stood behind that
beautiful red plush cloak and they craned their necks to see the
valentines as Marguerite Santos, absorbed in the selection of the
most beautiful one to be had, turned them over one by one. But there
was no envy in the heart of Louisa and Angelina as they watched. It
was happiness that was there--of course, if one had been rich like
Marguerite Santos--but how nice it was to be where they were! How gay
the music of the pianola sounded! Wasn’t it amusing to watch Marguerite
Santos buy valentines! But right here she took up the one of the gray
pussy-cat!

Angelina nudged Louisa. “See, see!” she whispered. “She likes the
pussy-cat. It is not true what Maria said. She is not unmannerly at
all. I would like to speak to her and ask her to come to play with
me--she has smiled at me many times when I have met her--”

But Louisa shook her head hard. “You must not speak,” she insisted.
“Maybe she would not like to have you see what it was that she bought.”

So, when Marguerite Santos wedged her way out of the crowd, she saw
neither Angelina nor Louisa. She held her valentine of the pussy-cat
tight in its big white envelope--tight upon the front of her red plush
cloak. She was concerned with the care of it, lest some rude person
bump into her and injure it.

Louisa and Angelina waited a moment and then drifted out of the door
after her. The sky was all red and gold with the sunset. It was like
some wonderfully bright valentine card, so beautiful! As they turned
the corner in the dusky twilight and came upon the doorstone of the
brown house that was home, there knelt the beautiful red plush cloak
of Marguerite Santos! She was laying the valentine upon the step and
was about to knock and run away!

It was Angelina who caught her as she turned. Louisa was lagging
behind, with her eyes on the first evening star that flamed white in
the sky.

“Is it really for me?” asked Angelina. With an arm around the beautiful
red plush cloak of Marguerite Santos, she smiled at the big white
envelope that lay unopened on the stone. “I guess that it is a picture
of a pussy-cat like ours,” she beamed. “I have no valentine to give you
but I have always liked you, Marguerite, and I have wanted you to like
me. Could I not give you a share of our gray cat as a valentine, maybe?
I know that you, too, like cats, though you have none.”

But here, Louisa caught up and the door opened.

“It was very mannerly of you to bring Angelina the valentine,” spoke
Maria. “I thank you. Will you not come in and play for a while? It
must be lonely to have no brothers and sisters. We would like you for
our friend, even though we have no candy or peanuts or telephone.
Angelina has for a long time wanted to know you, Marguerite Santos.”




_Buttinski, Peacemaker_


_THE MARCH SURPRISE_


_There was a St. Patrick’s Day shamrock favor in the pocket that was
labelled:_

  “_Open on the 17th of March at 6 A. M._”

_Marjorie was afraid she might oversleep and so miss opening that
pocket entirely till the next March 17th should come around. But Dotty
saw to that. She was always wide awake, bright and early. She woke
Marjorie up even before 6 A. M._

_The story pocket that came next was marked:_

    “_Open in March when the wind blows hard and you have to stay
    indoors._”

_As March came in like a lamb, Dotty kept putting off the reading of
this story to tease Marjorie. When Marjorie begged to know if she might
open it, Dot would chuckle. “The wind doesn’t blow hard enough yet,”
she would say._

_But finally it did blow so hard that Marjorie insisted. Then,
together, they read the story of “Buttinski, Peacemaker.”_




_V_

_Buttinski, Peacemaker_


Nobody would have expected it of them. They were the very best of
friends, and Miss Allen, who was the grade teacher, used to call them
David and Jonathan.

When mental arithmetic and English classes had head and foot, Laura
and Mary made it a point not to know answers of questions that came to
them. So they kept together at the foot of the class, side by side.
Miss Allen never said a word to them or to anybody else, but she
understood. Then the classes stopped having head and foot. But she let
them sit side by side. Even their desks were together.

Mary was always ready to laugh at a joke. Laura couldn’t even see one a
mile off. That was how the trouble started and how little Betty Peters
started to play peacemaker. Everybody called Betty Peters “Buttinski”
because she was always as interested in other people’s affairs as
she was in her own--perhaps a little too much interested. She would
interrupt conversations and ask “What’re you talking about?” Some of
the girls resented it.

It was in beginning German that Betty Peters sat next to Mary. Laura
took French and wasn’t in the class at all. She did not know one word
of German from another. It used to be one of Mary’s jokes to pretend
that she could speak fluently so she would rattle off a long string
of vocabulary with conversational intonations to make Laura believe
she knew a great deal. Of course, Laura only half believed, though she
didn’t understand the joke. Sometimes she really thought that it was
a German conversation and she didn’t like to have Mary talk German to
her because she did not study it and couldn’t understand. Betty Peters
always helped Mary. She used to enjoy the fun.

But one day, it ceased to be fun. Laura always was a little jealous of
Betty Peters. She used to wait at the door of the German room with
Mary’s lunch-box because she herself had a study-hour just before
recess and she could be there as soon as Mary’s class was dismissed.
Then Mary would always call out to Betty Peters a long list of German
words that meant nothing and Betty Peters would reply. On the memorable
Friday when this stopped being amusing, Laura was there waiting when
the two came out. Mary had been full of mischief that day. “Promise not
to tell--I’m going to have a joke,” she whispered as the class filed
out into the hall, Betty behind her.

Laura caught the words and saw Betty’s nod of promise. Then Mary
launched out, “_Die, der, der, die; das, des, dem, das_,” she jabbered
to Betty. Of course, everybody knows that this is feminine and neuter
declension of the definite article, but Laura thought it was something
confidential and jumped to the conclusion that it was a personal remark
about _her_.

She turned upon her heel and walked straight off downstairs. Mary
simply hooted with laughter and ran after her, but the harder she and
Betty Peters laughed, the more indignant Laura grew. She put Mary’s
lunch-box down upon a bench and left it and pushed Mary’s hand off her
shoulder. Mary fell back to get the box. “You’ve done it!” declared
Betty Peters.

“Nonsense!” replied Mary. “She ought to know I was just joking. Maybe
she’s merely pretending to be angry.” But she wasn’t at all sure.

“I think she is really angry,” insisted Betty Peters.

“Well, what could she _think_ I said?” inquired Mary. “I didn’t say
anything at all.”

“Perhaps she thought you said something about her--”

“She ought to know me better,” declared Mary. Then she carried her
lunch-box to the lunch-room with Betty Peters. There was a crowd there.
At first they did not see Laura but when they did, there was no chance
to reach her in the crowd. “She did that on purpose,” suggested Betty
Peters. Mary called to her, but either Laura didn’t hear or pretended
not to, even though some of the other girls spoke to her and Betty
Peters was sure Laura _must_ have been aware of the calls. Such a
thing as a quarrel between Mary and Laura had never before happened.
Nobody knew what to make of it. Mary was mortified and determined to
reach Laura so as to explain and make it all right, but when Betty
Peters and Mary reached her, Laura walked right in the opposite
direction. Mary called after her that it was only a joke, but Laura was
icy. So at last, Mary decided that Laura would have to find out for
herself what “_Die, der, der, die_ and _das, des, dem, das_” meant.
“Two can play at that game,” she snapped, as Laura disappeared. “If
she won’t speak to me, neither will I speak to her!” Betty Peters ate
her lunch in the lunch-room but Mary took hers out into the garden. It
was snowy there and she was all alone. It couldn’t have been a very
nice place to eat lunch! Where Laura went, nobody knew. She was busy
studying all the last part of the recreation period. When Mary came in
as the bell rang, she never moved. Her back was twisted around toward
Mary’s seat. Everybody in the class noticed it, but Miss Allen said
nothing. Perhaps she thought that it would pass off by and by.

But the next week they did not speak either! It was worse. Mary had to
rub the chalk off the blackboard with her handkerchief because Laura,
who was next to her, had the blackboard eraser; and Laura kept it on
her side and Mary wouldn’t ask her for it. Miss Allen took Mary’s book
to give to a visitor who came into history class, but Laura wouldn’t
pass half of hers over to Mary. When Miss Allen saw that she said,
“Laura!” in a sharp voice. So Laura put the book upon the desk between
them and it stayed there. Nobody turned its pages.

At lunch hour, Mary avoided Betty Peters. Laura disappeared and Sallie
Overton found her eating her lunch off on the studio stairs--away
from everything. Mary ate hers alone in the cold garden. It must have
been that Miss Allen realized how silly they were behaving, for she
tried to set matters right. She found out from Betty where Mary was
and she put on her long blue cloak and went into the garden after her.
What happened in the garden, nobody knew, though some of the girls
watched out of the windows and saw Miss Allen talking and Mary using a
handkerchief. They came in together. Sallie Overton told Miss Allen
where Laura was and the class thought Miss Allen had talked to her,
too. It was circulated that Miss Allen had asked them to meet each
other and shake hands. But neither of them seemed to have done it,
for in class things went on as on previous days. It seemed worse than
a Chinese puzzle to solve the difficulty. Some of the girls talked
to Mary and some talked to Laura and begged them to make it up. Both
declared the other wrong and refused to take the first step. “Please,”
begged Betty Peters, the Buttinski. “Please, Laura.” But still nothing
happened. Both seemed to feel dreadfully. Both were about as blue as
Blue Monday. Miss Allen took time from study hour and talked to the
class about friendship and what it meant in terms of self-sacrifice,
generosity and loyalty. Both Mary and Laura wept, but still, after
dismission, they did not shake hands or speak. And both walked home
alone every day.

Miss Allen was correcting papers at her desk as Betty Peters walked
down the aisle to go home. Betty Peters seemed as depressed as Miss
Allen. Indeed, she almost acted as if she had been to blame for the
whole thing and she tried and tried to get Mary to let her tell Laura
what “_Die, der, der, die_ and _das, des, dem, das_” meant. Mary
wouldn’t let her tell. She said that Laura could find out herself.

“Well, Betty?” smiled Miss Allen, looking up from the papers she was
correcting. It seemed to Betty almost as if Miss Allen were thinking of
Laura and Mary. It sounded so.

“It seems a dreadfully hard problem to solve, if two halves are
separated,” suggested Betty Peters, thoughtfully. She stopped beside
Miss Allen’s desk and watched the blue pencil that was marking a cross
upon Laura’s written work.

“Do you mean David and Jonathan?” inquired Miss Allen, with a twinkle
in her eye as she looked at Betty.

Betty nodded.

“How did they go home?”

“On different sides of the street.”

“Oh.”

“It’s really dreadful, isn’t it--and they were such friends!”

“I asked them to overlook the mistake and make it up without
explanations--and with them, if need be.”

“But they won’t do it. The girls have tried to help and I’m sure I
have, too!”

“Well,” smiled Miss Allen. “What’s at the bottom of it, do you know,
Betty?”

Betty nodded. Then Miss Allen pushed aside the papers, “Frankly,” she
said, “I don’t know what to do. They’re both such splendid girls but
neither one of them will be the first to make an apology. They’re very
childish, aren’t they?”

“It’s just a misunderstanding,” explained Betty. “I can tell you. It
was all because Mary made a joke and Laura thought it was a personal
one. Mary said ‘_die, der, der, die_ and _das, des, dem, das_.’ Laura
thought she said something about her to me. Mary wouldn’t let me
explain. She said if Laura thought that, she’d have to find out what
the words meant herself.”

“What sillies!” declared Miss Allen. “I suppose they’ll keep this up
eternally. I’ve tried all manner of ways to stop it; have you anything
to suggest, Betty?”

Betty pondered. “I was wondering,” she mused, “whether if you counted
three and told them both to speak when you came to that, they’d speak?”

“I never thought of that,” laughed Miss Allen. “We’ll try it.”

Next day, she did. She made both of the girls stand and she told each
one to say, “I’m sorry” when she counted three and came to the end. It
really was a disgrace to the class to have the quarrel go on and on.
The girls thought it horrid. But when Miss Allen said, “Three,” all was
silence. The two stood up in the class and neither said a word! The
plan did not work! “Speak!” ordered Miss Allen--but there was nothing
but silence.

But Miss Allen was not going to give up, “Mary,” said she, “you may
decline for me the feminine and neuter of the definite article in
German.”

Mary looked surprised but she said it, “‘_die, der, der, die, das, des,
dem, das_.’”

“Did you ever hear anything like that before?” asked Miss Allen of
Betty Peters.

“Yes,” replied Betty.

“Did you?” asked Miss Allen of Laura.

Laura said she thought so.

“Was that what Mary said on the memorable day when she came out of
German class?”

“I think so,” replied Laura, a little ashamed.

“Was it, Mary?”

“Yes,” said Mary, loudly. She was glad to say it, too. Some of the
girls giggled.

“Take out your English books for grammar, oral,” commanded Miss Allen.
“Betty Peters, you may conjugate the verb ‘to love.’”

So Betty began: “Present tense, indicative mood: I love; thou lovest;
he loves; we love; you love,” and then with her eyes upon Mary and
Laura she ended, “they love.”

Everybody in the class laughed for there was Laura with her arm around
Mary and both of them were laughing and crying, too.

“Buttinski did it,” smiled Miss Allen. “I hope nobody else in this
class will have a quarrel. Now, we’re going to forget that there ever
was such a thing, aren’t we, Laura and Mary?”

Together they both said, “Yes, I’m sorry!”




_Angelina’s Bird-Flower_


THE APRIL SURPRISE

_Marjorie’s surprise for April was, first, a fluffy Easter chicken
card. The Easter story pocket was another story about Angelina. The
pocket said:_

    “_Open on the afternoon of Easter Day at four o’clock._”

_The two little girls let Mother read it aloud to them. It was called
“Angelina’s Bird-Flower.”_




_VI_

_Angelina’s Bird-Flower_


Where the little brown bird came from, neither Maria nor Louisa nor
Angelina knew, but he doubtless lived near, for he came every day to
the window of the old brown house where the little Italian girls lived,
lonely without their mother. It was a year since she had died and the
days were long for Maria, Louisa and Angelina after their father left
for work at six in the morning.

Maria was always up at five. In the early winter, mornings are dark
and it takes courage to get up in a cold room and light the lamp and
make the fire and cook breakfast. Maria was but twelve. She took her
mother’s place as best she could. She helped her father. She tended
Louisa and Angelina and if it had not been that the aunts took the two
babies, she would have cared for them gladly too.

Angelina and Louisa were, for the time, Maria’s “babies.” She let them
play and she did the work herself. She had little time for amusement;
it was always either school or housekeeping for her. There was
breakfast and clearing up in the morning; washing and cleaning after
school; dinner-getting and cleaning again at night, beside a hundred
and one little things that a mother must see to, mending, tidying,
straightening all things. At seven, the father came home tired. Then
there was bed in the cold rooms and a new day of responsibility. Louisa
and Angelina wore washed and ironed hair-ribbons and well done-up
gingham dresses, mended as best Maria could. They took off their shoes
and stockings when at home, to save the wear, and did in general as
Maria told them except for the little brown bird. They would save their
crusts for him in spite of Maria’s scoldings.

He came first on one of the lonely mornings before school time, when
Maria was busy with housework and Louisa and Angelina were thawing the
frosted window pane with their warm breath to look out at the chilly
snow-bound road that led past the old brown house. Louisa had thrown
out a crust because she had not wanted to eat it and there--why, there
was a little brown bird tugging at it in the snow!

“What’re you two laughing at so?” demanded Maria, looking up from
dishwashing. “Take a-hold somebody and help here! I can’t take time to
stand by the window an’ laugh at nothing when there’s work to be done!”
But, dish-rag in hand, curiosity got the better of scolding and she
peeped over Louisa’s shoulder and saw the little brown bird and his
breakfast.

At first she smiled, too, then she frowned. “Louisa,” said she, “you
are bad. It is you who threw out the crust of bread!”

There was no denial.

“And when bread costs money--and we cannot get enough to buy Angelina
new shoes!”

“I would rather the bird had the crust,” defended Angelina. “The holes
are not yet very big.”

But even as mother would have done, Maria watched the family purse,
and Louisa ate crusts under her elder sister’s vigilant eye each meal
time. But there were always very big crumbs at Angelina’s plate and
medium sized ones at Louisa’s. When it came time to clear the table,
Louisa and Angelina, with a glance at each other, picked these up
quickly and threw them out on the snow. It was exciting. Nobody knew
when Maria would call either little sister to account: “Louisa, give me
those crumbs. I will save them and make a pudding.” Always there seemed
to be breakfast for the little brown bird in spite of this. He came
regularly. Sometimes Louisa and Angelina had to pick the crumbs from
the coal-hod where Maria’s over hasty housekeeping threw little ones;
but always, always, always, they kept watch for the little brown bird.
And the mornings before school time were less lonely because of his
cheer. Indeed, as the days went by, he became very tame--tame enough to
hop close to the pane as Louisa and Angelina breathlessly watched.

The mornings gradually grew lighter and the days passed on to the
latter part of February. Louisa and Angelina talked much of their pet.
Where did the little brown bird live? Could they make him so tame he
would come upon their hands? Would he learn to eat from their fingers?
Perhaps there might be a nest with little bits of brown birds somewhere
near the house next spring! Then, Angelina and Louisa might tame
these perhaps! Maria, busy with housework, had no time to answer such
questions. She merely sniffed.

“You two are forever talking about that little brown bird,” she said,
“I have to think of other things: I think whether there is wood for the
fire and whether there is enough food in the house. You, too, Louisa
and Angelina, you have mouths to feed!”

It was true. There was not always enough. Louisa and Angelina knew
it. They could well understand the little brown bird’s joy at finding
plenty to eat. It was good to have a hearty meal. Then one day, before
it was time to go to school, Louisa and Angelina missed the little
brown bird! “Did you see him this morning?” they asked each other.
“Maybe he has gone away and is making a nest.”

But the next day came and no little brown bird appeared. Another
morning passed and still no little brown bird! On their way home
from school that day Louisa whispered to Angelina that she was going
to hunt for him. And when Maria was busy, they crept out of the door
and, barefoot in the cold mud, they searched for nests by the roadside
bushes.

They found none.

The search led them hither and thither on and on up the hill near the
brown house and toward a cluster of cottages where the Irish immigrants
had formed a colony. Maria, shaking her finger violently, as she did
when she wished to enforce a command, insisted always that neither
Angelina nor Louisa should make friends or play with the Irish children
there. “They throw stones--they are badly brought up,” she declared.

Up to this time, good little Angelina and Louisa had never come so
close to these other tenements. But they wandered closer in their
search for the little brown bird. It was Angelina who first spoke to
the little boys that they met flinging stones there. “Have you seen a
little brown bird?” she asked. “It might be our little bird that we
have lost. Have you seen one anywhere, perhaps?”

But the little boys simply made up faces and stuck out their tongues.
No, they had not seen any brown birds to tell of--nor did they care.
They would have thrown stones, had not a little smile from Angelina
prevented it. Angelina felt sorry for the bad little boys who were rude.

Louisa drew her away. “Come, Ange, we will look in another place,” she
urged. “If he has been hurt we will find him, maybe. I do not think
they have hurt him,” she comforted. But in her heart she feared it.

So they pattered back toward home through the black chilly mud,
searching the roadside. Quite suddenly Louisa came upon him lying limp
and cold under a tree by the way. He would never twitter or chirp
again. He would never come to the window or eat from their fingers
or build a nest in spring. The two little sisters sat there by the
roadside and cried and then they carried the little brown bird home and
cried some more. Maria stopped her work and tried to be comforting.
There was little to say. She did not scold very hard about the trip
abroad in bare feet.

They put him in the beautiful box that was Maria’s treasure--a box with
a picture on its cover, a beautiful picture all red roses. They took
him to a sunny spot near the roadside and gathered last autumn’s leaves
to cover him. One could see the place from the window.

The mornings that came after the little brown bird went away, Ange and
Louisa tried to enthuse over paper dolls that father had brought them,
cut from a Sunday newspaper--but somehow they always drifted toward the
window, even though they knew he would never come again.

And so time passed, long mornings, school and home-coming. It began to
be spring. Grass came by the roadside bushes that showed wee buds to
break into soft colors. Maria left the kitchen door open of a morning
and Angelina sat on the stone before the doorway, thinking. Her eyes
rested for a moment upon the place where they had placed the little
brown bird under the leaves. She called to Louisa, “Oh, come--come!
Let us see what the bird-flower is! We put him under the leaves in the
earth, and there is grown from him a flower! It is a bird-flower--a
bird-flower, Louisa!”

They ran out to look at the little flower that grew over the spot where
the little brown bird had been. “Is it so, Ange?” asked Louisa, willing
to believe.

Full of excitement, they ran back to busy Maria. “Our little brown bird
is grown to be a bird-flower,” they cried. “Come, Maria, come quickly
and see! It is such a pretty flower, all like a star and white!”

Maria shook her head. “There are no bird-flowers,” she declared. But
she followed them out to the sunny spot where the grass was growing
green over the dead leaves and she thought it a beautiful flower. She
let Louisa and Angelina talk of their bird-flower, but she smiled to
herself.

But why should not little birds who have been stoned waken, with the
flowers, in the spring sunlight? Louisa and Angelina believed in their
bird-flower and they wondered, too, if all spring flowers came from
little birds. At night when their father came home, they asked him. At
first he laughed and did not understand. Maria explained.

“They are children,” she smiled, “and they think a bird is like a bulb
or seed. They cannot understand the difference. They watched the little
brown bird all winter, and Louisa gave it crusts that she ought to
have eaten. And they found it by the roadside where the rude children
up the hill had killed it. We put the little bird under the leaves
there and now that a flower has come in the place, they call it their
bird-flower, father!”

Then he put a hand on each little head. “My little girls,” he said, “is
it true--then call it your bird-flower if it comforts you. I will tell
you what I think: they say that there are no little birds in heaven,
for their souls do not live, they say. Yet I know there are children up
there and that wherever the children are there must be birds to sing
to them--even the angel children would want them. And I know that your
mother would miss them, too, were they not there.”

In the stillness they heard a song sparrow trill from the bushes on the
hillside.

“I would like to have our little brown bird sing to our mother,”
Angelina suggested softly.

“He might sing of us,” whispered Louisa.

But Maria was still.

“There are many birds left, my children. You too should sing and not be
sad, for that is what is best. We will make happiness and brightness,
you, my Angelina, and you, my Louisa. We will make a garden there in
the place where you have found your star flower! I will get seeds. We
will take Maria from her kitchen to help and there will be plenty to do
in the early mornings before school then. Such weeds as you will have
to watch for, to care for the beautiful flowers that I will plant! Ah,
then your mornings will be so glad among the flowers!”

The three little girls smiled.

And the garden that grew up around Ange’s bird-flower all three of them
called the garden of the little brown bird.




_Marjorie’s Mystery_


_THE MAY SURPRISE_

_Marjorie’s May surprise was a paper May basket, of course. You know
all about that. And the story pocket that came in May, Dotty had
labelled:_

    “_Open on May Day, too._”

_Marjorie opened it right after the first pocket, but she had to keep
the story till afternoon to read. She read it to Dotty after they
came home. “I chose it because the little girl in the story was named
after you,” smiled Dot. And so they had the funny story of “Marjorie’s
Mystery.”_




_VII_

_Marjorie’s Mystery_


Upon Marjorie’s list of good resolutions, not-to-be-too-curious was a
failing hard to remember and conquer. In the first place, Marjorie was
very wide awake. She always saw everything that was happening. In the
second place and in the third place as well as the tenth and thirteenth
place, Marjorie couldn’t bear not to know everything that she wanted to
know. Sometimes, she went quite too far in her attempts to find out. At
any rate, Daddy and Mother and Mark and Dotty made fun of the failing
and Marjorie, when she stopped to think twice--which wasn’t so very
often--tried hard to overcome unnecessary curiosity. Sometimes it is a
fine thing to be curious and again, it’s bad. But upon a very memorable
day in May, once upon a time, something mysterious came to pass at
Marjorie’s home and this is to be the story of The Great Mystery of
Curiosity, Unanswered.

It happened this way: Daddy was away; Mark had gone off since Friday to
make a visit at a boy friend’s just out of town a little way; Dotty had
also gone away. She spent the night with the little girl next door and
had not yet come home. It was a Monday morning and May Day.

Marjorie had prepared a May Day basket for her special friend, Mabel.
She had been out in the woods on Sunday afternoon and as soon as she
was through breakfast, the bowl of May Day flowers came out--and in
arranging them they scattered all over the floor as Marjorie selected
the unwilted ones to put into Mabel’s basket.

“Look out,” warned Mother. “Somebody came last night when you were
abed. Somebody may be down to breakfast by and by--better pick up,
Marjorie! We don’t want a disorderly floor.”

“Oh, did Daddy come home?” questioned Marjorie.

“No, not Daddy.”

“Who?”

“Oh, just somebody who wants to keep quiet this morning and rest.”

Wasn’t that enough to make a person curious! Of course it was! Who? Who
could it be? “Is it uncle or aunt?” she insisted. “Who’s ‘company’?”

But Mother only smiled. “You’ll find out sometime,” she said. “Not now.
If I told you, you’d run right up to Mark’s room and the person who
came last night felt sick and mustn’t be disturbed.”

Hump! The flowers were pushed into the paper May basket and she began
to pick up the leaves and buds that had fallen on the floor. “I think
you might tell me,” she begged. “I want to know who came.”

But Marjorie got no answer. She knew it wasn’t much use to continue to
tease, but she resolved to find out who it was.

At school the question still pursued Marjorie. Would Mark come home
and want his room and, if he did, would _he_ know who was there? After
school she dashed home and burst through the back door and up the back
stairs. Mark’s door was closed. There was a paper pinned upon it. It
was Mother’s writing and it said, “Please don’t disturb.”

So Marjorie passed by the door. She went into Mother’s room and found
Mother sewing. “Isn’t company ever going to wake up?” she asked. “Am I
_never_ to know who is there?”

But she received no answer only a smile.

Dotty was home now. Dotty didn’t know who was in Mark’s room, but she
wasn’t curious about things. She was occupied in cutting out paper
dolls, sitting on the floor in the sun beside the window.

“What happened at luncheon?” asked Marjorie of Dotty who went to
kindergarten and came home at noon. “Did anybody _talk_ in Mark’s room
when Mother took up the tray? Did you hear anything?”

Dotty shook her head.

Deary me! Oh, dear! And the door was _closed_! Marjorie decided to walk
by it again. She waited and she listened. She heard nothing at all--no,
not a sound, _not a sound_! Then the telephone bell rang and she ran
down to answer it. The telephone call was from Mabel. Mabel had been at
school and she wanted to know if Marjorie had solved the mystery.

“Who came? Who is it?” she asked.

But Marjorie did not know. Mabel suggested that it must be Marjorie’s
aunt who came from the West. “Probably that’s it,” she said. “Why don’t
you make a May basket and go tie it on the door and--and say something.
You could tell from the voice, if it answered you, whether it was your
aunt or not.” That was a good thought. Marjorie set about making a
paper May basket. She heard Mother go up the front stairs and cross
to the back where Mark’s door was. Then, having made the basket, she
decided to try Mabel’s suggestion. Mother went into Mark’s room, came
out and went downstairs again. Marjorie waited.

Then she went upstairs softly. Mother was in the living-room with Dotty
now, playing and helping her cut the dolls out of a big magazine sheet.
They seemed occupied.

May basket in hand, Marjorie tiptoed toward Mark’s door and saw that
the paper had been taken off it. She hung the May basket on the knob
and knocked. There was no answer. “May I come and bring you a May Day
gift?” she softly suggested to the closed door.

But right here, _who should appear but Mother_! “I’ll take the basket
in for you, dear,” she smiled. Marjorie was quite aware of the wicked
twinkle in her eye. “Dotty wants you to help her downstairs,” she said.

So downstairs went Marjorie. She stopped half way as Mother opened the
mysterious door and passed in with the May basket. She saw nothing. She
heard nothing. Now, wasn’t that just dreadful! Marjorie’s curiosity was
much bigger than ever but she went down to help darling little sister,
Dotty, cut paper dolls out of the fashion sheet.

But while she cut for Dotty, she kept wondering and wondering and
_wondering_. She decided that she’d write a note upon some paper and
slip it under the door and say on the paper:

    Who are you, mysterious stranger? Please answer? Are you Auntie?
    If you are Auntie, let me know, please. I want to see you. If you
    are Mother’s friend, Miss Phelps, please tell me? Mother says you
    want to be quiet, so I can’t come in, but I want to know who you
    are--please, please put an answer under your door for me.

                                                             MARJORIE.

That was what she did do as soon as the last doll had been cut out. At
the time, Mother was busy in the kitchen, getting tea. Dotty was still
playing with the dolls. Marjorie slipped upstairs and tucked the paper
beneath the crack. As she came to the end of the paper, she gave it a
wiggle to attract attention. She hadn’t dared to speak again as Mother
said the mysterious person must not be troubled.

As the paper disappeared under the door Mother appeared! She came
bringing a napkin and tray with something hot upon it. She was going to
take this into Mark’s room.

“Marjorie,” she reproved. “Are you still so curious? Well, run away
now.”

Marjorie waited in the hall and heard Mother speaking--but nothing
else! She was almost ashamed to pursue the mystery so openly but when
Mother at last came out bringing the tray and the empty dishes, she
laughingly handed Marjorie an answer to the letter. It said in strange
scrawls that betrayed nothing of who had written them:

    Please, I feel sick. You’ll see me sometime when I am better. I
    just want to sleep now.
                                            THE MYSTERIOUS MYSTERY.

Marjorie laughed and then she frowned. Now, _why_ couldn’t that
person-whoever-it-was have signed a name! Why not!

“How long before the person in Mark’s room will be well?” she asked.

“Oh, soon,” replied Mother. “I hope very soon.”

“What time? Will I know who it is by tea-time?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, deary me!” Marjorie sighed. “Well, I’ve tried every way I can to
find out,” she said. “Perhaps I’d better forget about it. I’m going to
do my home-work for school so I can forget about it.” And she sat down
at the library table with pencil, paper and books. But still, nothing
happened!

Then it grew twilight and the light was lit in the dining-room.
Marjorie rose and set the supper-table as usual. “How many places shall
I set, Mother?” she inquired. “I don’t really mean to be curious any
more--but you see, I must know. Mark will be home tonight and there
will be Daddy--he’ll be here--and there’s you and there’s me and, I
_suppose_ The Mystery will be down, will it?”

“The Mystery will be down,” answered Mother, “but we’ll only need four
places.”

But right here into the room came Mark. “Hello,” he greeted Marjorie.
“Say, that’s one on you for curiosity, Marj! But the May basket was a
peach! I’d have called to you only Mother said I mustn’t else you’d
be in and talk to me and I felt pretty sick, I tell you! I got sick
at Jimmie’s house and they telephoned home here the night I went away
after you were asleep. Mother thought I’d better come right home, if
I was going to be sick, so they sent me home late at night in their
car--it’s a joke on you, Marjorie. How about a Mysterious Stranger?”

Mother laughed. And so, too, did Marjorie.




_The Two Little Bates Girls_


_THE JUNE SURPRISE_

_The four-leaf clover that came in June’s first pocket was a pressed
four-leaf clover marked, “To help in examination time.” The story that
came in the other June pocket was “The Two Little Bates Girls” and it
was labelled:_

    “_Read and open after your arithmetic examination is over._”




_VIII_

_The Two Little Bates Girls_


They were not at all alike and they were not even sisters--those
two little Bates girls. One had curly light hair and the other had
bobbed-off black hair. One was slender and the other was plump. One had
blue eyes and the other had brown ones and both were as different as
different could be, though the names of both came upon Miss Kennedy’s
school roll one after the other; first Mamie and then Mary.

Mary had light curls that bobbed in a lively way even in arithmetic
class, where everything was rather subdued by hard problems that Miss
Kennedy set. Mamie Bates had bobbed black hair that had a way of
falling over her forehead when she was bending over work--in brief,
Mary Bates was lively and Mamie Bates was not. Mamie Bates acknowledged
that arithmetic was about the hardest thing in school but Mary Bates
said it was easy, even though Miss Kennedy’s blue pencil went over her
paper and made big blue crosses that meant “Wrong” as often as they
crossed the papers of Mamie in the same way.

It ought not to have been so. Nevertheless the first quarterly report
that Miss Kennedy made out for Mamie and Mary Bates ranked them side by
side--seventy-six percent! That’s not a high mark; Miss Kennedy shook
her head over both marks. It was surely nothing to be proud of!

Mary Bates refused to show her report.

Mamie Bates hung her head woefully and explained that she had tried the
best she knew how--which was right. Both of them decided to try even
harder next quarter. And they did try. Mamie Bates mounted up to eighty
percent, and in one examination, she achieved eighty-three! “Next
time,” urged Miss Kennedy, “see if you can’t make it eighty-five!” Mary
Bates did not tell her mark. It may have been that she was ashamed of
it or it may have been that she did not want to brag. Nobody knew which.

But when Mamie Bates went home, she told her daddy all about that
eighty-three percent and her daddy smiled and said, “Well, if you’ll
make the next one ninety instead of eighty-five, and if you’ll keep all
the other marks above eighty-three after that, by the end of the next
quarter you shall have--What do you want most?”

“A pony and a cart,” laughed Mamie.

“A pony and a cart,” repeated daddy. “A real live pony and a basket
cart!”

Hooray! Think of it! Think of it--a pony and a pony cart! That was the
way things stood with Mamie Bates during the last quarter of the year
in Miss Kennedy’s room. The black bobbed hair fell over her eyes more
industriously than ever as she bent over her problems in arithmetic. In
the margins of Mamie Bates’s examination and test papers each Friday
there began to appear such delectable written words as, “Well done,
Mamie.” But the big blue crosses didn’t quite disappear--oh, no!

Mary Bates continued to keep her marks to herself. Very rarely did she
show any. Those that she did show weren’t so bad as some of the other
girls’ papers. But there never seemed to be “Well done, Mary,” on any
one of them. Even though there was nothing of this kind, Mary Bates
seemed contented with them. She said she had received ninety-five in
deportment and that was about the best mark that anybody could ever
receive. Miss Kennedy would never give a higher deportment mark. Even
Sallie Roberts who was noted throughout the whole class room for being
“awfully good” never received a higher mark than ninety-five--but then,
only the very bad scholars received less. Mary Bates also said that she
had a splendid report in spelling. She didn’t say what, but everybody
knew that she could spell. So could Mamie.

And so the time went by each week nearer and nearer to Mamie Bates’s
excited anticipation of that pony! The marks, so far, had been all
right. Daddy would have to keep the promise! Toward the end of the
quarter every girl in the class was wondering if she were going to pass
herself. It all depended upon the final tests. Even Mary Bates admitted
that she was a little shaky but not much. She thought she knew it all.

Mercy! How Miss Kennedy’s class did drill! Over the old, old stumbling
blocks they went with long pieces of yellow scratch paper. It did
seem as if everybody must pass the arithmetic test! Then the week of
examinations came and with it the worst dreaded of all, _arithmetic
examination_!

Over this, Mary Bates shook her curls soberly. Mamie Bates struggled
with black hair falling over her forehead. And then the time was up and
papers had to be handed in. Mamie Bates gave in her paper reluctantly.
Her cheeks were flushed. As soon as it had gone, she asked if she might
look at it again, just for a minute. Miss Kennedy smiled. She didn’t
let her. “Time’s up, Mamie,” she admonished. “What’s done must stay--it
isn’t fair to the rest, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” returned Mamie, “but you see the pony and pony cart
depend upon it. The others aren’t working for so much.” But Miss
Kennedy passed on. Everybody in the class knew of daddy’s promise and
hoped Mamie would win that percent in her arithmetic--everybody.

Mary Bates brought her paper to Miss Kennedy’s desk without even
waiting for it to be collected. “I’m sure I got everything right,” she
chirped. “It was easy! I think I’ll get ninety-five! There’s only one
thing that might be wrong.”

Sallie Overton nudged her neighbor. “I don’t believe it,” she
whispered. “She always thinks that she knows everything. I think it was
hard, don’t you?”

Oh, dear! Everybody seemed depressed as they left for home that
afternoon--everybody but Mary Bates who was _quite_ sure of herself
always. Everybody compared notes with everybody else on the way home
but nobody seemed sure. One had to wait till the reports came in. It
was dreadful to wait--at least dreadful for little Mamie Bates who
was thinking about daddy’s promise and the pony. One always made more
mistakes than one knew of, somehow, yet she had tried ever so hard. She
hoped she was right. She had tried not to get excited. She had tried
to stop and think over rules and she thought she ought to have done
something she hadn’t done, of course. It was fearfully hard to wait
till Monday. On Monday the report cards were to be given out. Almost
everybody was expecting some kind of a surprise that day, but the
surprise that Miss Kennedy’s class anticipated was one of percents, not
of teachers. When the class assembled, there in Miss Kennedy’s chair
and right at her desk making out the report cards sat--a substitute
teacher! She would tell nobody what the marks were and she just
snapped. Really, Miss Kennedy would have told Mamie Bates, at least.
_She_ knew about the pony. But the substitute teacher only said that
there was no hurry, they’d know fast enough. She didn’t like to be
asked questions at all. She said Miss Kennedy might not come back at
all--no, of course not! Why should she? (At this everybody looked more
worried than ever. All the class loved Miss Kennedy. Sallie Overton had
openly said that she didn’t want to pass because if she did, next year,
she’d have to leave Miss Kennedy’s room.) But at the end of the study
period, before being finally dismissed, the report cards were given
out, _at last_!

Mamie Bates grasped hers. She hardly dared to look, but when she
did, tears sprang to her eyes and she had to shake the brown bobbed
hair over them. There it was _seventy-six percent_! The schoolroom
blurred--only seventy-six percent! And how hard she had tried to please
daddy--and how she did want that pony! Yet all hope was gone now
because the final mark had fallen below! Mechanically she stood to be
dismissed. Mechanically she went to the cloak room, and mechanically
she walked toward home.

Seventy-six--not even eighty-three! And the pony--the pony!

Daddy didn’t ask about reports. Mamie Bates decided to wait and give
the bad news out when she herself was a little more used to it. Perhaps
next day, she could do it. Of course, seventy-six would promote one
into the next grade, but it wouldn’t give the pony! If Miss Kennedy
had been there, she would have explained to Mamie Bates all about her
mistakes, but the substitute kept the papers. She didn’t seem to think
much of anybody’s mark--but substitutes never do seem to care. Mamie
hoped Miss Kennedy would come back next day. She’d explain everything.

And the next day, sure enough, there was Miss Kennedy at her desk,
smiling. As Mamie came in and passed her, she smiled. “Mamie,” she
smiled, “I’m glad about your arithmetic. Are you?”

Mamie hung her head. “It wasn’t good, Miss Kennedy,” she stated, trying
hard not to cry. “I thought I was doing it right but I must have been
careless. I really knew about everything!”

“Let’s see your paper,” asked Miss Kennedy--but the substitute had the
paper. Miss Kennedy didn’t know of any very bad trouble. “Let’s see
your card, then,” she asked.

Mamie took it out of her book where it was hidden, unsigned as yet by
daddy. “It’s too bad,” she sighed. “There can’t be any pony at all now!”

“No pony? Why not?” And then Miss Kennedy saw the seventy-six percent
upon the report card! “Why, why, Mamie Bates!” exclaimed Miss Kennedy.
“Your mark is ninety-six, not seventy-six! I’ve just seen it in the
teacher’s book. That must be a mistake! Wait a minute and I’ll see.”
Off she dashed to get the examination papers in the next room. Mamie
Bates’s heart went pit-pat. She was sure Miss Kennedy was right--oh,
_the pony_!

Yes, of course, it was a mistake--a mistake made by the substitute. She
had mixed the marks of the two little Bates girls, who were no more
alike than their arithmetic marks!

Mary Bates said she didn’t care so long as she passed, so perhaps the
change of her mark didn’t matter so much. It was really Mamie Bates who
had worked hardest, anyhow.

But the really lovely thing that happened, happened at the close of
school that day. When Mamie Bates came out of school, there was a pony
and a pony cart waiting by the curb and daddy was in the cart! He--how
did _he_ know about the arithmetic reports being all right? But it
didn’t take Mamie Bates long to claim the pony! She wanted to know if
he had a name and when daddy said he didn’t think so, he was called
Arithmetic right then and there. Miss Kennedy came out to see him and
had the first ride behind him.




_Arne’s Fourth of July Battle_


_THE JULY SURPRISE_

_The July pocket that came first was opened on July third at noon. It
held a wee American flag. The story pocket came later and it held a
Fourth of July story. They read it sitting in the hammock on the porch.
It was called, “Arne’s Fourth of July Battle.”_




_IX_

_Arne’s Fourth of July Battle_


Arne drove the white horse, Christopher, into Danville every morning
to take the milk to the creamery. He started from the farm as soon as
the milk was in the cans, just as Lyman or Leslie--whichever it might
happen to be--took the cows to the wood pasture. It was a long drive
over the Prairie Road into Danville Creamery. Most usually it was
uneventful. And every day, now that the last of June had come, grew
warmer and warmer. Some days it was decidedly hot on the Prairie Road,
even though Arne and Christopher started so early of a morning.

There were almost always errands to do in Danville, after having been
to the creamery. Afterwards, Arne and Christopher had to hurry back
to the farm because there was work to do there, too. The men needed
Christopher in the fields, and Arne, too. There never was any time to
idle along the road. It seemed to Arne that work never ended. He wanted
some fun--that’s what he wanted. The other boys didn’t have to work all
the time in summer--but then, it wasn’t all of them that owned thrift
cards. Arne did. He already had earned ten stamps. When he thought of
that, then he was rather glad he had the work to do for his father.
His father gave him a thrift stamp every week that work was well and
satisfactorily done--and without shirking. So far, Arne had only missed
getting his stamp once. That was when he slipped off one day to go to
the swimming-hole with Jimmy Smith when he was supposed to be working
in the hay-field, raking. That was last week.

As Arne reflected upon these things and Christopher jogged into
Danville that day that was the very last day of June, he slapped the
reins and decided that he would lose no more thrift stamps. He wore his
knot of red, white and blue ribbon pinned on his blue shirt and he was
“doing his bit” quite as much as anybody, even though the other boys
did have more chance to have fun. Then he looked up and saw--the circus
poster!

Right then and there, he stopped Christopher and sat gazing at it. The
circus was coming to Danville on the Fourth of July--twenty-five cents
admission. The picture showed all manner of lovely ladies dancing on
the backs of black horses. It showed elephants that played hoop; it
pictured funny clowns and monkeys riding dogs--in short, everything
that a circus ought to be seemed suggested by the big circus poster.
“I’m a-goin’,” Arne resolved aloud. “Sure, I’m a-goin’ to it, somehow!”
Then he clucked to Christopher and the wagon rattled onward toward
the creamery. Just that one afternoon was the circus coming. It was a
splendid kind of Fourth of July treat. “I guess my father’ll let me
go,” he mused. “I guess so.”

When he reached Danville, all the lads who were waiting for cans to be
emptied had gathered in a knot near the creamery door. Everybody was
talking about the circus. Everybody was going.

Harold Sniffin’s cans were ready first. He and Arne came the same road
so he waited to go home with him. They tied Christopher to the back of
Harold’s cart and the two sat together and talked as they rode home
over the Prairie Road. Harold’s father let _him_ buy his own thrift
stamps. Harold was going without his weekly stamp and was going to buy
his circus ticket with the twenty-five cents. As Arne had no money,
Harold suggested this method of getting a ticket. Fourth of July did
not always bring a circus. This year there had been no spring circus at
all. Circuses couldn’t travel well on account of the railroads needing
the cars now. This circus, it seemed, had gone from town to town upon
its own feet and in its own circus wagons.

They had decided to go together and start early when the road of
Harold’s turning came. Then they unhitched Christopher and Arne whipped
up and came clattering into the red barn at home. “There’s a circus
coming to Danville on the Fourth,” he laughed. “Guess that’s a fine
way to celebrate a _Safe an’ Sane_ day!”

Only four more days to wait! Hooray! All that afternoon, Arne sang
happily as he ran around the farm doing chores. He reflected, as
he hoed his patch late in the afternoon, that farm work was really
patriotic work and that he, right there hoeing, was doing his bit as
much as if he were buying a thrift stamp. Of course he was!

That night when he was coming from the barn, after having fed the
calves their bran mixture, he met his father. He explained about the
circus. He wanted the money instead of the stamp, he said.

“All right,” said father. There the matter dropped. He did not ask
about the circus at all.

But Arne talked a great deal about it to his mother. He talked about it
to Lyman and Leslie, who were helpers at the farm. When it was dark and
chores were done, he sat on the flat stone at the doorstep and watched
the stars come out while he thought about it some more--only four more
days!

The morning of the first of July, Christopher trotted into Danville at
a pretty rapid pace. Indeed, he was rather white around the collar
when they at last reached the circus poster on the road to Danville.
But he earned his rest, for there Arne stopped and gazed at all the
wonderful things. The circus poster promised many, many more than were
pictured there. It said a thousand thrills would be felt by everyone
who witnessed the daring tight-rope walking. It spoke of the Wild West
and Indians that were a feature of the performance. It was only a big
poster but one felt after looking at it, that one could hardly wait
three days more before the Fourth should come! And going home from
Danville, Arne again sat beside Harold while Christopher jogged behind.
Again they talked. Again they planned. Again they undid Christopher
from the rear of Harold’s cart. Again at the crossroads, they parted
till the morrow. And again on the morrow, the very same thing occurred.

Only one day more before the Fourth! In the country few have
firecrackers. Arne was thinking chiefly about that circus. He and
Harold planned to go in time to see the parade in the morning. Only one
day more--

Then the next day it rained. It rained unexpectedly in the afternoon
when the hay was all ready to pitch. They had to hurry out, even in
the rain, and stack it. Arne went with the others. He was wet through
when he came in but his spirits were undampened by the shower. Only
one night more--and then, Fourth of July and circus! Hooray! Hooray!
Hooray! Tomorrow! _Tomorrow!_

After he had fixed the bran mixture for the calves that night, Arne
hung around the barn where Lyman and Leslie were milking. He liked to
hear them talk and joke together. Tonight, he himself felt that there
was only one big subject of conversation and he broached this as he
came through with the empty pails that had held the calves’ supper.
“I’m goin’ to the Danville circus tomorrow,” he chirped. “Be you goin’
too?”

“You’re lucky, kid,” replied Leslie. “How’d you get the money?”

“My week’s wages,” answered Arne. “The thrift stamp money.” When
he said it, somehow, it sounded queer. It sounded--yes, it sounded
unpatriotic. But Arne felt it only a second. He lifted himself with a
jump to the side of the hay-cart that stood near-by and dangled his
bare feet from denim overalls, “I’m goin’ with Harold,” he amplified.
“We’re goin’ to hitch by the creamery an’ see the parade.” He swung his
legs and whistled. The tune was _The Star-Spangled Banner_.

“I used to think more of firecrackers an’ that kind of thing when I was
a kid,” said Leslie. “But I guess all them firecracker jiggers went
over the other side when the war come. ’Tain’t patriotic to spend money
for ’em now, these days. There’ll be bangin’ enough to suit everybody
this July Fourth, I reckon, without firecrackers. We’re fightin’ for
freedom in the same old way but our firecrackers are bigger’n they used
to be an’ it takes our boys in the trenches to handle ’em. Just as soon
as I’m old enough, I’m goin’ over there to help, I am!”

“Me too,” said Lyman. “It’s all right doin’ one’s bit here on a farm
but I’m goin’ to help ’em win the war!”

Leslie laughed. “Sounds as if you was goin’ to do the whole of it,” he
chuckled.

Arne laughed. “Wish I could go, too,” he smiled. “I’d like it--oh,
I’d like to be in a big battle an’ hear the noise an’ see the guns an’
get right at the enemy an’ plant a flag where it’d wave for victory!
_It’d be great!_ I’d rather fight in this war than any other that ever
was--more’n Bunker Hill or Lexington, I would.” He stopped. Across his
mind there flashed the phrase he had so often seen, “Help win the war.”
It was on so many posters that the government used, and weren’t the
thrift stamps helping to win the war? Surely they were!

Lyman broke in upon these thoughts. “You couldn’t go for a long time,
kid,” he teased. “You’re just a colt. You don’t have to work in the
field a-gettin’ that hay fixed tomorrow! There’s circuses for you yet.
It’s work for us men, though, double-time work, too. We’ll be doin’
our bit in the field on Fourth of July. It mayn’t seem glorious as a
celebration but it’s all we can do till we’re at camp for trainin’.”

No circus for Lyman and Leslie! Work in the field on Fourth of July!
Arne stopped swinging his feet and looked thoughtful. Maybe he wasn’t
living up to the colors, after all! How about the money for that thrift
stamp? Suppose every boy and girl should buy a circus ticket instead
of a thrift stamp--how about Uncle Sam’s helping to win the war with
that money?

Nobody knew that there was a battle going on. Nobody heard it. Nobody
saw it. The battle was between Uncle Sam’s need and Arne’s love of fun.
It was a hot battle. Sometimes it went a little in favor of Arne’s love
of fun and then, again, it came back to Uncle Sam’s need. Arne slid
down from the hay-wagon quietly and slipped off to the house. He was
quiet at supper time. At sunset, he went out to take in the flag. It
always waved from the white flag-pole in front of the house. As the
colors touched his hands, Arne knew which had won. It was Uncle Sam, of
course!

He jogged into Danville creamery on the morning of the Fourth of July
with Christopher’s reins flapping hard as they passed by the big
poster. He met Harold. He told him. “I guess this year I won’t go to
the circus, after all,” he explained. “I want to help Uncle Sam win
this war--’tain’t much I can do but I _can_ give the money for the
stamp.”

And when he rattled into the big red barn afterwards, he was whistling
_The Star Spangled Banner_. “I’ll bet we win this war!” he shouted to
Lyman who was bringing in a load of hay. “I’m goin’ to work with you
men today--I’m not a-goin’ to any kid circus, I ain’t!”




_The Blackberry Adventure_


_THE AUGUST SURPRISE_

_Ever since the Surprise Book had come to Marjorie, she had been
wondering what was in that first very lumpy big pocket that was marked
for August first. She had felt of it repeatedly and guessed all manner
of things that Dotty said weren’t at all right. Indeed, it would have
been hard to guess for Dotty had put the first August surprise into a
flat box. When the box was opened, there lay a bright penny. Whoever
would have guessed it! That was a splendid surprise! The August story
was directed to be opened_

    “_On a warm summer afternoon._”

_As there were no other directions, Marjorie opened it upon the first
of August. That truly was a hot day--a day to make one wish to sit
still and read of the happy adventures of the little girls who went
berrying in “The Blackberry Adventure.”_




_X_

_The Blackberry Adventure_


They came upon the old house one day when they were out blackberrying
in vacation time. It was the kind of house that people used to build
long ago. It had a long, sloping roof behind and the roof ran down
almost to the ground. The house was very weather-beaten and out of
repair. It looked battered and forlorn. Of course, it had long been
deserted. Weeds grew rank in its front yard. It was far away from any
neighbors. Solita and Sue had wandered far from the village. They
hardly knew just how they had reached the place where so many berries
grew, but they knew it was far from where they were boarding that
summer.

Nobody seemed to have lived in the house for ever so long. Creepers
covered the fence and what was once a roadway, leading toward the
rear, was all overgrown. There were blackberry bushes thick everywhere.

At first Solita and Sue didn’t think much about the house, though it
was rather a surprise to have come upon it suddenly. They had explored
the different roads in the country near White Farm but never a deserted
house had they found yet. At first both Solita and Sue did not observe
it because they were all-absorbed in berry-picking. It was wonderful
how fast the pails filled up with big, juicy, ripe fruit!

Solita had her pail full and was picking more berries to fill her
white canvas hat. She didn’t stop to think that the berries would ruin
it--she just wanted to get as many berries as possible! The hat was all
she had to use. Sue was racing with her and her basket was nearly full.
There must have been at least three quarts. It was much more roomy than
the tin pail or Solita’s hat.

The rest of the children who had started from White Farm with Sue
and Solita were lagging along the roadside in the rear. Just how far
away they were, the two leaders did not bother to consider. There was
Albert, the baby, and he was bound to go slowly with Matilda. Probably
some of the children were just fooling in the brook or sitting by the
wayside. It was not everybody who was as energetic as Sue and Solita
that hot day!

So Solita and Sue, proud to outdo all the others, picked fast and
furiously and did not stop. Step by step they had progressed to this
wonderful, wonderful berry patch beside the old house. All of a sudden,
Solita shouted, “I’ve won!” She made her way with difficulty through
the tangle, holding her hat, piled high. The tin pail hung upon her arm
and dropped berries at every step.

“Let’s see?” Sue questioned. “I don’t believe it; you come here an’
we’ll compare.”

So the two floundered around in the high growth of weeds and made for
the first clear space that there seemed to be. They met at the stone
doorstep of the old house and put their load of berries down there upon
its broad, flat tableland.

My! But they were a sight! Solita’s pink gingham dress was torn in
several places and her arms were a sight to behold--all red scratches.
Her fingers were stained and grimy and her cap, too, was a sight. As
for Sue, her green chambray was purple with berry juice, although she
seemed to have escaped the rents from thorny creepers. But the two were
happy and they didn’t care much how they looked. They simply dumped all
the berries on the doorstep and compared the two piles. These seemed
even, so the two thought they would rest for a while and then start
back to tell the lagging children behind and urge them to hurry up.

But Solita decided that it was no use to go away back on the road to
call the others. They might be a mile or more back, she said. “No,
don’t let’s do that! Let’s try to pick all there are and then go home
and surprise everybody.”

“But, Solita,” Sue suggested, “we haven’t anything to put all the
berries in. How could we do that?”

“I could gather up my skirt,” Solita volunteered. “We could pick into
that. It’s already all ruined so I don’t mind using it--it’s an old
last year’s frock.”

“Mercy me, Solita! What would your mother say to that!” Sue exclaimed,
aghast. “The very idea! No, we’ll have to find something else.”

“Do you suppose there’d be anything to hold them if we were to look
around here?” questioned Solita. “Maybe we might find something--an old
pail or cooking pan that has been thrown away.”

“There might be something inside the house,” Sue mused. “That’s very
likely, but I don’t know if we could get in or not. We can try. I’m
going to push the door. Do you suppose we can get in?” They had prowled
around the house to what must have been the back door. But that back
door wouldn’t give at all. It was tight.

The windows seemed shut fast, too. Sue said it made her feel like a
burglar to try them, but since the house had been without a tenant for
so long, of course it was not burglaring, she said.

After they had investigated many nooks and found nothing in the near-by
shed, either, Solita suggested that they try the front door. “People
always leave things behind when they move,” she declared. “I’m sure,
if we could get in, we’d find a box or a pan or a basket. Even an old
sack might answer--anything that is like a bag could be used.”

But when the two came to the front doorstone where the two big piles of
berries lay, Solita sat down on one side and did not try the door.

“You open the door, Sue,” she said.

“No, _you_ try it!”

“You’re afraid something will jump out at you!”

“No I’m not!” retorted Sue. “What’s there to be afraid of, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Solita. “But it’s kind of spooky, I think. Let’s
go home.” But with that Solita rose and pretended to try the door. She
didn’t push it at all.

“Oh, I can get it open! You’re not pushing,” Sue exclaimed. “We’ll do
it together. You turn and I’ll push--what’s the use of backing down?
Let’s go in.” So the two together pushed and pulled and the door
suddenly yielded. Its latch must have been very old and rusty indeed!

The opening of the door came as a real surprise, and it swung back
against the wall inside the house with a loud bang that echoed through
all the lonely darkness of the hallway. There was only a little light
that came from the slats of broken blinds here and there in the open
room that was just off the hall.

Sue took the lead. Solita followed, ready to run back at any minute.
It was certainly an adventure, this entering in upon the solitude of
that deserted house, long closed. “I don’t think it’s at all nice to go
into people’s houses while they’re away,” she urged. “I’m going back.
I think we ought not to have come in here at all--it’s ever so dark. I
can’t see anything--Where’re you, Sue?”

“I’m not a scare-cat,” replied Sue. “You were the one who wanted to
find the basket for the berries. Come ahead! It isn’t dark--this is
lots of fun!”

“I’m going to use my dress, anyhow,” protested Solita. “I don’t want
any basket.” But for the sake of company chiefly, perhaps, she followed
Sue, who was investigating the empty house. Here and there she poked
under dusty furniture and into old, vacant closets. There seemed to be
no basket--not even an old box or tin pan, rusty from disuse. “Come
ahead, Solita,” she kept saying. “Nobody’s going to eat you up.
If anybody comes for such a purpose, they can begin and eat up the
blackberries that are on the doorstep.” So she kept on hunting. Really,
after a while, when they were used to the noise that their feet made
and to the echo of their voices in the dim, closed rooms, it was rather
interesting. All they found was a rusty hammer downstairs, so Sue
decided to go above and look some more.

Everything there was rickety and the stairs squeaked and frightened
Solita but she laughed--indeed, she was beginning to get over her
timidity and enjoy the quest.

The chambers opened into the hall upstairs so that it looked like one
big room except at one end of the rear room where the roof sloped.
There was a real little bit of a room that must have belonged to some
child. There were two little broken toy dishes in it on the floor.
They were all thick with dust, so Sue did not pick them up. Solita was
safely in the rear near the stairs. She declared from time to time that
there was no basket and that they’d better go home but Sue kept on. It
isn’t every day that one can have a real adventure. She enjoyed the
creepy feeling that came with exploring dim corners.

“When my great-great-grandfather was a little boy,” she mused, “he must
have lived in a house like this. Father told me a story about how he
used to slide down the roof and land on the grass below just for fun.
Fancy doing a thing like that!”

Solita didn’t appear much interested. But Sue went on, “It was during
the American Revolution that he and my great-great-grandmother lived.
He fought in it--I mean his father, I guess,” rambled Sue. She hardly
knew what she was saying but she was chiefly trying to keep Solita
from deserting the quest. “We might find a treasure in one of these
closets,” she suggested. “Wouldn’t that be fine?”

“Nobody goes off and leaves a treasure in an old house,” Solita snapped.

“But it might have been hidden here by somebody and left till we came--”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, yes, it might!”

“Where--not up here!”

“Oh, maybe down cellar,” replied Sue, who had about finished her
explorations upstairs. She had been peeping out of the window of the
wee little room at the back of the house and had opened its window wide
to let in the sunlight and fresh air. It was only a little window.

“You’re not going to get me to go down cellar with you,” declared
Solita. “I’m going home. There wouldn’t be any baskets or treasure
there at all and there might be rats and mice or other things--and I
won’t go!”

“Then the treasure would be all my own, if I found it,” returned Sue.
“Suppose it was a thousand dollars tied up in a bag!”

“If you go a step down cellar, I’m going home,” said Solita stoutly.
“I’m going this minute anyhow--good-bye!” She started toward the stairs.

Sue felt rather obstinate. She decided that she _would_ go down cellar
even if Solita left her. She tried to close the little window that
looked down the long slope of the roof but it was hard to get it
closed again. She looked down the long slope and was half determined
to slide down it and see how it felt. If her great-great-grandfather
had done it, she could, too! Why not! It would be fun to creep out of
the window and not follow Solita--just slide down over the shingles
to the ground and run around to the front door and hide till Solita
came and then jump out and call, _boo!_ But at this minute, she heard
Solita scream and the scream was so terrified that Sue jumped toward
the stairs. Solita was running toward her. “You can’t go down the
stairs--Oh, don’t go that way!” she screamed. “A bear is sitting in the
doorway. He growled when he heard me come down the stairs. He is on the
doorstone--a big, big bear! What shall we do! We can’t get out! Oh,
dear! Oh, _dear_! Why did we ever come into this house!”

“A real bear?” questioned Sue, grabbing fast to Solita’s torn frock.
“Tell me--you just imagined it--you couldn’t have seen one! There
aren’t any bears here!”

But Solita struggled to free herself. “Oh, I _saw_ him,” she insisted
in a frightened wail. “He may be up here any moment. He’s so big he
could push any door in and we’re caught! We’re caught!”

Sue, half believing and against all entreaty, peeped over the winding
balustrade rail. Yes. There _was_ a bear! Her heart went pat-pat-pat.
A shiver ran down her back. She felt cold all over and ready to sink
down in a limp heap upon the floor. But she put a warning finger to her
lips and motioned Solita to stop crying. The first thing she thought of
was to get Solita quietly into that little back room that had the open
window that gave upon the long sloping roof--that was it! They could
creep out quietly and then dash off over the back yard and into the
woods. Then, perhaps, they could turn down and find the road and warn
the other children!

Solita stood there shivering, but Sue dragged her toward the little
room and closed the door. Solita was stupefied with the fear of that
bear’s coming upstairs after them. At first she did not understand
about the window, but Sue made her crawl through it first and told her
to run toward the woods when she got down off the roof. “I’ll come
right after you,” she urged. “Go right on and I’ll follow. He won’t see
us!”

Poor Solita gathered her pink skirt about her and slid miserably and
cautiously down. She was almost as afraid of falling suddenly as she
was of the bear. Sue, however, made quick work of it, even as the
great-great-grandfather must have done, though there were no bears
after him. At the very end of the slope, she landed in a blackberry
bush tangle, but she pulled herself free and helped Solita. Then the
two of them darted toward the woods at the rear without a look back
to see if the big bear were following or not. Solita was sure he was
coming but Sue denied it. At last, badly out of breath, they reached
the road, after plunging through thickets and being badly torn and
scratched, after one or two excited tumbles over dead logs and much
worry about the bear.

As they turned the corner of the road near the brook, they came upon
the children with little Albert. “Run, run!” they screamed, “run, run
quick! There’s a bear coming!”

Then, all in a crowd, they hurried on toward the road that led to White
Farm. They had not gone very far when there appeared two men coming
toward them. They were talking together in excited French. They stopped
and asked if anybody had seen a big bear.

“Oui, oui,” nodded Solita and she launched out into a long talk in
French that nobody else understood. It seemed that that was really the
bear Sue and Solita had run away from and he wasn’t a wild bear but a
tame one that would dance with a pole while the men sang French songs.
They had stopped to get a drink of water at a farm and the bear had got
off someway, when their backs were turned. They were delighted to know
where he was and Solita and Sue, reassured, offered to show the way.
So again they started toward the funny, old-fashioned house in a crowd
together.

They came upon the bear, still eating blackberries on the doorstone--he
hadn’t budged! And when the Frenchmen called him, he came meekly. Then
all the children stood around in the dooryard while the bear that
Solita and Sue had escaped from danced and danced. He turned somersets,
too! It was fun.

And then the men took off their caps and turned and went down the
overgrown driveway and off up the road. The children were already busy
with the blackberries. “I might go down cellar now, Solita,” laughed
Sue, “but I don’t believe I want to. Maybe there’d be another bear
there. I’ve had enough of one, even a tame one, haven’t you?”

Solita laughed. “Our blackberries are all eaten,” she said. “We’d have
to begin to pick again to fill the basket and the pail. I move we all
go home, for I think it’s nearly lunch time.”

But everybody wanted to go into the house and slide down the roof,
while little Albert made believe he was the bear and said “Grrr-r” on
the doorstone. It really _was_ a blackberry adventure for a summer
day!




_Betty Crusoe_


_THE SEPTEMBER SURPRISE_

_September was almost school time again. There seemed to be a long,
hard thing in the September pocket that was not the story pocket.
Marjorie said it felt as if it were a stick of candy. She had wanted to
open the surprise long before September 13th, the date set, had come.
But at last it was September 13th and she tore open the seals that
held that leaf of the Surprise Book’s pocket tight. There was--why, a
pencil! Why hadn’t she ever guessed that! It was a pencil painted pink
and it had a rubber at its end. It had a pretty card tied to it that
said, “Use this when you go to school tomorrow.” The story Marjorie
opened that evening after supper. It was called “Betty Crusoe.”_




_XI_

_Betty Crusoe_


All summer Betty had been in the city. Then, the last day of September
came an eventful invitation from a school-friend of her mother’s.
“Dear Betty,” it ran, “I know your mother can’t be persuaded to leave
daddy and the boys, but can’t _you_ pack up and spend the rest of the
vacation with me in my big house here at Riverby? I’m all alone for
October.” So, in two days, there was Betty in Riverby!

Mrs. Roberts and she took long motor rides, but the rest of the
time--and much of the time--Betty had to amuse herself. She was always
longing for a boat ride on the lovely blue river that was within sight
of the house, but Mrs. Roberts never seemed inclined to go out rowing.
It was one day when she was lonely and wishing for somebody her own
age to play with that she wandered through the grounds down toward
the shore. Some magic must have been at work, for right there upon
the sandy beach sat a pink gingham dress much like Betty’s own! It
turned as Betty’s white shoes crunched the coarse gravel. “Hello,” she
greeted. “I was just wishing I had a girl to talk to and then _you_
came!”

Betty laughed. “I was just wishing, myself,” she smiled. “I’m staying
with Mrs. Roberts. Do you live next door?”

The pink hair-ribbon bobbed. “I’m staying with my aunt,” it said. “I
just came from the West. I don’t know a soul my own age here and it’s
stupid. Now that you’ve come, let’s have some fun together. My name’s
Lydia. What’s yours?”

It seemed to the two of them that they had known each other always
and, naturally, having so begun, it appeared that the two of them were
longing to go out upon the river for a row--and had been longing for
that ever since they came to Riverby.

“Don’t I wish we could find a boat!”

“Do you know where there is one?”

“No--and I’ve only rowed on the lake in the park--”

“Well, never mind. You could row out a little way, if we could find a
boat! Let’s!”

“We wouldn’t go out very far--”

“No, not very far. I think we can find a boat if we walk along the
shore--”

So the two trotted along the sandy rim of the river and, after a while,
they did come upon a boat drawn high up. There were oars in it and it
appeared to be waiting for the two, just as Lydia had been waiting
for Betty a half hour before. They didn’t stop to think. They merely
accepted the boat as they had accepted each other. It was part of the
adventure, of course. With frantic tugging, they finally launched the
boat and Betty took the oars.

As she dipped them, “I’ve got to be back by four,” she said. “Mrs.
Roberts asked me to go calling--pity me, Lydia, I’ll have to come back
and put on my best dress. I’d rather stay on the river--I hope you’ve a
watch with you. I didn’t bring mine.”

“No, I haven’t any watch but I can tell time by the sun,” reassured
Lydia. “Do you know, Betty, I’m longing to know what’s just around the
bend of the river. We can go that far, can’t we?”

“Sure,” replied Betty, bravely. She did not say that her arms were
already rather tired. She waited for Lydia to offer to take the oars.

But when they reached the bend, right there in the very center of the
river was a big wooded island. Its shore was overhung with dark pine
trees. It was a most fascinating island!

“Oh, row over to the island, Betty,” screamed Lydia. “I do so want to
go there! We can stop for a bit and then come back and you’ll be home
in time to dress for that call.” So Betty, tired but very willing to
prolong the fun, rowed on.

They beached the boat near a rock, but while they were beaching it, out
fell an oar! Before anybody could get it, it had floated far out beyond
reach! Oh dear! Oh dear! Could anything ever be worse! Oh dear, dear,
dear!

They sat upon the beach there under the pines and wondered what was
going to happen. What indeed? The island seemed nothing but woods, and
the boats that passed by were too far away to hear what Betty and Lydia
screamed at them. They evidently took the wild antics of the two pink
dresses on the island beach as just so much joyous kind of greeting,
nothing more. Neither Lydia or Betty could swim. So there was every
reason to believe they would stay upon that island forever.

“My aunt didn’t know I was going off anywhere,” wailed Lydia. “She’d
never think of my being _here_!”

“And Mrs. Roberts is expecting me to be dressed for calling at four!”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do!”

“Neither do I!”

It seemed so utterly hopeless that the two put their arms around each
other and cried hard on each other’s pink gingham shoulders. Yet, as
crying did not mend matters, Betty decided to make a petticoat flag and
wade as far out as possible to hail the next boat. There was a rocky
point that might be a good station. So she and Lydia paddled out there,
leaving shoes and stockings on the shore.

The sun was gradually sinking toward the West. Lydia insisted that
it must be at least half past four or five. She was sure they would
have to camp out upon the island all night and was tearfully worrying
about bears--“There always _are_ bears in the woods, Betty,” she said.
“I don’t want to stay here all night, oh dear! Don’t you suppose that
a boat ever will come around the bend and see our signal?” But it was
long after that that at last a launch sped by, leaving in its wake a
track of white foam. No use to scream! The launch simply did not hear
or see and there were but two in it, a lady and a man who was at the
rear.

“Mrs. Roberts has a parasol exactly that shade,” wailed Betty. “It
might be her out looking for me only she wouldn’t think I had gone out
on the river. Since I’ve been here, we never have been boating. She’s
probably hunting for me in town or else she’s gone to call without me
by this time. Maybe she thinks I forgot the call and went to walk.
Then, of course, she’d not be worrying or looking for me till supper
time.”

“But I should think they’d have stopped the launch when they heard us
scream, ‘Help!’ They must have heard!”

“No,” disagreed Betty. “Maybe they never noticed or they thought we
were just a silly picnic party playing Robinson Crusoe.”

Alas!

“Well, we’ve got to stay here, Lydia.”

“It’s our punishment, I suppose.”

“Maybe we deserve it for taking a boat that didn’t belong to us.”

They sat on the rock for a long time wondering what more they could do
and then Betty realized that she was fearfully hungry. Lydia, too, at
the same time, longed for a couple of sandwiches. “We might go look to
see if there are berries in the woods,” they agreed.

There were no berries, of course. There was only wintergreen and that
wasn’t satisfying. They found remnants of some picnic’s old boxes--but
that was all. The picnic must have been there weeks ago for its boxes
were mere pulp now--oh dear!

Betty’s pink dress was torn and scratched by brambly twigs that were in
that woods. Lydia’s hair had lost its ribbon and trailed down her back
in a loose tangle. The two of them were begrimed like two tramps when,
finally, Betty discovered a footprint that looked as if it were newly
made. “Friday, Man Friday,” she screamed, “Look! There must be somebody
on this island, if we can only find the one to whom this belongs!
Hooray, maybe we’ll be rescued yet! Let’s follow in the same direction
and see if we do find another picnic party--if they haven’t gone home!”

“Oh, I hope they haven’t--I don’t want to spend the night here with
nothing to eat--Oh dear!”

And then they found a path!

There was another footprint upon the path too!

Betty and Lydia hurried on, their hearts beating excitement. When they
turned suddenly, the woods ceased abruptly and they found themselves in
full view of a summer camp!

With one wild shout, Betty ran forward to its landing. There, there was
a launch and in it the two who had passed on the river and beside them,
too, were other people. The launch was just about to start when Betty
with Lydia at her heels darted upon the dock waving wild arms. “Stop,
stop,” they cried. And then Betty saw who the lady was--why, why, it
was--it was Mrs. Roberts! It _was_!

On the way home, Mrs. Roberts said that she hoped Betty wouldn’t decide
to play Robinson Crusoe again. She looked very sober. “Our call might
have been planned for tomorrow,” she smiled. “The camp would have been
closed then and whatever would you and Lydia have done on the island
all night!”

“I don’t know,” returned Betty. “I’m ever so sorry. Lydia is too.”




_The Magical Circle_


_THE OCTOBER SURPRISE_

_October’s first surprise was easy to guess, as it was marked to open
on Marjorie’s birthday, which was the twenty-second. She said it was a
birthday present--but she did not guess that the birthday present was a
pretty handkerchief as well as a birthday card! That was fun! The story
was a Hallowe’en story, so it was marked to open on the afternoon of
October thirty-first. It was called, “The Magical Circle.”_




_XII_

_The Magical Circle_


The family moved into the new house about the first of October. It was
the first time that Mark and Marjorie had ever moved and the event was
full of novelty. The new house was a big one in the country and the two
found much to explore in the first weeks of arrival.

Mark was always romancing. He believed, maybe, if he were to hunt
long enough, he might find something interesting that had been left
by former tenants. He was sure that there were secret drawers in the
old desk that was in the barn and he spent hours trying to find them.
Then, too, he went about tapping the walls of the house to see if they
emitted a hollow sound. He was sure, he said, that there must be secret
panels with things hidden behind them.

Marjorie only laughed at Mark’s romancing. She half believed in it.
It was fun, anyway. So she followed Mark’s tapping and listened to
the knocks. One day when the paperers were busy, Mark went into a
store-closet that adjoined the room and somehow he did find a place
that was hollow. It was back of a board shelf in the closet and, when
opened, was quite a hiding place. There was nothing in it. Marjorie
insisted that it was where the gas pipes had been before electricity
was installed. But Mark called it triumphantly the secret panel. He
talked a great deal about it and showed it to the neighbor’s children,
Eleanore and Mabel and Richard. He even persuaded Mother to hide
some silver in the place for safe keeping. And she did it, she said,
laughingly, to please him.

One might have thought that Mark would stop romancing, after having
discovered a secret panel, but he didn’t rest satisfied. Having read a
story about two boys who found a lost will in a trunk in an old attic,
Mark became interested in the possibilities of their newly acquired
one. There were three rooms up there, two of them used to store the
family’s trunks. The third room Mark appropriated and made into what
he called his “den.”

The “den” had an old matting upon its floor. The matting had been there
when Mark and Marjorie moved into the new home. Mark always accepted it
and had never found any romantic suggestions coming from that source
till one night, Richard having been allowed to spend a night with him,
they carried a mattress up there and slept on the floor, “for fun,”
they said. Mark had a lantern and they talked till nearly two o’clock
telling stories to each other. It was really great fun. Mark’s stories
were full of adventure--some of them even were creepy, as it was
nearing Hallowe’en day by day. And what was more fitting than right in
the middle of Mark’s last thriller, there should be a strange rattle
and a clinking noise! It made Mark hush and it made Richard jump. They
looked at each other in frightened silence for a minute.

“What was it?” asked Mark, as soon as he could breathe again calmly.

“Oh, a mouse, I guess,” returned Richard.

“A mouse, forsooth! Nay!” returned Mark, talking in a romantic way.
“Me-thinks it is a strange noise, friend. It cometh from under this
matting. I will take up the matting and if need be the floor and we
shall see--” Here he pulled up an end of old matting.

Richard was willing to have another of Mark’s adventures, so he
helped. It wasn’t hard to get it up--but when it was once up the most
astonishing thing came to light. Even Richard was amazed. As for Mark,
he was in his element of discovery. There upon the floor was a big
round circle. The floor was painted but the circle was not!

“What is it?” inquired Richard.

Mark debated. “I don’t know,” he mused. “It’s evidently something!”
He measured the circle. It was about three feet in diameter. He was
for tearing up the flooring at once, only Richard reminded him that it
would make a dreadful noise and wake everybody in the house up. Surely
a fortune and a lost will must be under it! Richard silenced Mark’s
objection to waiting till daylight and after school by saying that they
would never be allowed to sleep in the attic on a mattress again,
if the two of them got into trouble. That was true. So they sat up,
wrapped in blankets, listening for the sound that seemed to have gone
away and also for other sounds that did not come. And they wondered
excitedly how a circle like that should come to be upon an attic floor,
if not purposely put there to mark something. Richard suggested that
it might be an old astrologer’s room and that the circle was one upon
which he might have cast horoscopes. That sounded rather fascinating
but neither Mark nor Richard knew anything about astrologers or even
what they did when they cast horoscopes. So this was rather romantic
and they talked a great deal about it, once in a while switching off to
goblins and Hallowe’en. Mark and Richard discussed, among other topics,
what they should do to make Hallowe’en truly exciting. They were going
to dress up like witches and go to call upon some friends. Richard was
planning to carry his black cat in a bag and they were going to wear
masks. Probably Marjorie would beg to go too--girls always did want
to go too--and they’d let her into the secret about the circle on the
attic floor too, wouldn’t they?

Richard assented. He and Marjorie were good friends.

“I tell you what!” exclaimed Mark, suddenly. “After we’re dressed up,
we’ll all come up here early in the evening. Maybe Mother and Daddy’ll
have gone to the pictures. Then we’ll take up the floor and see what’s
under the circle!” It seemed a thing quite fit for the night of
Hallowe’en.

Having decided this, they again unrolled the mattress, hid themselves
in blankets and snored peacefully till dawn.

In the morning, Mark put the matting over the very precious circle and
the two went downstairs hinting at wonderful secrets of things they had
found and strange noises they had heard. Marjorie said it seemed to her
that she had heard a queer noise too--up overhead. She said it sounded
like Mark tapping for secret panels. Then everybody laughed because of
the memory of how Mark was shut up tight in the harness-closet once
upon a time, a victim of his love of mystery and adventure. Then
Richard said he thought Mark had heard a mouse.

“Mouse! Does a mouse rattle?” inquired Mark. “I guess you’ll find
out!” And the subject strung itself out all through the day and on
till Hallowe’en time came. Of course, in between, Mark had visited the
attic and everybody had seen the circle. Everybody declared that it was
a mystery. Nobody had ever seen anything like it upon an attic floor.
Mother laughed. She was used to Mark’s imaginings. She said she didn’t
connect it with a little harmless mouse gnawing at a hole.

At the mention of a mouse gnawing, Mark became almost dramatic. “It was
no mouse!” he declared. “Don’t I know what a mouse sounds like!”

Hallowe’en came, but even the fun of dressing up like witches lost
the usual flavor. Mark, Marjorie and Richard were worked up to a
pitch of excitement over the circle on the attic floor. They talked
of nothing else. Mark had read up on astrology in the encyclopedia.
He hadn’t understood it all but he talked as if he did and Marjorie
was wonderingly proud of his knowledge, while Richard was willing to
listen, though he corrected Mark’s statements now and then, having read
up on the subject at the library himself.

It was lucky that the picture theatre claimed Mother and Daddy that
night. And the strange thing was that neither Mark nor Marjorie had
begged to be taken too. They had come in at eight o’clock sharp,
according to directions that Mother had insisted upon. They kept on
their weird garments of sheets and shawls. Mark, lantern in hand, led
the way to the dark attic room and the others followed.

Then there began to be a real noise in that room as Mark hammered a
chisel into the flooring. It seemed to be a very thick board flooring
and it took time to get some nails out. But they yielded finally, and
the end of one floor-board that crossed the circle at its centre grew
loose enough to be pried up. (Mark had insisted that he choose the
centre of the circle. Nobody knew why, though they trusted him. He said
that the centre was the middle of a thing and that whatever was there
would be exactly under it. This sounded plausible.)

Then Mark had Richard take the chisel and wedge up the board a bit.
It wouldn’t give very much, you know. He said Marjorie might hold the
lantern and he’d peep into the darkness underneath and see what was
there. Really, the moment _was_ very exciting. Nobody knew what Mark
might see--they felt that he was brave to take the first look, for it
might be ’most anything down there where Mark’s noise had come from!

They were silent while Mark, lying flat down on the attic floor, peered
under the lifted end of the board. “I see gold pieces,” he gasped.
“Say, give me more light--it must be buried treasure! _Didn’t I say I’d
find it!_”

Marjorie and Richard looked at each other. _Was it true?_ “Let _us_
see,” they urged. Richard did peek. He said he couldn’t see very
clearly but that there was something there that he thought looked like
money. It was round and there was something that looked like a bag
there--maybe a money bag! Marjorie was so excited that she couldn’t
keep still long enough to see anything at all well. But she thought she
saw something that looked like a piece of paper. Nobody else had seen
that, so they all peeped again. “It is a lost will,” declared Mark.
And they believed him.

Then they fell to opening the flooring in a most reckless way. It
really was dreadful--but when one is expecting to get at a money bag
and a lost will, one does not stop to consider the flooring. The board
was whacked beyond recognition. The hammer and chisel fell to work and
the flooring yielded to the onslaught. Then--Mark lifted the board!
Ah!--Ah-ha!--

Richard held the lantern down so that it shone full upon the treasure;
Marjorie gasped; Mark bent forward to see all there was to see. There
was a pile of broken glass and some rags, corks--and buttons! Oh, yes,
and there was a piece or so of white paper--not very large. The buttons
were of metal, round brass buttons, tarnished and old. The paper was
old white paper, yellow now. It was not a lost will at all! No, the
money bag was just a round wad of cloth and Mark’s noise was--Mark’s
noise was evidently a rat running around the rat’s nest that they had
found! Alas, alas! There was no more mystery! The three had never seen
a rat’s nest before but Richard had heard about them. He said, from
the first, he’d said it was a mouse--but everybody knows that a mouse
is very different from a rat!

After they had all recovered from the shock of their disappointment,
they laughed a little. It really was funny--There they had been
planning what they would do with all the money after it had been
properly divided! Of course, the lost will would have given the money
to the finders, you know.

Mark fingered the buttons, grimy with much dust. “They don’t make
buttons like this any more,” he said. “They are very interesting.
I am glad I found them.” He said that they had not yet come to the
end of the mystery. “_Why_ is there a circle on the attic floor?” he
questioned. “Why?”

Nobody could say. Then they heard Mother’s voice downstairs. “You’ll
have to tell about the floor,” Marjorie suggested. “We can never get it
down again.”

So they did. It was a sorry group that said good-night, even after they
had been forgiven.

Next day when Mark returned from school, he heard the carpenter
repairing the damaged floor up in his den and he rushed up there.

“Say,” he said, “what do you suppose anybody ever made a circle on the
floor like that for unless it was an astrologer?”

The carpenter laughed. “Sonny,” he smiled. “I’ve been in this house
when there was a big cistern right here--Know what a cistern is? It’s
what the family used to depend upon for water in the house. When
they took it down, the floor that was painted all around it showed
the circle where the cistern had stood. That’s all. It wasn’t any
astrologer that made it.”

After that, somehow, the news about the cistern’s having been Mark’s
mysterious circle in dim ages past, leaked out. Richard and Marjorie
and Mabel and Eleanore plagued him forever after--but, anyway, Mark
says, some day when he does find a fortune and a lost will, they’ll
stop laughing at him. Maybe that’s true.




_Ermelinda’s Family_


_THE NOVEMBER SURPRISE_

_November’s first surprise pocket was another strange mystery. Dotty
always chuckled when Marjorie asked her to tell what it was. “I can’t,”
she laughed. “It’s a joke!” So poor Marjorie had to quiet her curiosity
and wait till the very day before Thanksgiving. Then she ripped open
the Surprise Book’s surprise and undid the paper that she found wrapped
around that queer lumpy-bumpy-feeling thing. You couldn’t guess
what Dotty had put in--it was a wish-bone. “Good wishes for a fine
Thanksgiving dinner,” it send. As for the story, that was dated to read
on the evening before Thanksgiving. It was called “Ermelinda’s Family,”
and it was a Thanksgiving story._




_XIII_

_Ermelinda’s Family_


Ermelinda entered High School in September. Then, too, she contributed
to the High School magazine. Going to and from school she hunted for
themes to use in school compositions. She meant to write a story some
day! That was Ermelinda’s ambition.

As she looked over magazines at home, she imagined how her name would
look printed. Once when she was looking over a big fashion paper,
she turned to a department page and found that there was a chance
to correspond with an editor lady. So she at once wrote and between
the two there grew up a friendly intercourse upon paper. Ermelinda
confided her desire to write stories, and though none were awarded
prizes in the department, yet Ermelinda regarded the editor lady as a
friend. And once she told her how the school had solicited Liberty Bond
subscriptions.

The boys and girls had volunteered for the work, going together from
house to house. Ermelinda enjoyed the luck of selling nine bonds
on subscription and one fifty dollar one outright. It was all very
interesting indeed. Ermelinda grew more and more enthusiastic and her
patriotism flamed hot. She went over the territory assigned and then,
on her own hook, took up new territory. It was in rather a shabby
quarter of the town but one of the girls was with her. So they entered
a doorway and went into a tenement. She was surprised to see it so gray
and destitute.

They knocked at the first landing, but though they met with a fair
reception, they sold nothing. At the second landing it was the same.
Ermelinda caught glimpses of bare poverty in the rooms as the door
opened at her knock. She had always known that such things were, but
the vivid picture of them had never been presented. So she mounted to
the top floor and knocked. The door opened. It was a thin little ragged
boy who opened the door and there were more thin little ragged boys
inside--yes, and little girls and a baby and a mother and a father. All
of them were so poor and so unhappy! Ermelinda explained her errand
but, of course, it was hardly any use! Ermelinda wrote to her editor
about it that evening. The editor answered, “Well, wouldn’t it be
rather jolly to surprise that family with a basket of good things for
Thanksgiving Day?”

Oh, indeed it would! She could get the girls at High School to help!
She began to plan what to put into the basket. On the way to school the
next day she told everybody she met. Ermelinda had a most engaging way
of putting facts in story form. But though some contributed five or
ten or twenty-five cents, there were others who drifted off as soon as
money was mentioned. Then Stella Wilkins came by and Ermelinda grabbed
her.

“Say, Stella,” she began, “don’t you want to help, too? I’m getting up
a basket for Thanksgiving for a poor family I found in a tenement, they
are--” but right here she stopped short. Stella’s expression was almost
frightened. For the first time, Ermelinda noticed that Stella might
be classed as “poor.” Ermelinda had never thought much about poverty
before or noticed whether the boys and girls who came to classes
showed signs of need. She had always liked Stella. “There are some
children,” went on Ermelinda. “The little things look sick and hungry.
We’re planning to give them a perfectly splendid Thanksgiving--I
haven’t a cent to my name but I’m nabbing everybody I see--”

Stella smiled. “Guess you know, Erm, I really can’t, though I’d like
to,” she said. “But father lost his work this fall and we’ve all had
to do without things. I’m trying ever so hard to get my little sister
a winter coat. She hasn’t any and she can’t go to school till she has
one--It’s awfully hard, Erm. I’m glad you’re helping _them_!”

Ermelinda put an arm around Stella. “I’d like to work, too, to get that
coat,” she said. “I’ve been lucky all my life and had things done for
me but I’d be mighty proud if I could buy my little sister a coat if
she needed one!”

They walked toward the class together. Somehow, they had become real
friends.

She rushed home the next afternoon early in order to go buy the basket
with one of the girls. Oh, Ermelinda’s family was to have the dandiest
Thanksgiving that there ever had been!

She put a gay crêpe tissue paper table-set into the basket. It had a
tablecloth and napkins with bright colored fruits upon it. Then all the
other things were packed tight and the basket was very heavy and very
tempting when Ermelinda’s busy fingers had finished. It was put away in
the pantry closet to stand there safely till the time should come.

Next day Ermelinda found Kitty Fowler, who volunteered to help. “You
see, Kitty, I can’t carry that big basket all alone myself,” she
explained. “I do need somebody ever so much.”

“Then I’ll help and I’ll be at the corner waiting for you at four
o’clock.”

When she reached the corner with tired arms, Kitty was not there.
Ermelinda waited. It was frightfully windy and cold. It seemed as if
it might snow for there was penetrating dampness and chill in the air.
She thought of Stella trying to buy the coat for a little sister--she
wondered if, by now, the little sister had it. She hoped so. She
wondered how Stella had earned the money--Still Kitty did not come. It
was growing dusk.

Ermelinda decided that Kitty must have forgotten. She was that
kind--always ready to help but not responsible. It was too late to go
home and get mother--beside that, mother was tired. The boys were out
skating. There was no reason why she, Ermelinda, should not go alone.
So she tugged the big basket and the bundle onward. Her arms ached and
she had to stop more than once to turn ’round about, taking the basket
in the other hand and changing the bundle. Somehow she reached the
right street and the door that led to her family up there on the top
floor. Somehow she reached the landing. She put the basket down and
knocked. She had planned how nice it would be just to hand the basket
in and say, “Santa Claus came for _Thanksgiving_ and brought you this.”
Then she would run away and they would call, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Maybe they had not heard; Ermelinda knocked loudly again. No answer!
She knocked again. All was silent! Then a woman in a blue apron came
out upon the second floor landing and screamed up at her, “They’ve
moved away. What d’you want anyhow? That family went off last
week--Nobody’s there!”

At last, Ermelinda understood! But the woman did not know where they
had gone. She suggested that Ermelinda ask the janitor on the first
floor.

It crossed Ermelinda’s mind that she might give the basket to the
woman on the second landing, but as she came down the wide-open door
showed a table with food upon it. The janitor didn’t know where that
family had gone--he said the man had work and they had gone away. Yes,
they had been in hard straits for a while--didn’t pay rent at all,
he said. But now there was nothing for Ermelinda to do about it. The
bitter disappointment of the expedition made a lump in Ermelinda’s
throat--why, if the fairy godmother had come to help Cinderella and had
not found her, that is about how the fairy godmother would have felt!

Little Lady Bountiful almost cried but she took up the packages and
walked home. She told mother all the story and then she wept. There
were all those good things for somebody’s happy Thanksgiving and where
should they go?

At last, mother suggested that she herself would buy the things in the
basket and that Ermelinda might give the money to some public charity.
She wrote her editor and asked what to do. The editor wrote back and
said _she_ thought Ermelinda was right: that the boys and girls might
be told, perhaps, but that since they had given the money without
sacrifice, it ought to be used to help some need. Ermelinda received
the letter from the postman just as she started for school. She opened
it in the cloak-room and there she met Stella, who was just hanging her
tam upon a neighboring hook.

They went into class. Suddenly in the midst of her conjugating of a
Latin verb, a thought came to Ermelinda--Oh, how about the coat for
Stella’s little sister? She would find out! At noon, she found Stella,
eating lunch upon a bench. “Say, Stella,” she began, “we’re friends.
Tell me, did you get it--that coat for your little sister?”

Then Stella told her. No! There was no coat. She couldn’t get that
work. The little sister had colds and Stella was worried. As they
talked, Stella told Ermelinda just how bitterly blue everything was.
They parted as the bell rang for classes.

After school, Ermelinda labored over a letter that it was rather fun
to write. She worked hard because of the fact that she was trying
to disguise her handwriting. The letter was from Cinderella’s Fairy
Godmother to Stella and inside the envelope, sealed with a blue bird
seal, Ermelinda put the money! Then she sent the letter inside another
to her editor in the city and asked her to mail it there. She told her
Cinderella’s fairy had asked her to send this letter to somebody who
mustn’t know where the Fairy Godmother lived. And the editor mailed the
letter in the city. So the deed was done.

It was about three or four days afterwards that Stella came upon
Ermelinda studying hard, her head in a book. “I want to tell you, you
were so interested,” she beamed. “My little sister’s got the coat,
only I didn’t really give it to her _myself_. The money came in a
letter that was mailed in the city. It was ever such a dear letter and
signed by Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. I think it must have been from
a real fairy, somehow, but I don’t know who could have known about the
coat--I don’t know anybody else who might have sent it, unless it was a
_real_ fairy!”

“I’m glad your little sister has the coat,” Ermelinda chuckled.




_The Directory Santa Claus_


_THE FIRST DECEMBER SURPRISE_

_When Dotty had made the Surprise Book upon that memorable day when
she had not been able to go to school, she had calculated wrongly, so
Marjorie’s Surprise Book had more than the usual number of leaves and
it lasted till the following Christmas. The first surprise of that
December which closed Marjorie’s Surprise Book seemed very thick and
fat indeed. It proved to be two stories in place of one and with them
was a Christmas card. “I’m sorry that the Surprise Book must end,”
sighed Marjorie. “Aren’t you, Dot?” And of course, Dotty held out hopes
that Santa Claus might bring another! I shouldn’t wonder if he did, for
Santa Claus likes to make surprises. Maybe it was he, himself, who had
told Mother how to make the first Surprise Book, long ago. They each
chose one of the Surprise Book’s Christmas surprise stories for Mother
to read aloud on Christmas afternoon when the stories were opened.
Dotty’s came first. It was “The Directory Santa Claus.”_




_XIV_

_The Directory Santa Claus_


Christmas holidays had begun and school was out. The scholars had
spoken Christmas pieces that told of gift-giving and Santa Claus.

Rose Schneider and Lili Fifer, with school-books under their arms,
pushed open the heavy oak door of the big city library and trotted with
one accord upstairs to join the line of children waiting to get in.

“I got a dandy book,” Lili volunteered as they wedged into the waiting
line. “It was all about a little girl that went to see Santa Claus.
I’m bringin’ it back now. Say, Rose, you get it on your card. It’s an
awfully nice story.”

But Rose shook her head. The thin snub of her nose turned up even
higher than ever. It added emphasis to her refusal. “There ain’t any
Santa Claus,” she said. “I never had any Christmas presents from him.”

“Well,” Lili insisted, “I ain’t either but _I_ think there _is_ a Santa
Claus all right. He don’t know us, maybe, but he’s awfully good to some
children. My cousin that goes to Sunday School gets a doll, and a box
of candy, and an orange from him every Christmas. He has a long white
beard an’ he’s ever so jolly!”

“Salvation Armies, they make Santa Clauses. They’re not real--only
anybody dressed up. Most likely your cousin’s Santa Claus was like
that,” Rose retorted. “The Salvation Army Santa Clauses they always
stand by the street corners to catch Christmas dinner pennies in their
pails.”

“No. ’Twasn’t that kind of a Santa Claus! _He’s real!_”

“Well, you won’t find him in no _directory_,” Rose argued. “You just
go an’ look. All real folks’ names is in it an’ you won’t find Santa
Claus. There _ain’t_ any!”

With this parting thrust, Rose squeezed through a sudden opening in the
line and escaped into the reading room beyond.

Lili waited for her book to be discharged, then she raised a
questioning little hand toward the lady at the library desk.

“Please,” she asked, “where is the directory book?”

“Downstairs,” the librarian answered. And downstairs Lili went.

The directory book was really very, very big indeed. It was almost a
pity that it couldn’t be a story book, for one could never have done
with a story book _that_ size. There’d always be something new to read
in it. When the fat volume was opened on its desk, Lili studied it
at random trying to make out what it all meant. She decided to begin
at the very beginning, so she commenced with _A_, turned on to _B_,
and ran her forefinger down page after page. It took a great deal of
time and patience. The text was very small and Lili was afraid she
might overlook it. Down page after page it travelled till it came to
_Claus_--Oh, there it was: Claus, Adolph, carpenter! No. That couldn’t
be Santa Claus--the whole name wasn’t right. And beside that, _he_
wasn’t a carpenter, Lili felt sure.

How many people there were by the name of _Claus_! Well, with patience,
one might find the right one! “Then I shall tell Rose that there is a
Santa Claus for sure,” thought Lili. On down the list she went.

There was an S. T. Claus. That was the nearest to it. Who knows what
that S. T. might mean in the way of abbreviation? The address was not
far from the library. Lili decided to go down the avenue and find out
if it were where the _real_ Santa Claus lived.

The long winter twilight was beginning when Lili came out of the
library. Already the lights from the grocery and the drugstore on the
corner beyond warmed the cold gray stone of the pavement with red
light. Further over, past the intersecting street, an arc lamp made a
misty star in the dimness. Toward the star of light Lili made her way.

Yes, yes, she was on the right side of the street--she was getting
nearer, nearer! Lili’s heart went pit-a-pat. Oh, there it was--There
it was! It was a little shop that bore the number. Over its window was
a sign, S. T. Claus. Somewhere Lili thought she had seen Santa Claus’
name written that way! It was the _very_ place, no doubt!

In the shop-window was a wee green tinsel-covered tree. Toys
were caught in the branches. They overflowed onto the broad base
of the display-window--cats, dogs, carts, steam-engines, dolls,
baby-carriages, jumping-jacks--Oh!

Lili stood staring, transfixed with wonder, for--for there in the
store, visible through the lighted window, was a small, jolly-looking,
white-bearded man--exactly like the picture of Santa Claus in the
story book! To be sure, his white beard was not _quite_ so long, and
he wore a gray knit coat instead of a bright red one with white fur on
it. But his occupation of stringing Christmas tree chains was so very
Santa-Claus-like, there could be no mistake in identity!

Just here, he came to the window and added a box of gay candles to the
display of toys. He looked out at Lili through the frosty panes and
smiled. “Hello,” he called by way of cheery greeting.

“Hello,” returned Lili, and, somehow, before she knew it, she was
standing in the shop beside the worn counter, looking up into the merry
face of Mr. Claus.

“It was through the directory that I found you,” she smiled. “Rose
Schneider, she says there ain’t no _real_ Santa Claus--but I says there
is for _sure_! A lot of children must have passed here an’ not known
where Santa Claus lived maybe! But _I_ found you!”

Santa Claus doubled in a hearty chuckle. “And here I am all the time,”
he laughed, “just every day.”

“Didn’t anybody know you was the real Santa Claus?” Lili gazed
confidently into the old man’s bright eyes. “They had ought to know by
the sign,” she suggested.

“How should they?” the little man replied. “Santa Claus--everybody
knows he likes to be an ordinary citizen. You won’t tell the kids, will
you?”

Lili hesitated. “No, not if you don’t want I should. But there is Rose
Schneider an’ she says there ain’t any real Santa Claus. It was through
her saying that I found you in the directory. She said there wasn’t no
such name there”--

There was a silence.

“I’ve got it,” he announced suddenly. “Just why don’t Rose believe in
Santa Claus--because he never brought her any presents or what?”

“I think it’s because you’ve forgot her mostly,” returned Lili. “I says
to her you forgot me, too--but you didn’t know about us maybe.”

He thought.

“Where do you two kids live?” he questioned.

She told him.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said he. “I don’t want the other children
to find it out that I _am_ the real Santa Claus, so you’d better not
tell them. You run home now an’ you keep it quiet. Wait till real Santa
Claus time at Christmas! THEN, Rose will believe!”

Ah, yes. And she _did_! It was a wonderful, wonderful Christmas for
Lili and Rose. It was better even than Rose’s cousin’s Christmas, for
they shared together a little tree that was left on Christmas Eve “From
Santa Claus,” and each little girl had a doll, and some candy, and a
game. “It’s from the _real_ Santa Claus an’ I know him but _you_ don’t,
Rosie Schneider!” Lili beamed.

And Rose retorted, “I do too believe in the real Santa Claus!”

“I want a story about the _real_ Santa Claus and the little girl,” she
demanded of the librarian at the children’s reading room next day.
“Lili Fifer, she says it’s an awfully good story and she likes I should
know more about him. It’s true for sure, ain’t it?”

And the librarian smiled.




_Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas_


_THE SECOND DECEMBER SURPRISE_

_Marjorie’s Christmas story was called “Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly
Christmas.” She said she liked it better than the story Dotty chose
from the Surprise Book’s Christmas pocket. You can tell what you think
about it for yourself, for here it is._




_XV_

_Mary Elizabeth’s Soldierly Christmas_


Mary Elizabeth looked up from the soldier scarf she was learning to
knit. Her mother, in the rocker beside Mary Elizabeth’s hassock,
caught a bit of anxious thought that rested between Mary Elizabeth’s
brown eyes. “What is it?” she asked, putting her hand down upon Mary
Elizabeth’s to stop the knitting needles.

“I was thinking,” Mary Elizabeth sighed, “just thinking, Mother. It’s
going to be a very soldierly Christmas this year, isn’t it? But the
children--they don’t realize it and they’re thinking and talking about
Santa Claus. Are we going to have the tree this year?”

Mary Elizabeth’s mother patted Mary Elizabeth’s hand softly. “We’ve
always had one, haven’t we, daughter?” she said. “Can you remember the
time when we did not have one?”

“No,” laughed Mary Elizabeth. “I suppose it was when I was too small
a baby ever to have a tree or so little that I didn’t know what the
lights were and thought I would like to play with their sparkles--but
I do remember the tree we had when I was a little bit older. It was
before any of the children came. I was about three years old, I think.
You told me that the tree was made in honor of the little Christ
Child’s birthday and I always thought you meant a little child like
myself and expected to see him--”

Mary Elizabeth paused. “Then I grew bigger, and by and by there were
all the children and the baby, and I was the oldest and we all thought
that a funny friend who was a jolly old man called Santa Claus brought
us the toys we found in our stockings. We thought all the play was
real--about his coming down the chimney and about his sleigh with the
eight reindeer. It used to seem strange that so big a man as Santa
Claus could squeeze down our chimney and by and by I suspected it was
all a play and you told me that it was just a funny, jolly way to make
the very little children enjoy the fun of Christmas surprises. You
told me then that I might help toward Christmas myself by trimming the
tree. That was to be my part: each year I was to do it all myself and
every year I tried to make it some new and lovely kind of a surprise. I
always have loved to fix the tree. I always have felt that it must be
the kind of a tree that the little Christ Child would love if he came
in the way that I used to think you meant when I was still little.”

“Your tree has always been a beautiful tree, Mary Elizabeth,” Mother
smiled. “It has always been a tree that shone with happiness. Each year
we have loved it so that the children could not bear to part with it at
New Years, you know.”

Mary Elizabeth smiled. But her question still remained unanswered.
“Will there be a tree this year?” she asked. “I’m afraid the children
would be sad without it, Mother.”

“I, too, have been thinking, Mary Elizabeth,” said Mother. “It is
indeed a soldierly Christmas. What do you think we had better do?”

“Well,” answered Mary Elizabeth, thoughtfully. “We have the ornaments,
though I usually buy some new ones. I would have to get candles. The
tree would not cost so very much, only it seems as if every penny ought
to go to the little French and Belgian children--and there are the
soldiers to send things to--and when everything is the way it is, why
it really hardly seems like Christmas!”

“I know,” returned Mother. “But we sent all the money in the children’s
bank and all your money and my money, Mary Elizabeth. We have the
soldiers’ things all done--almost. I think we ought to have the tree
for the children and you can fix it up somehow, can’t you?”

“Yes,” smiled Mary Elizabeth, but she was thinking that she must
somehow find a way to make that tree as pretty as usual--even without
any money to buy things!

That day and the next, Mary Elizabeth pondered the question. She
thought of this and of that but nothing seemed quite right. There was
no way to earn any money. And the tree had no star for the top. It had
been lost, somehow. It was not with the tree fixings in the box in the
attic! How to get a new star, that was one question. How to get the
candles was another. And Mary Elizabeth’s tree had always been a tree
that people came in to look at and admire. It was not like any other
tree. It was always a surprise, somehow. Money was needed to buy things
to make it wonderful. Money was needed to make it a bright surprise as
usual!

At school, Mary Elizabeth found herself puzzling over this problem as
vacation time drew near. It was harder for her than any arithmetic
problem, for it could not be solved at all. Twice she saved five cents
by walking home and that bought candles. But the problem remained as
usual. It was _how to get more money_.

Then there came the day when the magazine came. It was always something
of an event when the magazine came. It had new pictures in it and often
it had cut-out pages for the little children. Once there had been a
circus with clowns to cut out and ever since that time, Brother somehow
got hold of the paper as soon as Mother took it from its wrapper. He
was always hoping for more circus, you know. He knew its pages by
heart and spelled out the titles and headings of the pictures. When
Mary Elizabeth came home one day, he announced that the magazine had
come.

“What’s in it?” questioned Mary Elizabeth.

“Pictures,” Brother replied mysteriously, “but not any of a circus.
It’s a puzzle page. You have to guess what the pictures are and they’ll
give a prize of five dollars to the one who answers and tells what the
pictures are.” But Brother was still busy with the magazine and Mary
Elizabeth was called away to help Mother with the little sister. She
did not see the page, though she thought about it and wondered if she
could answer all the questions and get the money that way to trim the
Christmas tree. In the evening, after supper, after the little children
had gone off to bed and Brother, too, with them, she found the magazine
and looked it over. Yes, it was a contest. And the pictures were Mother
Goose. It seemed easy to guess them--Mary Elizabeth guessed Simple
Simon right away. It was the picture of a funny doll fishing in a
little pail with a hook and line. She tried the others. She was not so
sure of all but she guessed them with the help of the little children’s
Mother Goose to refresh her memory. She was so excited that she felt
the prize was already hers. She was sure she _must_ win!

Just think of it: the first prize was five whole dollars and the second
prize was two whole dollars and there were eight other prizes each of
one whole big dollar--ten chances that Mary Elizabeth might earn some
money for her Christmas tree! Her hands shook as she took up pen and
put it to paper. She used her very best paper and three times or more
she discarded what she had written and tried to do better. She wrote
with extreme pains and slowly. It took all the evening just to write
the short answer. She put it into its envelope to mail on the way to
school next day, but she said nothing about it as she kissed Mother
good-night.

Nearer and nearer came Christmas time. The little children talked more
than ever about Santa Claus. Brother planned what kind of a stocking he
would hang up. They talked about the tree and asked Mary Elizabeth what
she supposed Santa Claus would make as a tree surprise this year. At
these times, laughingly, Mary Elizabeth suggested that there would be
candles on the tree and that perhaps there would be tinsel. She said
that, maybe, Santa Claus would send all his Christmas to the little
French and Belgian children and not have much to make into a surprise
here at home. She told them stories about Santa Claus and the Santa
Claus Land. She played with them to keep them amused but she thought
all the time of the Mother Goose Contest and as time went on, she felt
less sure each day of having won. Once she passed by the ten cent store
and found a beautiful gold star and wanted to buy it. Then one day
Mary Elizabeth actually found a ten cent piece near a shop upon a busy
sidewalk in town. Her heart went thump at the sight of it. She asked
several persons if they had lost anything and they replied, “No.” So
Mary Elizabeth went straight to the ten cent store and bought a star,
right away.

All this time, Mary Elizabeth watched anxiously for the postman. The
time set for the close of the contest came and passed. No letter was
brought to Mary Elizabeth. She knew that she would have had a letter
if she had won any prize, of course. But Mary Elizabeth, with her heart
heavy as lead, wondered whether she had really ever believed she would
win. She admitted that she had. She was sure her work was right--that
is, all answers were correct. The writing was neat. There were no
blots. She had done her very best.

Mary Elizabeth was too soldierly to cry. She told nobody. She set
about planning how she would cut paper ornaments out of colored wall
papers and paste them together. She would make some paper dolls and
dress them like fairies with the tissue paper she had. She would make
wings with tissue paper, too. She would ask Mother to let her make
some gingerbread animals and men to use on the tree. She would gild
some nuts and pinecones maybe. There was the star. There was the box
of candles. Those were _something_! But if only she did have money,
she would trim her tree with the emblems of all the Allies and have a
really soldierly Christmas tree!

Mary Elizabeth went into her room and locked her door tight. She
took the key of her lower bureau drawer and sat down upon the floor
beside it and drew it out. In it lay all the Christmas tree things
with the box of candles and the star. As she looked at the bright
Christmas things, a tear dropped upon her lap--oh, it might have been
so different!

Why is it that when one is just in the midst of Christmas planning
somebody comes to the door and knocks? Did you ever spread all your
things out on a bed or a table or on the floor and fail to have
somebody come to knock at your door and demand to be let in right away?
There came a knock at Mary Elizabeth’s--but first, the latch had been
tried. “Let me in, Mary Elizabeth!” cried Brother.

“I can’t,” returned Mary Elizabeth.

“You can.”

Thump-thumpety-thump.

“Go ’way,” admonished Mary Elizabeth. “I shan’t let you in! You can’t
come in.”

“Well, you’ll be sorry,” said the muffled voice of Brother. “You’ll
be sorry,” but he left off knocking at the door and ran away. Mary
Elizabeth wondered if perhaps he suspected about the play of Santa
Claus. He was getting to be quite big. Maybe he knew about the tree.
Maybe he would have to be let into the fun of Christmas planning next
year--but was it fun? Wasn’t it dreadful to worry about the tree and
plan how to make it all new? No, it was not worry! No, it was not!
Mary Elizabeth denied this stoutly. It was part of the self-sacrifice
of Christmas to think about it as she had--and there would be a lovely
tree! Yes, there would, somehow; she’d manage to make a grand surprise
of it. Oh, yes, she would. Mary Elizabeth smiled and was ashamed of
that little hot tear. She put the Christmas tree things back into the
drawer one by one and she closed and locked the drawer. Then she went
to the window and looked out across the snow. She thought maybe some
cotton would look pretty and snowy on the tree like that. She heard
Brother at the door again but she wasn’t quite ready to let him in. She
wanted to be alone and think. She did not want to tell stories about
Santa Claus.

His little voice came plaintively, “Please, Mary Elizabeth, let me in.
I’ll tell you something nice, if you’ll let me in.” But Mary Elizabeth
was not ready to hear what Brother thought Santa Claus was going to
bring. She did not go to the door. Then she heard his soft little
footsteps trot away down the hall and she felt sorry. She opened the
door to run after him and there, where Brother had left it, there lay a
big square envelope with the name of the magazine upon it!

Mary Elizabeth gasped. She tore it open and read:


    DEAR MARY ELIZABETH:

    Your good work has merited the reward of the Second Prize of two
    dollars offered in the Mother Goose Contest. The money is enclosed
    and we hope that it will bring with it a Very Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas! Hooray! Oh, how fine! Happy Christmas--why, _of
course_, Happy Christmas! Wasn’t it splendid! Wasn’t it a surprise!
Waving the letter, she hugged everybody that she met, Brother, Mother
and all the children. Something splendid had happened, they all
agreed. Everybody congratulated Mary Elizabeth. But only Mother really
guessed why Mary Elizabeth didn’t spend it all right then and there the
very first day in buying candy and peanuts. That was what Brother and
the little children suggested.

But next day, after vacation had really begun and when the little
children and Brother were safely out of the way, Mary Elizabeth with
her little red kid purse slipped out of the house and off to buy the
flags of the Allies to use for the Christmas tree.

Mary Elizabeth had decided, too, what the Christmas surprise was to be.
Yes, it should be a tree covered with flags and Old Glory should be
with the star at the top!

And then came tree-trimming! And the tree was--oh, oh, it was ever
so much more wonderful than any tree had ever been before. Everybody
said so! The little children said so. Brother said so! Mary Elizabeth
herself knew it was so! All the little poor children who came to the
tree said so!

It was Mother, however, who knew about the very soldierly Santa
Claus that had made the tree so lovely. “It honored the little
Christ Child’s Birthday, dear,” she said as she kissed Mary Elizabeth
good-night. “It is the tree of the soldiers who are fighting for all
that Christmas means.”

“The star was there,” replied Mary Elizabeth.




CONCLUSION

_The Last Leaf of the Surprise Book_


The last leaf of Marjorie’s Surprise Book was very, very thin. It did
not make Marjorie poke and feel and wonder what was inside its pocket.
It was marked to open at the Christmas tree. So the first thing that
she did was to pull its Christmas seals off and read what was written
inside:

  “I hope you will always be happy--
    As happy as you can be,
  As happy as all the happy times
    That you have shared with me.”

“I made that up,” said Dotty, proudly. “I did it all myself.” Really,
I think that Marjorie’s Surprise Book belonged to both little girls,
don’t you? But which one do you suppose liked it best? Was it Marjorie
or was it Dotty? What do you think? For myself, I think it was the one
who made it and gave it and thought it and planned it all. So, maybe,
there is somebody that you love to whom, you, too, would like to give a
Surprise Book like this of Marjorie’s.

And because I myself love all you children, I am giving _you_ the story
of a Surprise Book right here--now!




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Surprise Book, by Patten Beard

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56170 ***