LITMIR.BIZ

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been the fault of other people when he had really done wrong.

      Miranda's arms in their warm pressure answered the boy's words, and she stooped again and laid her lips on his forehead lingeringly, albeit as shyly as a boy might have done it. Miranda was not one to show deep emotion and she was more stirred than ever before.

      "Well, I guess we sort o' b'long to each other somehow. Ennyhow we'll be friends. Say, didn't you tear your cloes when you went up that hick'ry?"

      The child in her arms suddenly straightened up and became the boy with mischief in his eyes and a knowing tilt to his handsome head.

      "Say, did you see me go up that tree?"

      "No, but I saw you gone; and I saw Sammy's eyes lookin' up, an' I saw the hick'ry movin' some, so I calc’lated you was up there, all right."

      "An' you won't tell?" doubtfully.

      "Course I won't tell. It's none o' my business, an' b'sides I could see you wasn't enjoyin' yerse'f to the weddin'. What's more, I'll mend them cloes. There ain't no reason fer M'ria Bent as was, to come inspectin' you yet a whiles. You kin shin up the kitchen roof, can't yeh, to my winder, an' you take off them rips an' tears an' bop into my bed? I'll come up an' mend yeh so's she won't know. Then you ken shin up a tree to yer own winder t' hum an' go to bed, an' like's not she'll never notice them does till yer Aunt Jane's gone, an' she'll think they been tore an' mended sometime back, an' she ain't got no call to throw 'ern up to yeh. Hed yer supper?"

      "Naw. Don't want any."

      "That's all right. I’ll bring you up some caraway cookies. You like 'em don't yeh? Er hev yeh et too much weddin' cake?"

      "Didn't touch their old wedding cake," said the boy sulkily.

      *"Boy, didn't you go home 'tall since you was in the hick'ry? Wall, I swan! To think you'd miss the reception with all them good things to eat! You must a felt pretty bad. Never mind you, honey. You do's I tell yeh. Just shin right up that roof. Here, eat them raspberries first, they ain't many but they'll stay yeh. I got some fried chicken left over. Don't you worry. Now, let's see you get up there."

      Miranda helped Nate from the back kitchen window to mount to the roof and saw him climb lightly and gleefully in at her window, then she bustled in to put supper on the table. Mr. David was not home yet when everything was ready, so with a glass of milk, a plate of bread, jelly, and chicken, and another of cookies she slipped up the back stairs to her small boy, and found him quite contentedly awaiting her coming, his eyes shining a welcome to her through the gathering darkness of the room, as he might have done to any pal in a youthful conspiracy.

      "I've got a boarder," she explained grimly a few minutes afterward to the astonished Mrs. Marcia, coming downstairs with her lighted candle, a small pair of trousers and a jacket over her arm.

      "A boarder!" Mrs. Marcia had learned to expect the unusual from Miranda, but this was out of the ordinary even for Miranda, at least without permission.

      "Yes, you ken take it off my wages. I don't guess he'll remain more'n an hour or so, leastways I'll try to get him off soon fer his own sake. It's that poor little peaked Nate Whitney, Mrs. Marcia. He's all broke up over hevin' that broomstick of a M'ria Bent fer his mother, an' seem' as I sorta shirked the job myself I thought 'twas only decent I should chirk him up a bit. He was out behind the pieplant cryin' like his heart would break, an' he ast me, why didn't I be his mother, 'at he hated her, an' he was all tore up with climbin' trees to get out of sight, so I laid out to mend him up a little 'fore he goes home. I know M’ria Bent. I went to school to her one year 'fore I quit, an' she's a tartar! It ain't reasonable fer him to start in with her the first day all tore up. She'd get him at a disadvantage. Ain't you got a patch would do to put under this tear, Mrs. Marcia? I took him up some supper. I knowed you wouldn't care, an' I want you should take it off my wages. Yes, that's right. I’ll feel better about it ef you do, then I could do it agin ef the notion should take me I owe a little sumpin' to that boy fer my present state of freedom an' independence, an' I kinda take a likin' to him when he's cryin' you know. After all, I do’ no's'e was ever so awful bad."

      Mrs. Marcia laid a tender understanding touch on her handmaiden's arm, and with a smile in the dimple by the off-corner of her mouth, and a tear in the eye that Miranda could not see, went to get the patch.

      Young Nathan inside of two hours departed by the way of the roof, washed and combed, mended and pressed, as well as Aunt Jane could have done it; but with more than he had had for years, a heart that was almost comforted. He felt that now he had at least one friend in the world who understood him, and meditated as he slid down the kitchen-shed roof, whether it might not be practicable for him to grow up fast and marry Miranda so no one else would carry her off. By the time he had scaled his own kitchen roof and cautiously removed his clothing, hung it up and crept to his own little bed, he had, it is true, quite forgotten this vague idea; but the comfort in his heart remained, and made it possible for him to waken cheerfully the next morning to his new world without that sinking feeling that had been in his heart and stomach ever since he knew that Maria Bent was to be his father's wife.

      So that was how it all came about that Miranda Griscom became mother-confessor and chief-comforter to Nathan Whitney's second son, and Nathan became the slave and adorer of little Rose Schuyler Spafford when she was five-years-old-going-on-to-six; and it all began in the rear 1838.

      Chapter III

       Table of Contents

      There was a chapter in Miranda's life that she had never told to a living soul, and which only on rare occasions did she herself take out of her heart and look over. It was only when the wellsprings of her very being were deeply touched in some way as in the quiet and dark of her starlit window; or when she was on her knees at her queer devotions, that she let her mind dwell upon it.

      Miranda was twenty-two years old, and entirely heart whole, yet there had been and still was a romance in her life as sweet and precious as any that more favored girls had experienced. That it had been sad and brief, and the hope of its ever coming to anything had long since departed from her heart, made it no less precious to her. It was on account of her strength and sweetness of character, her bubbling good nature and interest in others, and her keen sense of humor that her experience had not hardened or sharpened her one mite. She was one of those strong souls who through not having has learned to forget self, and be content in the joy of others. There was not a fibre of selfishness in the whole of her quaint, intense, delightful make-up. She lived her somewhat lonely life and picked up what crumbs of pleasure she could end; fought her merry, sometimes questionable, warfare for those she loved ; served them worshipfully; would give her life for theirs any day; yet kept in her heart one strong secret shrine for the love of her young heart, furnished royally with all the hopes and yearnings that any girl knows.

      Years ago, it seemed centuries now, before David had brought his girl bride to the old house next door to Grandmother Heath's, when Miranda had been a school-girl, eleven—twelve—thirteen years old, there had been a hero in her life. No one had known it, not even the hero. But no knight of old ever was beloved or watched or exalted by fair lady more than was Allan Whitney, half brother of young Nathan—for Maria Bent was of course old Nathan Whitney's third wife.

      Allan Whitney was tall and strong, with straight dark hair that fell over his forehead till he had continually to toss it back; a mouth that drooped pathetically above a strong purposeful chin; eyes that held depths of fierceness and sadness that only a passionate temperament knows how to combine; and a reputation altogether worse than any boy that had ever been brought up in the town.

      Allan had been kind to his step-mother when his father was cold and hard, and had in some way cheered her last days; but she never had time or fortitude to do much in the way of bringing him up. In fact he never was brought up, unless he did it himself. If one might judge by his strong will, if it was his inheritance from his own mother, she alone might have been able to do something toward moulding him. Certainly his father never had the slightest influence with the boy. Nathan Whitney could make money and keep it,

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