LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” was all the reply.

      “Are they nice?” inquired Sue, squatting in a rustic chair and swinging her legs, as she calmly surveyed her sister.

      “Nice? Sue, they’re the funniest kids you ever heard of,” gasped Becky, her eagerness to talk stifling the spasms of merriment. “They ain’t New Yorkers – not a bit – they’re Bostoners! Think of that. It would kill you to hear ’em talk. They’re as full of culture as an egg is of meat; an’ langwidge!– say, folks, it’s something awful.”

      “I guessed as much,” said Don, with a grin. “But, I’m glad they’re not our kind. I wouldn’t care to go over to our old house and play with the usurpers. Let’s shut ’em out, for good and all.”

      “Oh, they’ll shut us out, I s’pect,” remarked Becky, wiping her eyes on her gingham sleeve. “You ought to have seen ’em stick up their noses at me till they found out I was a Daring. Then they put on so many airs it was disgust’n’.”

      “Seems to me,” said Sue, shaking away her troublesome curls and looking thoughtfully at her sprawling, ungainly sister, “they’re ’zactly the sort we ought to ’sociate with. If you could rub a little culture off’n ’em, dear, it wouldn’t hurt you a bit.”

      “Nor you, either, Sue,” laughed Don. “If you pronounced English that way in Boston, they’d jail you.”

      “Now who’s a snob, Don?” asked Sue, indignantly. “No one’s s’posed to pernounce ev’ry measley letter the dicsh’naries chuck into a word, is they?”

      “Oh, Sue!” said Becky; “your grammar is as bad as your pernunciation. I mus’ look afteh your education, myself. Those Randolph kids are a revelation to me; and, honest injun, I’m somewhat ashamed of myself. We’re going wrong, all of us, since mother died,” with a sigh and a catch in her voice, “an’ need to be jerked into line.”

      She said this in sober earnestness, remembering the sweet, gentle mother who had labored so hard to keep her flock from straying, and whose loss had permitted them to wander as their natural, untamed instincts dictated.

      “Mother,” said Don in tender accents, “was a lady to her finger tips, and wanted her girls and boys to grow up to be ladies and gentlemen. I try to do as she’d like to have me, whenever I think of it; but, that isn’t very often.”

      “You’re a cross-patch,” asserted Sue; “and I’ve heard teacher say that you’re the worst scholar in the school. You don’t mind Phœbe any more’n a fly minds sugar.”

      “Phœbe isn’t my boss,” retorted Don, resentfully. But, the next moment his frown softened, and he added: “Anyhow, I try to be decent, and that’s more than some of the family do.”

      “Meanin’ me?” asked Becky, defiantly.

      “You’re fourteen, and almost a woman; yet you act like a kindergarten kid. I’ll leave it to anyone if I’m not more dignified ’n’ respectable than you are; and I won’t be thirteen ’til next month.”

      “You’re old for your years, Don; and it’s lucky that you can find any good in yourself, for nobody else can!” remarked Becky, complacently.

      CHAPTER IV

      PHŒBE’S SECRET

      “Let’s get some pails and go to the woods for blackberries,” suggested Sue, posing as peacemaker. “P’raps Auntie’ll make us a pie for dinner.”

      “Can’t,” said Don. “I promised old Miss Halliday I’d make her a chicken coop. Another hen is hatching out and there’s no coop to put her in.”

      “All right, I’ll help you,” exclaimed Becky, jumping up. “You saw the boards, Don, and I’ll hammer the nails.”

      “Can’t you saw?”

      “Not straight; but, I’m game to try it.”

      A rush was made for the back yard, and Don searched the shed for some old boards to use in making the coop for the expected flock. When the saw and hammer began to be heard Miss Halliday came down from Gran’pa Eliot’s room and stood watching them, her finger on her lips to caution them to be as quiet as possible.

      She was old and withered, lean and bent; but her small black eyes still twinkled brightly. Miss Halliday seldom spoke to the Daring children and had as little to do with them as possible. She was virtually the autocrat of the establishment, for old Mr. Eliot was paralyzed and almost speechless. It is true he could mumble a few words at times, but no one seemed able to understand them, except his constant nurse and attendant.

      Miss Halliday had been with the Eliots since she was a young woman. She was Gran’ma Eliot’s maid, at first, then the housekeeper, and after Mrs. Eliot’s death and her master’s paralytic stroke, the sole manager of the establishment and a most devoted servant. In person she was exceedingly neat, although she dressed very simply. She was noted in Riverdale for her thrift and shrewd bargaining. They called her miserly until it came to be generally understood that Mr. Eliot’s money was gone; then the merchants respected her careful management of the old man’s finances.

      Why Elaine Halliday stuck to her post, under such unpleasant conditions, had puzzled more than one wise head in the village. Some said that Jonathan Eliot had willed her the homestead in return for her services; others, that the frugal stewardess was able to save more than her wages from the reputed wreck of the Eliot fortunes, which had once been considered of enormous extent. Only a very few credited her with an unselfish devotion to her old master.

      After the death of his daughter, Mrs. Daring, and just before his own paralytic stroke, Mr. Eliot had had a stormy interview with his son-in-law, Wallace Daring; but, no one except Elaine Halliday knew what it was about. Twenty-four hours later the irascible old man was helpless, and when Phœbe hurried over to assist him he refused to see her or any of his grandchildren. Mr. Daring, a kindly, warm-hearted man, had been so strongly incensed against his father-in-law that he held aloof in this crisis, knowing old Elaine would care for the stricken man’s wants. All this seemed to indicate that the rupture between the two men could never be healed.

      After the Daring children had been left orphans and reduced to poverty, Judge Ferguson went to Miss Halliday and pleaded with her to intercede with Jonathan Eliot to give the outcasts a home. The big house was then closed except for a few rooms on the second floor, where the invalid lay awaiting his final summons. There was more than enough room for the Darings, without disturbing the invalid in the least.

      At first, the old woman declared such an arrangement impossible; but, Mr. Ferguson would not be denied. He had been Mr. Eliot’s lawyer, and was the guardian of the Darings. If anyone knew the inner history of this peculiar family it was Peter Ferguson. For some reason Miss Halliday had been forced to withdraw her objections; she even gained the morose invalid’s consent to “turn his house into an orphan asylum,” as she bitterly expressed it. The Darings were to be allowed the entire lower floor and the two front bedrooms upstairs; but they were required to pay their own expenses. Elaine declared that it was all she could do to find money enough to feed Gran’pa Eliot his gruel and pay the taxes on the place.

      A powerful antipathy, dating back many years, existed between Miss Halliday and the Darings’ black servant, Aunt Hyacinth. During the two months since the Darings had found refuge in the old house not a word had been exchanged between them. But the black mammy, as much the protector of the orphans as Miss Halliday was of their grandsire, strove to avoid trouble and constantly cautioned her flock not to “raise a racket an’ ’sturb poeh gran’pa.” As for the children, they stood so much in awe of the invalid that they obeyed the injunction with great care.

      It was not often that Miss Halliday asked the boys to assist her in any way; but, occasionally Phil or Don would offer to do odd jobs about the place when they were not in school.

      “It seems like helping to pay the rent,” said Phil, with a laugh, “and as gran’pa quarreled with father I hate to be under obligations to him. So, let’s do all we can to help old

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