The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: or, There's No Place Like Home

"So do I," announced Charlie confidently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes. Great things," said Joe.

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

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

Florence uttered a horrified exclamation; and Kit said, —

"I'll go with you!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm not afraid of snakes."

"But you'd want a little bread."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kit indulged in a vigorous kick, which Joe dodged.

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

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

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

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

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

"You needn't make such a row!"

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

'Two orphan boys of Switzerland.'"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charlie laughed at the idea.

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III

A CHANCE FOR FLOSSY

The vacation had come to an end, and next week the children were to go to school again. Florence counted up her small hoard; for though she did not like to sweep, or wash dishes, she was industrious in other ways. She crocheted edgings and tidies, made lamp-mats, toilet-sets, and collars, and had earned sixteen dollars. Granny would not have touched a penny of it for the world.

So Florence bought herself two pretty delaine dresses for winter wear, and begged Granny to let Miss Brown cut and fit them. Florence had a pretty, slender figure; and she was rather vain of it. Her two dresses had cost seven dollars, a pair of tolerably nice boots three and a half, a plaid shawl four, and then she had indulged in the great luxury of a pair of kid gloves.

It had come about in this wise. Mrs. Day had purchased them in New York, but they proved too small for her daughter Julia. She was owing Florence a dollar; so she said, —

"Now, if you have a mind to take these gloves, Florence, I'd let you have them for seventy-five cents. I bought them very cheap: they ask a dollar and a quarter in some stores;" and she held them up in their most tempting light.

Florence looked at them longingly.

"They are lovely kid, and such a beautiful color! Green is all the fashion, and you have a new green dress."

There was a pair of nice woollen gloves at the store for fifty cents; and although they were rather clumsy, still Florence felt they would be warmer and more useful.

"I don't know as I can spare you the dollar now," continued Mrs. Day, giving the dainty little gloves a most aggravating stretch.

"I'd like to have them," said Florence hesitatingly.

"I suppose your grandmother won't mind? Your money is your own."

Now, Mrs. Day knew that it was wrong to tempt Florence; but the gloves were useless to her, and she felt anxious to dispose of them.

"Grandmother said I might spend all my money for clothes," was the rather proud reply.

"Kid gloves always look so genteel, and are so durable. You have such a pretty hand too."

"I guess I will take them," Florence said faintly.

So Mrs. Day gave her the gloves and twenty-five cents. Florence carried them home in secret triumph, and put them in her drawer in Granny's big bureau. She had not told about them yet; and sometimes they were a heavier burden than you would imagine so small a pair of gloves could possibly be.

Joe had earned a little odd change from the farmers round, and bought himself a pair of new trousers and a new pair of boots; while Hal had been maid-of-all-work in doors, and head gardener out of doors.

"Just look at these potatoes!" he said in triumph to Granny. "There's a splendid binful, and it'll last all winter. And there'll be cabbage and pumpkins and marrow-squash and Lima beans, and lots of corn for the chickens. The garden has been a success this summer."

"And you've worked early and late," returned Granny in tender triumph. "There isn't such another boy in the State, I'll be bound!" And she gave him the fondest of smiles.

"But the best of all is Dot. She's actually getting fat, Granny; and she has a dimple in her cheek. Why, she'll be almost as pretty as Flossy!"

Granny gave the little one a kiss.

"She's as good as a kitten when she is well," was the rejoinder, in a loving tone.

Kit and Charlie still romped like wild deers. They had made a cave in the wood, and spent whole days there; but Charlie burned her fingers roasting a bird, and went back to potatoes and corn, that could be put in the ashes without so much risk.

The old plaid cloak had been made over for a school-dress, and Charlie thought it quite grand. Kit and Hal had to do the best they could about clothes.

"Never mind me, Granny," Hal said cheerfully; though he couldn't help thinking of his patched Sunday jacket, which was growing short in the sleeves for him.

So on Saturday the children scrubbed and scoured and swept, and made the place quite shine again. Hal arranged the flowers, and then they all drew a restful breath before the supper preparations began.

"There's Mrs. Van Wyck coming!" and Charlie flew up the lane, dashing headlong into the house, to the imminent peril of her best dress, which she had been allowed to put on for an hour or two.

"Mrs. Van Wyck!"

Granny brushed back her bobbing flaxen curls, washed Dot's face over again with the nearest white cloth, which happened to be Flossy's best handkerchief that she had been doing up for Sunday.

"Oh!" the young lady cried in dismay, and then turned to make her prettiest courtesy. Mrs. Van Wyck was very well off indeed, and lived in quite a pretentious cottage, – villa she called it; but, as she had a habit of confusing her V's and W's, Joe re-christened it the Van Wyck Willow.

"Good-afternoon, Mrs. Kenneth. How d'y do, Florence?"

Florence brought out a chair, and, with the most polite air possible, invited her to be seated.

Mrs. Van Wyck eyed her sharply.

"'Pears to me you look quite fine," she said.

Florence wore a white dress that was pretty well outgrown, and had been made from one of her mother's in the beginning. It had a good many little darns here and there, and she was wearing it for the last time. She had tied a blue ribbon in her curls, and pinned a tiny bouquet on her bosom. She looked very much dressed, but that was pretty Flossy's misfortune.

Mrs. Van Wyck gathered up her silk gown, – a great staring brocade in blue and gold, that might have been her grandmother's, it looked so ancient in style.

"I've come over on some business," she began, with an important air and a mysterious shake of the head.

Granny sat down, and took Dot upon her lap. Kit and Charlie peered out of their hiding-places, and Joe perched himself upon the window-sill.

"How do you ever manage with all this tribe?" And Mrs. Van Wyck gave each of them a scowl.

"There's a houseful," returned Granny, "but we do get along."

"Tough scratching, I should say."

"And poor pickings the chickens might add, if they had such an old hen," commented Joe soto voce. "There'd be something worse than clucking."

Hal couldn't help laughing. Mrs. Van Wyck was so ruffled and frilled, so full of ends of ribbon about the head and neck, that she did look like a setting hen disturbed in the midst of her devotions.

"Them children haven't a bit of manners," declared Mrs. Van Wyck, in sublime disregard of syntax. "Trot off, all of you but Florence: I have something to say to your grandmother."

Joe made a somerset out of the window, and placed himself in a good listening position; Hal went out and sat on the doorstep; and Charlie crawled under the table.

"I don't see how you manage to get along with such a houseful. I always did wonder at your taking 'em."

"Oh! we do pretty well," returned Granny cheerily.

"They're growing big enough to help themselves a little. Why don't you bind Joe out to some of the farmers. Such a great fellow ought to be doing something besides racing round and getting into mischief."

Joe made a series of such polite evolutions, that Hal ran to the gate to have a good laugh without being heard.

"He's going to school," said Granny innocently. "They all begin on Monday."

"Going to school?" And Mrs. Van Wyck elevated her voice as if she thought them all deaf. "Why, I never went to school a day after I was twelve year old, and my father was a well-to-do farmer. There's no sense in children having so much book-larnin'. It makes 'em proud and stuck up, and good for nothing.

"Oh! where's that dog? Put him out! Put him out! I can't bear dogs. And the poorer people are, the more dogs they'll keep."

Joe, the incorrigible, was quite a ventriloquist for his years and size. He had just made a tremendous ki-yi, after the fashion of the most snarling terrier dog, and a kind of scrabbling as if the animal might be under Mrs. Van Wyck's feet.

"Oh, my! Take the nasty brute away. Maybe he's full of fleas or has the mange" —

"It is only Joe," explained Florence, as soon as she could put in a word.

"I'd Joe him, if I had him here! You're a ruining of these children as I've always said; and you may thank your stars if Joe escapes the gallows. I've positively come on an errand of mercy."

"Not for Joe," declared the owner of the name with a sagacious shake of the head, while Mrs. Van Wyck paused for breath.

"Yes. Not one of them'll be worth a penny if they go on this way. Now, here's Florence, growing up in idleness" —

"She keeps pretty busy," said Granny stoutly.

"Busy! Why, you've nothing for her to do. When I was a little girl, my mother made me sit beside her, and sew patchwork; and before I was twelve year old I had finished four quilts. And she taught me the hymn, —

'Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do.'"

"They always learn a verse for Sunday," said Granny deprecatingly.

"But you let 'em run wild. I've seen it all along. I was a talkin' to Miss Porter about it; and says I, 'Now, I'll do one good deed;' and the Lord knows it's needed."

Everybody listened. Joe from the outside made a pretence of picking his ears open with the handle of a broken saucepan.

"Florence is getting to be a big girl, and it's high time she learned something. As I was a sayin' to Miss Porter, 'I want just such a girl; and it will be the making of Florence Kenneth to fall into good hands.'"

"But you don't mean" – and Granny paused, aghast.

"I mean to make the child useful in her day and generation. It'll be a good place for her."

Mrs. Van Wyck nodded her head until the bows and streamers flew in every direction.

Granny opened her eyes wide in surprise.

"What do you want of her, Mrs. Van Wyck?"

Charlie peeped out from between the legs of the table to hear, her mouth wide open lest she should lose a word.

"Want of her?" screamed the visitor. "Why, to work, of course! I don't keep idle people about me, I can tell you. I want a girl to make beds, and sweep, and dust, and wash dishes, and scour knives, and scrub, and run errands, and do little chores around. It'll be the making of her; and I'm willing to do the fair thing."

Granny was struck dumb with amazement. Florence could hardly credit her ears. Hal sprang up indignantly, and Joe doubled his fists as if he were about to demolish the old house along with Mrs. Van Wyck.

"Yes. I've considered the subject well. I always sleep on a thing before I tell a single soul. And, if Florence is a good smart girl, I'll give her seventy-five cents a week and her board. For six dollars a month I could get a grown girl, who could do all my work."

Granny looked at Florence in helpless consternation; and Florence looked at Granny with overwhelming disdain.

"Well! why don't you answer?" said the visitor. She had supposed they would jump at the offer.

"I don't expect to go out doing housework, Mrs. Van Wyck," said Florence loftily.

"Hoity-toity! how grand we are! I've never been above doing my own housework; and I could buy and sell the whole bunch of you, a dozen times over."

"Florence wouldn't like it, I'm afraid," said Granny mildly.

"A fine way to bring up children, truly! You may see the day when you'll be thankful to have a home as good as my kitchen."

There was a bright red spot in Florence's cheeks.

"Mrs. Van Wyck," Florence began in a quiet, ladylike manner, although she felt inclined to be angry, "grandmother is right: I should not like it. I have no taste for housework; and I can earn more than you offer to give by doing embroidering and crocheting. Through the six weeks of vacation I earned sixteen dollars."

"Fancy work! What is the world coming to? Children brought up to despise good, honest employment."

"No, I don't despise it," amended Florence; "but I do not like it, and I think it a hard way of earning a little money. If I can do better, of course I have the right."

Granny was amazed at the spirit Florence displayed.

"You'll all be paupers on the town yet, mark my words. Flaunting round in white dresses and ribbons, and" —

She glanced around for some further vanity to include in her inventory.

"I am sure we are obliged to you," said Granny mildly. "But Florence" —

"Yes, Florence is too good to work. There's no sense in such high-flown names. I'd have called her plain Peggy. She must curl her hair, and dress herself – oh my lady, if I had you, you'd see!"