Little Miss By-The-Day Part 9

She was in the kitchen garden one morning just beside the gatehouse showing Bele for the thousandth time how to trench the peas without burying them, when a crumpled old man in a rough cap with a basket under his arm, limped through the gate.

"I want to see Major Trenton--" he said firmly.

Felicia turned. No one ever came to see the Major any more. Not even Certain Legal Matters since the time of the Major's fall. Felicia had signed many papers at his last visit some three years before and since then no one had bothered the Major.

"You'll have to see me," answered Felicia, coolly, "Bele, not--so-- deep! You're smothering them--what is your business?"

The man took off his cap, he put down his basket and knelt to open it and out popped the littlest, drollest fluff of a spaniel that ever frisked.

"Oh, oh!" cried Felicia softly and dropped to her knees. "Oh, oh, it's a little Bab.i.+.c.he! Oh Zeb! Zeb! To think I didn't see who you were--"

And they walked across the paved door-yard with the tears in their eyes and Felicia took him in to Margot and brought him soup and fed the wee doggie and fluttered about like a wild young thing instead of a sedate person of twenty-seven.

"I want to ask you a thousand million things! I want to ask Marthy a thousand million things--"

Zeb closed his eyes and shook his head.

Felicia patted his shoulder.

"Has she gone away, like Maman?" she asked softly. "I know how hard it is when folks go away, Zeb."

"But that's not the matter o' my comin'--" Zeb pushed his bowl away and stood respectfully, "That matter o' my comin' was as I must see the Major. On your going away, Miss Felicia, he promised me rent free for my lifetime and he gave me all the breedin' stock they was and left me the business for what I could make, so's to speak. Which isn't what it were, with new-fangled big dogs getting in style now. And with Marthy gone and all. But now with Mr. Burrel skipped out like he did, things is awful--just awful--and It seemed like I'd got to tell the Major--"

Margot pulled out a chair for Felicia.

"Sit down, Cherie," she murmured, "Margot will get it out--have you seen Mr. Burrel?" she questioned eagerly, "We've no sign of him this long time--"

"He's skipped out--" repeated Zeb dully, "Things is awful--Come last Thursday they pasted 'Auction, April 10 for Unpaid Taxes' over everything. So's when I was packing my things I come on some writing Miss Octavia left Marthy. As to how to get here, and I come."

He was weary and spent with his journey; he was stupider than ever, poor old Zeb. Not even the round faced doctor, whom Margot and Felicia called for advice, could learn anything more from his disconnected story, save that there were "heathen, dirty filthy heathen" living in the old house.

Felicia cuddled the new Bab.i.+.c.he thoughtfully.

"Do you think," she asked, "that the Major would miss me, Doctor, if I went away a little while to find out about these things?"

The doctor shook his head.

"He wouldn't," he answered, "But, Miss Day, you couldn't go!"

She smiled.

"Couldn't I just!" she breathed. She was quite calm about the details.

Her perfect poise awed both Margot and the doctor into thinking her quite capable. "Zeb could stay here with Margot, the doctor could take me to the station, Zeb says he didn't come on a boat, just a train.

And you know, Margot, when I get to Brooklyn, I'll go right to Temple Bar. There was a man, as I told you, another lawyer. When I was young he told me to go to him if anything happened. Maman had him come. He will know what to do."

Nothing they could say would dissuade her. The touch of imperiousness with which she silenced their objections made the blundering well- meaning doctor want to shake her. He waited impatiently while Margot made Felicia ready for the hasty journey. He saw nothing absurd about the slender figure that came down the stairway toward him wrapped in the very same traveling coat in which she had first journeyed to the House in the Woods. She was wearing one of Louisa's ugliest bonnets with the strings tied primly under her chin and she was fearfully pale.

The Major was sitting by his fire, dozing gently. He did not notice her at all. He roused himself for the doctor's perfunctorily cheerful farewell. It was then that he noted Felicia's coat and bonnet.

"What are you pretending?" he asked.

"I'm pretending I'm going on a journey," she answered cheerfully.

"Don't you think I look like going on a journey, Grandy?"

"I think you look very charming, my dear," he murmured automatically, his thin hand on the top of his cane. He s.h.i.+vered slightly. "But I forbid you to go to Paris--bad business--it's a bad business, Louisa!"

At the gateway, just as the doctor was clucking briskly to his horse, Felicia put out her hand and stopped him. Zeb and Margot and Bele stood respectfully beside the gatehouse, respectfully but very troubled.

"It's silly," faltered Felicia, "but I think--I--can't go alone--Zeb, you bring me my new Bab.i.+.c.he, I can carry her under my arm."

Zeb handed the dog up proudly, patting her professionally. He scratched his head perplexedly as he stepped back from the wheel.

"Hey, wait!" he addressed the doctor as he started a second time. He fumbled in an inner pocket of his rough coat. "I was forgetting, Miss Felicia, a matter of a letter for you I found in Marthy's things--she sent it off at you this long time ago but it came back at her--"

He handed it up, thin, much creased and much bestamped and postmarked.

Miss F. Day New York.

Or return to

M. Z. Smather 2 Montrose Lane, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Pretend you were the doctor if you like, the tired country doctor, mildly sorry for the little old maid granddaughter of your apoplectic patient--that queer patient who lives in that stone mansion some of those French refugees built over there across the Pine Plains. That's an easy enough thing to pretend, but a tiresome enough thing, too, for then you'll have to make believe you're urging your tired horse over those heavy roads to the railway station so you can get the old maid there in time for her train. She's quiet enough, in her seedy bonnet and shabby coat, a nice sensible body usually, only very self-willed.

You know perfectly well she's going off on a wild goose chase and that she shouldn't be taking that fool puppy with her.

_But oh, I hope you're good at pretending!_ For then you can pretend you're Felicia Day! Felicia Day sitting in a lumbering local train, quite unmindful of the atrocious rocking roadbed or the blurred spring forests that whirl past your smoke-glazed window; quite oblivious of all the terrors and discomforts of journeys past or journeys still to come!

For then you can pretend that you've just slowly pulled away the envelope that was so useless because of poor old Marthy's undecipherable handwriting and that you've kissed the inner wrapping that reads "Please send this to Miss Trenton (if that's her name). At once." And then--oh then, you can pretend you are reading the first letter you ever had in all this world and that it says,

Dear Felice:

You see I've found out your first name even if I'm not sure of the rest. Anyhow I know Major Trenton is your grandfather. He wouldn't let me see you this morning when I went to your house and this afternoon you'd gone away. The old woman says you've gone to a house in the woods. Please, please tell me you'll let me come to see you. Please tell me where it is. She doesn't seem to know exactly. The doctor says your foot will be all right but, oh, I can't forgive myself that I let you fall. I wish I had never, never let go of you at all--

Oh, girl, please write in a hurry where you are. I want to tell you so many things. I want to ask you a lot of things. You can send a letter to my house, it's 18 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn. I know you know my name because you called it when you were falling. It was so wonderful to have you know my name--

Oh, Felice, please write me very soon. I can't wait until I get your letter.

_Your_ DUDLEY HAMILT.

CHAPTER III

LOST DREAMS

Perhaps you remember the fat boy who teased little Felice through the gate of the rectory yard. He didn't grow up like the rest of the choir boys, he merely expanded until he was a droll larger edition of his small tubby self; perhaps you've heard him singing at St. Patrick's and smiled at the bland and childlike face from which his beautiful big round baritone pours forth--he surely can sing! And eat! It's really rather fun to go to the Brevoort with him and watch his pleasingly plump wife remonstrate while he orders luncheon.