Elsie's children. Finley Martha
on his hand and a rent in his jacket.
Miss Fisk, making him promise not to repeat the experiment, went back to her seat under the trees and the book she had brought from the house for her own enjoyment.
The morning passed without any further incident worth recording, the children amusing themselves with various quiet plays, the girls keeping house, each under her own particular tree, and exchanging visits; the boys catching trout, which they sent to the house to be cooked for dinner. They wanted to make a fire and cook them themselves, but Miss Fisk wisely forbade it.
She would have had the meal served in the schoolhouse, but yielded to the clamor for an out-door repast. Several desks were brought out into the shade of the trees, a dainty table-cloth spread over them and the party presently sat down to a delightful collation, to which they brought keen appetites.
Ranger had disappeared. They missed him as they were leaving the table.
"Where can he have gone?" Harry was saying, when Vi cried out, "Oh yonder he is! and he has a dear little bird in his mouth! Oh you wicked, cruel dog!" And running to him she tried to take it from him.
Be dropped it and snapped at her, Eddie jerking her back just in time to save her from his teeth, while Archie, who was very fond of Vi, struck the dog a blow with a stick, crying furiously, "You just do that again, sir, and I'll kill you!"
Ranger then flew at him, but the boy avoided the attack by jumping nimbly behind a tree.
The other children were screaming with fright, and a catastrophe appeared imminent, but one of the maids came running with some tempting morsels for Ranger which appeased his wrath, and the danger was averted.
Ranger's attention being absorbed with the satisfying of his appetite, the children now looked about for the bird. It was not quite dead, but soon breathed its last in Vi's lap with her tears dropping fast upon it.
"Oh don't, Vi!" said Archie, "I can't bear to see you feel so sorry. And the bird isn't being hurt now, you know; 'twon't ever be hurt any more; will it, Ed?"
"No," said Harry, "we might as well let the dog have it."
"No, no!" said Eddie, "it would just encourage him to catch another."
"So it would," said Gertrude, "let's make a grand funeral and bury it at the foot of a tree. If we only knew now which one it used to live on."
The motion was about to be carried by acclamation, but Vi entered a decided protest. "No, no, I want to keep it."
"But you can't, Vi," remonstrated Eddie, "dead things have to be buried, you know."
"Not the skin and feathers, Eddie; they do stuff them sometimes and I'll ask mamma to let me have this one done."
"Oh what's the use?" expostulated Gertrude; "it's only a common robin."
"But I love it; the poor dear little thing! and mamma will let me, I know she will," returned Vi, wiping away her tears as though comforted by the very thought.
The other children wandered off to their play leaving her sitting where she was, on a fallen tree, fondling the bird; but Archie soon came back and seated himself by her side.
"Such a pity; isn't it?" he said, "I hate that Ranger, don't you, Vi?"
"No-o I hope not, Archie," she answered doubtfully: "folks kill birds to eat them and may be 'tain't any worse for dogs," she added, with a fresh burst of tears. "Poor little birdie; and may be there are some young ones in the nest that have no mamma now to feed or care for them."
"That old Ranger! and he snapped at you too. Here he comes again. I'll kill him!" cried the boy, with vehemence. "Oh no, I know what I'll do! Here Ranger! here Ranger!" and starting up he rushed away in a direction to take him farther from the schoolhouse and the rest of his party.
He had spied in the distance a farmer's boy, a lad of fourteen, with whom he had some slight acquaintance. "Hallo, Jared Bates!" he shouted.
"Well, what's wantin'?" and Jared stood still, drawing the lash of his carter's whip slowly between his fingers. "Hurry up now, for I've got to go back to my team. Whose dog's that?" as Ranger came running up and saluted him with a sharp, "Bow, wow, wow!"
"Ours," said Archie, "and I'm mad at him 'cause he killed a bird and tried to bite Vi Travilla, when she went to take it from him."
"Like enough," returned Jared, grinning. "But what about it?"
"I thought may be you'd like to have him."
"So I would, what'll you sell him for?"
"Ten cents."
"I hain't got but two."
"Haven't you, Jared? truly, now?"
"No, nary red, 'cept them," and diving into his pantaloons' pocket, Jared produced a handful of odds and ends – a broken knife, a plug of tobacco, some rusty nails, a bit of twine, etc., – from which he picked out two nickels. "There, them's um, and they's all I got in the world," he said gravely, passing them over to Archie.
"Well, it's very cheap," observed the latter, pocketing the cash, "but you can have him. Good-bye," and away he ran back to the spot where he had left Vi.
"You're a green 'un!" laughed Jared, looking after him; then whistling to the dog to follow, he went on his way.
CHAPTER SEVENTH
"But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully."
All the children, Gertrude excepted, were gathered on the front porch, Vi with the dead bird in her hands, when the carriage drove up with the returning travelers.
There was a glad chorus of welcome, and most of the young faces were bright and happy. Elsie's troop had nothing but smiles, caresses and loving words for her, and tender, anxious inquiries about "Sister Elsie; if the tooth were out?" "if the dentist hurt her much?"
"It was hard to bear," she said, "but the doctor was very kind, and tried not to hurt her. And, oh, mamma had made her such a lovely present, for being brave and willing to have her tooth out." And she took a beautiful little gold watch and chain from her bosom, and held them up to their admiring gaze.
"Oh, I'm so glad, so glad! Dear mamma, how good of you!" cried Vi, without a touch of envy embracing first her sister, and then her mother.
Eddie and the two younger ones seemed equally pleased, and "sister Elsie" allowed each in turn to closely inspect, her treasure.
In the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Ross had been busy bestowing caresses and small gifts upon their children, who received them with noisy glee mingled with some reproaches because they had been left at home.
"Come, come, no complaints," said their father; "I think you have fared well; – a holiday, a picnic, and these pretty presents. Where's Gertrude?"
"Sure enough, where is she?" asked Lucy, looking round from one to another.
"She's mad because you did not take her along," remarked Harry, "she says you didn't keep your promise."
"Dear me, I'd forgotten all about it!" exclaimed Mrs. Ross. "I should have taken her though, but there wasn't time to get her up and dressed."
"Gertrude! Gertrude!" called Mr. Ross, in tones of authority, "Gertrude, come here and show yourself."
At that the child came slowly out from the hall – whence she had been watching the scene through the crack behind the door – looking red and angry.
"What's the matter with you?" asked her father, with some displeasure in his tones.
"Nothing, I'm not crying."
"Nor pouting either, I suppose? What's it all about."
"Mamma promised to take me along the next time she went to the city."
"Perhaps she will the next time."
"But this was the next time, because she promised it when she went before and took Kate."
"Well, such promises are always conditional; she took