Laddie. Stratton-Porter Gene
But your father said in our home that there was no God, and you wouldn't let my mother in when she put on her best dress and went in the carriage, and wanted to be friends. I have to believe that."
"Yes, you can't help believing that," said the Princess.
"Then can't you see why you'll be likely to show Laddie the way to find trouble, instead of sunshine?"
"I can see," said the Princess.
"Oh Princess, you won't do it, will you?" I cried.
"Don't you think such a big man as Laddie can take care of himself?" she asked, and the dancing lights that had begun to fade came back. "Over there," she pointed through our woods toward the southwest, "lives a man you know. What do his neighbours call him?"
"Stiff-necked Johnny," I answered promptly.
"And the man who lives next him?"
"Pinch-fist Williams."
Her finger veered to another neighbour's.
"The girls of that house?"
"Giggle-head Smithsons."
"What about the man who lives over there?"
"He beats his wife."
"And the house beyond?"
"Mother whispers about them. I don't know."
"And the woman on the hill?"
"She doesn't do anything but gussip and make every one trouble."
"Exactly!" said the Princess. "Yet most of these people come to your house, and your family goes to theirs. Do you suppose people they know nothing about are so much worse than these others?"
"If your father will take it back about God, and your mother will let people in—my mother and father both wanted to be friends, you know."
"That I can't possibly do," she said, "but maybe I could change their feelings toward me."
"Do it!" I cried. "Oh, I'd just love you to do it! I wish you would come to our house and be friends. Sally is pretty as you are, only a different way, and I know she'd like you, and so would Shelley. If Laddie writes you letters and comes here about sunshine, of course he'd be delighted if mother knew you; because she loves him best of any of us. She depends on him most as much as father."
"Then will you keep the secret until I have time to try—say until this time next year?"
"I'll keep it just as long as Laddie wants me to."
"Good!" said the Princess. "No wonder Laddie thinks you the finest Little Sister any one ever had."
"Does Laddie think that?" I asked
"He does indeed!" said the Princess.
"Then I'm not afraid to go home," I said. "And I'll bring his letter the next time he can't come."
"Were you scared this time?"
I told her about that Something in the dry bed, the wolves, wildcats, Paddy Ryan, and the Gypsies.
"You little goosie," said the Princess. "I am afraid that brother Leon of yours is the biggest rogue loose in this part of the country. Didn't it ever occur to you that people named Wolfe live over there, and they call that crowd next us 'wildcats,' because they just went on some land and took it, and began living there without any more permission than real wildcats ask to enter the woods? Do you suppose I would be here, and everywhere else I want to go, if there were any danger? Did anything really harm you coming?"
"You're harmed when you're scared until you can't breathe," I said. "Anyway, nothing could get me coming, because I held the letter tight in my hand, like Laddie said. If you'd write me one to take back, I'd be safe going home."
"I see," said the Princess. "But I've no pencil, and no paper, unless I use the back of one of Laddie's letters, and that wouldn't be polite."
"You can make new fashions," I said, "but you don't know much about the woods, do you? I could fix fifty ways to send a message to Laddie."
"How would you?" asked the Princess.
Running to the pawpaw bushes I pulled some big tender leaves. Then I took the bark from the box and laid a leaf on it.
"Press with one of your rings," I said, "and print what you want to say. I write to the Fairies every day that way, only I use an old knife handle."
She tried. She spoiled two or three by bearing down so hard she cut the leaves. She didn't even know enough to write on the frosty side, until she was told. But pretty soon she got along so well she printed all over two big ones. Then I took a stick and punched little holes and stuck a piece of foxfire bloom through.
"What makes you do that?" she asked.
"That's the stamp," I explained.
"But it's my letter, and I didn't put it there."
"Has to be there or the Fairies won't like it," I said.
"Well then, let it go," said the Princess.
I put back the bark and replaced the stone, gathered up the scattered leaves, and put the two with writing on between fresh ones.
"Now I must run," I said, "or Laddie will think the Gypsies have got me sure."
"I'll go with you past the dry creek," she offered.
"You better not," I said. "I'd love to have you, but it would be best for you to change their opinion, before father or mother sees you on their land."
"Perhaps it would," said the Princess. "I'll wait here until you reach the fence and then you call and I'll know you are in the open and feel comfortable."
"I am most all over being afraid now," I told her.
Just to show her, I walked to the creek, climbed the gate and went down the lane. Almost to the road I began wondering what I could do with the letter, when looking ahead I saw Laddie coming.
"I was just starting to find you. You've been an age, child," he said.
I held up the letter.
"No one is looking," I said, "and this won't go in your pocket."
You should have seen his face.
"Where did you get it?" he asked.
I told him all about it. I told him everything—about the hair that maybe was stronger than she thought, and that she was going to change father's and mother's opinions, and that I put the red flower on, but she left it; and when I was done Laddie almost hugged the life out of me. I never did see him so happy.
"If you be very, very careful never to breathe a whisper, I'll take you with me some day," he promised.
CHAPTER II
Our Angel Boy
"I had a brother once—a gracious boy,
Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,
Of sweet and quiet joy,—there was the look
Of heaven upon his face."
It was supper time when we reached home, and Bobby was at the front gate to meet me. He always hunted me all over the place when the big bell in the yard rang at meal time, because if he crowed nicely when he was told, he was allowed to stand on the back of my chair and every little while I held up my plate and shared bites with him. I have seen many white bantams, but never another like Bobby. My big brothers bought him for me in Fort Wayne, and sent him in a box, alone on the cars. Father and I drove to Groveville to meet him. The minute father pried off the lid, Bobby hopped on the edge of the box and crowed—the biggest crow you ever