[Illustration: Beth thought a cotton field a very pretty sight. (Illustration missing from book)]
The pine trees of Georgia prove monotonous to most people, except that their perpetual green is restful to the eye in the midst of white sand and dazzling sunshine. Beth, however, liked even the pines, being a lover of all trees. They seemed almost human to her. She believed that trees could speak if they would. She often talked to them, and fondled their rough old bark. Children can have worse companions than trees. They were a great comfort to Beth all through life.
On the way through Georgia, the train was delayed by a hot box. While it was being fixed, Bob took Beth for a walk, and she saw a moss-laden oak for the first time.
"Oh, Bob," she cried, "I never before saw a tree with hair."
His hearty laugh broke out anew. "Ha, ha, ha. I'll jes' pull some of dat hair for you, missy," and he raised his great, black hand to grab the curling, greenish, gray moss.
"Don't, Bob," and when he gave her no heed, she added, "I'm afraid it'll hurt the tree. I know it hurts me greatly when any one pulls my hair."
He laughed more than ever at her, until Beth grew ashamed, and meekly accepted the moss that he piled up in her little arms.
The hot box so delayed the train that Jacksonville was not reached until the middle of the night.
Bob took a sleeping child in his arms, and carried her out to the bus.
"Good-bye, little missy," he murmured, before handing her to her father.
Her arms tightened around his neck while her eyes opened for a second.
"Don't leave me, Bob. I love you."
Then she did not remember anything more until she wakened in a strange room the next morning.
At first, she could not think where she was. Then it came to her that she was in a hotel in Jacksonville. She sprang out of bed, and ran to a window. The room faced a park, and afforded Beth her first glimpse of tropical beauty. Strange trees glistened in the glorious sunshine. From pictures she had seen, Beth recognized the palms, and the orange trees. Below, on the piazza, the band was playing "Dixie." Delighted as Beth was, she did not linger long by the window, but dressed as fast as she could.
Mr. Davenport entered the room.
"Do you know what time it is? It's fully eleven, and I was up at six this morning."
"At six, papa? What have you been doing?"
"I went down town, and then I drove far out into the country."
"Oh, why didn't you waken me and let me go?"
"I had business on hand. Come along down to the dining-room. Your mother had some breakfast saved for you. I have a surprise for you."
"A surprise, papa? What is it?"
"It wouldn't be as great a surprise if I told you." This was all the satisfaction she received until after she had breakfasted.
"We're going for a drive," said Mr. Davenport as she came out of the dining-room.
"Is the drive the surprise, papa?"
"You'll know all in good time, Beth. You must have patience," he answered as he led the way out to the piazza.
"Get your hats, and bring Beth's with you," he said to Mrs. Davenport and Marian who were listening to the music.
"What do you think of that man and the rig?" asked Mr. Davenport of Beth, indicating a middle-aged negro who stood holding a bay mare hitched to a surrey.
Beth noted that the man looked good-natured. There were funny little curves on his face suggestive of laughter even when in repose. Jolly wrinkles lurked around his eyes. Beth saw two rows of pearly teeth though his mouth was partly hidden by a mustache and beard. His nose was large and flat. It looked like a dirty piece of putty thrown at haphazard on a black background. Beth, however, did not mind his homeliness.
"He's nice, and the horse is beautiful," she said.
"Then let's go down and talk to the man."
As Mr. Davenport and Beth walked to the side of the darky, he lifted his stovepipe hat that had been brushed until the silk was wearing away. He revealed thereby a shock of iron-gray wool. He made a sweeping bow.
"Massa, am dis de little missy dat yo' wuz tellin' 'bout? I'se powerful glad to meet yo', missy."
He was so very polite that even irrepressible Beth was a little awed. She hid halfway behind her father.
"This is January, Beth."
"What a very queer name," she whispered.
"It is queer, but you are in a strange land. For awhile you'll think you are in fairy-land. Everything will be so different. Do you want to stay with January while I go in to bring your mother?"
She nodded that she did. Mr. Davenport reëntered the hotel. Beth seated herself upon the curbstone, and looked at the bay horse behind which she was soon to have the bliss of driving. She thought it about as nice a horse as she had ever seen. Her curiosity overcame her momentary shyness. "Is it your horse, January?"
He smiled. "No, 'deed, missy, but I raised her from a colt, and she loves me like I wuz her massa. Why, she runs to me from de pasture when I jes' calls, while she's dat ornary wid odders, dey jes' can't cotch her. It takes old January to cotch dis horse, don't it, Dolly?"
The horse whinnied.
"Is Dolly her name?"
"Dat's what I calls her, honey. It ain't her real name. Her real name——"
"Oh, has she a nickname, too? She's like me then. My name isn't really Beth."
"'Deed?" he asked with polite interest.
"It's Elizabeth, but I'm called that only when I have tantrums."
"What am dem, missy?"
"Well," she blushingly stammered, "I sometimes forget to be good, and then I can't help having them—tantrums, you know. Just like the little girl with the curl who, when she was bad, was horrid. January, are you ever horrid?"
He looked self-conscious. "Law, missy, I nebber tinks I am, but Titus 'lows I am, but he don't know much nohow."
Dolly whinnied again, which recalled Beth's thoughts to the horse. "Who owns Dolly, January?"
"Law, missy, didn't I tole yo' dat she 'longs to yer paw now?"
Beth was so excited that she jumped to her feet, and began to clap her hands.
Her antics made her parents and Marian smile as they came from the hotel.
"Mamma, she's our horse. January said so. Dolly, do you like me?"
Dolly pricked up her ears as if she understood, and whinnied.
"She wants some sugar," declared Beth, believing that she understood horse language. She took a stale piece of candy out of her pocket, and gave it to Dolly. This attention sealed a never-ending friendship between the two.
"Dolly's the surprise, isn't she?" asked Beth, running up to her father. He smiled enigmatically, and that was all the answer she received.
Meantime, January, hat in hand, was bowing with Chesterfieldian politeness to Mrs. Davenport and Marian.
"All aboard," cried Mr. Davenport.
"Let me sit with January," begged Beth.
Marian, also, expressed a like wish. The two children, therefore, scrambled up in front beside the driver, while Mr. and Mrs. Davenport took the back seat.
January sat bolt upright. His dignity fitted the occasion. His driving, however, worried Beth.
She loved to go fast. She knew no fear of horses. She would have undertaken to drive the car of Phaeton, himself, had she been given the chance. She had little patience to poke along, and that was exactly what Dolly did when January drove.
"Can't she go faster?" she asked.
"She don't 'pear to go very fast, does she?" said January mildly. "Missy Beth, yo' jes' wait until her racing blood am up, and den she'll go so fast, yo'll wish she didn't go so fast."
Beth had her doubts of this, and even of Dolly's racing blood. Its truth, however, was to be proven by a later experience which will be told in due course.
"Has Dolly really racing blood?" asked Marian. Although January was sitting so straight that it seemed impossible for him to sit any straighter, he stiffened up at least an inch.
"Racing blood? Well, I jes' 'lows she has. Onct she wuz de fastest horse in dis State or any odder, I reckon. She could clean beat ebbery horse far and near. Many's de race I'se ridden her in, an' nebber onct lost. My ole massa wuz powerful proud of us. Now he's gone, an' Dolly an' me's gettin' old."
"How old are you, January?"
"Powerful ole, massa. I reckon I'm nigh on a hundred."
"That's impossible," interrupted Mrs. Davenport. "When were you born?"
He scratched his head to help his memory. "Well, de truf is, Miss Mary"—he had heard Mr. Davenport call her Mary, and so from the start he addressed her in Southern style—"I can't say 'xactly, but I know I'se powerful old. I wuz an ole man when de wah broke out. I must have been 'bout—well 'bout twenty then."
"The war was only about forty years ago, January," broke in Marian, "and that would make you sixty now."
"I reckon, I'm 'bout dat." He had no idea of his age. The longer the Davenports knew him, the more they realized the truth of this. Sometimes he would make himself out a centenarian, and then, by his own reckoning, he was not out of his teens.
"Get up, Dolly," he cried. She paid no more attention to this mild command than she would have to the buzzing of a fly—probably not so much.
"Papa, may I drive?" asked Marian in her quiet way. Receiving consent, she took the reins. Dolly soon noticed a difference in drivers. Presently she went so fast, that she satisfied even Beth as to speed.
"Look at the river," cried Beth. They were driving under great, over-arching trees. To the right of them, between the openings of the trees, the glorious St. Johns was to be seen gleaming under the brilliant tropical sun.
"That's a beautiful hammock yonder," said Mr. Davenport.
Beth could see no hammock. There was a wonderful, intricate growth of shrubs, trees, and vines which formed an almost impenetrable mass of green, but no hammock.
"Where is it?" she asked. "It seems a very queer place for a hammock."
Mr. Davenport laughed at her, and explained that such a mass of green is called a hammock in Florida, not hummock as in the North.
Very soon they were past the swamps. The banks of the river grew higher and nice houses were to be seen on either side of the road.
Dolly, of her own accord, turned in at the gate of an unusually beautiful place. There are no fine lawns in Florida. In this case, the lack of such green was made up by a waving mass of blooming cardinal phlox, behind which was an orange grove in full bearing. In the well-cultivated grounds there were many inviting drives through avenues of trees.
"What are we going in here for?" asked Beth.
"Do you think it a pretty place?" returned Mr. Davenport.
"I never saw a prettier place. It's grand."
"Guess who owns it."
"How should I know? I don't know any people in Florida."
"You know the Davenports. They are to live here. I bought the place this morning."
Beth could hardly believe her father. He had, indeed, greatly surprised her. That she was to be a little Florida lady henceforth, hardly seemed possible. She thought she must be a fairy-story princess, and that the fairies were vying with one another in showering upon her the good things of life.
"I'm so happy, I don't know what to say or do. Why, if a good fairy offered to grant me three wishes, I shouldn't know what to ask. I have everything," declared Beth.
"There aren't any fairies, and you know it. So what's the use of talking about them," interrupted practical Marian.
"Mamma says our thoughts are the real fairies," returned Beth, nothing daunted, and added, "papa has given me plenty of good ones to-day."
"I was in great luck to secure this place," said Mr. Davenport. "It had just been put on the market as Mr. Marlowe, the former owner, was called North by the death of his wife. The agent brought me out this morning, and I was so delighted with it that I would look no farther. I found the title all right, and so I signed the papers at once."
CHAPTER II
The New Home
The house on the place just described was a rambling two-storied building with many porches—a typical vine-covered Southern cottage. It was picturesque from every side, and seemed to have no prosaic back. Marechal Niel roses, and honeysuckles, and some tropical vines, climbed over latticework almost to the roof. There were, also, many trees near the house, some of which were rare.