Half a Dozen Girls

by Anna Chapin Ray

"No, Margaret," said Polly. "That's ever so much better."

"All right, call her Margaret," said Alan; "but if you girls don't keep still, I never can tell you any story. Malcolm loved Margaret and wanted her to be his bride, but she was kept a captive in a tower, by a wicked uncle who had gone on a crusade to the Holy Land."

"But they didn't go on crusades sixty-seven years ago," said Jean, whose strong point was history.

"Will you keep still, Jean?" said Polly. "This isn't a true story, and he has as good a right to poetical license as you had in the play."

"The Holy Land," resumed Alan, not noticing the interruption; "and he had taken the keys to the tower in his pocket, so Malcolm didn't really know just what to do. At last, after he had tried all sorts of things, he took his banjo and went under the tower window and sang a little song that Margaret had made up, when they were children together." Here Alan paused to smile meaningly at Polly, before he went on. "It was a very sweet song, and his voice was loud enough so Margaret heard him and opened a window to peek out. She knew him as soon as she saw him, and she wrote a letter and tied it to a string and let it down to him. He read it and wrote an answer, and was just getting ready to send it up, the same way, when a great, fierce ruffian with a bloodhound pounced on him, and threw him into the very darkest dungeon in the cellar of the tower. He was pretty much scared, for he was all in the dark, and he was without any food or anything to drink, and he only had his banjo to comfort him. But he was so glad it wasn't Margaret that was there, that he didn't much mind anything else. But that wasn't the worst of it. His prison walls kept growing smaller and smaller, till by and by it began to get so tight that it hurt him. It didn't stop, even then, but it grew so small that his bones began to break, till finally he found that he only had one whole one left. That stirred him up, and he said to himself, 'If I don't find a way out, I shall be a dead man!' So he pounded on the walls, to see what they were made of, and found they were iron; but he knew the floor was earth, so he began to dig as fast as he could, and he used his banjo for a scoop, to carry off the earth in."

"Where'd he carry it to?" inquired Jessie. "I thought he didn't have any room to move round."

"He didn't, very much," said Alan; "but he made the most of every little corner, and before long he had dug down far enough to come to just the jolliest little secret passage you ever saw. He slipped down into it, and followed it along and along ever so far, till at last he came up to the light again, outside the walls of the tower. He swung his hat in the air and shouted, 'Three cheers for Queen Victoria!' and then he ran round under Margaret's window and took his banjo and sang the song once more, to let her know he was alive. Then, without wasting any more time, he ran off through the forest. But when he came to the top of the very first hill, he looked back and saw Margaret leaning out of the window, waving a pale blue flag with the word courage on it, in gilt letters."

"Where did she get such a thing?" asked Jean.

"Oh, she'd been making it, while he was in the dungeon," answered Alan. "So he went away to the Holy Land, to look for the wicked uncle. He walked every step of the way, and swam rivers and climbed up mountains and slid down on avalanches on the other side, and at last he came to Jerusalem. He found the uncle just leading four regiments against the city gates, mounted on a splendid white horse. And he looked down and smiled scornfully and said, 'What ho, Malcolm! You here?' That made Malcolm very mad, so he pulled the uncle off his horse and hit him, thump! with his banjo, and killed him. Then he looked in his pockets and found ever so much money; but, hard up as he was, for he'd had his pockets picked on the way, he didn't take the money, for he wanted something else. It was found at last, a little gold key hung round his neck on a silver chain; so Malcolm took the key and went home, riding the uncle's horse, and let out Margaret, and they lived happy and died happy, and she was heir to all the tower and the servants. But the first thing she did was to block the walls of the dungeon, so they couldn't move any more."

"Oh, Alan, Alan! Where did you get such a story?" said Katharine, laughing until the tears came.