NOT long after Mabel's ineffectual attempt to borrow an orphan Mrs. Bennett dispatched her small daughter to Lake Street to find out, if possible, why Mrs. Malony, the poultry woman, had failed to send the week's supply of fresh eggs.
Now, the way to Mrs. Malony's was most interesting, particularly to a young person of observing habits. There were houses on only one side of the street and most of those were tumbling down under the weight of the sand that each rain carried down the hillside. But the opposite side of the road was even more attractive, for there one had a grassy, shrubby bank where one could pick all sorts of things off bushes and get burrs in one's stockings; a narrow stretch of pebbled beach where one could sometimes find an agate, and a wide basin of very shallow water where one could almost—but not quite—step from stone to stone without wetting one's feet. It was certainly an enjoyable spot. The distance from Mabel's home to Mrs. Malony's was very short—a matter of perhaps five blocks. But if a body went the longest way round, stopped to scour the green bank for belated blackberries, prickly hazelnuts, dazzling golden-rod or rare four-leaved clovers; or loitered to gather a dress-skirtful of stony treasures from the glittering beach, going to Mrs. Malony's meant a great deal more than a five blocks' journey.
Just a little beyond the poultry woman's house, on the lake side of the straggling street, a small, but decidedly attractive point of land jutted waterward for perhaps two hundred feet. On this projecting point stood a small shanty or shack, built, as Mabel described it later, mostly of knot-holes. She meant, without knowing how to say it, that the lumber in the hut was of the poorest possible quality.
On this long-to-be-remembered day, a small object moving in the clearing that surrounded the shack attracted Mabel's attention. Curiosity led her closer to investigate.
"It's just as I thought!" exclaimed Mabel, peering rapturously through the bushes. "It's a real baby!"
Sure enough! It was a baby.
Mabel edged closer, moving cautiously for fear of frightening her unexpected find. She saw a small toddler, aged somewhere between two and three years, roving aimlessly about the chip-strewn clearing. The child's round cheeks, chubby wrists, bare feet and sturdy legs were richly brown. A straggling fringe of jet-black hair overhung the stout baby's black, beadlike eyes.
Near the doorway of the rickety shack a man, half French, half Indian, stood talking earnestly and with many gesticulations to a dark-skinned woman, framed by the doorway. The woman had large black eyes, shaded by very long black lashes. She wore her rather coarse black hair in two long, thick braids that hung in front of her straight shoulders. In spite of her dark color, her worn shoes, her ragged, untidy gown, she seemed to Mabel an exceedingly pretty woman. The man, too, was handsome, after a bold, picturesque fashion; but the woman was the more pleasing.
Mabel approached timidly. She felt that she was intruding.
"Good-morning," said she, ingratiatingly. "Is this your little boy?"