“When any one meets us anywhere,” Meg said, “they always look surprised. Dogs who are not allowed in the house are like us. The only difference is that they don’t drive us out. But we are just as much in the way.”
“I know,” said Robin; “if it wasn’t for you, Meg, I should run away.”
“Where?” said Meg.
“Somewhere,” said Robin, setting his jaw; “I’d find a place.”
“If it wasn’t for you,” said Meg, “I should be so lonely that I should walk into the river. I wouldn’t stand it.” It is worth noticing that she did not say “I could not stand it.”
But after the day they found the Straw Parlor they had an abiding-place. It was Meg who preëmpted it before she had been on the top of the stack five minutes. After she had stumbled around, looking about her, she stopped short, and looked down into the barn.
“Robin,” she said, “this is another world. We are miles and miles away from Aunt Matilda. Let us make this into our home—just yours and mine—and live here.”
“We are in nobody’s way—nobody will even know where we are,” said Robin. “Nobody ever asks, you know. Meg, it will be just like our own. We will live here.” And so they did. On fine days, when they were tired of playing, they climbed the ladder to rest on the heap of yellow straw; on wet days they lay and told each other stories, or built caves, or read their old favorite books over again. The stack was a very high one, and the roof seemed like a sort of big tent above their heads, and the barn floor a wonderful, exaggeratedly long, distance below. The birds who had nests in the rafters became accustomed to them, and one of the children’s chief entertainments was to lie and watch the mothers and fathers carry on their domestic arrangements, feeding their young ones, and quarrelling a little sometimes about the way to bring them up. The twins invented a weird little cry, with which they called each other, if one was in the Straw Parlor and the other one entered the barn, to find out whether it was occupied or not. They never mounted to the Straw Parlor, or descended from it, if any one was within sight. This was their secret. They wanted to feel that it was very high, and far away from Aunt Matilda’s world, and if any one had known where they were, or had spoken to them from below, the charm would have been broken.
This afternoon, as Meg pored over her book, she was waiting for Robin. He had been away all day. At twelve years old Robin was not of a light mind. When he had been only six years old he had had serious plans. He had decided that he would be a great inventor. He had also decided—a little later—that he would not be poor, like his father, but would be very rich. He had begun by having a savings bank, into which he put rigorously every penny that was given to him. He had been so quaintly systematic about it that people were amused, and gave him pennies instead of candy and toys. He kept a little banking book of his own. If he had been stingy he would have been a very unpleasant little boy, but he was only strict with himself. He was capable of taking from his capital to do the gentlemanly thing by Meg at Christmas.
“He has the spirit of the financier, that is all,” said his father.