Letty and the Twins

by Helen Sherman Griffith

Poor little Letty! She had not had a happy life since her mother’s death. It was not from lack of kindness, for Mrs. Drake in her quiet, dull way, had been as kind as possible. And dear Ben had been her splendid, good big brother, gay and kind and thoughtful to her always.

But everything had been so different. The winter after her mother’s death had been a time of desolation to Letty.

Letty sat out on the front steps of the boarding-house where she lived with Mrs. Drake whenever the weather permitted, or walked drearily about the Square. She made no friends and had no pleasure except her Sunday attendance at church, where the soft music and wonderful stained glass windows never failed to soothe and comfort her. These stained glass windows represented the only paintings she had ever seen. But it was the music that comforted her most. She learned some of the hymns after a while and ventured to join sometimes in a voice that had a surprising quality in its untrained cadences.

The summer was easier to bear as the traveling about from place to place brought diversion; and she loved her work with the ponies. But long before the summer was over she had grown tired of the roving life and was glad to be back in winter quarters again.

She was happier that second winter, for she had grown more resigned to the loss of her mother and the dreadful, aching desire for her mercifully had lessened. But the restless, moving life of the circus grew more and more distasteful and after her brother’s death—by a frightful accident—she felt that she could endure the life no longer.

But the poor child had no other home, no other friends, and stayed on with the Drakes for want of another home. Her little friend, Emma Haines, lived over in a small town in New Jersey, but her family were too poor to take in and care for another child. The rich Miss Reese who, together with her little cousin, Clara Markham, had been so kind to Letty one winter, had passed out of her life completely, and even Mrs. Goldberg, with the amusing parrot, had not been heard from since her removal to California.

So Letty lived on, a sad, dull, monotonous life. She attended school in the winters but was never happy there, as she was invariably behind her classes and was too shy and sad to try to make friends among the other scholars. Another baby came to Mrs. Drake, which proved a source of much comfort to Letty. He was a big, jolly, lusty baby—the same she had been holding in her arms when she had first caught sight of the twins at the railway junction. And her happiest, or rather her least sad hours were those she spent at church and in nursing Mrs. Drake’s baby.

And now, what did the future hold for her? Mr. Drake had met with losses and failure in his business and the circus was broken up. What was to become of her? Small wonder that Letty wept despairingly as she lay awake in her little canvas bedroom.

But Jane and Christopher were all gay excitement and happy anticipation.

“I am sure Mrs. Hartwell-Jones means to buy the ponies,” Jane confided to Christopher, “and I’m so glad, because, you see, sometimes she may take us for rides.”