The awe-struck Bucks watched her depart. "How much would you give her, Anna?" asked the young husband. "She writes music and poetry, and she's going to give folks a free concert, or something, in the church on Fourth of July. For a little I thought she hadn't fourteen years."
"She ain't," said the nineteen-years-old wife positively.
"Do you guess she could do such a thing if she ain't?" queried her husband.
"I guess. In New York girls get smart early, maybe. I wish you could get a church there once, Alvah, when the baby's big enough. I'd like to have her grow up with such smartness."
The object of these flattering remarks went her homeward way rejoicing, and it had been from that hour that her family had noticed that she was uplifted higher than ever above their heads. Every day she had gone up the road carrying a mysterious package, and had refused to explain the mystery when Happie had tried to investigate it.
"Yes, I have a secret," Laura said, in reply to her sister's question. "But that's the very reason I won't tell you; people generally don't tell secrets. If you can wait a while, you will know what it is, and you will find it was something worth waiting for."
"I don't know, motherums, but I imagine she carries her books and paper off into the dampest, darkest spot by the brook and composes poetry and music out of doors. It would be just like her, and her packages look like papers," said Happie, divided in her mind as usual between disgust, and sisterly pride in her talented junior.
This was before Margery had gone away, and the secret had not leaked out on the morning when Miss Bradbury had again announced her longing for a dog. It was three days before the Fourth, and on that day, obedient to Laura's instructions, Mr. Buck began notifying the public which he met on his way to and from the post-office, that Miss Scollard was going to give an entertainment in the chapel on the evening of the Fourth, without money and without price, solely for the love of her fellow creatures, who were invited to gather in large numbers to share her bounty.
The first that her family knew of Laura's undertaking was when Bob returned from the post-office, fuming with rage, yet convulsed with the fun of it, burdened with the following announcement which he had found tacked up in the post-office:
"Miss Laura Scollard announces to the people in Crestville that she will give an entertainment in Mr. Buck's chapel on Fourth of July at half-past seven P. M. She will sing and play and read and give them a chance to hear good things, so she hopes they will all come. FREE."