The Little Grey House

by Marion Ames Taggart

"I know. Where are you taking us?" asked Wythie; she could not bear just then to hear an allusion to another year.

"Up here to a tree which we discovered yesterday, and which other little boys haven't discovered—it's full of chestnuts," said Bruce.

The boat glided toward the right bank, crowned by flaming maples, and into a narrow creek, so narrow that the boys had to draw in their oars and pull The Graces along by the shrubs on either hand. They stopped directly under a great chestnut-tree, and Bruce cried, pointing triumphantly to the branches crowded with opening burs: "There! Isn't truth more chestnutty than fiction?"

"Why didn't you tell us?" asked Rob, reproachfully. "We could have gone back for something to put them in."

Forgetting poverty for the moment in the riches provided by nature and autumn, Wythie and Rob climbed cheerfully over the side of the boat, and taking off their jackets began filling them with chestnuts as eagerly as if they had been squirrels dependent upon them for their winter existence. There was little time to get many of the satiny nuts, for the Greys were impatient to learn the fate of the little grey house, and to console their mother, who would need consolation for whatever decision had been reached. Regretfully they turned their backs on the wealth of nuts and the beautiful, peaceful spot, with its gorgeous colors, and damp, delicious odors.

Bruce and Bartlemy rowed down. Frances was very silent, and held Rob's hand fast; Rob did not feel like talking, and Wythie was never a chatterbox, so the party came down the river very quietly, all thoughts centered on the same point—the Greys' difficulties. As they drew up at the little pier which the Rutherfords had built for their landing-place, Basil said, breaking a long silence: "Wythie and Rob, I want you to give us your solemn promise that if ever you think we can be of any use or comfort, you will say so. I don't believe you understand what it has been to us to have you girls take us right into the little grey house and big Grey hearts, and treat us like one of yourselves. It will be downright unkind if you shove us off now, for the first time, and don't let us have the privileges you've accustomed us to. Brothers are not meant only for bright days, you know."

"We would ask you to do anything, Basil; of course we would," said Wythie. "There is nothing to be done now."

"But you will consider us comrades of the true sort; not the kind you like only for what you can do for them and to frolic with," persisted Basil.

"'Ere's our 'earts and 'ere's our 'ands," said Rob, melodramatically laying her left hand on her heart and extending her right. "Seriously, boys," she added, "we understand, and we'll do just what you want us to. We're going to regard you as crutches—a trifle long, perhaps, but by no means to be cut off. If you were all as Grey as we are, we couldn't count you greater props than we do now. We're friends for life, and for scrapes on either side—and we're more grateful than I sound. This is rather a hard time for the Greys, but we've read lots of storybooks, and we know when the lovely heroines are in mortal danger there's certain rescue on the next page. So we're going to finish these paragraphs as quickly as we possibly can, and turn over to the next chapter."

She impulsively held out both hands as she ceased speaking, wrinkling up the comers of her eyes in her merry fashion, though there were tears on the lashes.