| PAGE | |
| "She spelled out the information, 'I am an orphan'" (See [page 80]) | [Frontispiece] |
| "'Well, I vum!'" | [15] |
| "'Tilda Jane sat like a statue" | [45] |
| "'I'm goin' to repent some day'" | [92] |
| "He lay down beside her" | [116] |
| "'Stop thar—stop! Stop!'" | [168] |
| "'You are young for that, mademoiselle, yet—'" | [190] |
| "He lifted up his voice and roared at her" | [215] |
| "'I've led another dog astray, an' now he's dead'" | [235] |
| "'They was glad to get rid of me'" | [258] |
'TILDA JANE.
[CHAPTER I.]
A CREAMERY SHARK.
The crows had come back. With the fashionables of Maine they had gone south for the winter, but now on the third day of March the advance guard of the solemn, black army soared in sight.
They were cawing over the green pine woods of North Marsden, they were cawing over the black spruces of South Marsden, and in Middle Marsden, where the sun had melted the snow on a few exposed knolls, they were having a serious and chattering jubilation over their return to their summer haunts.
"Land! ain't they sweet!" muttered a little girl, who was herself almost as elfish and impish as a crow. She stood with clasped hands in the midst of a spruce thicket. Her face was upturned to the hot sun set in the hard blue of the sky. The sun burned her, the wind chilled her, but she remained motionless, except when the sound of sleigh-bells was heard. Then she peered eagerly out into the road.
Time after time she returned to her hiding-place with a muttered, "No good!" She allowed a priest to go by, two gossiping women on their way from the village to spend a day in the country, a minister hurrying to the sick-bed of a parishioner, and several loaded wood-sleds, but finally a hilarious jingle drew her hopefully from her retreat.