"I could almost see her mother as she sang," Harvie Price said to me later on. "I believe Annie's voice is going to be stronger than her mother's and it has the same note of pathos in it. Why, it was all I could do to keep from sobbing when she sang 'Sweet Bessie.' And did you see Shorty? Why, Shorty had his face buried in his hands, and now he pretends he has caught a bad cold! Isn't she pretty, too? The old man must have loosened up some to get that swell dress for her. Grandfather wrote me the other day that Mr. Pore is so economical these days that he won't go to church because he does not want to part with his nickel. He says he is making money, too, on the store, since there is absolutely no competition at the Landing."
"I am so glad you liked her dress," I answered, nearly dead to tell this nice, sympathetic boy all about it; but keeping to my role of Father Confessor, I naturally said nothing about how she came by it.
"I am hoping I can spend part of next summer with my grandfather," continued Harvey. "You know my Governor and his Father fell out about politics and I had to stop going there, but, thank goodness, they have made up now. Father would vote for Roosevelt, while Grandfather thinks anybody belonging to him must be a Democrat. And not long ago Father decided that President Wilson was, after all, about the best President we have ever had, so he wrote to Grandfather and said he was sorry he had ever voted for a Republican; and now the row is over and the family is reunited. Grandfather is very arbitrary and of course it is hard to live with him, but he is the kindest and most generous old man, and I truly love him."
"Annie Pore says he is charming and delightful and that her mother cared so much for him," I said, feeling that that much of Annie's talk with me it would be all right to repeat. This conversation with Harvie was after the concert when we were having refreshments in the Gymnasium. The concert had gone off very well. Miss Cox was jubilant because her pupils who would sing flat had refrained for the occasion. Miss Cox herself had sung delightfully and had won the heart of old Captain Leahy by giving "The Wearing of the Green" as an encore.
When the programme was all over and everyone had done the best she could, Miss Peyton made a little speech and said that by especial request from some of the older guests Miss Annie Pore was to sing "Annie Laurie."
That was really the treat of the evening. We were delighted because it made Mabel Binks so mad.
"I am some weary of that sob stuff from 'Orphan Annie,'" I heard her say to one of the Hill-Top boys.
"Why, I think it is great!" was his unsympathetic reply. "And what a little beauty she is, too!"
Once off the stage, Annie's shyness returned in full force, but it soon wore off under the genial good fellowship of the Tuckers and Mary Flannigan, and Harvie's big-brother air of pride in her success, and Shorty's funny reproaches for making him catch such a bad cold. She looked very happy, and not even Mabel Binks could mar her cheerfulness, although she plainly heard Mabel say to a Junior: "I wonder who lent her that dress. It certainly looks familiar to me and anyone could see it was shortened for the occasion."
My stitches were not so small as they might have been!