Meantime Brevet had taken his position on the top rail of the gate, with one arm around a slim little cedar that stood guard beside it.
“May I stand right out here, Miss Duff,” he called back to Mary, “so as to see them a long way off?”
“Bless your heart, yes!” Mary answered, quite certain in her mind that since Courage herself was a little girl she never had seen such a dear child. Brevet’s watch was a brief one.
“They are coming! Hear the wheels! They are coming,” he cried exultingly, with almost the next breath. In just two minutes more they really had come, and Brevet was calling out “How’dy, how’dy, how’dy” at the top of his strong little lungs, to the wide-eyed amazement of the Bennetts, who had never heard this Southern abbreviation of the Northern “How-do-you-do.” Then jumping down from his perch, he ran up to the carriage, repeating over again his cordial welcoming “How’dy.”
“How’dy, dear little stranger!” replied Courage, waving a greeting to Mary; “and who are you I would like to know?”
“I’m Howard Stanhope Ellis, but that’s not what you’re to call me, I have another name. It’s the name they give—” but he did not finish his sentence, for charming little fellow though he was, he could not be allowed to monopolise things in this fashion, and Mary gently pushed him aside to get him out of her way.
“And so here you are at last,” she said joyously; “welcome home, Miss Courage. How are you, Sylvia?” while she bent down with a cordial kiss for each friendly little Bennett. Meantime Courage was making friends with Brevet, and a moment later the children were crowding close about him.
“My, but I’m glad to see you all,” he exclaimed, with an emphasising shake of his head, “and I think I know who’s who too. I believe this is Gertrude,” laying one little brown hand on Gertrude’s sleeve, “and you are Mary, because Mary’s the oldest, and you Teddy, because Teddy comes next, and you—you are Allan.” Brevet had learned his lesson from Mary Duff quite literally by heart, and altogether vanquished by his’ joyous, friendly greeting, the children vied with each other in giving him the loudest kiss and the very hardest hug, but from that first moment of meeting it was an accepted fact that Allan held first place. There was no gainsaying the special joyousness of his “And you—you are Allan.” The boy play-fellow for whom he had hitherto longed in vain had come, and to little Brevet it seemed as though the millennium had come with him.
All this while Joe and Mammy, barely tolerating each other’s presence, waited respectfully in the background, so that Mary had a chance to explain who they were, as Courage stood in the path, delightedly looking up at the dear little house that was to be her home. But Sylvia had already made their acquaintance. After paying the driver and making sure that nothing had been left in the carriage, she went straight toward them. “I thought I should find some of my own people down here in Virginia,” she said, cordially extending a hand to each as she spoke, “but I did not expect they would be right on the spot, the very first moment, to welcome me,” "Miss Duff done tol’ us ‘bout Miss Sylvy bein’ of de party,” said Joe with great elegance of manner, while Mammy looked daggers at him, for replying to a remark which she considered addressed chiefly to herself. It was queer enough, the attitude of these two oldtime slaves toward each other, and yet to be accounted for, I think, in their eagerness to be of use to those whom they claimed the privilege of serving; and each was conscious, by a subtle intuition, of a determination to outwit the other if possible in this regard—which was all very well, if they only could have competed in the right sort of spirit.
But there is no more time in this chapter for Mammy or Joe, nor anything else for that matter. Indeed, it would take quite a chapter of itself if I should try to tell you of the unpacking of Grandma Ellis’s basket, and then of the children’s merry supper; but it seems to me there are more important things for me to write about, and for you to read about, than things to eat and of how the children ate them. By nine o’clock quiet reigned in the little cottage, and “the children were nestled as snug in their beds” as the little folk in “The Night before Christmas.” Joe and Mammy and Brevet had long ago gone home, and Courage and Mary Duff were sitting together in the little living-room, while Sylvia, in the hall just outside, was busy arranging the books they had brought with them, on some hanging shelves.