Woodcroft.
Woodcroft to be sold!—like a knell of doom the words fell on our ears—it could not be! Our dear old home, the only one we children had ever known, to be taken from us. We sat in the bright little sitting-room, blankly looking at one another, in dumb astonishment. Louise, who was always the thoughtful one, soon roused herself from the stupor which seemed to have come upon us all, and going over to the lounge, began comforting—as best she could, poor child—our gentle little mother, upon whom this blow had fallen most heavily. Presently she sat up, and in trembling tones told us, as we clustered at her knee, the particulars of our misfortune.
There were three of us—Louise, Cal and I, who rejoiced in the quaint cognomen of Pen, named for a rich, eccentric, old aunt, who had never left me any money because she never died.
“Now, Marmo, out with all the trouble and let us share it,” said matter-of-fact Cal. And then she told how, after papa’s sudden death a year before, she had discovered a mortgage to be on the place, small, but now due and no money to meet it; the creditor was pressing, and the home to be sold. We felt sad, but cheered her up, and talked over ways and means as never before.
“Even though he consents to renew it, where would the yearly interest money come from,” she wailed.
We urged her to lie down and rest, and, following Cal’s beckoning finger, tip-toed out of the room.
“Now, girls,” said she, “something’s got to be done, and we’ve got to do it.”
“A TRIBUTE TO YOUR GENIUS, LOU,” SAID I. “LIKE THE FAMOUS ARTIST
OF OLD, WHO PAINTED CHERRIES SO NATURALLY, THE BIRDS
FLEW DOWN AND PECKED AT THE CANVAS.”