Fritz and Don. Page [158].

MIXED PICKLES

BY
EVELYN RAYMOND

NEW YORK:
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
46 East Fourteenth Street.

Copyrighted, 1892,
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
Electrotyped and printed by
Alfred Mudge & Son, Boston.

CONTENTS

MIXED PICKLES

CHAPTER I.

“Oh!” gasped Grandmother Capers, throwing her hands upward with a gesture of dismay; “oh, what a terrible infliction!” And she began rocking herself violently to and fro, and screwing her lips about in the manner which, with her, always denoted extreme perturbation. Then she glanced across the pleasant room to a lounge and its occupant.

“I hope—it will not be that!” responded Grandmother Kinsolving, feebly. She still held the bomb-like telegram between her trembling fingers, and was as yet too much overpowered by the announcement it contained to have a better answer ready.

“It is our own house, is it not, mother?” demanded Aunt Ruth, with some asperity.

A voice from the lounge took up the conversation.

“They can’t come here; that is all there is about it. If they do, I shall leave.” The speaker’s tone was decided and aggressive. It caused the eyes of the other three persons in the apartment to fasten themselves upon the fretful face above the great pillows.

Only one of the three, however, had courage to reply. That one was Aunt Ruth, who should have been soft and yielding by nature had she lived up to her name. But she did not; neither did the plain garb of a Friend which she wore appear to have its customary effect in subduing the quick temper with which she had been born.

“If thee wishes to leave, thee is at perfect liberty to do so. The Kinsolving homestead cannot open its doors to one branch of the family and exclude another. Thee and thy kin are welcome here; so is dear Content; so shall my sister Lydia’s children be.”

With that, which was even more determined in tone than the invalid’s had been, Ruth Kinsolving ended all remark upon the telegram, and went away to answer it.

“Grandmother, I shall not stay! I—I won’t have everything upset by a lot of young ones!”

“There, there, Melville! don’t worry, that’s a dear. You know it is so bad for you. Besides, I am sure that Grandmother Kinsolving will not really take in such a lot of children to torment us all with.” The old lady in the easy-chair turned toward the one in the straight-back with a cajoling expression.

But the lovely old Friend had had time to regain her wonted calmness, and if the tone in which she responded was gentle in the extreme, it was also equally firm.

“Ruth has spoken the right word, though I wish that she had done so more patiently. When Oliver built this house he built it big and roomy. ‘There must be space enough in it to hold all our household and the children which shall come after them,’ he said. Lydia’s flock must find a resting-place beneath the old roof-tree; but, if they are anything like their mother before them, they will not bring unhappiness to anybody.”

A quiet sadness stole over the placid features under the snowy cap, and no one not utterly selfish would have disturbed the mistress of the homestead by any further objection.

When the feeble lad, who absorbed as his right so much of the family attention, again began his impatient protest, Grandmother Kinsolving rose and followed Ruth.

Then arose such a howl of distress as speedily drove Grandmother Capers to the verge of hysterics and brought Content flying in from the orchard, where she had been writing a letter to her father.

“O Melville! what has happened? Are you worse,—suffering so terribly? Can I do anything for you?”

Melville ceased shrieking and broke into a subdued roar, as ominous to his slave, Grandmother Capers, as it was amusing to Content. But she veiled the mirth in her brown eyes, and went on speaking in that sort of soothing fashion which mothers use to a fretful infant.

Suddenly the cripple became silent, and looked up into his cousin’s face with an eagerness of expression that showed how little real his grief had been. “Say, Content, does Aunt Ruth know that my heart is affected, and that the doctor says I must have perfect quiet?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. You forget, Melville, that I am almost a stranger to our aunt.”

“But—but she’s your aunt, you know; you ought to know her!” exclaimed the lad.

“Maybe I ought; but then, you see, I don’t. I never saw her till last Thursday, as you know; while you have lived with her for three years.”

“And hated her all that time!” cried Melville, bitterly.

“Nonsense!” laughed Content.

“True! I—I wish she’d die, or get married!”

Even Grandmother Capers was shocked at this; and spoke reproachfully to her idol.

“You should not say that, darling. Ruth is a good woman. She means well, even if her manner is unpleasant.”

Melville opened his lips to retort, but Content was too loyal to allow this. “Why, Mrs. Capers! Can you really think that? It seems to me Aunt Ruth is so charming. She is so delightfully honest and true. From the first time I looked in her face I felt that I should be safe and happy with her. And as for grandma, I cannot tell you how lovely she appears to me. Papa used to tell such wonderful stories of her goodness that I was almost afraid to come and live with her; I was sure I should shock her a dozen times a day; but if I do she is too kind to show it.”

“Why, Content! She thinks you are perfect. She held you up as an example to me yesterday, till I hated her almost as much as I do my aunt.”

Into the midst of this mutual admiration talk broke a sound which was even more startling than the telegraph reading had been.

Clitter-ty-clatter! Yaw, whoop-la!

Melville raised himself upon his pillows, Grandmother Capers screamed, and Content ran to the window. Outside stood a tiny dog-cart, drawn by a sturdy little pony, driven by a lad who could not have seen more than eight summers, though his face bore freckles enough to have resulted from a dozen.

“Hello!” cried the licorice-stained mouth of the small teamster. “Is this my grandmother’s house?”

“Maybe; what is your grandmother’s name?” said Content.

“I—er—I forget! It’s—it’s—dang it! Why ain’t Paula here! She knows everything, and she’d know what it is. You see I came on ahead; me and Pretzel here. Ain’t she a stunner? Uncle Fritz give her to me—give me the hull turnout. Say, do you live here? Have you got a grandmother what’s an old Quaker lady, and lives in a big homestead with pigs and chickens and folks? Say, this is a big house, ain’t it? I bet a cent this is the very place! Won’t you just step in and ask if my grandmother does live here? ’Cause I’m all tuckered out. This cart shook me up awful, comin’ up hill.”

The speaker paused from lack of breath, and Content sprang through the low window-sash and held out her arms to the little fellow.

“I’ve no need to go and ask, for I am sure that you are my little cousin Fritz. Is it not so?”

“Yep. Anyhow, I’m Fritz; but who the mischief are you?”

“I’m Content; Content Kinsolving; aged fifteen, and your Uncle Benjamin’s only child. But where are the rest of your party? The telegram said that all of Aunt Lydia’s children were coming.”

“Oh, they be; when they get ready. Paula,—she’s a stick,—she told Uncle Fritz that she could not come till she had stopped to the hotel and freshened herself. She’s always a freshening herself, Paula is, but I’m sure I don’t know why, for she never does a blessed thing to get herself messed. Octave, now—Octave, she is a jolly one! she’s always messing, but she never freshens. I like Octave.”

“Indeed! most boys do like their sisters. But come, come quickly to dear grandmother! She will be so glad to see you!” and Content slipped her arm fondly about the child’s waist, as he still sat in the cart.

“How do you know? I’m a ‘terror,’ Fritzy Nunky says, unless I’m good. And the trouble is, I can’t stay good. I can be delightful sometimes, for little short times; then I forget and cut up. I used to try not to, but I’ve given it up now.”

The satisfied and aged expression which settled upon the boyish face was funny in the extreme, and Content laughed more heartily than she had yet done since she parted with her father at Osaka, in far-away Japan.

“I know she will ‘like’ you; I do”; and she kissed again the pretty, dirty face of the young traveller, and lifted him out upon the grass.

“Where’s the stable?”

“Around this way. Can you lead your horse?”

“I can, but I don’t want to. I’m tired. Where’s the hostler?”

“There is none.”

Little Fritz opened his big eyes. “What’ll we do then?”

“I’ll lead him around to the barn.”

Content took hold of the bridle, but, small as he was, this was more than the chivalrous nature of little Fritz could allow.

“Excoose me; but I’m the gentleman,” he said, with grave dignity, and took the bridle from his cousin’s grasp.

She allowed him his will, finding in him something so lovable that he was already assured of one welcome in the household, no matter how the rest might yet regard him.

One of the farm hands was just putting up the stock for the night, and to him Fritz gave the care of his new possession, with a matter-of-fact manner which surprised the farmer into accepting it without protest.

“Rub her down well, boy, and don’t drink her till she’s cold. That’s what Fritzy Nunky said. I don’t know much about horses myself, but I do know that she isn’t a ‘him’ like you called her, Content,” laughed the tired little fellow, slipping his warm hand into his cousin’s cool clasp.

The “boy,” who was a gray-haired father of many children, received the young horse owner’s directions in silent amazement, and looked after the pair as they left the barn-yard and entered the kitchen as if he didn’t quite know whether he should believe his own ears or not. Finally, he gave a low whistle, and ejaculated: “Jimminetty!” To him it appeared as if the self-possessed child and his dashing little turnout had dropped from the skies; but somehow he felt no reluctance to rubbing the tiny mare “down well,” as he had been ordered, nor did he attempt to “drink her” until she was perfectly cool and it was safe to let her plunge her velvet nostrils into the trough of spring water at the barn-yard gate.

Meanwhile, Content and the new arrival had entered the mansion by the kitchen, and had, after many pauses by the way, caused by the guest’s curiosity, arrived at Grandmother Kinsolving’s quiet room, where Aunt Ruth stood tying on her gray bonnet, preparatory to going out and dispatching her return message of welcome to the guardian of her sister Lydia’s children.

Both mother and daughter stared at Content, but for a moment each supposed she had picked up her small companion from among the “boarders” who frequented their mountain settlement, and who strolled about over the pleasant roads at all hours.

“Well, and whom have you brought to visit me now, Content?” asked grandmother, smiling hospitably upon the little man.

“Can’t thee guess, Grandma?”

“Oh, she needn’t bother to guess. I’d just as lief tell her. I’m your little grand-boy, I reckon. Anyhow, I’m Fritzy Pickel.”

“Pickel! Not Pickel—not my daughter Lydia’s Pickel?” cried the dear old lady, finding this second shock almost too much for even her credulity. It had been enough to receive that unexpected telegram from Mr. Fritz Pickel, the uncle and guardian of her dead daughter’s family, announcing that he had, after a five years’ absence, returned to America, and had brought all his wards with him, and expected, as a matter-of-course, to leave them with their maternal grandmother while he went journeying about on a six months’ business tour.

The telegram had not mentioned any time for arriving, but the Kinsolvings had taken it for granted that it would not be before the following day.

“Ho! I suppose I am,” laughed Fritz, junior. “Fritzy Nunky says we’re quite a jar full. He calls us ‘mixed pickles,’ and says he don’t know which he likes best, the sweet or the sour. I say, are you my grandmother, truly? ’Cause you don’t look like grandmothers mostly does. Lotta Hartmann, she had a grandmother, and, my! I wouldn’t ha’ kissed her for a cent. But I’ll kiss you, if you like.”

Had Grandmother Kinsolving known it, she was receiving the highest compliment little Fritz ever bestowed upon any one; and she certainly did “like,” for she opened her arms wide and the boy flew to them with a swift response of love in his generous little heart.

So there was welcome number two, or three; for the farmer at the barn may be counted upon as having given his in his undemonstrative way.

CHAPTER II.

Such a hubbub as ensued in the old homestead on the top of Deer Hill mountain, when, a half-hour later, “Fritzy Nunky” arrived with his other charges, would baffle description; for the kindly German was one of those overflowing, effervescing mortals who go bouncing through the world as if their only mission were to “stir up” other quieter folk. But it was such a happy, generous stirring up that they who had once experienced it generally desired to have it again.

He was idolized by his nieces and his small nephew, to whom he stood in place of the half remembered parents, who had perished in a steamship disaster the last time they had left Germany to visit the mother’s native land. For their sakes he had never married, lest his devotion to them should have to be less; and he had persistently done his utmost to spoil them, so far as unlimited indulgence tends that way.

Only to Paula he was a trial,—Paula, the eldest of the brood, who had artistic and literary tendencies; and who, having reached the mature age of sixteen, felt that she had wisdom and experience sufficient to sit in judgment on all her “betters.” Strangely enough, “Fritzy Nunky” appeared to agree with her, and if there was one person of whom his sunshiny nature stood in awe it was of Fräulein Paula Pickel.

On Paula’s pretty features, then, there rested an expression of grave disapproval during that supper which followed the arrival of the stranger grandchildren; for Uncle Fritz was so lost in admiration of his lovely old hostess, and so relieved to find The Snuggery such a delightful home for his darlings, that he was even more boisterous than ever.

Had Grandmother Capers and her invalid been present, there is no knowing what might have happened; but as soon as the noise of their arrival reached Melville’s sitting-room, he had caused word to be sent to Grandmother Kinsolving that supper for himself and Mrs. Capers must be served apart from the others.

The gentle old hostess had been rather glad of this than otherwise, but Aunt Ruth, Friend as she was, had tossed her shapely head with a quaint air of disdain which boded a certain piece of her mind to be delivered at the fitting occasion and in the hearing of the two Capers.

“But, and my little jar of ‘mixed pickles’ will season your quiet life finely. And it amazes me that you two ladies should live here in this great house alone, with this young Fräulein!” exclaimed Uncle Fritz, sweeping his eyes over the feminine trio, whom he supposed constituted the family at the The Snuggery.

“But, it is not alone, Fritzy Nunky,” corrected Paula, severely. “Our Aunt Ruth has told you twice already that a Mrs. Capers and our cousin Melville, her grandson, are also members of the family.”

“Ah! so? Then I beg Miss Ruth’s sweet pardon. Paula finds me ever a blunderer, dear madam,” he concluded, looking deprecatingly toward the hostess’s sympathetic face.

Grandmother Kinsolving smiled. “Thee is a blunderer of the happy sort, then, Fritz. I can understand now why my Lydia used to speak of her brother-in-law with such affection.”

“Is it so?” queried Uncle Fritz, his big blue eyes filling at mention of the dead woman who had been a true sister to him. “And, but we thought not of the ‘in-law.’ Franz was always deep in my heart’s love, and when Lydia came, she nestled close beside him. Christina, there, is the mother made anew for us. Thou wilt find comfort in little Christina,” he added fondly, laying his broad hand on the flaxen braids of his youngest niece, who blushed and smiled gratefully at the commendation.

“And what of me, Fritzy Nunky? Am I not a comfort, also?” asked the tall Octave, demurely.

“Praise goes unsought, sweetheart. It never answers to bidding, thou witch! Octave will make thee great care, Frau Kinsolving. She has a big heart and a head full of heedless ways. Octave is my brother Franz, as little Christina is my sister Lydia.”

Again the grave tenderness fell upon the spirits of those who best remembered the dead. Content felt herself almost an alien, since all were strangers to her save the grandmother and aunt whom she had known but three short days. A moment’s longing for her own absent father who was the one son of the house stole over her, and she turned her eyes westward through the open window, as if looking toward him brought her nearer to the missionary in far-away Japan.

But there was no division in Amy Kinsolving’s heart, and the lonesome look of her little Content touched her heart, as she leaned forward to lay her hand kindly upon the girl’s slender one. “A strange reunion, Fritz; a strange ruling of Providence that all my children’s children should have been brought to the old nest at one and the same time. Benjamin has sent us his motherless Content, that we may rear her to good and housewifely ways; Harriet’s poor crippled lad and his paternal grandmother have dwelt with us these three years; and now thee comes bringing a whole—”

“Jar of mixed pickles!” interrupted Octave, with no intention of disrespect, but in the heedlessness which was her characteristic.

“Octave!” cried Paula; “apologize to grandmother!”

“Apologize yourself!” retorted Octave, pertly; then blushed furiously, remembering to whom she had been discourteous. “I do apologize, dear, sweet little grandma. Not for Paula’s tongue, though, but because I wouldn’t do a shabby thing to you if I could help it. But I never shall do any better; I’m born to be horrid,” she concluded with such complacent serenity that Content laughed.

“What you laughing at?” demanded Fritz, junior, stopping his noisy consumption of a third bowl of milk. “I like to know all the fun.”

“I’m afraid you would not understand this; but I was not laughing at any one,” returned Content, flushing a bit at her lack of self-control.

“But you can tell, can’t you? You’ve got a tongue.”

“Well, then, it struck me as very funny that Octave and your own small self have already decided that there is no use in trying to improve yourselves, and are so perfectly satisfied that it should be so.”

Fritzy’s puzzled little face, after this long explanation, showed that he had not comprehended it as well as he expected; but a swift, keen glance from Octave’s dark eyes intercepted one from Content, and a bond of interest was instantly formed between these two stranger cousins whose training had been so different.

Fritz slipped down from his chair, when he had at length filled himself to the utmost capacity with his Aunt Ruth’s good things, and sauntered carelessly out of the room. No one thought to forbid his exploring any part of the house which attracted his curiosity, and Aunt Ruth disdained, while Grandmother Amy forgot, Melville’s fretful request that he should not be disturbed by any family visits that night.

Melville Capers was accustomed to consider his word as law, and for the sake of peace it generally was such. His anger and astonishment then was great when, as he had just composed himself for a nap, the door of his sitting-room opened, and a small person in dusty knickerbockers walked coolly in.

The fourteen-year-old boy on the sofa had a voice suited to a man, or at least to a youth of much stronger physical development than its owner’s, and when this voice demanded in its fiercest tones, “Why are you intruding here?” it surprised, if it did not intimidate, the visitor.

Now old Oliver Kinsolving had been, according to his neighbors’ dictum, “a man of a great substance”; which meant not so much substance of money, though he was rich enough, but rather substance of character, will power, honesty, and kindliness. It was curious to note how each of his descendants possessed at least one factor of their grandsire’s “substance,” to wit, his will; and little Fritz, though he was the smallest of the flock, was yet to demonstrate that he inherited not the smallest share of this same quality.

The child had said to himself, as he left the dining-room, that he would see every nook and cranny of the big, new home before he went to sleep that night. He was not, therefore, to be balked of his project simply because a big boy on a lounge roared at him. His momentary hesitation vanished, and his retort came so promptly that no hesitation had really been perceived by the questioner.

“I ain’t intruding; I’m ’specting of my grandmother’s house. I should like to know who you are, anyhow.”

“I’ll teach you who I am if you don’t get out of here pretty sudden!”

“Pooh! Who’s afraid?” demanded Fritz, coolly and impudently.

“You. Five seconds, now! Then get!”

“Get yourself!”

“I will,—cripple as I am,—if you don’t leave here instanter!”

“Cripple? That’s a boy without feet or hands. I seed one once at the Museum in Munich. My! but he wasn’t like you. He had a voice. Cracky! how that crippler did sing! You cripple, can you sing, too, as well as holler?”

“Clear out, I tell you! You infernal little imp!”

“Ain’t a imp. Imps goes down traps and holes in theatres. I’ve seen ’em. Ginger! ain’t you a cross-looking boy?”

The child had come fearlessly forward, and was bestowing upon the invalid a critical scrutiny, which naturally made its sensitive recipient writhe.

“Clear out, quick! or I’ll throw this book at your head!”

“You dassent!”

For answer the volume of Dickens with which Melville had been passing away his tedious afternoon, whizzed past the intruder’s curly pate.

In an instant all his fiery temper had roused. The child was used only to kindness and indulgence; his few “fights” had been with poor children on the city street in that distant home in Germany, and he had never attempted one with “an equal.” His little chest swelled, his head tossed back, his voice took on a new tone. “You coward, you! If I had Fritzy Nunky’s Winchester here, I’d blow your head right square off you! You—you—mean thing!”

“Will you go?”

“No!”

“What will you do?”

“Come and pound you! That is, if you can’t get off your old lounge!”

“Come on!” sneered Melville, little dreaming that his menace would be accepted.

But it was; and in another second the round, dirty fists of little Fritz were beating and punching the face and sides of the really helpless invalid. Melville defended himself as best he could, and cried aloud for his grandmother. But that unsuspecting woman was taking her evening constitutional at a good distance from the house, and did not hear him.

As he saw his adversary evidently weakening the belligerent Fritz felt his courage grow apace, and he became quite carried away with his own prowess.

But after a considerable interval, he realized that his blows were no longer parried, and that Melville’s claw-like hands lay supinely on the robe which half covered him.

“Humph! Thought I couldn’t lick you, didn’t you? And I showed you diffrunt! Humph! Got enough, haven’t you?” And with immeasurable contempt Fritz stepped back and regarded the motionless figure upon the lounge. He stood thus for a long, long time; then suddenly the memory of a story his uncle had told him of a boy who killed his brother in a “fight” rushed into his mind.

Had he killed this boy of the roaring voice? A quick little sob escaped his babyish lips, and in an awful terror he turned and fled.

They were just rising from their long, after table talk when the door of the supper-room opened furiously, and a small boy with a very white face appeared on its threshold. The big, staring eyes and the quivering lips did not seem to belong to their little Fritz, and every one paused in expectation, as he cried in his terrified treble: “There’s a homely, great boy on a lounge, and I’ve just killed him!”

CHAPTER III.

“Fritz! Fritzy Pickel! What is that you say?” demanded Uncle Fritz, who of all the astonished company was the first to recover his speech.

“He’s dead! Dead as Otto Skaats!” wailed the terrified child. “I fit him and beat him; but I didn’t—I didn’t mean to do it so hard!”

“Otto Skaats” had been the unlucky hero of Uncle Fritz’s doleful tale.

“Come to me, nephew!” ordered Uncle Fritz sternly, and the little boy sorrowfully obeyed.

“Now tell Fritzy Nunky every single thing.” Mr. Pickel sat down upon the sofa and took his favorite into the safe shelter of his arms. Sympathy, he knew, was the shortest road to confidence.

“I went to see the house, and I found a boy. He was big and crosser than anything. He couldn’t be my truly cousin, Fritzy Nunky, ’cause he wasn’t a gentleman. He ordered me out of his place like he owned the hull concern; and he dasted me to fight. I wanted to lick him, and I did; but I didn’t ’spect to kill him.”

At the recollection of Melville’s white face, the young pugilist hid his own on Uncle Fritz’s broad shoulder and began sobbing as if his heart were broken.

Fortunately, at that moment Aunt Ruth re-entered the room. She had waited to hear but the first words of the little lad’s self-accusation, and had then flown swiftly to Melville’s side. For an instant she had gazed upon the inert figure, horrified, and actually believing that the tale was true. Another instant, and she resisted the thought as something too terrible to have really come into such quiet lives as theirs. She found the death-like stupor only a faint after all; and her heart gave a great throb of thankfulness. She had never loved, and was far too honest to pretend affection for, her elder nephew; but in that moment she realized the truth of the old saying that “blood is thicker than water.” She had not loved him simply because he was not lovable; but a hope arose within her that he might yet become so.

“I’ve been too severe with him, no doubt,” said truthful Ruth to herself; “and I’ve had too great contempt for his supreme selfishness. But who knows? Maybe in his place I should have been a deal more disagreeable—if that were possible!”

This soliloquy had not hindered the work of her capable hands, and very speedily she had the satisfaction of seeing the invalid revive. When he recovered so far as to answer her question, he replied, that ‘he was all right, only his head felt queer.’ “I don’t remember what happened to me. Oh, yes, I do too! Where is that little imp?”

“Humph! thee’ll live!” replied Aunt Ruth.

“Live? Why shouldn’t I?” demanded Melville.

“Thee has just had a pretty serious thrashing, and, I fancy, the first one of thy experience. Little Fritz must have hit thy temple, for I see it is discolored. The blow in that particular place was what made thee faint, I suppose.”

“Now will you insist upon keeping him here?”

“Certainly.”

“A boy as dangerous as that?”

“Melville Capers, I am ashamed of thee! Even if thee is an invalid it is no reason why thee should be a coward! It does not seem as if there could be one drop of Kinsolving blood in thy veins.”

Melville was still weak, and he was too utterly astonished at his aunt’s indignation to reply. He lay staring at her until a well-known step was heard in the passage and Grandmother Capers came into the room. Then ensued the customary roar with which the cripple expressed his disapprobation of things in general and of this latest grievance in especial.

“Boohoo! Row row-wow-ow!” No written word can convey the sound; it made quick-tempered Ruth think of nothing but an angry calf, and the pity which had sprung up in her heart gave way to disgust.

So it was with a very contemptuous expression on her fair face that she re-entered the supper-room, where Grandmother Kinsolving sat trembling, and herself on the verge of fainting, while the younger ones had grouped themselves about Uncle Fritz and his sobbing burden.

“Well?” asked that gentleman, eagerly, though already relieved by Ruth’s manner.

“Perfectly well! Or, rather, perfectly safe. Doubtless Melville does feel a bit the worst for being knocked senseless, but he is sufficiently himself again, I think!”

She said this with the funniest little emphasis on the “I,” and the young Pickels’ curiosity was whetted. The more, indeed, that this odd new aunt of theirs at that instant held up her hand to make them listen. The wailing and roaring penetrated even to that remote apartment, and caused Grandmother Kinsolving’s sweet face to flush.

“Ruth, thee should not! Remember the lad is thy own nephew. He is frail, and not to be judged by common rules.”

“And, because he is of our own blood,—which I find it hard to believe,—I want all these new children of ours to understand him at the outset. Thee is always fond of having things ‘start right,’ and I have caught thy habit.” The tender look in the daughter’s eyes corrected any possible rudeness in her speech; and, seriously she was in earnest about having the new family “start right.”

For three years Melville had been a terrible trial to her; the worse because she saw only too plainly that his suffering, which was real enough at times, and his wretched disposition, were wearing her mother’s strength away. Ruth Kinsolving felt, and rightly, that one such life as Amy Kinsolving’s was worth more to the world than dozens like Melville’s; and she hoped from this inrush of young life that household matters might be straightened out.

When Content came to them, it had been after long objection on her aunt’s part; which, however, the girl herself did not know. But when Benjamin wrote about his “only, motherless child,” Ruth’s retroussé nose had tilted itself a little higher, and her firm mouth had closed a little more firmly. For her part, she had had quite enough of “only children,” no matter how close their kinship, nor how orphaned their state.

Grandmother Amy had said very little, and had said that little gently; but, meek as she was, she was also wise; and much as she leaned upon her capable daughter, she had never let go the reins of management from her own fragile hand.

“Thee will do thy duty, Ruth, as thee has been trained to do. Benjamin and Benjamin’s belongings have as much right in The Snuggery as thee has. If there were a dozen children and he wished me to receive them, I should bid him send them. Since there is only one, and that a girl, I look to thee to be her second mother.”

Ruth reserved her own opinion about the mothering part, but she obediently wrote the letter of welcome; and was glad to her heart’s core when its living answer looked up into her eyes with a gaze as fearless and honest as her own and with far more of sweetness.

Having been so agreeably disappointed in Content, she was prepared to welcome the little Pickels with greater cordiality; and she formed a project, then and there, that the family should make one united effort to reconstruct poor Melville, and make him a credit to them.

So, taking little Fritz from his uncle’s arms, she led the party into the south room, where through the open windows the moonlight fell as she fancied it could fall only on Deer Hill, and there she told them Melville’s short and painful history.

Ellison Capers had brought distress upon the family hearth from the first time his shadow rested there. She entered into few details, thinking it unwise that listeners so youthful should yet learn them; but she showed them that her sister Harriet had died none too soon to hide her broken heart, and that through the curse of his own father’s dissipation had come poor Melville’s ruined, crippled life. Whether he had fallen or been thrown from his father’s arms, when that father was intoxicated, they never knew; but they did know that from that fall dated all the son’s suffering. There was something wrong with the spine, but a trouble which as yet no physician had ever been able to set right.

Unconsciously to herself, as she talked, Aunt Ruth’s voice took on a tone of soft and womanly pity, and it did not seem to those who listened as if she could ever have spoken of her nephew so contemptuously as they had heard her speak a little while before.

“Well, this other ‘Grandmother Capers?’ Cannot she do anything to make him bear his trouble better?” asked Uncle Fritz.

“If she can, she does not. Ellison was her only son, and of course our invalid is her only grandchild. Her idea of love appears to be unlimited indulgence—”

Here poor “Fritzy Nunky” began to glance about uneasily, but Ruth’s next words showed him that nothing personal had been intended.

“Oh! I wasn’t thinking of thee, sir. I fancy that thee can say no—once in a way, if need be. But Mrs. Capers cannot. She is, unfortunately, very wealthy, and she has let Melville know that all she has will one day be his. That he may not live to inherit appears never to occur to either of them. The boy is utterly spoiled; and if he were any older I should give him up as hopeless. But he is only fourteen, and very clever-witted,—though it might not seem probable to those who hear him bray so!”

A renewed sound of woe or wrath warned them that Grandmother Capers was in for a tussle with her charge.

“Ruth! Ruth!”

“The noise is certainly like that Don makes, mother.”

“Who’s Don?” asked Fritzy, suddenly sitting up straight.

“He’s a donkey.”

“Does he live here, too?”

“Yes. He is very old. Thy dear mother and I used to ride him once upon a time.”

“I may ride him, mayn’t I?”

“If he is willing.”

“How can he tell? Does he talk?”

“He has a very expressive way of making people understand his likes and dislikes. Thee shall try him to-morrow. Thee can hardly keep thy eyes open now, and we will go up to see how fresh and sweet grandmother’s sheets do smell.”

Fritz, junior, immediately climbed down, and slipped his hand within his aunt’s. It was evident that they two would speedily understand each other. And Ruth’s quick feeling was deeply touched, when, as the sleepy little fellow knelt down to say his “good-night word to God,” he begged that trusted Father to ‘forgive him for killing the crippler’; “no, for not killing him”—he went on; “oh! I don’t know what I mean; but God does every time, Fritzy Nunky says.”

But the unwise if earnest woman had inaugurated a work the magnitude of which was doomed to make even her valiant spirit quake. She returned to the south room to find all its young occupants deep in the discussion of Melville’s reformation; and each with a different and distinct plan for its accomplishment.

Grandmother had gone to sit with her invalid, and Uncle Fritz was resting on the sofa. None of the earnest talkers heeded her entrance, or were conscious of it; but when she had quietly listened to the varying projects, and the unmistakable quality of the family “substance” with which each was advocated, her courage failed.

“I’ll fight him out on his own line!” declared the tomboy Octave; “I’ll teach him that he has got to be a man and not a baby!”

“No,” said Paula, with scorn; “Nothing can be done by being unladylike. I am going to treat him as if we were grown-up folks. A gentleman should be ashamed to cry like a child. I’ll teach him German.”

“I’ll—I don’t know what I can do,” said Christina; “but I’ll do something! He shall not worry my sweet, new grandmother!”

“Oh, there must be unity, my dears,” said Aunt Ruth, joining in the talk.

“And ‘Fritzy Nunky,’ as you call him, hasn’t said his word yet,” added Content. “Suppose we try and find out what he would suggest.”

“Going to bed!” retorted the guardian of many Pickels.

“Oh, but Nunky! How would you, if you were going to be here, how would you reform the horrid fellow?” demanded Octave, imperiously.

“I? Well, I should just try loving him.” And with that wisest project of all, the conclave broke up.

CHAPTER IV.

“I have stirred up a hornet’s nest, mother.”

“Ruth! Where?”

“Only a mental one, dear. Thee must not take me too literally. But I unwisely asked Lydia’s children to help me in trying to improve Melville, and they responded only too briskly.”

Then the daughter related what she had overheard in the south room.

“And Fritz was the only one in the right of it,” was Grandmother Kinsolving’s brief comment.

“How can one love what is not lovable? I have been trying three years, and thee knows I have not succeeded over well,” answered Ruth, soberly.

“I think thee has tried less to love than to make, daughter. Just thee leave off the making part, and follow Fritz Pickel’s good advice. Then thee will be the example to the children that thee should be.”

“There is another way out of it, mother dear. Margaret Capers and Melville are always threatening to ‘leave,’ when things do not move just to their notion. Now we have a good reason for letting them keep their word. The peace which would follow their going would be balm to my soul, and marrow to your bones, Mother Amy.”

The old lady did not notice the remark, but went on putting away her gray silken gown as carefully as if it were not to be taken out and worn again on the morrow. Then she folded her snowy kerchief and placed it in its own appropriate drawer of the old-fashioned chiffonier, smoothing out every wrinkle with a lingering daintiness of touch that seemed a sort of ceremony to the less careful Ruth, who enjoyed nothing better than to watch her mother dressing and undressing.

“There would be a vanity in all that fussiness, if it were any one but thee who was guilty of it, Mother Amy,” said the younger, busier woman, fondly.

“If thee would spend more time over thy clothes and less over the household cares, thee would not get so weary, Ruth.”

“Why, mother! I never told thee I was weary!”

“The tone of thy voice tells it, dear. I know that this opening our doors to so many new cares will fall heaviest on thee, my child. Thee must watch thyself, betimes, and be beforehand with love. That will oil the wheels and make them move noiselessly. One thing I foresee gladly. Thee will find enough in little Fritz to make up to thee for all thy labor for him. Yet he is a child born to mischief. And I think thee will have less time to worry over Melville, now this other nephew has come.”

“Yes, I do love him already. Who could help it? He seems a typical boy,—healthy, hearty, and roguish, but warm-hearted and chivalrous as well. I’ll put up with Paula for the sake of Fritzy. Bless the little man! I should like to spank Paula. What a contrast to Content!”

“They will do each other good.”

“But, mother, what about the Capers? If they wish to go, had we not better let them? Thee knows it is not for the need of their board money we keep them; and now these other natural claims are made upon thee, thee can say we want the three extra rooms, as indeed we do. I was ashamed to put Fritz Pickel into such a pigeonhole as the little room under the stairs, and it was all there was left to offer him.”

“Fritz Pickel will do very well if he has always such a comfortable and cleanly bed to rest him on; and it is not he who is troubled, but thy own housewifely heart. Go now to sleep, my child. On thee will fall the burden of the day, and thee must rest. All that the past day has brought to our door, that will we keep; and because of the new bringing we will not discard the old.”

So dismissed, and understanding perfectly that her mother’s determination was final, Ruth Kinsolving went to her own chamber to lie awake and borrow anxiety, as was her nature.

Meanwhile, the victim of that evening’s discussion tossed fretfully on his own luxurious bed—by far the most comfortable one the everywhere comfortably furnished house afforded. He knew nothing, of course, of the eager plans for his reformation which his cousins, “the intruders,” had laid; but he was perfectly capable of forming plans on his own side, not indeed for the reformation of the enemy but for its utter extirpation.

“They are enemies, the whole posse of them. The little imp is but a sample of the lot. Of that I am positive. But if they think they are going to bully me, just because I am a sick boy, they’ll find themselves mightily mistaken. If I can’t fight with my fists I can with my brain, and I will make that whole batch of Pickels sorry they ever heard of The Snuggery. I will so!”

“What is it? What did you say, darling?” asked Grandmother Capers, who entered from her own apartment in swift anxiety. She boasted that she always slept with one eye open, and Melville, at least, believed her. Wake when and how he would, her quick ear caught the difference in his breathing, and she was at his side, attentive and submissive.

Grandmother Capers was considered a “worldly old woman,” by those who felt themselves competent to judge; and, indeed, she was a great contrast to Grandmother Kinsolving, as well in her speech and faith as in her personal appearance. But whatever might be her mental or moral weaknesses, in one thing she was strong; and that was in her supreme, untiring devotion to her grandson. It seemed to Amy Kinsolving as if Ellison’s mother was seeking, by the consecration of her every faculty to Ellison’s child, to make up to him for the terrible injury he had suffered at his parent’s hands. If the devotion wearied Melville, he was still so accustomed to it that he would scarcely have known how to exist without it.

But he resented it as if it had been an insult.

“I do wish that I could ever move without your eternal asking: ‘What is it, darling?’ I hate the sound of your voice!”

Mrs. Caper’s dark eyes filled with tears, and the pretty pink color on her round, old cheek deepened; but Melville could not see this, and, if he had been able, he would not have cared.

“I’m sorry I disturbed you, dear; but it is better that than that you should need me and I not be at hand.”

The old lady’s tone was apologetic and humble—a tone which, whenever Ruth Kinsolving heard it, made her blood boil. That anyone of her race should force such a tone into the voice of an aged woman was one of the many hard things she had to endure on account of her elder nephew.

“Well, see that you don’t do it again, then! And go to bed, can’t you? I wish you’d shut the door between. If I could walk a step, I’d soon find a way to keep you out!”

“There, there, sweetheart, don’t you worry! You know it is so bad for you. If you want me, don’t fail to call.”

There was little fear that this would ever happen, but it was a tender injunction which Grandmother Capers never failed to give.

She returned to her own bed, and fell into another “cat nap,” from which she was roused again, after a brief interval, by hearing Melville breathing deeply and in a manner to startle anybody even less doting than she. Quietly as a mouse, fearing further rebuff, the old lady crept forward until she could peer through the doorway.

Melville was not asleep. He was sitting as nearly upright in bed as he was able to do, and his eyes were fixed upon the open window, and the moonlight which he loved, and which, though against his faithful nurse’s judgment, he insisted should never be shut out by curtains.

The moonlight? Something far whiter and brighter than that. Something which moved up and down, up and down, slowly and monotonously.

Grandmother Capers’s eyes followed her grandson’s, and for the first time in her life she became oblivious to his existence.

Even in modern America there are some houses old enough to have ghostly traditions, and The Snuggery was one of these. On certain nights of the midsummer, when the moon was at its full, “spirits were seen to walk,” through the box-bordered garden-paths; and to sway rhythmically, like folks in “meeting,” above the shaven lawn. These old tales had always been recounted, but it was not until within the last five years, and since the ocean shipwreck which had brought such heart shipwreck to the old homestead, that some voices whispered knowingly how one of these wandering spirits was that of the drowned daughter of the house.

What more fitting, then, than that, on the very first night of their arrival here, the ghost of the children’s mother should revisit the home of her childhood and now of theirs?

Grandmother Capers did not for one instant question the evidence of her senses. She was credulous by nature, and somewhat ignorant, despite her many years, and she remained spellbound where she had paused.

Up and down, up and down, the tall slim creature of the upper air moved, as if blown about by the wind. Grandmother did not have on her spectacles, but she was moderately sharp of vision still; and she was sure that the ghost had long blonde hair and blue eyes. So had Lydia Kinsolving, in the days of her youth.

Then the watcher became conscious that it was not an aimless tossing of ethereal substance that made the light wind’s sport; there was motion, and method in the motion, which seemed strangely familiar to Margaret Capers. Oddly enough, the days of her own youth and belleship recurred to her; days in which she had danced in stately waltzes as unlike the modern ones as grace is unlike awkwardness.

She forgot to be afraid, remembering so distinctly. She forgot that it was said to presage evil if one unwittingly paused to watch a “spirit.” She forgot everything but the waltz movement which had once been dearer to her giddy soul than food to her healthy body. She leaned forward, entranced; but when, presently, the ghostly dancer began to sing, in time to her own motion, the very words of a love-song Margaret Capers had often sung, the fascinated observer aroused with a start.

It was her warning! She knew it, recognized it! She uttered a terrified shriek, so piercing that it silenced Melville from responding, and brought Aunt Ruth flying, like another ghost, in her long nightgown to the invalid’s room.

But when she beheld Grandmother Capers gazing distraught and horror-stricken through the open window, her glance followed swiftly after.

And with her own bodily eyes, in a sickening fear utterly new to her, Ruth Kinsolving looked upon what she actually believed to be her own sister’s wraith.

CHAPTER V.

That is, for one brief, ridiculous moment she so believed. Then, with a blush at her own credulity, Aunt Ruth speedily hurried out of doors and laid her energetic mortal hand upon the specter’s shoulder.

“Paula! Paula Pickel! What in the name of common-sense is thee doing?”

But, as it was something rather in the nature of uncommon-sense, Paula did not immediately answer.

A second, more vigorous shake awoke the young somnambulist, though to a dazed and unsatisfactory condition which was as puzzling to Aunt Ruth as the whole episode was. But the girl gradually came to herself, and her first exclamation cleared the ghostly mystery.

“Dear me! Have I been walking in my sleep again?”

“I should say thee had,” retorted the aunt, feeling very decidedly provoked at having so many people disturbed. “Thee has frightened Grandmother Capers half to death with thy uncanny dancing. Come now, at once, and show her who and what thee is. Then, maybe, the old lady can get a bit of rest. Between thee and Melville it will be little enough at the most.”

Paula resented her aunt’s tone and manner: she acknowledged no authority except her own will, and, occasionally, that of her Uncle Fritz.

“You have no right to speak like that to me—none whatever. Besides, I am not going to meet a stranger in this dishabille. I am sorry that I walked in my sleep, but I am not to blame for it.”

The young girl drew herself stiffly away from the firm touch which still held her shoulder, and with an air of offended dignity started to re-enter the house.

Ruth released her clasp, suffering Paula to follow her own inclination; but a keen perception of the ludicrous was so thoroughly awakened that the aunt could not restrain a hearty laugh. Truth was, Ruth Kinsolving was little more than a girl, herself; a wholesome-natured if high-spirited one, and, as mother Amy too well knew, but ill-fitted to rule over a houseful of young folks, like these whom Providence had brought to her door. Doubtless, being blessed with excellent sense, she would find a way for herself out of the puzzle; and a way which would retain her own self-respect while still commanding theirs. But as yet she had not even thought about this way, nor of anything but the immediate needs of her great family.

Paula turned, in a fury; forgetting instantly her determination to show these American relatives what a great lady she was, and becoming the actual reality,—a very quickly offended, untrained girl.

“I do not see occasion for laughter in my misfortune, Aunt Ruth; and I wish that Uncle Fritz had never brought us here. You may as well learn in the beginning that I never wished to come and that I shall go away as soon as possible.”

A sharp retort formed itself in Ruth Kinsolving’s mind, but rested there unspoken.

“I was not laughing at thee, dear little Paula, but at the absurdity of thy attempted dignity, clad just as thee is. It is high time we were both indoors, and thinking less about ourselves and more about our neighbors. Come.”

Aunt Ruth slipped her arm, covered only by its cambric sleeve, about the waist of her niece, and would have guided her affectionally back to her chamber.

But Paula would not. She had been a trifle touched by the soft tone in which this new aunt had said “dear little Paula,” but she was slower to forget resentment than to feel it. So she hurried forward alone, and made her way to the room where Christina was sleeping, in the refreshing rest which follows a simple supper and bedtime thoughts of sweet good-will.

Ruth went to Grandmother Capers, and found the old lady greatly shaken by the shock she had received. Surprising as it was, Margaret Capers persistently refused to accept Ruth’s plain and natural explanation of the affair, and reiterated her belief that she had really seen a spirit, whose visitation was intended as a warning of direful things to come.

From his room adjoining, Melville heard the discussion and terminated it in his own fashion: “Go to bed, grandma, and keep still! If, at your age, you want to be a fool, be one, and not bother other folks about it! As for you, Aunt Ruth, I wish you would get me a drink of fresh water out of the well, and take yourself off out of the way. I hate this night rowing! If you don’t get back to that side of the house pretty soon, some of the rest of your imps will be breaking loose! I’ll make grandmother get out of this!”

“Thee will, in a sense thee little understands, ungrateful boy!” replied his long-suffering aunt, after she had drawn and brought the water. “And I will ask thy permission to give thee a bedtime thought. If there are any ‘imps’ under this roof this night, they are locked up in thy own selfish heart. If thee is really a Kinsolving, see to it that thee treats that poor old woman in yonder with common decency. One of these nights thee will order her and she will not obey.” And with that for a good-night, the much tried young house-mistress took herself off.

Melville was sufficiently nervous to find sleep impossible for weary hours to come; and it is probable that the self-indulgent lad had never done a greater amount of thinking in a like space of time.

“Aunt Ruth has a way of saying things which cut; but they generally cut in the right place when she says them to other people! Did she mean it? Am I an ‘imp,’ myself? I suppose I don’t speak very respectfully to grandma, sometimes; but she is such a silly thing that she tries me awfully. And everybody knows I am an incurable invalid. It’s a pity I can’t talk as I please, when I am doomed to lie here like a log! I’d be a saint if I had that little imp Fritz’s legs and fists! How he did use them, though! And I couldn’t but admire the young monkey, in spite of my anger, he did so make me think of one of Abraham’s bantam roosters. Well, maybe some of the Pickels will be relishable; and if they are, I’ll try not to scare them away by crossness.”

From which soliloquy of Melville’s it will be seen that while the would-be reformers had all gone to bed in the truly missionary spirit, the sinner to be reconstructed was doing his own best to make his stubborn clay pliable to their touch. Also, that his threat of “getting out of this” was a threat merely, and not to be taken seriously.

CHAPTER VI.

Fritz, junior, slept soundly; but he had a child’s fashion of waking early. When he found the sunlight shining into his eyes through the window which, being unaccustomed to care for young folks, Aunt Ruth had forgotten to darken,—and thus insure her own undisturbed morning nap,—he sat up in bed and looked about him. He was perfectly wide awake on the instant, and the cheerfulness of the sunlight was scarcely greater than the clear light of the lad’s own happy nature.

“I was a dreadful bad boy, last night! I’m awful sorry I licked the crippler and—by jingo! I’ll go and tell him so!”

Paula had labored long and seriously with her little brother; but he didn’t take polishing well at all—that is, of the sort which his elder sister was minded to give him. It made not the slightest impression on this small man to be forbidden a dozen times a day to use the language which came naturally to his lips, and which from his association with the boys of the street he had come to consider smart.

More than this, Uncle Fritz was always inclined to concur in Fritz, junior’s, own opinion. But, for the matter of that, pretty nearly everything the little lad did was “smart” in the eyes of his adoring uncle, who firmly believed that his namesake was an epitome of every human grace and virtue. He would not have had the child different for half his fortune; and it was well for the little fellow that he had the wholesomest and sweetest of natures, and that he had sprung from a race of gentlefolk.

But there was a polishing he did take, readily. If by any chance—alas! they were frequent—he had inadvertently really pained any living heart, he could not rest till he had done his childish utmost to banish that pain. Once, on one never-to-be-forgotten, dreadful day, he had told Fritzy Nunky a lie! “Story” does not express it; fib is too mild; falsehood or untruth indicate a premeditation which was absent from the offence; so, though it is an ugly word, never to be carelessly uttered or written, it must stand. No matter what the lie was about; that was between the two Fritzes. Suffice it to tell that the big Fritz had suffered actual agony, fearing that his idol was going to be found wanting in that first foundation of all nobility,—truthfulness. And the little Fritz has seen the agony, and—but the sorrow of a little child is sacred.

So that rough corner of his character was polished till the shining gold showed bright and sparkling. Fritz never told a second lie; nor would he have done so for any enticement which could have been offered him.

Now he remembered that he had been “spunky” and almost “killed” somebody; and somehow this tender-hearted little gentleman felt as if his day would begin better if he could get that unpleasant memory off his mind. So he slipped out of bed, threw his nightshirt into one corner of the room, soused the water in the bowl all over the floor, in his vain effort to make it answer for the tubbing to which he was accustomed, tried to straighten his curly tangles of hair with two strokes of the brush, then to button his shoes on the wrong feet, and gave up the matter as satisfactorily settled by leaving both unfastened, put his knickerbockers on wrong side before with a goodly protuberance of shirt waist to protest against the arrangement, and hied himself out of the room.

As he passed a little chamber under the stairs, he heard the familiar snore of Fritz the elder, and was about to run back and get a pillow to hurl at him. It was a kind of awakening to which both the Fritzes were accustomed, in their loving equality of playfellows, but for once Fritz, junior, refrained.

Not from the slightest hesitation about disturbing his guardian, but because it would hinder him from finding and apologizing to Melville. He was in a great hurry to get that job off his hands; then he would be free to hunt up that donkey who lived with his pretty aunt, and ask his permission to be ridden.

Melville was in a refreshing sleep. His feeble body needed it as much as his tired brain, for half of the invalid’s crossness came, had his relatives but known it, from a restlessness of mind which needed to be understood before it could be cured. There had never been any one about him to understand it; so the crippled lad had lain month in and month out weaving his fancies to himself, and disdaining to confide them to any other, as one shrinks from trusting a perfectly and freshly ripened cluster of grapes to the careless fingers of a child, lest its delicate bloom be lost before its beauty becomes known.

Out of his dreamless rest he was awakened by the touch of a little hand.

“Wake up, you poor crippler, can’t you! I want to tell you I— Say, can’t you wake up?”

Fritz had stiffened the grasp of his fingers to a painful clutch; and he had yet to learn that Melville was habitually “sore all over,” outwardly as well as within.

The clutch succeeded where the gentler touch had failed, and the sick lad opened his eyes with such suddenness that his disturber fairly jumped.

“What the dickens are you doing here again?” roared Melville.

Fritz trembled. Still, he did not retreat; he was far too much in earnest.

“I come—I come—” began the child, and paused, confused. He somehow found this humiliation of himself vastly harder than any of the many similar confessions he had previously made. He was accustomed to having his “I’m sorrys” met more than half way by the friendly interpretation of love.

But there was no love in the scowling brow upon the pillow, and only a very present memory of the indignity which its owner had suffered.

“Yes, I see you’ve ‘come.’ Why? That’s what I want to know!” thundered the invalid.

“What is it, Melville? Did you call me, darling?” sleepily asked Grandmother Capers, coming to the doorway; and Fritz’s ready attention was drawn away from his cousin to her.

He looked; he stared; and as he stared his eyes grew bigger and bigger, which was quite unnecessary, since they were very round and wide open at all times. He had never seen any such person, and instantly he decided that the old lady was the “Witch of Endor,” about whom his guardian was continually talking when things went wrong in his great business house. “The ‘Witch of Endor’ is to pay!” was Uncle Fritz’s most vehement expression; and little Fritz thought that this must be she, and he did not at all wonder that big Fritz dreaded her.

His feet began to shake in their ill-adjusted shoes, and, if his hair had not been so well deluged by those two dabs of the brush and bath water, it might have stood upright.

Melville saw the growing consternation on the childish face before him, and turned from it to its cause. Then he did not even attempt to restrain the disrespectful laugh which followed.

Grandmother Capers was one of those saving old ladies who do not wear their false teeth when asleep; and as by daylight she wore both “upper” and “under,” and as her features were of the sort described as hooked, the economy resulted in an undress, and sinister appearance, which was at least an unlucky transformation. Add to that the fact that she was also one of the fast fading race who cling to a combination of false-front and black silk skull-cap draped with lace by day, in lieu of their own silver locks, the effect when this regalia was laid aside added one more factor to a get-up which Fritz did not find attractive. Then, being of slender build and sensitive temperament, she always found it convenient to sleep wrapped in one shawl; and, owing to the undue exposure of the night just gone, she had put on a second, of rich color and great amplitude. Below all trailed a heavy dressing-gown which was summer and winter bedfellow to shawl number one.

Melville was on the point of retorting to her usual fond inquiry: “No, I didn’t ‘call you darling!’” but one of those rare glimpses of humor which proved him, after all, to be something of a Kinsolving and relative to Ruth, averted the sharp retort. For the first time in his life he saw his doting grandmother as other people saw her; or might see her, if they were admitted to the close intimacy which was his.

“For goodness sake, grandmother! Haven’t you what you call a ‘Bay State’ shawl?”

“Yes. And I suppose you think I ought to have it on.” She laughed gaily, in relief from the usual reprimand and appreciation of their mutual wit.

But to the little foreigner the laugh was more terrible than Melville’s frown had been. His chin dropped, and something very like a quiver swept over the brave red lips.

Melville’s gaze had returned to his cousin’s face by then, and an impish impulse seized him. He would make Fritz kiss Grandmother Capers! The child evidently regarded her with some inexplicable terror, and this would be a punishment complete and well-deserved.

“Come here a minute, grandma.”

The loving creature obeyed the summons swiftly, glad of his unusual gentleness, and in her feeble haste stumbled continually upon her long train. This gave her the hobbling gait which was the one touch needed to make her, in Fritz’s eyes, the so much dreaded “Endor woman.”

“I want you to kiss this sweet little boy. He is an early visitor, and so devoted, you see!”

Melville’s laugh, saying this, was harsh, but that Mrs. Capers did not observe. She only knew that Melville laughed. She was ready to do anything he asked of her. So she followed after the child, who slowly retreated, and bent her face to touch his.

“Kiss me, little man. Come, kiss me good-morning.”

Kiss the “Witch of Endor!” It was dreadful enough to know she really lived, and right here in his own grandmother’s house; but—kiss her! Before the horror of that rite the stalwart soul of the “little man” appeared to die within him. He tried to retreat still farther, and found himself prevented by the barrier of a wall. He darted his terrified glance this way and that for some way of escape, but the pale morning light showed nothing clearly. Else would the still bright eyes of Grandmother Capers have seen what they did not see, that the child’s hesitation was not shyness but fear; and even for Melville’s dear sake she would not have done what she did do.

Fritz felt the frill of her night-cap brush his hair, then her peppermint-scented breath reached his nostrils, and, with a shriek as if all the witches ever known to history were upon him, he struck out in his own defence.

Melville, even, had looked for no such result as this. At the most, he expected to see “a little fun”; but his knowledge of healthy boyhood was slight, and a boy who, small as this one was, had yet pluck enough to protect himself from the aggressions even of “witches” was amazing to him.

Needless to say that poor Mrs. Capers was far more astonished than her grandson, and with a more serious cause. As the first blow of the sturdy little fist fell on her unsuspecting cheek, she started and staggered back. Then came a second blow, and she retreated still farther; but her aged feet caught in the folds of her long gown, and she was thrown violently to the floor.

For a moment chaos reigned.

Fritzy’s fighting blood was up. “St. George and the Dragon” and “Ralph the Lion Killer” were nothing to him. He, who all unarmed and unsuspecting, had met and conquered Uncle Fritz’s “Witch of Endor!” Wouldn’t Fritzy Nunky be a proud and happy man when she should be safely out of the way, and no longer “to pay!” At this thought the whacking blows redoubled, and it was only owing to Grandmother Capers’s well wrapped person that she was not then and there annihilated, as her adversary, forsooth, intended.

Meanwhile, Melville lay helpless on his bed and hollaed. The game had gone to terrifying limits, and he was powerless to stop it, save by his lusty voice; which, for awhile, seemed rather to egg on the small pugilist than to restrain him.

Fortunately for all concerned, Content was also an early riser; and this one morning in especial she had been “up with the lark,” that she might help Aunt Ruth, rightly foreseeing that the sudden invasion of a whole flock of hungry youngsters would make breakfast-getting a task for many hands.