Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

GIRLS IN BOOKLAND

HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

A DEMURE LITTLE CROWD THEY WERE, STANDING PRIMLY, HAND IN HAND

GIRLS IN BOOKLAND

BY

HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

ILLUSTRATED BY

JOHN WOLCOTT ADAMS

NEW YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1917,

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1916,

BY THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To

My Four Little Nieces

UNA, ROSAMOND,

SYLVIA AND JOAN

A WORD BEFORE THE STORY

Inside this world in which we live there is another world, a very wonderful world, that is ours for the taking. Many things in the world we live in every day are denied to us. Maybe for the reason that we cannot possibly learn how to make use of them all, even though we think we want them very much. Lots of us can never hunt lions in Africa or sail the high seas, or find gold, or herd cows on the wild prairies, or know a pirate, or run an engine, or become kings or queens or presidents or the wives of presidents, or anything great and famous like that. We have to let others do those things, and they again have to let us do the things we do. We can each only be our kind of boy or girl, man or woman.

But in the world inside this we can be and do anything, not only now and here, but back in dim ages when knights were bold and castles held prisoned princesses. We can know intimately all sorts of people, savages and noblemen, cowboys and bank-clerks, fairies and fisher folk, poor little children and rich little children, great captains and wicked robbers, lovely ladies and strange old women, poets and farmers. We can go on high adventure and find dreams come true. We can be hundreds of different persons, men and women and boys and girls, beasts and fishes, clouds and mountains. Once inside that world, anything is liable to happen to us.

This inside world is the world of books. There, on your bookshelf, inside the quiet-looking blue and brown and red and green volumes, all sorts of exciting things are going on, all sorts of people are busy over all sorts of affairs, talking and laughing, crying and playing, having marvellous escapes, doing wonderful deeds. If we could just step inside those books and join in the life going on so busily—lose ourselves in one book after another! Wouldn’t it be thrilling?

Rose and Ruth were lucky in having the fairy to help them, to be sure. But even without a fairy much may be done.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

GIRLS IN BOOKLAND

CHAPTER I
How It Began to Open

Rose kneeled on the long window-seat and peered through the glass, occasionally rubbing away the mist that gathered so that she might the better watch the wild game the snow was playing. It was falling so thickly that the row of alfalfa haystacks resembled dim giants, advancing on the house stealthily but surely; the horse barn loomed darkly behind them and seemed enormous—a grim castle, or a dungeon. And how the snowflakes whirled and danced, never touching the ground, yet somehow turning it whiter and whiter. The prairie vanished in the whiteness, and even at a little distance the sky was all mixed up with it.

Every now and then Rose could hear a long, wild shriek that swept around the house and died away slowly. It was the wind, of course, but it certainly sounded like a cry for help, and Rose wondered if, after all, it might not be a princess in distress. One couldn’t be quite sure, and Marmie had said that very morning that it was always the most unexpected thing that happened.

“And a snow-storm,” thought Rose, “isn’t so unexpected as a princess.”

She turned her head and looked into the big pleasant room. The fireplace had a fine blaze in it, and lying on the Navajo blanket that covered the floor right before it, busily reading, was Rose’s younger sister, Ruth.

“Oh, Ruth, stop reading and come and look out. It’s getting blizzarder every minute.”

Ruth grunted, turned a page, and remarked:

“Wait just a bit, till I finish this chapter.”

Rose looked out once more, just in time to see a man ride round the corner of the barn and disappear into the flying snow.

“There goes Jim to round up the cows,” she exclaimed. “I guess the other boys have gone too. Probably we are going to have a sockdolager of a storm.”

“Marmie said you mustn’t say sockdolager,” chided Ruth, abandoning her book and joining Rose at the window. “Oh, I wish we could go riding too. But I guess we won’t any more now, till spring. Don’t you hate to think of winter coming, Rose? We can’t go out at all most of the time, or just round the inclosure, and that’s no fun, and we sha’n’t have anything to do, and we sha’n’t see a living soul for months. That’s what Marmie said. I wish we had some other little girls to play with. Books are nice, but they aren’t alive and real—O-o-o see how hard it’s snowing now! I can’t see the barn any more.”

The two little girls leaned close together, looking out at the storm that grew more furious as the moments passed. It shook the house, it blotted out the landscape, it even hid the haystack giants. It made them feel very small and lonely and far from everybody. The nearest ranch was five miles away. That didn’t seem much in summer, but now—why, no one would care to ride there now, and as for the two themselves, they knew they would not get far from home for months to come.

Presently it began to grow dark, and the sisters returned to the fire, curling up close together on the long seat with its thick cushions that stood in front of the hearth.

Rose was a good deal taller than her sister, though they were only a year apart. Her hair was thick and hung in two long red braids, a real golden red, and her eyes were golden too, with brown shadows. There were freckles on her nose, which turned up just a little. Rose was forever imagining and pretending, and wondering whether she might not be lucky enough to stumble on a fairy or a gnome, or find a charm or a wishing cup; and Ruth would listen to the wonderings, and follow her sister about, hoping that Rose really might have an adventure, and that she would be in it too.

Ruth was a slender, vivid, dark little thing, with hair that tumbled round her head in curls, and big, black eyes that opened wide when she sat listening to Rose’s make-believes. She liked to read better than anything, and even when they went off on long rides she would tuck in a book somewhere, and find a chance to read it while they stopped for a rest or to water the ponies or to chat with the Dillinghams, on the next ranch.

“Think of all the little girls there are in the world, hundreds and hundreds and millions, and we don’t know any of them,” continued Rose, lugubriously. “Wouldn’t it be grand if we had a magic carpet, and could sit on it and wish we were anywhere and be there in the shake of a cat’s hind leg.”

“What’s that?” asked Ruth.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just what Jim says when he means a little bit of a time.”

“Where would we go, Rose?”

“Perhaps to a big school, where lots and lots of girls were playing together. Or to a fairy island, where all the nicest boys and girls in the world lived, and went on picnics and had parties. Or maybe we’d go to a nice big house where there were two other girls as old as we are, and they were wishing, like us, that they had some little friends to play with—that would be nicest of all, I think.”

Ruth sighed deliciously, picturing the joy of it.

“I don’t suppose you can possibly find such a carpet,” she murmured.

“N-no—I suppose they are all in Persia or Arabia. Or perhaps they are all worn out by this time.”

The fire shot up a great plume of sparks as one of the logs fell apart, and then died down. The room was dark, for the storm had brought night on earlier than it should have come.

“Well,” said a small, clear voice right beside the girls, “I don’t know anything about wishing carpets; but I can’t see why you don’t go through the Magic Gate. If you go through that, you reach places quite as interesting as those you are talking about—and as for children! Why, it leads to thousands and thousands of them.”

Rose was too surprised to breathe, and Ruth’s eyes opened and opened.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you know a fairy when you see one?” went on the clear voice.

The girls looked all around.

“But—but we don’t see anything,” stammered Rose.

“What do you look like?” queried Ruth.

“Can’t see me? How extremely provoking. I’m sitting right here on the arm of the settee, and I look just like a fairy—what would you have me look like?” The voice sounded the least bit impatient.

Rose, who was nearest to it, started back a trifle. She wasn’t exactly frightened,—but it was a little—well, startling—to hear a fairy and then not be able to see it! Rose had never expected that sort of adventure.

“I—I can hear you,” she said, politely. “Perhaps if you got right in front of the fire we could see you.”

“The fire won’t help. Why, I have a shine of my own. Come now, look hard.”

Both girls looked hard at the sound of the voice. But they couldn’t see it a whit better than they could see the bang of a door or the creak of a board. They felt very sorry and embarrassed, for they could tell the fairy was trying her hardest to be seen.

“It’s too bad,” said Rose, at last. And Ruth echoed her sadly. “To think that there is really a fairy here with us, and we can’t see you!”

“It’s ridiculous,” remarked the voice, “but I suppose it can’t be helped. You’ll have to get along without seeing me, that’s all. Anyhow, you seem to be able to hear me, and that’s something. And there’s no knowing; you might be disappointed if you did see me, and that would hardly be pleasant.”

“Indeed we shouldn’t!” exclaimed both girls at once. “No one was ever disappointed in a fairy.”

“Tut-tut,” said the voice, and then gave a little laugh, so sweet and mellow that it made Rose and Ruth laugh too. “But come, how about that Magic Gate?”

“Where is it?” asked Ruth, who liked to get straight to essentials.

“You can find it easily enough with me,” returned the fairy. “It’s near enough—and it’s far enough. Would you really like to go through it?”

“Can we get back again? We couldn’t leave the ranch for too long,” answered Rose. “Marmie might miss us, and every evening we play games with Dad.”

“Oh, yes, you can get back. In fact, you can’t stay inside the Magic Gates beyond a certain length of time. There are rules that have to be kept, you see.”

“Oh, Ruth, I’d like to go, wouldn’t you?” breathed Rose, excitedly.

“Yes,” replied Ruth, clutching her sister’s arm. “But where does it go, Fairy?”

“It will lead you to other little girls—little girls who only live inside the Magic Gates and can’t be reached any other way. All sorts of little girls, in all sorts of places and all sorts of times.”

“Will they like us to come?”

Again the fairy laughed her silver laugh, that sounded like drops of rain falling on the roof of an enchanted palace.

“They’ll be delighted, my dears. For they really don’t begin to live until some one finds the way to them through the gates. They are all remarkable little girls, too, in their different ways, and I know you’ll enjoy playing with them. So suppose we start. Since you can’t see me, each of you must take hold of one of my hands. Do you want to choose where to go first, or shall I choose for you?”

“You choose,” said the two girls, stretching out their hands. They could hear the fire snapping as they did so, and the wind in the chimney seemed to be calling to them. And they felt a slim, strong little hand clasp theirs, and the clear voice said:

“We might just as well begin in the Golden Age. Have you heard of Sappho, the Greek girl who wrote wonderful poems after she grew up? She was a very sweet and merry child, and I know you’ll enjoy playing with her. So shut your eyes, shut your eyes, shut ... your ... eyes....”

The fairy’s voice trailed away into silence as Rose and Ruth obeyed her. The two girls had a queer sensation, as though everything they knew was flying past them ... a sort of whirr ... then a kind of tiny shock, as if they had suddenly stopped falling, and then....

CHAPTER II
The Winner of the Torch Race

“Open your eyes,” cried that clear, laughing voice.

And Rose and Ruth obeyed, opening them very wide indeed. Opening their mouths too, just as one always does when so full of surprise that one cannot hold a bit more.

“I’ll bring you home in good time,” went on the fairy, just as though nothing in the least extraordinary had happened. “Just amuse yourselves as you like. Sappho will be along presently and I’m sure you’ll get on nicely together. And now I’ve other affairs to see to, so I’ll say good-bye for the present.”

“Good-bye,” returned the two girls, though when the fairy stopped talking it was hard to believe she was there to say anything to, because we are none of us used to answering a voice with nothing around it.

And still they stared, and the wonder in them grew bigger and bigger.

For instead of the living room at the ranch, with the fire snapping in the huge chimney, the familiar dimness of coming twilight, and the storm flapping at the windows like a great wild bird with wet wings, they saw a green slope where large trees stood about looking magnificent in summer leafage while birds chattered and piped in the branches. Far below them on a peninsula round which the bluest sea imaginable flung its broad arm lay a city of clustering, flat-roofed houses gathered about a splendid temple that appeared to be built entirely of snow-white pillars, row on row. A white road led through gardens and vineyards to this city, and out upon the shining waters boats of odd shapes with sails of scarlet, brown, buff or gaily striped canvas dipped at anchor or slipped lightly before the gentle breeze. The warm air was full of the perfume of flowers, and from somewhere not far off came the sweet sound of a flute, played softly and dreamily.

“Jiminy Cripsey!” sighed Rose, forgetting that she’d promised not to.

Ruth bent down to pick a brilliant flower at her feet.

“It’s—it’s real, Rose,” she whispered. “Smell it. That fairy is a good one, isn’t she?”

“She’s the best I ever saw,” agreed Rose, who didn’t remember that she hadn’t seen her, nor any other either. “This is a transformation!” Then she gave a sudden little shriek. “Why, Ruth, look at yourself—and me too!”

Dumbly Ruth turned her eyes on her sister and herself, or at least on her clothes. Instead of the blue serge dresses with sailor collars and silk ties, the stockings and slippers they had on when the fairy first spoke to them, Rose now wore a one-piece garment of very soft stuff of a pale, lovely yellow with a border of dull blue. This garment was caught on the right shoulder and passed under her left arm, leaving it bare. A girdle of blue was clasped about her waist, and on her bare feet were sandals with blue thongs binding them and crossed around her ankles. Her hair was knotted in the nape of her neck, and a blue fillet circled her head. Ruth wore exactly the same dress, except that it was white with a border, girdle and fillet of crimson.

Both girls began to laugh.

Each of them found they had a narrow bracelet of curious looking metal on one of their arms, and they fingered these joyfully.

“Isn’t this a dandy adventure, Ruth? How funny you look! But these are pretty dresses, just the same, aren’t they? How light and cool they are!” And tossing her arms into the air, Rose danced upon the grass.

“O—Eh!” called a laughing voice.

Rose and Ruth whirled round, and there, a little above them on the slope, stood a slender, long-legged girl of their own age, dressed as they were, though her gown was striped faint rose and blue, like the sky at sunrise.

In her hands she held a pair of long pipes that joined at the mouth-piece, and she stood, poised and erect, laughing, her eyes shining dark and vivid under the rippling waves of her golden hair, bound with silver bands.

Smiling back at her, the sisters stood close together, feeling a little shy but full of admiration.

“I was afraid you were going to be late,” said the stranger girl, coming swiftly toward them. “I’ve been waiting here a long while, blowing on my pipes, hoping that perhaps I could win some dryad out to play with me. But now you are here it doesn’t matter. Did you come very far?”

“We came so fast I don’t know ... is this place near Wyoming?” answered Rose, doubtfully.

“Wyoming? You must be barbarians! I never heard any one speak of that country, not even the sailors who have been to the end of the earth.”

“Who are you?” asked Ruth, who wasn’t quite sure just what a barbarian was, and so didn’t care to commit herself by either admitting or denying that she or her sister might be such a creature.

“I am Sappho.”

“Oh, yes, the fairy said you would come to play with us. How lovely! And do you live there in the town by the sea? For that is the sea, isn’t it? We never saw it, but our mother came from England when she was a little girl, and she has told us about it.”

“Surely it is the sea. Sometimes I long to go away on it, far beyond those cloudy mountains there in Asia; but in your land is there no sea? How strange a place! How can one live away from the sea—not I at least, I should die of loneliness.”

SAPPHO PASSED HER WITHOUT A GLANCE

“We are lonely sometimes,” said Rose, “but not for the sea. We want other girls, for where we live there are only boys, and they live a long way off, on the next ranch. What is the name of your town?”

“That city is called Mitylene, and this is the island of Lesbos, the loveliest of all the Grecian islands.”

“Ruth, do you hear, this is Greece! Where Hector and Achilles lived, and Jason, and Ulysses ... Oh, Sappho, how wonderful! Shall we see them?”

Sappho laughed. “Why, they died long ago,” she answered. “They belonged to ancient times. To-day there are no heroes like them; yet the men of Greece are strong and brave still—there are none in the world like unto them. But come, the games will soon begin, and we must be there. Are you to run in the torch race?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s the race the girls run. I shall be in—I mean to win it, and to hear the people cheer me, and to wear a crown of flowers....”

And laughing again, the girl set the double pipes to her lips and blew a sweet refrain that had a merry lilt to it, so merry that Rose and Ruth and Sappho too all began dancing in time to it, while their light, soft garments floated about them like wreaths of parti-coloured mist.

Then without more ado they set off down the long slope toward the road that should lead them to Mitylene, chattering as they went, and asking each other a hundred questions in as many seconds.

For never had Rose and Ruth imagined such scenes as they saw about them. As they left the trees they came out on a smooth meadow, where a shepherd lad clad in a goatskin all spotted brown and white sat on a rock, a short, stout crook in his hands, and sang cheerily to himself and the white flock that grazed nearby. His shock of dark hair surrounded his head in a tangle of curls, his eyes shown brightly at the girls, his legs and arms were as brown as they were bare.

“Greetings,” he cried.

“Greeting,” replied Sappho. “Are you coming to see the games?”

“Can I leave my sheep for the wolves to get?”

“They would not run faster than you should a wolf come,” Sappho called back over her shoulder.

The boy returned to his singing, scorning to reply, but she laughed.

“Now he will sulk when I next meet him,” she said to Rose. “Boys are amusing. I love to tease them, they who pretend to laugh at us girls because we are not so strong as they—some day I will show them what Sappho can do.”

Passing through a vineyard the girls reached the road, down which a procession was winding its slow way. At the head were men dressed in long flowing robes, white or dull blue or soft brown. They carried branches in their hands. Then came six pipers, dressed much like the girls, in what Sappho called a chito. All wore sandals, and most had a band of colour or of silver or gold round their heads. Behind the pipers, who were playing a slow marching air, came a snow-white heifer, with flowery garlands wreathed about her horns and over her smooth flanks. Boys in scarlet tunics led her by long ropes decorated with flowers. Behind these again came many lovely young women, wearing the chito and also the cloak-like outer robe that fell in many soft folds, one end being flung over the shoulder. These garments were bewilderingly varied in colour, some striped, some embroidered, some in strange patterns, but all were harmonious and beautiful. The people moved gaily and freely, and occasionally broke out into a chant.

“Where are they taking that white cow?” asked Ruth, gazing rapturously at the picture they made, with the golden sunlight falling on them, the garlands swinging, the flowers and costumes each brighter than the other.

“To the sacrifice,” replied Sappho.

“Do you mean they are going to kill her?”

“Do they not kill cows in your country?”

“Y-yes—but not all covered up with flowers—not a pet cow like that!”

“The cow given to the gods must be the best and prettiest and gentlest of all, or they would be angry.”

Rose, remembering the Greek stories she had read, suddenly realised that Sappho probably believed in all those wonderfully named personages she usually skipped, and feeling her ignorance, did not pursue the subject further.

A two-wheeled cart drawn by small oxen came up slowly as the girls stood watching the procession turn into the forest. An old man wrapped in a dark cloak walked beside it, leaning on a staff. As he neared them Sappho called out:

“Polemo!”

The old man glanced up, and his wrinkled face broke into a smile. Calling to his oxen, he hurried toward the girls, hobbling along fast enough with the help of his stout stick.

“Greeting, Sappho,” he said, “and to your friends greeting. What do you so far from the town, you who are to run to-day? Your mother early this morning bade me keep watch for you, saying you had gone to the hills at daybreak. Will you climb into the ‘chariot’?” and he chuckled, designating the heavy cart with its four-spoked wheels, with a sweep of his staff.

“May we, Polemo? That will be great fun. These friends of mine have never been to our Lesbos before—it is but right they should enter Mitylene in state.”

“Climb in, all of you. You’ll keep your feet out of the dust, even though you won’t reach home much sooner for all these four beasts will do for you. But climb in, climb in,” and the old fellow laughed as the three youngsters clambered joyously aboard his lumbering vehicle, Ruth and Rose hugely amused and delighted to be travelling in a manner so unusual.

“What is this race you are to run, Sappho?” asked Rose, as they stood swaying in the cart, grasping one side firmly, and watching the oxen plant their heavy feet in the white dust, while they grunted protestingly in reply to the urgings of Polemo.

“This is the maiden’s day, and we younger ones are to run the torch race. All the city will be out to see us. I am afraid of only one among the girls, my cousin Chloë. She is a few months my elder, and a very Artemis for running. But you will bring me fortune.”

“I’m sure I hope so. How did you know we were coming to-day?”

Sappho hesitated.

“I—I don’t know exactly. I only know I was to go to the hill and fetch you. But your names I know not.”

The girls quickly told her. At that moment a chariot flew by them, drawn by three horses and driven by a tall young man in fluttering robes.

“Oh, look, Rose,” cried Ruth, her eyes shining. “Isn’t it just like the circus, only better.”

“He threw the discobolus farther than any last year,” said Sappho. “Is he not beautiful!” And she waved her hand at the disappearing driver.

They were close to the town now, and many people were travelling along the road in the same direction. There was much laughter and gaiety, young boys racing each other with shouts, groups of men conversing as they walked, riders with cloaks of rich colours. Asses loaded with huge packs trotted onward, urged by men in short, skirted garments that barely reached half down their bare thighs. Some wore no foot covering, some had sandals with long thongs that crossed back and forth over their legs up to the knees. A few carried a cloak of skins or of bright cotton cloth. Many women and girls were in the constantly increasing throng, and these wore long flowing robes for the most part, sometimes hanging straight from the shoulders, sometimes girdled above the waist. It was a rainbow-hued crowd. Rose and Ruth had never seen so much colour, not even among the Indians of the Reservation.

Soon they were in the narrow street into which the road they had been travelling merged. One- and two-storied houses presented their blank walls to this street, with only an occasional window and the square or arched entrances to break the line. As they came to a corner Sappho jumped down, beckoning the two American girls to follow.

“Many thanks to you, Polemo,” she cried.

“Come,” and she sped along the street, closely pursued by Rose and Ruth, who had no mind to lose her. Reaching a doorway, she turned to await the two.

“This is my father’s house,” she said. “You will be welcome. Come in and we will have some bread and fruit before we go to the games.”

The three entered a square room bare of furnishing, and passing through, found themselves in a courtyard where flowers grew and the sun shone. Several rooms opened on this court, round which ran a sort of gallery, supported on pillars.

A woman dressed in robes like those they had seen worn by the women outdoors came to meet them across the court. She moved slowly, with great dignity, smiling as she approached.

“Who are these, Sappho?” she asked. “Are they come to the games?”

“I was sent to get them this morning,” replied Sappho. “I know not how, Mother. Something spoke to me, and I went. They come from far.”

“You are welcome,” said the lady, taking the two girls by the hand and leading them into a room beyond the court. Here, on a low table, a great loaf of bread, a jar of golden honey, an earthen pitcher of milk and a bowl half full of luscious figs stood waiting.

“Sit and eat,” she said. “But for you, Sappho, be sparing, if you are to run.”

“I will take no more than one piece of bread and a swallow of milk,” said the girl. “But you two must be hungry, having come so far.” She filled two cups with the milk, and her mother cut a large piece of bread for the visitors, who were too shy as yet to say anything more than a murmured thank you. But with the taste of the good food their tongues were soon loosened, and all three chattered together and to the quiet, smiling woman, who kept filling their cups and offering more bread and honey.

And then it was time to go to the games. In came a tall, bearded, grave-looking man who turned out to be Sappho’s father. He seemed to take Rose and Ruth for granted, and bade them all come with him.

Out in the street every one was pressing in one direction. Another man joined their group whom Sappho spoke to as Uncle, and then the two men walked ahead, leaving the girls and the woman to follow. They passed a beautiful building in a large square, evidently the market place.

“Is not that a fine temple?” asked Sappho. “It was finished only last year, and the town feasted for days to celebrate. Are not the pillars beautiful, and that row of statues?”

Rose and her sister could only stare in appreciation. Never had they dreamed of any building so exquisite, with its rosy-tinted marble, its graceful pillars, one behind another, row on row.

“It looks like that old book of mamma’s with the pictures of the World’s Fair,” said Ruth, breathlessly.

And now the crowd began filing into the large stadium, and settling down into the seats that rose tier on tier under the open blue sky. Their own party found places where a good view was to be had, inside a railed off portion where the relatives and friends of the competitors only were allowed to sit. Once seated, the girls looked about them at the gay, inspiring scene.

Colour everywhere. Gay banners and streamers, bright cloths flung over the railings, laughter, talk, movement. Down in the arena people moved too, sprinkling the dust with a little water, removing scraps of torn decorations, smoothing slight inequalities. Friends hailed each other from various parts of the big place, groups clustered, chatting.

“I must go now,” said Sappho, and her eyes snapped with excitement, looking dark as deep water at night. “We are the first. Soon now my name will be on the lips of all these people, they will be shouting for me, will be throwing flowers upon me....” She stopped, clasping her hands over her young bosom, and throwing her head back to gaze into the sky. “Sometimes I feel that the world itself will call my name aloud, not now alone, but on and on till time is old.”

The sudden colour flooded her face, and she smiled a flashing glance at her friends, who were looking at her with an excitement almost equalling her own.

“Wish me good fortune,” she begged.

“We do, we do. You will win, I know it....”

She gave them each a quick embrace, bent before her mother, and followed her father toward a little doorway beyond the tier of seats. Before entering this, she turned and waved to the girls, who were still standing watching her.

“Isn’t she simply a Jim-Dandy?” the irrepressible Rose wanted to know.

“Sit down now,” said the gentle voice of Sappho’s mother, as she settled herself on her own broad bench, over which a scarlet cloth was laid. “In a moment you will see all the girls who are to run come out through that little door almost opposite—see, there they come.”

And as she spoke a bevy of young things, all of them in a short white one-piece slip that left the arms and legs bare, came pouring out into the arena. Each of them carried a torch in her hand, whose flame bent and fluttered in the breeze.

Straining their eyes to look, the girls distinguished Sappho among the others. She had bound her hair with a broad scarlet ribbon and stood very light and proud, looking fit and ready even at this distance.

Men in brilliant cloaks were moving among the girls, assigning them their places. Presently they drew back, leaving a line of eager young figures, tense and tremulous with excitement. Suddenly, at a signal the girls did not see, they were off.

What a race it was, under that blue and throbbing sky, with the vari-coloured throng waving streamers of blue and gold and crimson, and shouting encouragements. Slender and vivid as the blown-back flames of their torches, the white young runners, dashing this way and that to save their torches from attack, or to attack in their turn. The fire fluttered at the ends of the sticks with a life of its own. Now one girl and then another would forge ahead for a yard or two, but some other racer would reach her, and beat at the flame, lowered by the speed of her movement.

Before long, several torches were extinguished. The shout of the populace was one long roar by this time, and Rose and Ruth did their share in making a noise. Ruth, not given to demonstrations, was hopping up and down like a mechanical toy, waving both arms over her head, and calling out, “Oh, Sappho, Sappho, Sappho, HURRY!” While Rose stood hugging herself, yelling madly, “Go it, go it, you’ve GOT to win!”

A half dozen of the twenty or more runners were left by this time. The others, dropping their dead torches, walked slowly back to the starting point. A tall dark girl and Sappho ran together near the middle of the bunch, three girls leading them by a few paces. Very soon, however, Sappho, with a sudden burst of speed, passed these three and ran freely out into the lead. Rose and Ruth gave one cry of frantic joy. But at the instant the dark girl, springing forward, reached Sappho’s side, and made a vicious strike at her torch. She missed it, but with a quick movement swung the flame of her own torch under Sappho’s upraised arm, so that the red fire licked upward toward the wrist.

With a scream Sappho dropped her torch. Only a few of the concourse had seen the trick, and from these came a shout of protest. Without a sound the dark girl sprang wildly onward. But Sappho stooped, lifted her torch and waved it. It still flamed. Then, with a sort of fury, she began running.

Like blown thistledown she sped after her opponent. Her feet scarcely touched the ground, her slight garment clung to her, showing the lithe slimness of her girlish form. On, on she went. Never had girl run so fast, so finely, in all the history of the race. The great crowd rose to her, and a mighty tumult broke out. She caught up with the dark girl, who faltered slightly, hearing that shout in which cries of rage mingled, calling her own name, Chloë, with shouts of shame, shame. Sappho passed her without a glance, and the next instant sank into the arms of her father, waiting beyond the finish line.

Then indeed the crowd went wild. Her father led her out by the hand before the officials, seated splendidly in a group at the head of the arena. Panting, trembling, her face pale, she stood, lifting her eyes to those bent toward her, while the vast circle poured out a mighty roar of “Sappho, Sappho, hail to young Sappho!” Flowers rained down on her, and then, amid a sudden silence, one of the judges stepped down and laid a wreath on her tossed hair.

When she came back to her young friends the colour had returned to her cheeks. Her mother laid her hands on her head:

“Sappho, my daughter, I no longer regret that I did not bear a son,” she whispered. “And your arm, poor child?”

“Nothing,” answered Sappho, lifting it to show the scarlet scar of the heat. “What is pain that it should matter, if only one triumphs!”

Ruth and Rose clasped her hands in theirs, and gasped out their joy and excitement as best they might.

“You are the wonderfullest, the loveliest ...” they asserted.

Sappho smiled:

“No, I’m not,” she said. “But I’m the happiest ...”

“Come, my dears,” said a brisk, decided voice, while slender hands caught Rose’s right and Ruth’s left. “Time to be getting home ...”

The arena grew dim, the shouting died, Sappho wavered and vanished. The two girls shut their eyes instinctively. Once more came that sudden sense of falling....

“Why, look, there are the torches,” cried Ruth, clutching at her sister.

But it was the flickering flame of the fire in the living room, for there were Rose and Ruth, sitting on the big settee among the pillows, while the log fell apart with a crash and an up-burst of flame.

“Why, we’re home again,” said Rose, slowly. “And the fairy, is she here?”

But if she were she did not answer, and since she couldn’t be seen, there was nothing to be done but to suppose she had gone.

CHAPTER III
An Adventure with Little Women

Winter was really hard and fast here with Rose and Ruth, and they were settled doing all the winter things. Each morning there was school of course, school right at home, for not even the smallest school house broke the long line of the prairie within many miles of the Ranch. And there was plenty of outdoor play and excitement, too.

Somehow the two little girls never remembered a single thing about their wonderful adventure with Sappho and the fairy except when they were alone. Just as soon as Marmie or any one else came near, every bit of the memory of it floated out of their heads. But they would talk of it to each other eagerly. And one afternoon, as they sat together on the big settee, Rose suddenly wondered whether the fairy were not coming to visit them again some fine time.

“Golly, I do wish she’d come again, Ruth! There must be lots of other places to go to through the Magic Gate, and lots of other little girls to play with. Do you think she’s forgotten all about us?”

Ruth had just opened her mouth to reply when she had to open it even wider with surprise, for who should speak up but the fairy herself, in that darling voice of hers, like the chiming of tiny crystal bells:

“Forgotten you? Nonsense. The memory of a fairy is the strongest thing you can meet in a whole year of un-re-mit-ted seeking. But I’m very busy to-day, and we must hurry right off—what do you say to paying Little Women a visit?”

“What! Meg and Beth and Amy and ... and JO?”

The fairy laughed at the sound of the way they said it, both together, and both almost speechless with delight. Next instant Rose and Ruth both felt her take one of their hands, and shut their eyes just as she told them too, her voice dying softly away like a breeze in a quaking aspen.

Then came again the rushing feeling, the sensation of a little fall, a slight shock, and suddenly both girls found themselves running, clutching tightly to strong hands quite as big as their own ... not fairy’s hands. There was a joyous peal of laughter, and an eager voice cried:

“That was good. How you can run! Just as fast as I do, and Meg is always calling me a Tomboy....”

They opened their eyes, and found themselves grasping each a hand of a girl no older than themselves, a brown-skinned, clear-eyed girl, with a roguish light playing over her face, flushed with the exercise. Her dark chestnut hair hung in two braids from under a funny little round hat, and her skirts, full and voluminous to a remarkable degree, reached almost to her ankles. They were of some grey woollen goods, trimmed with scarlet braid in quite an intricate design. A little black jacket with sleeves wide at the bottom and a cunning turndown collar was also trimmed with braid, black this time. Altogether, the two girls thought they had never seen a quainter, more fascinating costume.

“It’s Jo,” exclaimed Rose, and threw her arms round their new friend’s neck with a shout of joy.

Jo wriggled away, looking embarrassed.

“Mustn’t kiss,” she muttered. “Amy and Beth won’t mind, though,” she added quickly. “Come on in, they are all waiting for us.”

The girls found that they were standing on a sidewalk opposite a little garden gate that opened on a straight path leading to a pretty, gabled wooden cottage snuggled under big trees. As Jo spoke she swung wide the gate, and the three hurried up to the porch. As they set foot on the top step the door opened, and Jo’s three sisters appeared, beckoning.

“Come on—hurry. Isn’t it cold, though!”

Rose and Ruth felt as though it were not the first time by many that they had passed through the hospitable door and scampered down the chilly hallway into the big, comfortable room with its coal fire blazing red-faced at one end, its prints and photographs on the walls, its easy chairs and sofa, its winter roses and geraniums in the windows. They felt, indeed, very much at home, and completely forgot how it happened that they were there at all. Evidently they were expected, for Meg asked what had made them so late.

“We ran, anyway,” Jo told her. “Rose could beat me, I believe. Don’t you wish we were boys, Rose, and could run real races?”

“Take off your wraps,” said Amy. “Oh, Ruth, you’ve a new dress!”

It was undoubtedly quite new. Ruth looked down at herself with astonishment and delight. Amy was helping her off with a long cloak of heavy blue cloth, and under that Ruth saw her full skirts spreading out deliciously—pale grey with pale blue bows of ribbon looping up the overskirt. Her waist was grey, with more blue bows and ribbon braiding, and she had on the loveliest white batiste undersleeves that buttoned close to her wrists. It was too fascinating.

She whirled about, while her skirts bobbed and swung, and there was Rose in a dress just as quaint and pretty and absurd, only it was decorated with pink bows and braiding.

“They are both new,” she cried. “Oh, what fun it is!”

“I like pretty clothes, don’t you?” said Amy, folding away Ruth’s cloak nicely. “Jo doesn’t care—says clothes are a nuisance, and if she had only been a boy she’d never have had to think of them at all.”

THEY FINALLY REACHED THE COTTAGE

“It does seem a pity Jo wasn’t born a boy,” Beth remarked, “since we haven’t one in the family, and she wants to be one so badly.”

“It’s one of the ‘indescrutable’ things that happen,” Amy finished, and then looked troubled as the rest shouted with laughter.

“Never mind,” gurgled Rose, “it wouldn’t be Amy unless she made those perfectly scrumptious mistakes.”

“Well, girls, Hannah’s got a little lunch ready for us, and if we are to get to the river in time we must start soon,” Meg admonished them.

“To the river?” Rose and Ruth both wanted to know.

“Yes—the skating party, you know. There are to be big bonfires and lots of fun, and the ice is perfect.”

Just then Hannah opened the door.

“It’s time ye was eatin’, children,” she told them.

It was a jolly little lunch, where every one talked together. Mrs. Marsh was at a neighbour’s helping in the care of a new baby, and Mr. Marsh had gone to Boston on some business connected with the great slave question.

“You know, people say we may go to war over this business of keeping slaves,” Meg said, with sudden gravity. “But that seems too horrible.”

“If I were a man I’d like to go to war,” Jo announced, with flashing eyes.

Rose and Ruth were conscious of a hazy recollection. Surely there had been—but they couldn’t feel certain.

“Well, thank heaven, you can’t, Jo,” sighed Meg, “but I’m awfully afraid that father will. As chaplain of his regiment, you know.”

A frightened hush spread over the little crowd of girls, and then Beth, in her soft voice, spoke the right word:

“We’ll be sorry—but a glorious kind of sorry,” she said. “Father does what is right, and makes us all love it.”

“So he does,” smiled Meg, “and you are a sweet child, Beth.”

And then they were all laughing again, and war seemed far away, while good things to eat were very close at hand. Hannah had made corn bread, such cornbread, and there was a wonderful sort of apple pudding-pie that Amy hailed joyously as “pandowdy” and which Rose and Ruth found delectable.

And then it was time to hurry into one’s outdoor clothes again, and make for the river, where the whole village was to skate that afternoon.

Meg decided to take Amy and Beth with her by way of the highroad, but Jo asked the two guests if they wouldn’t like to go through the woods with her.

“It’s such fun breaking through the drifts, and I see you’ve your arctics. They have tramped a kind of path, so it won’t be too hard for us, and the woods must look splendid.”

So it was agreed that the strangers should go that way, to see the woods, and have the excitement of a real tramp through the snow, while Meg saw the two little girls safe. They would meet at the river.

What fun it was! Rose and Ruth could not believe that they were really following Jo off the road and up a path under pines all powdered with snow, yet that’s just what they did. How fine and bracing the air was, and how pink the three pairs of cheeks! They went along, chattering madly, and presently Jo confided that she was writing a story.

“It’s most thrilling,” she said, “all about two lovers in a high tower, and a terrible old uncle who isn’t really their uncle but an impostor. And in the end he’s found dead with his hand on the knob of the secret door where all the money is hidden——”

The two girls listened, gasping. What a gorgeous plot!

And now they were in the heart of the woods. The trees crowded close, the snow was deeper than was easy to get through. Ruth floundered in spots, laughing, and Jo took her hand to help her.

“It’s drifted in a little,” she said. “When we get through this dip it won’t be so deep.”

They struggled on, slipping over their boot tops, and though the snow was dry, Rose noticed that her voluminous skirts were getting heavy. She longed for the sensible clothes they wore at home. Suddenly a sound like some one sobbing struck her ears. She was a step or two ahead of Jo and her sister.

“Do you hear that, girls?” she asked, looking around anxiously. “I thought I heard some one crying.”

“Crying!” exclaimed Jo. “Perhaps it’s a fox or——”

But at that moment the sound broke out again, and crying it undoubtedly was. They hurried on, a little scared, turned a bend, and there, sure enough, huddled in the snow at the foot of a huge evergreen, sat a small, a very small boy.

“Gee-willikins!” grunted Rose, while Jo rushed forward, and Ruth stared, white and frightened. She was very young.

“He’s alive safe enough,” said Jo, in her deepest voice, as the small boy started wailing in earnest at sight of her. Rose joined her, and the two bent over the youngster, who looked up at them, pale and with his face streaked with tears. “Poor little thing! How on earth did he get here, d’you suppose?”

“He must be lost,” hazarded Rose, rubbing the boy’s hands, that were almost frozen. Ruth had come up by this time, and the three began to question the child all together. He only stared in response, but when Jo drew a cookie out of her pocket, he smiled faintly, and began to munch it.

“Poor baby, he’s famished. How did you get here all alone, little man?” And Jo bent over him, wrapping part of her cloak over the shivering little body.

He gurgled an unintelligible reply, but stopped crying.

Rose looked at Jo. “He’d have probably died out here if we hadn’t come this way,” she whispered. “What are we going to do with him?”

“We’ve got to get him home somehow,” Jo answered. “I wonder if he can walk.” She turned to the boy, and smiled encouragingly. “Can you come a little way with us, sonny?”

His eyes filled with tears again, but he nodded.

“Tell you what, girls,” said Jo, briskly, “I’ll try to carry him a bit. You two go ahead and trample down the snow as much as you can, and I’ll follow. It’s like a story, isn’t it?”

She got the little lad up, wrapping her cloak round him, and holding him snuggled close. He put his arms round her neck, and smiled.

“Dear little cold thing,” Jo muttered hoarsely, and then began to struggle back home as well as she might. But very soon she had to sit down and rest.

“I’ll take him now, Jo,” said Rose. “We can do it somehow, turn and turn about.”

And so they did, but it was awfully hard work. The youngster fell asleep, shivering still, for he was wet with melted snow, and his torn shoes showed bare toes. A forlorn mite!

The skating party was forgotten as the three girls struggled homeward through the drifts. Pretty nearly exhausted themselves, they finally reached the cottage. The lamp was lighted in the living room, and the light streamed hospitably down across the path.

Mrs. Marsh met them at the door.

“What is it, girls? Why, what little boy—the poor child! Jo, run and tell Hannah to get some milk heated.”

Taking the child in her own motherly arms, Mrs. Marsh hurried into the room and sitting down close beside the fire, began taking off his wet, half-frozen rags, while the girls told her breathlessly how they had found him sobbing under the evergreen. He seemed very drowsy, and looked pitifully white and thin in the glow of the fire.

“Jo rubbed his hands and wrapped him in her own cloak; she must be frozen herself,” said Rose, “but she wouldn’t hear of letting me do it. Oh, dear, is he going to die?”

Ruth began crying. The little boy did look so badly.

“Hush, dears. Of course he isn’t. Why, he’ll be fat and smiling before I get through with him,” laughed Mrs. Marsh. At this moment Jo, followed by Hannah, came in with the hot milk. Hannah rushed off to get a woollen nightgown, while Rose crumbled some bread into the bowl of milk, and Mrs. Marsh fed the half awake child spoonful by spoonful.

“Luckily he isn’t frost-bitten,” she murmured. “Jo, dear, get the crib down from the garret with Hannah’s help, and make it up warmly in the little room off mine. I’ll get him to sleep, and then we’ll try and find out where he belongs.”

Bathed, fed and wrapped in the snug nightie, the little boy looked, as Jo said, like a fairy changeling. Tucked into the crib, he immediately fell sound asleep.

“Put on your wraps, girls, and we’ll run down to the village and find out what we can,” said Mrs. Marsh. “How fortunate it was that you went that way, Jo, with your little friends. But I fear Meg must be worried at your not meeting her. We’ll go to the river first, and see what we can discover there.”

The river made a fine sight. A broad stretch had been chosen for the skaters, and along the banks huge bonfires were waving in the wind and filling the air with the sweet breath of burning wood. Dark shapes flitted over the ice, or crowded round the fires, and a gay medley of shouts, laughter and talk rose upward.

Meg and the two children were soon found, and Meg heaved a relieved sigh when she saw her mother and sister and Rose and Ruth hurrying toward them.

The news was quickly told, and other interested persons gathered round. Presently word went about that a Mrs. Gillig, a widow who lived more or less on charity, had been seeking her only child since early in the afternoon. Some one ran to fetch her, and presently she and Mrs. Marsh were headed toward the Marsh cottage.

“The dear child, he just wanted to help me,” the widow kept repeating. “Told me this morning, he did, that he was going to find a fairy as would make things easy for me. Little attention I paid to his talk, bless his poor heart, and so off he goes, and it’s near getting killed he’s been.... Heaven be merciful!”

She thanked the girls tearfully before going with Mrs. Marsh.

“It’s a hard job you must have had bringing him back,” she said, “and many wouldn’t have been brave enough and sensible enough. Fortunate it was that ye went by when ye did, or where’d my little boy be this minute?”

“Poor thing,” said Jo, as they watched the two women hurrying away, Mrs. Marsh giving her arm to the widow. “I shouldn’t wonder, you know, if after all her boy did find a fairy, because mother is a good fairy if ever there was one.”

Mrs. Marsh had insisted that the girls stay behind to enjoy the fun, for there was to be a supper later, and the skating was perfect. So they put on their skates, while the young people of the village crowded round and were introduced, and off they went, each with a boy, while the lights shone and the stars began to come out, and spirits sang to the tinkling of the skates. It was splendid.

Presently they gathered at one of the fires. Amy, her cheeks glowing, announced that she had never before been at such an “auspicatious” occasion. Meg and Beth were busy unpacking a huge lunch basket. Jo came skating up, all alone, sturdy and independent, the fire reflected in her dark eyes.

“I’m going to write a story about that little boy,” she confided, “and call it ‘The Waif of the Woods.’ Or perhaps we can make a play of it, and all of us act it. Think of the snow-laden scene and—oh, Beth, plum-cake!” With a squeal of delight Jo plunged to help in the unpacking, upsetting a pile of tin plates that went rolling down the bank and over the ice in every direction.

“Oh, Jo, see what you’ve done,” cried everybody, while Jo began frantically to chase the bounding plates. Rose and Ruth ran laughing to help her....

“Come along to supper, girls,” said a familiar voice. “You ought to be hungry after your day in the snow.”

Rose and Ruth caught their breath. There in the open doorway stood their mother, the light from the hall lamp streaming round her. The fire was burning low, but a log that had rolled out on the hearth spread a smell of burning wood through the room. As they slipped off the settee, feeling a little dazed at the sudden transition, they heard a tiny chuckle....

CHAPTER IV
A Looking-Glass Visit

It was one of those warm spells that turn up so unexpectedly in winter, and that almost make you believe that you’ve slept right through the cold months, and that spring is sitting out there in the sun, ready to begin her immortal business of turning the earth into grass and leaves and flowers. But of course she isn’t, and often the next day will be so freezing, blowy, grey and grim that you go about smiling scornfully, as well as you can for a stiff face and chattering teeth, and saying to yourself that never, NEVER will you let yourself be fooled again.

But of course you are.

Anyhow, this was a real spring-feeling day, and Rose and Ruth whooped with delight when their Dad told them they might ride out on the range with him and have a camp-fire lunch. Then they must ride straight back alone.

They were used to that, however, and liked the excitement of riding alone across the mesa and down through the shallow cañon that brought them in sight of their home.

The warm wave had swept most of the snow away, though there were streaks of it left in all the shaded spots. And oh, but the prairie wind was sweet as it blew into their faces.

Pink-faced and laughing, they reined in their cow-ponies at the turn of the trail to wave farewell to Marmie, who stood at the open door flapping a dish-cloth in return. Dad let out a huge yell, and the dish-cloth flapped harder than ever. Then they set the broncos to loping, and soon even the cottonwoods had disappeared from sight behind the rocky shoulder that guarded the beginning of the cañon.

A glorious morning they had of it. Dad let them race up on the mesa, timing them, while Jim and Hank, two of the boys, shouted cheers. Rose came in only the least bit ahead, and that was because Ruth had to swerve away from a prairie dog hole. And then the lunch!

“Marmie knows what we can hold after riding all morning, doesn’t she, Dad,” grunted Ruth, surveying the wreck of tin cans, paper packages, chicken bones and sardine boxes which were the sole survivors of a sumptuous feast.

“She sure does,” agreed Dad. “But how a pindling little thing like you can hold the half of what you’ve put away beats me.”