COMPANY FOR SUPPER

“Cherry, do you know it’s ’most night, and those girls aren’t at home yet? They said they’d sure be here by four o’clock, and here ’tis five and they haven’t come.” Peace was plainly worried, and with a half-impatient sigh, Cherry closed her fascinating story book and joined her sister watching at the window for the belated girls who had gone in town with Mrs. Grinnell that morning.

“P’r’aps the horse run away,” suggested Allee.

“They were coming back on the car, ’cause Mrs. Grinnell was to stay all night with her relations.”

“Then maybe the car run off the track.”

“That’s just what I’ve been thinking. S’posing they don’t come home tonight! What will we do for supper?”

“Hope will get some when she comes home from Edwards’.”

“This is the day she stays so late. She won’t get home until Mr. Edwards brings her, at almost bedtime.”

“Can’t we help ourselves?”

“’Course, if we wanted to, but that won’t be supper for Gail and Faith when they get home all tired out.”

“Well, then, can’t we cook a supper?”

“What?”

“Why potatoes and ”

“Eggs, I s’pose you’ll say. I’m tired of eggs. If we don’t stop having them so often, we will all turn into Humpty-Dumpties. S’posing we were eggs and had to walk and act so careful or else get smashed. ’Twouldn’t take long to finish me, would it? I don’t want eggs for supper. Let’s have rice.”

“Is there any?”

“A whole sackful.”

“Do you know how to cook it?”

“Why, in water, of course, just like mush or oatmeal, only it takes longer to get soft.”

“Then maybe we better put it on to boil now. How much shall we cook?”

“I don’t know as I ever saw Gail measure it She just guesses at it; but I think we could each eat a big cupful, don’t you?”

“I’m hungry enough to eat two cupsful,” said Allee.

“P’r’aps ’twould be better to cook two for each of us. It’s good cold, s’posing we shouldn’t eat it all tonight.”

“Maybe that would be best,” conceded Cherry; and the three embryo cooks repaired to the kitchen to get supper ready.

“There is the rice and here is a cup. Hold the pan, Cherry, while I measure it out. One two three four five six seven eight nine that makes a big hole in that bagful, doesn’t it? Maybe nine will be enough. Do you think so?”

“Yes,” hesitated Cherry; “and besides, Hope won’t be here for supper.”

“That’s right! Then nine will be enough. Now we’ll pour in the water, lots, ’cause it boils away in cooking.”

“If Gail doesn’t get here soon, how will we get any milk for our rice?” asked Allee, watching them. “Bossy hasn’t been milked yet.”

Peace paused on her way to the stove with the heavy saucepan. “Why didn’t we think of that before? Rice isn’t good without plenty of milk and sugar. I don’t like molasses on it.”

“Nor I,” shivered Cherry.

“Let’s milk the cow ourselves,” suggested the daring spirit.

“We don’t know how,” protested the cautious one.

“Oh, that’s easy! I’ve watched Gail lots of times, and all she does is pull hard like the janitor pulls the rope that rings the church bell. We’ve both of us rung that bell, Cherry. I’ll do it if you are afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Cherry declared, “but I don’t think I know how. I’ll watch you and see how you do it first.”

“Come on, then!”

Away to the barn they hurried, and the process of milking began, with Peace astride the stool. But somehow Bossy resented being pulled like a bell-rope and the milk didn’t come.

“I don’t see what is the matter,” cried Peace impatiently, after a few moments’ struggle. “Bossy never acts so with Gail. She has kicked me twice already, and here we are clear out of her stall. Allee, you hold her tail, she has slapped me in the face with it till I’m tired. Whoa, Boss, stand still! Maybe I don’t jerk hard enough.”

Peace settled herself once more on the stool, righted the pail and gave a tremendous pull at two of the teats. There was a surprised moo from Bossy, her heels flew into the air, Peace was thrown backward from her seat, the pail whirled across the floor, and Bossy rushed out of the barn door, dragging little, tenacious Allee after her. Cherry screamed, Peace scrambled to her feet and raced madly after the terrified beast, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Let go, Allee! Whoa, Bossy!”

Allee let go, but Bossy did not whoa until, with a wild plunge, she lurched against the stone watering trough, groaned and lay down with one leg doubled under her.

“Oh, she’s broken her leg!” yelled Cherry, dancing up and down in fright. “What shall we do, what shall we do?”

“Go into the house and see that the rice doesn’t burn while I’m gone,” commanded Peace, after a hasty look at poor Bossy’s leg, to make sure it was really broken; and away she flew up the street toward the village, muttering to herself, “Maybe he has closed his shop, though it isn’t quite time, but I hope not. No, he hasn’t, for there comes the doctor out of the door. Oh, Mr. Jones, what will you give for a cow, a broken-legged cow? I didn’t stick her, ’cause I wasn’t sure just how to do it, but her leg is just freshly broken, so she is good for meat. You bought Mr. Hartman’s heifer when she broke her neck. Bossy’s an awful nice cow, and we hate to lose her, but of course we’ll have to kill her now. Bring your butcher knife and run! I don’t want her to feel bad any longer’n she has to.”

“Hold your horses, Whirlwind, hold your horses a bit,” cried the amazed butcher. “Now tell me what has happened.”

“You grab that knife and come along!” she shouted, almost frantic with grief and fear. “That cow can’t be left with a broken leg.” And seizing him by the hand she dragged him toward the door. The sight of the child’s great distress touched the big man, and pausing only long enough to close his shop, he followed her flying feet down the road to the little brown house where poor Bossy lay.

“There she is! Ain’t her leg broken?”

“Yes, and a bad break, too. She will have to go, kidlet. It’s a shame, for she’s a mighty fine looking critter. I’ll give you fifteen dollars for her. Where is your oldest sister?”

“In Martindale. Oh, don’t wait for her to come back! I can’t bear to have Bossy look at me like that! I broke her leg trying to milk her. She’s worth a lot more’n fifteen dollars alive, but as meat I s’pose we’ll have to let her go cheap. You can have her. Gail would say so too, if she was here. Give me the money and then stick her as soon as I get inside the house.”

The butcher hesitated, then counted out fifteen dollars in bills and handed them to the trembling, grief-stricken Peace, saying, “You couldn’t get any more for her in the city, under the circumstances, I know. Butchers don’t ordinarily buy milch cows for beef, and I shouldn’t take her if she wasn’t in first-class condition. If Gail ain’t satisfied, send her up to the shop.”

Peace snatched the bills with shaking hands and disappeared up the path, calling back over her shoulder, “Stick her easy, Mr. Jones, and quick! I’m going upstairs and cry.”

But she didn’t carry out her intention, for as she flung open the kitchen door, the pungent odor of something burning greeted her nostrils, and there stood Cherry beside the red-hot stove, dipping rice from one big saucepan into other kettles which Allee was bringing out of the pantry for her.

“Oh, Peace,” she cried in relief, “I don’t know what we will ever do with all this rice! It’s sticking faster than I can scratch it up, it’s boiled over the stove three times, and I’ve filled up four pans already. Give me another, Allee!”

“It needs some more water,” said Peace, catching up a dipper of cold water and pouring it into one sizzling pot. “Mercy, how it has grown since we put it on to cook! That kettleful won’t burn now.”

“But it has turned yellow and smells dreadfully smoky,” answered Cherry, sniffing at the discolored, unappetizing mess in the pan.

Peace examined it critically, tasted it, made a wry face, and finally announced, “It’s spoiled, I guess. Never mind, there is plenty of good rice left ”

“Oh, Peace!” yelled Allee excitedly, dancing in the chair, where she stood trying to stir the heavy contents of another pan. “Something else is burning, sure! See the black smoke!”

There was a knock at the door, but Peace was frantically tugging at the big kettle stuck fast to the stove cover, and without pausing in her task, she called crossly, “You will have to wait till we can get this rice ’tended to before we can see what you want, whoever you are. We are all busy in here.”

There was an audible chuckle from without, the knob turned, Cherry screamed, and a gray-haired, shabby, old man stood smiling at them from the steps. Peace scarcely looked at him as she succeeded in freeing the panful of smoking, blackened rice from the cover, but that quick glance had told her the visitor was a tramp, and she snapped sharply, “I s’pose you want a bite to eat. Well, I don’t see how you are going to get it here! I’ve just killed the cow, and the rice has burned up. Cherry, stop stirring that mess and take it off! Can’t you see it’s smoking like a chimbly?”

The tramp strode across the room, grabbed the teakettle and poured the boiling water into the pan, over which Allee had mounted guard, and which fortunately was on the back of the stove so it had not yet arrived at the burning point. He caught up one other, dumped about half its contents into a clean saucepan on the hearth, saturated it with water, threw in some salt, and set it back on the stove, at the same time removing a third kettle of burning rice and carrying it out of doors.

“There!” he said, entering the kitchen again. “All the rice isn’t spoiled. Now we will open the windows and let out this smoke, and we are all right. How did you come to cook so much?”

“We were hungry, and thought we could eat a lot ”

“But rice swells ”

“We have found that out for ourselves,” said Peace, blushing furiously at his quizzical grin. “It’s the first time we ever cooked it alone.”

“Where are the sisters?”

“Gail and Faith are in the city, and Hope hasn’t come home from Edwards’ house yet.”

“And you are hungry? Well, now, that is too bad. I’ll tell you what I will do. You show me where you keep things and I will get supper, if you will permit me to share it with you. Tramps have to work here, you know ”

“Oh, Mr. Tramp! You are my tramp that broke the raw egg all over your potato, aren’t you?” cried Peace with undisguised joy. “And you never stole that cake, did you?”

“What cake, child?”

“The one Faith was baking the morning you ate breakfast here ’bout a year ago.”

“I never stole a cake in my life, or anything else.”

“There, I knew it! I told them so at the time. Was it have you lost any money around here?”

“Money?” he echoed, his face the picture of innocence, as he deftly set the table and beat up an omelette. “I should say not! Why?”

“’Cause we found some on the gatepost the night you were here, and I thought maybe you had lost it. No, I didn’t think so, either. Gail thought you might have lost it.” Into his ears she poured the whole story of the long, hard year.

“And so you thought, or Gail thought I had lost the money you found on the gatepost! Well, don’t you think it would be a funny tramp who would have all that money with him!”

Peace’s face fell, and she slowly admitted, “Yes, I s’pose it would, but I thought maybe you might be a story-book prince. Those things always happen in books. But Gail won’t use the money, ’cause she says someone might come along and claim it some day. When mamma was a little girl there was a queer old man lived in her town that people called crazy. He used to give pretty things to the children and then months later he’d go around and c’llect them and give them to someone else. Maybe that’s the kind of a man who leaves the money on the gatepost. It has happened twice there, and once in the barn. Gail says we can’t tell, and ’twould be terrible embracing” she meant embarrassing “if he should try to c’llect after we had spent the money.”

“That’s a fact,” agreed the tramp, “but I think she could spend the money without any such fears, because I think the fairies brought it.”

“Do you b’lieve in fairies?” cried Peace in shocked surprise.

“Oh, yes, and I always shall. I don’t think the fairies fly around like butterflies, the way they are pictured in books. I believe they live in the hearts of men.”

“Then how could they bring money and pin it to the gatepost and grain sacks? They use sure-enough, every-day pins.”

“Oh, maybe they whisper to some good friend that a little extra money would make things easier at the brown house, or the green one, or the gray one, and this friend, who has lots of money to spare ”

“That’s just the way I thought it all out,” interrupted Peace eagerly. “But Mr. Strong hasn’t lots of spare money. He is a minister, and they never have enough for themselves. Besides, he crossed his heart that he didn’t know who put it there. The Dunbars aren’t rich. Miss Truesdale can’t afford it. Even Mrs. Grinnell couldn’t do it. Judge Abbott has lots of money, but folks have to work for what they get out of him, and old Skinflint is so stingy that he borrows the city papers so’s he won’t have to buy them himself. Hec Abbott told me so. I can’t think of a single soul who would give us the money.”

“Maybe this is a friend whom you don’t know.”

“That’s it, I guess. But I’d like awfully well to know them, and ’specially whether we can really use the money for ourselves. Now that Bossy is gone, I don’t know what we are going to do for milk. Mr. Jones paid fifteen dollars for her, but that won’t buy a whole new one.”

“I think I know where you can get a fine cow for fifteen dollars. If you will give me the money I will call around by the place and have the man bring it to you the first thing in the morning. It is quite a piece from here, and maybe he wouldn’t sell it to you for that price, but I know he would to me.”

Peace sat lost in thought, a bit of bread poised half way to her mouth.

“Is it a good cow?” asked Allee, timidly.

“The very best.”

“Gentle, like Bossy?” Cherry questioned.

“Gentle as a lamb.”

“Does she give four gallons of milk a day?” Peace interrupted.

“More, sometimes.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Handsome as a picture.”

“Does she give good milk, with lots of cream? We make our own butter, you know.”

“She’s a splendid butter cow.”

“Has she got brown eyes, like mine, and a curly tail, and two good horns not too sharp? Will she eat sugar out of your hand and not drive folks out of the stall when they try to pet her?”

“She is the finest cow I ever saw ”

“Then it’s funny the man will sell her for; fifteen dollars,” declared Peace, with sudden suspicion, studying the old man opposite her, but seeing only a sandy, untrimmed beard, a strong, honest face, with square jaws, and a pair of the kindest eyes she had ever looked into.

“Not at all,” said the man, chuckling to himself at the trap she had laid for him. “He wants to get rid of his herd, but doesn’t need the money; though, of course, he wouldn’t care to give the cows away.”

“Well,” hesitated the brown-eyed girl, “I guess I will have you order the cow for us. Gail won’t feel so bad about losing Bossy if we can get another just as good. Here is the money. Do you have to go so soon? I would like to have you stay until the girls get here. Now, don’t you forget about the cow!”

“She will be here early tomorrow morning. Good-night, and many thanks for the supper.” Out into the spring night walked the tramp, with the precious fifteen dollars in his pocket, and again the three children took up their vigil at the window, watching for the sisters from town.

When at last Gail and Faith reached home, expecting to be met by tears and reproaches from three hungry maids, they were surprised to find supper spread on the table awaiting their coming, and to hear a strange tale of mishap and adventure that would have done credit to the age of Mother Goose or Robinson Crusoe.

“Doesn’t that sound like a fairy prince?” asked Peace, when the recital was ended. “But he says he isn’t one.”

“I should say it sounded like a plain robber story,” said Faith bitterly, while Gail sat white-faced and silent with despair. “What did you give him that money for! It’s the last we will ever see of it. You are worse than Jack and the Bean-Stalk. You haven’t even a handful of bean blossoms to show.”

“I’ve got a curl from Bossy’s tail,” said Peace indignantly, and then burst into tears, unable to bear the sight of Gail’s drawn face any longer.

“Yes, and a robber on our trail. Supposing he comes tonight for the rest of the money you told him about. No, Cherry, I don’t want any supper. Come and help me bolt the windows and fix things for the night. I wish Hope was here now.”

The supper remained untouched, the dishes were cleared away in silence, and as soon as Hope arrived the unhappy little household climbed wearily, fearfully upstairs to bed, where Peace sobbed herself to sleep, with faithful Allée’s arms about her neck. But no robber came to disturb the brown house and at length even Gail and Faith drifted away to slumberland, in spite of this added trouble.

In the dusk of early morning, while the world was still asleep, a heavy wagon drew up at the gate of the Greenfield cottage, unloaded its precious burden and drove rapidly away again; while Peace, in her restless tossing, dreamed that a gentle, brown-eyed cow stood in Bossy’s stall, lowing for some breakfast. She awoke with a start, to hear a familiar, persistent mooing, and the tinkle of a bell in the barnyard, and, leaping out of bed, she rushed to the window with wildly beating heart. There in the yard, tied to the old watering-trough, stood a plump, pretty Jersey cow! Peace rubbed her eyes, pinched her arm to make sure she was not still dreaming, and then startled the whole house awake with a whoop of joy: “She has come, she has come! The cow has come! My tramp isn’t a robber or a beanstalk at all!”