And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.[36]

How many a man at the end of July or the beginning of August, worn
out with his work in Parliament, or the Law Courts, or elsewhere,
turns his face and his thoughts to the North, and finds even in
his anticipations and dreams of the days to come refreshment and
solace! In most things in this life the anticipation is far greater
than the reality, but not so in this case. In the hearts of how
many men and women do the words of Aytoun find a responsive echo:

                Give me but one hour of Scotland,

                  Southern gales are not for me;
                Though the glens are white with winter,
                  Place me there and set me free.

Why is it that so many persons, young and old, and of such
different character, habits, and classes, are fascinated and held
by the spell of this country? What is the motive which is common
to them all, if there is one? No doubt with some it is the longing
for rest and change of scene, or the opportunity of meeting old
friends or relatives in the far North, with others the desire for
sport or the gratification of artistic tastes, and with others the
ardent yearning to hear again the old familiar sounds, familiar
since their early childhood--the sound of the rushing burn, the
breaking of the sea on the rock-bound shore, the call of the
sea-birds--and to see once more the high hills and silvery lochs
and scent again the fragrant heather. But underlying all these,
and perhaps more often than not quite unconsciously, there is one
dominant governing motive which is surely spiritual rather
than material--the desire for the environment which will uplift
and ennoble, and with it bring a sense of being nearer to the
pure--nearer to the things that are unseen and eternal--removed
from all that is coarse and material.

[Illustration: “THE MORNING COMETH.”

By FINLAY MACKINNON.]

I well remember on one occasion discussing the question of the
future world with a Highland keeper, and the emphatic way in which
he said, “One thing is certain, and that is, that no one could be
an atheist if he spent his life on the mountains.” I also remember
that, curiously enough, the same observation was made by one
Cambridge undergraduate to another, the speaker having been in the
habit of spending days and nights camping out on the mountains in
his father’s Highland property.

It is not inappropriate that in the Gaelic language the words
used to signify “death” and “died” are not the same when used in
reference to a human being as the words which are used in reference
to an animal, the former words, _caochladh_ (substantive),
_chaochail_ (verb), signifying a change or passing from one state
of life into another, the latter _bas_ (substantive), _bhasaich_
(verb), extinction or annihilation.

On the sea coast, at the mouth of one of the sea lochs on the west
coast of Ross-shire, I have often waited for the dawn, looking up
the loch towards the high hills in the distance, and, whilst I
waited, there would come into my mind those impressive words of the
prophet Isaiah, “Watchman, what of the night?” The watchman said,
“The morning cometh.” No one who has had this experience and seen
the sun rise in its splendour over the high hills, flooding the
surface of the sea with brilliant crimson light, will ever forget
the scene, or the uplifting of spirit and sense of abiding peace
which it imparted.

                              INDEX

  _Acanthyllis caudacuta_, 40, 55

  _Acanthyllis gigantea_, 55

  Aeroplane, observations on flight of birds from, 50

  Age of stags, 110-11

  Air speed, 25

  _A Joy for Ever_, 181

  Alpine swift, 41-2, 49-53, 56-7

  American golden plover, 33

  _An Angler’s Paradise_, 191

  Applecross, 141-2

  _Apus_, 53

  Armour, G. Denholm, 58

  Attadale, 73

  Australia, birds of fastest flight in, 54

  _Avicultural Magazine_, 54 _n._

  Aytoun, 218

  Baker, E. Stuart, 55

  Balfour-Browne, Vincent, 164

  Bas, 217

  Bhasaich, 217

  Birds, speeds of various British, 35-6

  Birds of Australia, twelve swiftest, 54

  _Birds of Europe, History of_, 53 _n._

  Birds of Fastest Flight in the British Isles, 23-70

  _Birds of Great Britain_, 146

  Birds of prey, 39-52, 57-70, 136-54

  Blackcock, 35, 37, 45, 50, 58-9, 65, 138

  Black game, killed by peregrines and eagles, 29, 66, 137-8, 149

  Blaine, Captain G. S., 45, 148

  Blanford, W. T., 56

  Blue rock pigeons, 35, 44-5

  Bond, William Walpole, 47

  _Book of the Sea Trout_, 192

  British Museum (Natural History), 41

  Browne, Bishop G. F., 22 _n._

  Buzzard, 49

  Caberslach, 74

  Calf, deer, attacked by eagle, 142

  _Canadian Boat Song_, 217

  Caochladh, 219

  Capercailzie, probably fastest flying game bird, 45, 50

  Carter, H. R. P., 57

  Cats, killed by eagles, 138

  _Chaetura_, 51, 53

  _Chaetura caudacuta caudacuta_, 40, 53, 55

  _Chaetura caudacuta cochinchinensis_, 55

  _Chaetura nudipes_, 55-6, 57

  Chaochail, 217

  Chaytor, Arthur H., K.C., 93-5

  Clough, Arthur Hugh, 21

  Coignafearn, Forest of, 71

  Common swift, 40-42, 46, 49, 50, 53

  Corvidae, 36

  Crealock, Lieut.-General, 204

  Crow, killed by eagle, 68-9

  Culture, trout, 189

  Curlew, 36, 69

  Currachd an righ, 179

  _Cypselus apus_, 40

  _Cypselus melba_, 40

  Danger of wounded stags, 157

  Deer, Homing Instincts of Wounded, 123-35

  Deer calves, attacked by eagles, 139

  Deer-hounds, 128

  Deer-stalking, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6-11, 97-112, 123-35, 155-64, 170-81,
        197-214

  _Deer-stalking in the Highlands of Scotland_, 204

  Depth of loch for good trout fishing, 196

  Downward flight of the eagle, 57-70

  Dresser, Henry E., 53, 53 _n._ 55

  _Dry-Fly Man’s Handbook_, 194

  Duck, wild, 28-9, 36, 70, 136

  Duck-shooting, 165

  Duel between eagle and peregrine, 61-2

  Eagle, 36-7, 49, 57-9, 62-5, 67, 69, 70, 107, 136-8, 142, 153
    attack on a full-grown stag, 139
    downward flight of, 57-60
    food of, 38, 136-7
    weight of, 60

  Eggs, number of trout, 195

  Eleonora’s falcons, 51

  _Falco candicans_, 38

  _Falco gyrfalco_, 38

  _Falco islandus_, 38

  Falconer, 34, 36, 152

  Falcons, 28, 30, 36, 43, 46, 51-2, 57-60, 62, 68, 70, 143-5, 149,
        151, 153
    Eleonora’s, 51
    Greenland, 38-9
    Iceland, 38-9
    Northern, 38-9, 57

  Fastest bird in British Isles, 57, 70

  Fealar, 74, 170

  _Field Studies of some Rarer British Birds_, 47

  Fighting, stags killed in, 73

  Finlayson, John, stalker, Killilan, 66

  Finlayson, stalker, Applecross, 142

  Fisher, Major C. H., 149

  Fishing, fly-, 13-22, 92-5, 113-22
    minnow-, 93
    salmon, 12-22, 85

  Flight in the British Isles, Birds of Fastest, 23-70
    of the eagle, downward, 57
    horizontal, 37

  Forest, Stormy Week in the, 97-112

  Fox cubs, killed by eagles, 138
    dens, 139

  Fresh-water shrimp, 184

  Frigate bird, 54

  _Fuligula ferina_, 30

  Gaelic sayings and words, 111, 179, 219

  Gannet, downward flight of, 63

  Geese, speed of, 36

  Glen Carron Forest, 8

  Glen Shieldaig Forest, 140

  Golden eagle (_see_ Eagle) weight of the, 60
    plover, 32-3, 35-6, 43, 45-6, 57, 69
      American, 33

  Goose, solan, 63

  Goshawks, 143

  Gould, John, F.R.S., 54, 146

  Green Plover, 35

  Greenland Falcon, 38-9

  Greyhen, 149

  Ground speed, 25

  Grouse, 29, 59, 68, 107, 136-7, 144-146, 149-51, 153

  Gulls, 43

  Gyrfalcon, weight of the, 60

  Gyrfalcons, 38-40, 57, 60, 63, 66

  Halford, F. M., 191 _n._, 194

  Hares, killed by eagles, 136, 138

  Harrier, 49

  Hartley, Gilfrid W., 197

  Hawk, sparrow-, 49, 143, 147-8

  Hawks, 30, 48, 136, 142-53

  Hereford, 88

  Highlands of Scotland, fascination of, 216

  Hobby, 45-6, 49

  Homing Instincts of Wounded Deer, 123-35

  Hounds, deer-, 128

  Hummel, 74

  Hurrell, H. G., 39

  Hutton, J. Arthur, 94-5

  Iceland falcon, 38-9

  Jackdaw, 35

  Jura, 111

  Kestrel, 35, 49, 142

  Killilan, 66

  King’s night-cap, 179

  Kite, 49

  Lambs, killed by eagles, 138

  _Lame Dog’s Diary_, 217

  Landrail, speed of, 35

  Last Stalk of the Season, 170-81

  _Letters to a Salmon Fisher’s Sons_, 93

  _Life History and Habits of Salmon, etc._, 190, 193

  Loch Carron, 10
    Leven, 185
      trout, 191
    Luichart, 204
    problem, 182

  Lodges in the Highlands, highest shooting, 171

  Lost in the Forest, 209

  Macdougall, stalker, Fealar, 171

  McIver, Donald, 66

  Mackay, John, stalker, North Jura, 111

  Mackenzie, Alick, stalker, Applecross, 141

  Maclennan, watcher, Coignafearn, 72

  Macnaughtan, S., 217

  Mallard, 30-31, 33-5, 70

  Malloch, P. D., 190, 191 _n._, 192-3, 196

  Mar Forest, 74

  Marryat, 194

  Matheson, Donald, stalker, Glen Shieldaig, 140

  Meinertzhagen, D.S.O., Colonel R., 27, 31, 33, 35, 42, 50, 52

  Merlin, 35, 45-6, 49, 147

  Mesopotamia, swifts in, 50

  Minnow-fishing for salmon, 93

  Mosul, swifts in, 50

  Muckle Hart of Ben More, 164

  Murray, Charles J., Esq., of Loch Carron, 10, 140

  Natural History Museum at South Kensington, 41

  _Natural History of Sport in Scotland with Rod and Gun_ (Speedy),
        150, 191, 205

  Nature’s cures of wounded deer, 196-914

  Needle-tailed swift, 40, 52-3

  Nerve Centres in deer, 214

  Northern falcons, 38-9, 57

  Orrin, 149

  Otter, salmon killed by, 20, 86

  Partridges, 27, 99, 35, 147, 149

  Passeres, smaller, 36

  Patt Forest, 66

  Peregrine, horizontal flight of, 26-40, 42, 45-6, 49, 52, 137
    downward flight of, 57-63, 68-70
    food of, 38
    how it strikes its prey, 142-54
    weight of, 60

  Perils, of stalkers, 81

  _Peschiera_, 21

  Petrels, 43

  Pheasants, 29, 35, 58-9, 144-5

  Pigeons, 37, 44-5
    blue rock, 44-5
    rock-, 51
    speed of, 36
    wood, 35, 152

  Plover, 33
    American golden, 33
    golden, 32-3, 35-6, 43, 45-6, 57, 69
    green, 35

  “Poca buidhè,” 180

  Pochard, 30-31, 45

  Portal, D.S.O., Captain C. F. A., 26, 34, 52, 146, 151

  Prey, birds of (_see_ Birds of prey)

  Ptarmigan, 3, 65, 107, 136

  Rabbits, 136

  Radclyffe, Major C. R. E., 28-30, 34, 39, 44, 65, 143, 151

  Red sedge, 186

  _Reminiscences of a Falconer_, 149

  Robinson, W. H., 69

  Rock-pigeon, 51

  Rook, 35, 154

  Royal stag, 80, 174, 179, 204

  Ruskin, 181

  St. John, Charles, 32, 164

  Salmon fishing, 12-22, 85-96, 113-122

  Salmon Loch in Sutherland, 113-22

  Sanctuary, 123

  Saunders, Howard, 53 _n._

  Secret of the High Hills, 215-20

  Sedge, cinnamon, 186
    red, 186

  Seebohm, 54

  Sheringham, H. T., 96

  Shooting, duck-, 165

  Shrimp, fresh-water, 184

  Shrimp-weed, 184

  Snipe, 28-9, 65

  Solan goose, 63

  Sovenson, E. S., 54

  Sparrow-hawks, 49, 143, 147-8

  Speed, air, 25
    ground, 25
    of Australian birds, 54

  Speeds of British birds, table of, 35-6
    fastest, 57, 70

  Speedy, Tom, 151-3

  Speedy’s _Natural History of Sport in Scotland with Rod and Gun_,
        205

  Spine-tailed swift, 40-42, 51-3, 55-57, 70

  Spring-tide, 165

  Stags, age of, 110-11
    attacking stalkers, wounded, 155
    danger of wounded 157
    eagles attack full-grown, 139
    stalking (_see_ Deer-stalking)

  Stalkers, 64, 71
    wounded stags attacking, 155

  Stalking, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6-11, 71-84, 97-112, 123-35, 155-64, 170-81,
        197-214
    mistakes in, 6-10

  _Stalks Abroad_, 156

  Starling, 35-6

  Stormy Week in the Forest, 97-112

  Strathconan, 66-7

  Stuart, Hamish, 192

  Surgeon of the Deer Forest, 196-214

  Sutherland, A Salmon Loch in, 113

  Swallows, 43

  Swan, 152

  Swift, 36, 40, 42-8, 50-51
    Alpine, 41-2, 49-53, 56-7
    common, 40-42, 46, 49-50, 53
    needle-tailed _or_ spine-tailed, 40-42, 51-3, 55, 70

  Switch-horn, 73-4

  Tame pigeons, 36

  Teal, 28, 33-6, 46, 57

  Tennyson, 21 _n._

  Three, luck in number, 92

  Tickell, 55

  Tiercel, 42, 46

  Tracker, 128

  Trout eggs, number of, 195
    loch, how to improve, 182-96

  Velocity of falling birds, 61

  Waders, speed of, 36

  Wallace, Frank, 156

  Weight, influence of in flight, 30, 60
    of the eagle, 60
    of the gyrfalcon, 60
    of the peregrine, 60

  Wild duck, 28-9, 36-70

  _Wild Sport with Gun, Rifle, and Salmon Rod_, 197

  _Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands_, 37, 164

  Willoughby, Colonel the Hon. Claude, 141

  Wings, 54, 58, 142, 145, 150

  Witherby, H. F., 53 _n._

  Wood pigeon, 35, 152

  Woodcock, 28-30

  Wounded Deer, Homing Instincts of, 123-35
    stags, attacking stalkers, 155-64
      danger of, 81, 157

  Wye, river, 12, 85

 _Printed in Great Britain by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

                            FOOTNOTES.

[1] “The Death of the Wye,” _Images and Meditations, a Book of
Poems_, by Mary Duclaux. T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., London.

[2] It is singular that this poem was written and published in
1849, and that Tennyson’s _In Memoriam_, which contained the famous
lines:

              “’T is better to have loved and lost,
              Than never to have loved at all,”

was written in 1834 but not published until 1850, and then
anonymously. This is surely very remarkable, for it is impossible
to believe that a man of the high and noble character of Clough
would have consciously plagiarised any other poet.

[3] After the publication of these verses in the above article, as
it originally appeared in the issue of _Country Life_ for August
6, 1921, their authorship was discovered through the kindness of
some of the readers of that journal and the enterprise of its
editor. In a letter in _Country Life_ for August 27, 1921, Bishop
G. F. Browne, late Lord Bishop of Bristol, thus describes their
origin. “The first three stanzas were composed at Lowick Rectory,
Northants, by the rector, J. S. Watson, his daughter Betty, and
Dean Ingram of Peterborough. The authors felt that there ought to
be a concluding stanza, ambiguously stating a final result. I told
the story to Father Waggett on our way from Bournemouth to Clouds,
and he suggested ‘booked it’ as the point of a last stanza. On that
hint I wrote the stanza. In my book I remark that its tendency
would be unjust to any real fisherman’s imaginative powers.”

[4] December 11, 18, 25, 1921.

[5] January 28, February 4, 11, 18, 1922.

[6] _Field_, February 18, 1922, p. 233.

[7] “Velocity of Flight among Birds,” by Colonel R. Meinertzhagen,
D.S.O., in the _Ibis_ for April 1921, pp. 237-238.

[8] _Field_, February 18, 1922, p. 234.

[9] _Wild Sports of the Highlands_, chap. x. p. 135.

[10] _Field_, February 18, 1922, pp. 233-234.

[11] _Ibis_, April 1921, p. 234.

[12] _Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands_, by Charles
St. John, ch. x. p. 131.

[13] See also the letter of Mr. H. G. Hurrell in the _Field_ for
March 8, 1923.

[14] This is a very considerable warning--H. F.

[15] Pp. 258-259 (Witherby & Co., London, 1914).

[16] Pp. 35, 36.

[17] _Manual of British Birds_, by Howard Saunders, 2nd ed. (Gurney
& Jackson, London), pp. 264, 266.

[18] _History of the Birds of Europe_, by Henry E. Dresser, F.L.S.,
F.Z.S. (1871-1881), vol. iv. p. 617.

[19] _A Practical Handbook of British Birds_, edited by H. F.
Witherby, vol. ii. pp. 7, 9. Witherby & Co., London, 1920.

[20] _Handbook to the Birds of Australia_, by John Gould, F.R.S.
(1865), vol. i. p. 104. London.

[21] Vol. ii. p. 305, Porter, 6 Tenterden Street, W.; Dulau & Co.,
Soho Square, W., 1884.

[22] _Avicultural Magazine_, Third Series, vol. x. No. 4, February
1919, pp. 73-74.

[23] Vol. iv. p. 616.

[24] _British Birds Magazine_, vol. xvi. No. 1 (June 1, 1922), p.
31.

[25] _The Fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma Birds_,
vol. iii. p. 173. Published under the authority of the Secretary of
State for India in Council. Taylor & Francis, London, 1895.

[26] _Ibid._ p. 174.

[27] March 15, 1923.

[28] _Ornithological Dictionary of Birds_, by Col. G. Montagu: 2nd
edition by James Rennie, London, 1831.

[29] _Rough Shooting_, by Richard Clapham, ch. vii. pp. 125-126.
Heath Cranton, Ltd., London, 1922.

[30] In _One Hundred Years in the Highlands_, p. 132 (Edward
Arnold, London, 1921), Mr. Osgood Mackenzie quotes an extract from
a diary of his uncle, Dr. John Mackenzie of Eileanach, in which an
incident of this kind is described as having occurred in Kinlochewe
Forest.

[31] Adam & Charles Black, London, 1910.

[32] See, for instance, the opinions of Mr. F. M. Halford in
_The Dry-Fly Man’s Handbook_, p. 395 (George Routledge & Sons,
Ltd., London); Mr. P. D. Malloch at p. 179 in the work previously
cited; Mr. J. J. Armistead in _An Angler’s Paradise, and how to
obtain it_; and Mr. Tom Speedy in _The Natural History of Sport in
Scotland with Rod and Gun_ (William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and
London, 1920).

[33] Martin Secker, London, 1917.

[34] _The Dry-Fly Man’s Handbook_, p. 319 (George Routledge & Sons,
Ltd., London).

[35] _A Lame Dog’s Diary_, by S. Macnaughtan, pp. 239, 240 (John
Murray, London, 1915).

[36] “Canadian Boat Song,” _St. Andrew’s Treasury of Scottish
Verse_, by Mrs. Alexander Lawson and Alexander Lawson, pp. 133, 134
(A. & C. Black, Ltd., London, 1920).

Transcriber’s note:

Inconsistent use of hyphens, such as burn-side/burnside and
gyr-falcon/gyrfalcon, has been retained.

Page viii: M^cIver (superscript c) changed to McIver to match other
instances in the book.

Index: “Cats, killed by eagles, 38” changed to “Cats, killed by
eagles, 138”.


toward them caused them to draw up on one side of the way and stare
with new wonder. It was a most beautiful little boy. His golden curls
hung to his shoulders, his sweet face had an expression at once gentle
and noble, and his dress was of the richest material. He led a little
flossy white dog by a ribbon.

After he had passed by, the three little girls looked at each other.

"Oh!" cried Rosamond, "did you see his hat and feather?"

"And his lace Vandyke, and the fluffy white dog!" cried Barbara. But
Margary said nothing. In her heart, she thought she had never seen any
one so lovely.

Then she went on to the well with her pitcher, and Rosamond and
Barbara went home, telling every one they met about the beautiful
little stranger.

[Illustration: THE LITTLE STRANGER.]

Margary, after she had filled her pitcher, went home also; and was
beginning to talk about the stranger to her mother, when a shadow fell
across the floor from the doorway. Margary looked up. "There he is
now!" cried she in a joyful whisper.

The pretty boy stood there indeed, looking in modestly and wishfully.
Margary's mother arose at once from her spinning-wheel, and came
forward; she was a very courteous woman. "Wilt thou enter, and rest
thyself," said she, "and have a cup of our porridge, and a slice of
our wheaten bread, and a bit of honeycomb?"

The little boy sniffed hungrily at the porridge which was just
beginning to boil; he hesitated a moment, but finally thanked the good
woman very softly and sweetly and entered.

Then Margary and her mother set a bottle of cowslip wine on the table,
slices of wheaten bread, and a plate of honeycomb, a bowl of ripe
raspberries, and a little jug of yellow cream, and another little bowl
with a garland of roses around the rim, for the porridge. Just as soon
as that was cooked, the stranger sat down, and ate a supper fit for a
prince. Margary and her mother half supposed he was one; he had such a
courtly, yet modest air.

When he had eaten his fill, and his little dog had been fed too, he
offered his entertainers some gold out of a little silk purse, but
they would not take it.

So he took hold of his dog's ribbon, and went away with many thanks.
"We shall never see him again," said Margary sorrowfully.

"The memory of a stranger one has fed, is a pleasant one," said her
mother.

"I am glad the lark sang so beautifully all the while he was eating,"
said Margary.

While they were eating their own supper, the oldest woman in the
village came in. She was one hundred and twenty years old, and, by
reason of her great age, was considered very wise.

"Have you seen the stranger?" asked she in her piping voice, seating
herself stiffly.

"Yes," replied Margary's mother. "He hath supped with us."

The oldest woman twinkled her eyes behind her iron-bowed spectacles.
"Lawks!" said she. But she did not wish to appear surprised, so she
went on to say she had met him on the way, and knew who he was.

"He's a Lindsay," said the oldest woman, with a nod of her
white-capped head. "I tried him wi' a buttercup. I held it under his
chin, and he loves butter. So he's a Lindsay; all the Lindsays love
butter. I know, for I was nurse in the family a hundred years ago."

This, of course, was conclusive evidence. Margary and her mother
had faith in the oldest woman's opinion; and so did all the other
villagers. She told a good many people how the little stranger was
a Lindsay, before she went to bed that night. And he really was a
Lindsay, too; though it was singular how the oldest woman divined it
with a buttercup.

The pretty child had straightway driven off in his coach-and-four as
soon as he had left Margary's mother's cottage; he had only stopped
to have some defect in the wheels remedied. But there had been time
enough for a great excitement to be stirred up in the village.

All any one talked about the next day, was the stranger. Every one who
had seen him, had some new and more marvelous item; till charming as
the child really was, he became, in the popular estimation, a real
fairy prince.

When Margary and the other children went to school, with their
horn-books hanging at their sides, they found the schoolmaster greatly
excited over it. He was a verse-maker, and though he had not seen the
stranger himself, his imagination more than made amends for that.
So the scholars were not under a very strict rule that day, for the
master was busy composing a poem about the stranger. Every now and
then a line of the poem got mixed in with the lessons.

The schoolmaster told in beautiful meters about the stranger's rich
attire, and his flowing locks of real gold wire, his lips like rubies,
and his eyes like diamonds. He furnished the little dog with hair of
real floss silk, and called his ribbon a silver chain. Then the coach,
as it rolled along, presented such a dazzling appearance, that several
persons who inadvertently looked at it had been blinded. It was the
schoolmaster's opinion, set forth in his poem, that this really was a
prince. One could scarcely doubt it, on reading the poem. It is a pity
it has not been preserved, but it was destroyed--how, will transpire
further on.

Well, two days after this dainty stranger with his coach-and-four
came to the village, a little wretched beggar-boy, leading by a dirty
string a forlorn muddy little dog, appeared on the street. He went to
the tavern first, but the host pushed him out of the door, throwing a
pewter porringer after him, which hit the poor little dog and made it
yelp. Then he spoke pitifully to the people he met, and knocked at the
cottage doors; but every one drove him away. He met the oldest woman,
but she gathered her skirts closely around her and hobbled by, her
pointed nose up in the air, and her cap-strings flying straight out
behind.

"I prithee, granny," he called after her, "try me with the buttercup
again, and see if I be not a Lindsay."

"Thou a Lindsay," quoth the oldest woman contemptuously; but she was
very curious, so she turned around and held a buttercup underneath the
boy's dirty chin.

"Bah," said the oldest woman, "a Lindsay indeed! Butter hath no charm
for thee, and the Lindsays, all loved it. I know, for I was nurse in
the family a hundred year ago."

Then she hobbled away faster than ever, and the poor boy kept on. Then
he met the schoolmaster, who had his new poem in a great roll in his
hand. "What little vagabond is this?" muttered he, gazing at him with
disgust. "He hath driven a fine metaphor out of my head."

When the boy reached the cottage where Margary and her mother lived,
the dame was sitting in the door spinning, and the little girl was
picking roses from a bush under the window, to fill a tall china mug
which they kept on a shelf.

When Margary heard the gate click, and turning, saw the boy, she
started so that she let her pinafore full of roses slip, and the
flowers all fell out on the ground. Then she dropped an humble
curtesy; and her mother rose and curtesied also, though she had not
recognized her guest as soon as Margary.

The poor little stranger fairly wept for joy. "Ah, you remember me,"
he said betwixt smiles and tears.

Then he entered the cottage, and while Margary and her mother got some
refreshment ready for him, he told his pitiful story.

His father was a Lindsay, and a very rich and noble gentleman. Some
little time before, he and his little son had journeyed to London,
with their coach-and-four. Business having detained him longer than he
had anticipated, and fearing his lady might be uneasy, he had sent his
son home in advance, in the coach, with his lackeys and attendants.
Everything had gone safely till after leaving this village. Some miles
beyond, they had been attacked by highwaymen and robbed. The servants
had either been taken prisoners or fled. The thieves had driven off
with the coach-and-four, and the poor little boy had crawled back to
the village.

Margary and her mother did all they could to comfort him. They
prepared some hot broth for him, and opened a bottle of cowslip wine.
Margary's mother gave him some clean clothes, which had belonged to
her son who had died. The little gentleman looked funny in the little
rustic's blue smock, but he was very comfortable. They fed the forlorn
little dog too, and washed him till his white hair looked fluffy and
silky again.

When the London mail stopped in the village, the next day, they sent a
message to Lord Lindsay, and in a week's time, he came after his son.
He was a very grand gentleman; his dress was all velvet and satin, and
blazing with jewels. How the villagers stared. They had flatly refused
to believe that this last little stranger was the first one, and had
made great fun of Margary and her mother for being so credulous.
But they had not minded. They had given their guest a little pallet
stuffed with down, and a pillow stuffed with rose-leaves to sleep on,
and fed him with the best they had. His father, in his gratitude,
offered Margary's mother rich rewards; but she would take nothing. The
little boy cried on parting with his kind friends, and Margary cried
too.

"I prithee, pretty Margary, do not forget me," said he.

And she promised she never would, and gave him a sprig of rosemary out
of her garden to wear for a breastknot.

The villagers were greatly mortified when they discovered the mistake
they had made. However, the oldest woman always maintained that her
not having her spectacles on, when she met the stranger the second
time, was the reason of her not seeing that he loved butter; and the
schoolmaster gave his poetical abstraction for an excuse. Mine host
of the "Boar's Head" fairly tore his hair, and flung the pewter
porringer, which he had thrown after the stranger and his dog, into
the well. After that he was very careful how he turned away strangers
because of their appearance. Generally he sent for the oldest woman to
put her spectacles on, and try the buttercup test. Then, if she
said they loved butter and were Lindsays, they were taken in and
entertained royally. She generally did say they loved butter--she
was so afraid of making a mistake the second time, herself; so the
village-inn got to be a regular refuge for beggars, and they called it
amongst themselves the "Beggars' Rest," instead of the "Boar's Head."

As for Margary, she grew up to be the pride of the village; and in
time, Lord Lindsay's son, who had always kept the sprig of rosemary,
came and married her. They had a beautiful wedding; all of the
villagers were invited; the bridegroom did not cherish any resentment.
They danced on the green, and the Lindsay pipers played for them. The
bride wore a white damask petticoat worked with pink roses, her pink
satin shortgown was looped up with garlands of them, and she wore a
wreath of roses on her head.

The oldest woman came to the wedding, and hobbled up to the bridegroom
with a buttercup. "Thou beest a Lindsay," said she. "Thou lovest
butter, and the Lindsays all did. I know, for I was nurse in the
family a hundred year ago."

As for the schoolmaster, he was distressed. His wife had taken his
poem on the stranger for papers to curl her hair on for the wedding,
and he had just discovered it. He had calculated on making a present
of it to the young couple.

However, he wrote another on the wedding, of which one verse is still
extant, and we will give it:

  "When Lindsay wedded Margary,
  Merrily piped the pipers all.
  The bride, the village-pride was she,
  The groom, a gay gallant was he.
  Merrily piped the pipers all.
  When Lindsay wedded Margary."

THE BOUND GIRL.

    This Indenture Wittnesseth, That I Margaret Burjust of Boston, in
    the County of Suffolk and Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New
    England. Have placed, and by these presents do place and bind out
    my only Daughter whose name is Ann Ginnins to be an Apprentice
    unto Samuel Wales and his wife of Braintree in the County
    afores:^d, Blacksmith. To them and their Heirs and with them the
    s:^d Samuel Wales, his wife and their Heirs, after the manner of
    an apprentice to dwell and Serve from the day of the date hereof
    for and during the full and Just Term of Sixteen years, three
    months and twenty-three day's next ensueing and fully to be
    Compleat, during all which term the s:^d apprentice her s:^d
    Master and Mistress faithfully Shall Serve, Their Secrets keep
    close, and Lawful and reasonable Command everywhere gladly do and
    perform.

    Damage to her s:^d Master and Mistress she shall not willingly
    do. Her s:^d Master's goods she shall not waste, Embezel,
    purloin or lend unto Others nor suffer the same to be wasted or
    purloined. But to her power Shall discover the Same to her s:^d
    Master. Taverns or Ailhouss she Shall not frequent, at any
    unlawful game She Shall not play, Matrimony she Shall not Contract
    with any persons during s:^d Term. From her master's Service She
    Shall not at any time unlawfully absent herself. But in all things
    as a good honest and faithful Servant and apprentice Shall bear
    and behave herself, During the full term afores:^d Commencing
    from the third day of November Anno Dom: One Thousand, Seven
    Hundred fifty and three. And the s:^d Master for himself, wife,
    and Heir's, Doth Covenant Promise Grant and Agree unto and with
    the s:^d apprentice and the s:^d Margaret Burjust, in manner
    and form following. That is to say, That they will teach the
    s:^d apprentice or Cause her to be taught in the Art of good
    housewifery, and also to read and write well. And will find and
    provide for and give unto s:^d apprentice good and sufficient
    Meat Drink washing and lodging both in Sickness and in health, and
    at the Expiration of said term to Dismiss s:^d apprentice with
    two Good Suits of Apparrel both of woolen and linnin for all parts
    of her body (viz) One for Lord-days and one for working days
    Suitable to her Quality. In Testimony whereof I Samuel Wales and
    Margaret Burjust Have Interchangably Sett their hands and Seals
    this Third day November Anno Dom: 1753, and in the twenty-Seventh
    year of the Reign of our Soveraig'n Lord George the Second of
    great Britain the King.

      Signed Sealed & Delivered.
        In presence of
        SAM VAUGHAN                Margaret Burgis
        MARY VAUGHAN               her X mark.

This quaint document was carefully locked up, with some old deeds and
other valuable papers, in his desk, by the "s:^d Samuel Wales," one
hundred and thirty years ago. The desk was a rude, unpainted pine
affair, and it reared itself on its four stilt-like legs in a corner
of his kitchen, in his house in the South Precinct of Braintree. The
sharp eyes of the little "s:^d apprentice" had noted it oftener and
more enviously than any other article of furniture in the house. On
the night of her arrival, after her journey of fourteen miles from
Boston, over a rough bridle-road, on a jolting horse, clinging
tremblingly to her new "Master," she peered through her little red
fingers at the desk swallowing up those precious papers which Samuel
Wales drew from his pocket with an important air. She was hardly five
years old, but she was an acute child; and she watched her master draw
forth the papers, show them to his wife, Polly, and lock them up in
the desk, with the full understanding that they had something to do
with her coming to this strange place; and, already, a shadowy purpose
began to form itself in her mind.

She sat on a cunning little wooden stool, close to the fireplace,
and kept her small chapped hands persistently over her face; she was
scared, and grieved, and, withal, a trifle sulky. Mrs. Polly Wales
cooked some Indian meal mush for supper in an iron pot swinging from
its trammel over the blazing logs, and cast scrutinizing glances at
the little stranger. She had welcomed her kindly, taken off her outer
garments, and established her on the little stool in the warmest
corner, but the child had given a very ungracious response. She would
not answer a word to Mrs. Wales' coaxing questions, but twitched
herself away with all her small might, and kept her hands tightly over
her eyes, only peering between her fingers when she thought no one was
noticing.

She had behaved after the same fashion all the way from Boston, as Mr.
Wales told his wife in a whisper. The two were a little dismayed at
the whole appearance of the small apprentice; to tell the truth, she
was not in the least what they had expected. They had been revolving
this scheme of taking "a bound girl" for some time in their minds; and
Samuel Wales' gossip in Boston, Sam Vaughan, had been requested to
keep a lookout for a suitable person.

So, when word came that one had been found, Mr. Wales had started at
once for the city. When he saw the child, he was dismayed. He had
expected to see a girl of ten; this one was hardly five, and she
had anything but the demure and decorous air which his Puritan mind
esteemed becoming and appropriate in a little maiden. Her hair was
black and curled tightly, instead of being brown and straight parted
in the middle, and combed smoothly over her ears as his taste
regulated; her eyes were black and flashing, instead of being blue,
and downcast. The minute he saw the child, he felt a disapproval of
her rise in his heart, and also something akin to terror. He dreaded
to take this odd-looking child home to his wife Polly; he foresaw
contention and mischief in their quiet household. But he felt as if
his word was rather pledged to his gossip, and there was the mother,
waiting and expectant. She was a red-cheeked English girl, who had
been in Sam Vaughan's employ; she had recently married one Burjust,
and he was unwilling to support the first husband's child, so this
chance to bind her out and secure a good home for her had been eagerly
caught at.

The small Ann seemed rather at Samuel Wales' mercy, and he had not
the courage to disappoint his friend or her mother; so the necessary
papers were made out, Sam Vaughan's and wife's signatures affixed, and
Margaret Burjust's mark, and he set out on his homeward journey with
the child.

The mother was coarse and illiterate, but she had some natural
affection; she "took on" sadly when the little girl was about to leave
her, and Ann clung to her frantically. It was a pitiful scene, and
Samuel Wales, who was a very tender-hearted man, was glad when it was
over, and he jogging along the bridle-path.

But he had had other troubles to encounter. All at once, as he rode
through Boston streets, with his little charge behind him, after
leaving his friend's house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his
hair, which he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the
fashion of the period. Twitch, twitch, twitch! The water came into
Samuel Wales' eyes, and the blood to his cheeks, while the passers-by
began to hoot and laugh. His horse became alarmed at the hubbub, and
started up. For a few minutes the poor man could do nothing to free
himself. It was wonderful what strength the little creature had: she
clinched her tiny fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled.
Then, all at once, her grasp slackened, and off flew her master's
steeple-crowned hat into the dust, and the neat black ribbon on the
end of the queue followed it. Samuel Wales reined up his horse with a
jerk then, and turned round, and administered a sounding box on each
of his apprentice's ears. Then he dismounted, amid shouts of laughter
from the spectators, and got a man to hold the horse while he went
back and picked up his hat and ribbon.

He had no further trouble. The boxes seemed to have subdued Ann
effectually. But he pondered uneasily all the way home on the small
vessel of wrath which was perched up behind him, and there was a
tingling sensation at the roots of his queue. He wondered what Polly
would say. The first glance at her face, when he lifted Ann off the
horse at his own door, confirmed his fears. She expressed her mind,
in a womanly way, by whispering in his ear at the first opportunity,
"She's as black as an Injun."

After Ann had eaten her supper, and had been tucked away between some
tow sheets and homespun blankets in a trundle-bed, she heard the whole
story, and lifted up her hands with horror. Then the good couple read
a chapter, and prayed, solemnly vowing to do their duty by this
child which they had taken under their roof, and imploring Divine
assistance.

As time wore on, it became evident that they stood in sore need of it.
They had never had any children of their own, and Ann Ginnins was the
first child who had ever lived with them. But she seemed to have the
freaks of a dozen or more in herself, and they bade fair to have the
experience of bringing up a whole troop with this one. They tried
faithfully to do their duty by her, but they were not used to
children, and she was a very hard child to manage. A whole legion of
mischievous spirits seemed to dwell in her at times, and she became
in a small and comparatively innocent way, the scandal of the staid
Puritan neighborhood in which she lived. Yet, withal, she was so
affectionate, and seemed to be actuated by so little real malice in
any of her pranks, that people could not help having a sort of liking
for the child, in spite of them.

She was quick to learn, and smart to work, too, when she chose.
Sometimes she flew about with such alacrity that it seemed as if
her little limbs were hung on wires, and no little girl in the
neighborhood could do her daily tasks in the time she could, and they
were no inconsiderable tasks, either.

Very soon after her arrival she was set to "winding quills," so many
every day. Seated at Mrs. Polly's side, in her little homespun gown,
winding quills through sunny forenoons--how she hated it. She liked
feeding the hens and pigs better, and when she got promoted to driving
the cows, a couple of years later, she was in her element. There were
charming possibilities of nuts and checkerberries and sassafras and
sweet flag all the way between the house and the pasture, and the
chance to loiter, and have a romp.

She rarely showed any unwillingness to go for the cows; but once, when
there was a quilting at her mistress's house, she demurred. It was
right in the midst of the festivities; they were just preparing for
supper, in fact. Ann knew all about the good things in the pantry, she
was wild with delight at the unwonted stir, and anxious not to lose
a minute of it. She thought some one else might go for the cows that
night. She cried and sulked, but there was no help for it. Go she had
to. So she tucked up her gown--it was her best Sunday one--took her
stick, and trudged along. When she came to the pasture, there were her
master's cows waiting at the bars. So were Neighbor Belcher's cows
also, in the adjoining pasture. Ann had her hand on the topmost of her
own bars, when she happened to glance over at Neighbor Belcher's, and
a thought struck her. She burst into a peal of laughter, and took a
step towards the other bars. Then she went back to her own. Finally,
she let down the Belcher bars, and the Belcher cows crowded out, to
the great astonishment of the Wales cows, who stared over their high
rails and mooed uneasily.

Ann drove the Belcher cows home and ushered them into Samuel Wales'
barnyard with speed. Then she went demurely into the house. The table
looked beautiful. Ann was beginning to quake inwardly, though she
still was hugging herself, so to speak, in secret enjoyment of her
own mischief. She had one hope--that supper would be eaten before her
master milked. But the hope was vain. When she saw Mr. Wales come in,
glance her way, and then call his wife out, she knew at once what had
happened, and begun to tremble--she knew perfectly what Mr. Wales was
saying out there. It was this: "That little limb has driven home all
Neighbor Belcher's cows instead of ours; what's going to be done with
her?"

She knew what the answer would be, too. Mrs. Polly was a peremptory
woman.

Back Ann had to go with the Belcher cows, fasten them safely in their
pasture again, and drive her master's home. She was hustled off to
bed, then, without any of that beautiful supper. But she had just
crept into her bed in the small unfinished room upstairs where she
slept, and was lying there sobbing, when she heard a slow, fumbling
step on the stairs. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Deacon Thomas
Wales, Samuel Wales' mother, came in. She was a good old lady, and had
always taken a great fancy to her son's bound girl; and Ann, on her
part, minded her better than any one else. She hid her face in the tow
sheet, when she saw grandma. The old lady had on a long black silk
apron. She held something concealed under it, when she came in.
Presently she displayed it.

"There--child," said she, "here's a piece of sweet cake and a couple
of simballs, that I managed to save out for you. Jest set right up and
eat 'em, and don't ever be so dretful naughty again, or I don't know
what will become of you."

This reproof, tempered with sweetness, had a salutary effect on Ann.
She sat up, and ate her sweet cake and simballs, and sobbed out her
contrition to grandma, and there was a marked improvement in her
conduct for some days.

Mrs. Polly was a born driver. She worked hard herself, and she
expected everybody about her to. The tasks which Ann had set her did
not seem as much out of proportion, then, as they would now. Still,
her mistress, even then, allowed her less time for play than was
usual, though it was all done in good faith, and not from any
intentional severity. As time went on, she grew really quite fond of
the child, and she was honestly desirous of doing her whole duty by
her. If she had had a daughter of her own, it is doubtful if her
treatment of her would have been much different.

Still, Ann was too young to understand all this, and, sometimes,
though she was strong and healthy, and not naturally averse to work,
she would rebel, when her mistress set her stints so long, and kept
her at work when other children were playing.

Once in a while she would confide in grandma, when Mrs. Polly sent her
over there on an errand and she had felt unusually aggrieved because
she had had to wind quills, or hetchel, instead of going berrying, or
some like pleasant amusement.

"Poor little cosset," grandma would say, pityingly.

Then she would give her a simball, and tell her she must "be a good
girl, and not mind if she couldn't play jest like the others, for
she'd got to airn her own livin', when she grew up, and she must learn
to work."

Ann would go away comforted, but grandma would be privately indignant.
She was, as is apt to be the case, rather critical with her sons'
wives, and she thought "Sam'l's kept that poor little gal too stiddy
at work," and wished and wished she could shelter her under her own
grandmotherly wing, and feed her with simballs to her heart's content.
She was too wise to say anything to influence the child against her
mistress, however. She was always cautious about that, even while
pitying her. Once in a while she would speak her mind to her son, but
he was easy enough--Ann would not have found him a hard task-master.

Still, Ann did not have to work hard enough to hurt her. The worst
consequences were that such a rigid rein on such a frisky little colt
perhaps had more to do with her "cutting up," as her mistress phrased
it, than she dreamed of. Moreover the thought of the indentures,
securely locked up in Mr. Wales' tall wooden desk, was forever in
Ann's mind. Half by dint of questioning various people, half by her
own natural logic she had settled it within herself, that at any time
the possession of these papers would set her free, and she could
go back to her own mother, whom she dimly remembered as being
loud-voiced, but merry, and very indulgent. However, Ann never
meditated in earnest, taking the indentures; indeed, the desk was
always locked--it held other documents more valuable than hers--and
Samuel Wales carried the key in his waistcoat-pocket.

She went to a dame's school three months every year. Samuel Wales
carted half a cord of wood to pay for her schooling, and she learned
to write and read in the New England Primer. Next to her, on the split
log bench, sat a little girl named Hannah French. The two became fast
friends. Hannah was an only child, pretty and delicate, and very much
petted by her parents. No long hard tasks were set those soft little
fingers, even in those old days when children worked as well as their
elders. Ann admired and loved Hannah, because she had what she,
herself, had not; and Hannah loved and pitied Ann because she had not
what she had. It was a sweet little friendship, and would not have
been, if Ann had not been free from envy and Hannah humble and
pitying.

When Ann told her what a long stint she had to do before school,
Hannah would shed sympathizing tears.

Ann, after a solemn promise of secrecy, told her about the indentures
one day. Hannah listened with round, serious eyes; her brown hair was
combed smoothly down over her ears. She was a veritable little Puritan
damsel herself.

"If I could only get the papers, I wouldn't have to mind her, and work
so hard," said Ann.

Hannah's eyes grew rounder. "Why, it would be sinful to take them!"
said she.

Ann's cheeks blazed under her wondering gaze, and she said no more.

When she was about eleven years old, one icy January day, Hannah
wanted her to go out and play on the ice after school. They had no
skates, but it was rare fun to slide. Ann went home and asked Mrs.
Polly's permission with a beating heart; she promised to do a double
stint next day, if she would let her go. But her mistress was
inexorable--work before play, she said, always; and Ann must not
forget that she was to be brought up to work; it was different with
her from what it was with Hannah French. Even this she meant kindly
enough, but Ann saw Hannah go away, and sat down to her spinning with
more fierce defiance in her heart than had ever been there before. She
had been unusually good, too, lately. She always was, during the three
months' schooling, with sober, gentle little Hannah French.

She had been spinning sulkily a while, and it was almost dark, when
a messenger came for her master and mistress to go to Deacon Thomas
Wales', who had been suddenly taken very ill.

Ann would have felt sorry if she had not been so angry. Deacon Wales
was almost as much of a favorite of hers as his wife. As it was, the
principal thing she thought of, after Mr. Wales and his wife had gone,
was that the key was in the desk. However it had happened, there it
was. She hesitated a moment. She was all alone in the kitchen, and her
heart was in a tumult of anger, but she had learned her lessons from
the Bible and the New England Primer, and she was afraid of the sin.
But at last she opened the desk, found the indentures, and hid them
in the little pocket which she wore tied about her waist, under her
petticoat.

Then Ann threw her blanket over her head, and got her poppet out of
the chest. The poppet was a little doll manufactured from a corn-cob,
dressed in an indigo-colored gown. Grandma had made it for her, and
it was her chief treasure. She clasped it tight to her bosom, and ran
across lots to Hannah French's.

Hannah saw her coming, and met her at the door.

"I've brought you my poppet," whispered Ann, all breathless, "and you
must keep her always, and not let her work too hard. I'm going away!"

Hannah's eyes looked like two solemn moons. "Where are you going,
Ann?"

"I'm going to Boston to find my own mother." She said nothing about
the indentures to Hannah--somehow she could not.

Hannah could not say much, she was so astonished, but as soon as Ann
had gone, scudding across the fields, she went in with the poppet and
told her mother.

Deacon Thomas Wales was very sick. Mr. and Mrs. Samuel remained at
his house all night, but Ann was not left alone, for Mr. Wales had an
apprentice who slept in the house.

Ann did not sleep any that night. She got up very early, before any
one was stirring, and dressed herself in her Sunday clothes. Then she
tied up her working clothes in a bundle, crept softly downstairs, and
out doors.

It was bright moonlight and quite cold. She ran along as fast as she
could on the Boston road. Deacon Thomas Wales's house was on the way.
The windows were lit up. She thought of grandma and poor grandpa, with
a sob in her heart, but she sped along. Past the schoolhouse, and
meeting-house, too, she had to go, with big qualms of grief and
remorse. But she kept on. She was a fast traveler.

She had reached the North Precinct of Braintree by daylight. So far,
she had not encountered a single person. Now she heard horse's hoofs
behind her. She began to run faster, but it was of no use. Soon
Captain Abraham French loomed up on his big gray horse, a few paces
from her. He was Hannah's father, but he was a tithing-man, and looked
quite stern, and Ann had always stood in great fear of him.

She ran on as fast as her little heels could fly, with a thumping
heart. But it was not long before she felt herself seized by a strong
arm and swung up behind Captain French on the gray horse. She was in a
panic of terror, and would have cried and begged for mercy if she
had not been in so much awe of her captor. She thought with awful
apprehension of these stolen indentures in her little pocket. What if
he should find that out!

Captain French whipped up his horse, however, and hastened along
without saying a word. His silence, if anything, caused more dread in
Ann than words would have. But his mind was occupied. Deacon Thomas
Wales was dead; he was one of his most beloved and honored friends,
and it was a great shock to him. Hannah had told him about Ann's
premeditated escape, and he had set out on her track as soon as he had
found that she was really gone, that morning. But the news which he
had heard on his way, had driven all thoughts of reprimand which he
might have entertained, out of his head. He only cared to get the
child safely back.

So not a word spoke Captain French, but rode on in grim and sorrowful
silence, with Ann clinging to him, till he reached her master's door.
Then he set her down with a stern and solemn injunction never to
transgress again, and rode away.

Ann went into the kitchen with a quaking heart. It was empty and
still. Its very emptiness and stillness seemed to reproach her. There
stood the desk--she ran across to it, pulled the indentures from her
pocket, put them in their old place, and shut the lid down. There they
staid till the full and just time of her servitude had expired. She
never disturbed them again.

On account of the grief and confusion incident on Deacon Wales's
death, she escaped with very little censure. She never made an attempt
to run away again. Indeed, she had no wish to, for after Deacon
Wales's death, grandma was lonely and wanted her, and she lived most
of the time with her. And, whether she was in reality treated any more
kindly or not, she was certainly happier.

DEACON THOMAS WALES'S WILL.

    In the Name of God Amen! the Thirteenth Day of September One
    Thousand Seven Hundred Fifty & eight, I, Thomas Wales of
    Braintree, in the County of Suffolk & Province of the
    Massachusetts Bay in New England, Gent--being in good health of
    Body and of Sound Disproving mind and Memory, Thanks be given to
    God--Calling to mind my mortality, Do therefore in my health make
    and ordain this my Last Will and Testament. And First I Recommend
    my Soul into the hand of God who gave it--Hoping through grace to
    obtain Salvation thro' the merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ my
    only Lord and Dear Redeemer, and my body to be Decently inter^d,
    at the Discretion of my Executor, believing at the General
    Resurection to receive the Same again by the mighty Power
    of God--And such worldly estate as God in his goodness hath
    graciously given me after Debts, funeral Expenses &c, are Paid I
    give & Dispose of the Same as Followeth--

    _Imprimis_--I Give to my beloved Wife Sarah a good Sute of
    mourning apparrel Such as she may Choose--also if she acquit my
    estate of Dower and third-therin (as we have agreed) Then that
    my Executor return all of Household movables she bought at our
    marriage & since that are remaining, also to Pay to her or Her
    Heirs That Note of Forty Pound I gave to her, when she acquited my
    estate and I hers. Before Division to be made as herein exprest,
    also the Southwest fire-Room in my House, a right in my Cellar,
    Halfe the Garden, also the Privilege of water at the well & yard
    room and to bake in the oven what she hath need of to improve her
    Life-time by her.

After this, followed a division of his property amongst his children,
five sons and two daughters.

The "Homeplace" was given to his sons Ephraim and Atherton. Ephraim
had a good house of his own, so he took his share of the property in
land, and Atherton went to live in the old homestead. His quarters had
been poor enough; he had not been so successful as his brothers, and
had been unable to live as well. It had been a great cross to his
wife, Dorcas, who was very high-spirited. She had compared, bitterly,
the poverty of her household arrangements, with the abundant comfort
of her sisters-in-law.

Now, she seized eagerly at the opportunity of improving her style of
living. The old Wales house was quite a pretentious edifice for those
times. All the drawback to her delight was, that Grandma should
have the southwest fire-room. She wanted to set up her high-posted
bedstead, with its enormous feather-bed in that, and have it for her
fore-room. Properly, it was the fore-room, being right across the
entry from the family sitting-room. There was a tall chest of drawers
that would fit in so nicely between the windows, too. Take it
altogether, she was chagrined at having to give up the southwest room;
but there was no help for it--there it was in Deacon Wales's will.

Mrs. Dorcas was the youngest of all the sons' wives, as her husband
was the latest born. She was quite a girl to some of them. Grandma
had never more than half approved of her. Dorcas was high-strung and
flighty, she said. She had her doubts about living happily with her.
But Atherton was anxious for this division of the property, and he was
her youngest darling, so she gave in. She felt lonely, and out of
her element, when everything was arranged, she established in the
southwest fire-room, and Atherton's family keeping house in the
others, though things started pleasantly and peaceably enough.

It occurred to her that her son Samuel might have her own "help," a
stout woman, who had worked in her kitchen for many years, and she
take in exchange his little bound girl, Ann Ginnins. She had always
taken a great fancy to the child. There was a large closet out of the
southwest room, where she could sleep, and she could be made very
useful, taking steps, and running "arrants" for her.

Mr. Samuel and his wife hesitated a little when this plan was
proposed. In spite of the trouble she gave them, they were attached
to Ann, and did not like to part with her, and Mrs. Polly was just
getting her "larnt" her own ways, as she put it. Privately, she feared
Grandma would undo all the good she had done, in teaching Ann to be
smart and capable. Finally they gave in, with the understanding that
it was not to be considered necessarily a permanent arrangement, and
Ann went to live with the old lady.

Mrs. Dorcas did not relish this any more than she did the
appropriation of the southwest fire-room. She had never liked Ann very
well. Besides she had two little girls of her own, and she fancied
Ann rivaled them in Grandma's affection. So, soon after the girl was
established in the house, she began to show out in various little
ways.

Thirsey, her youngest child, was a mere baby, a round fat dumpling of
a thing. She was sweet, and good-natured, and the pet of the whole
family. Ann was very fond of playing with her, and tending her, and
Mrs. Dorcas began to take advantage of it. The minute Ann was at
liberty she was called upon to take care of Thirsey. The constant
carrying about such a heavy child soon began to make her shoulders
stoop and ache. Then Grandma took up the cudgels. She was smart and
high-spirited, but she was a very peaceable old lady on her own
account, and fully resolved "to put up with everything from Dorcas,
rather than have strife in the family." She was not going to see this
helpless little girl imposed on, however. "The little gal ain't
goin' to get bent all over, tendin' that heavy baby, Dorcas," she
proclaimed. "You can jist make up your mind to it. She didn't come
here to do sech work."

So Dorcas had to make up her mind to it.

Ann's principal duties were "scouring the brasses" in Grandma's room,
taking steps for her, and spinning her stint every day. Grandma set
smaller stints than Mrs. Polly. As time went on, she helped about the
cooking. She and Grandma cooked their own victuals, and ate from a
little separate table in the common kitchen. It was a very large room,
and might have accommodated several families, if they could have
agreed. There was a big oven and a roomy fire-place. Good Deacon Wales
had probably seen no reason at all why his "beloved wife" should not
have her right therein with the greatest peace and concord.

But it soon came to pass that Mrs. Dorcas's pots and kettles were all
prepared to hang on the trammels when Grandma's were, and an army of
cakes and pies marshaled to go in the oven when Grandma had proposed
to do some baking. Grandma bore it patiently for a long time; but Ann
was with difficulty restrained from freeing her small mind, and her
black eyes snapped more dangerously at every new offense.

One morning, Grandma had two loaves of "riz bread," and some election
cakes, rising, and was intending to bake them in about an hour, when
they should be sufficiently light. What should Mrs. Dorcas do, but mix
up sour milk bread, and some pies with the greatest speed, and fill up
the oven, before Grandma's cookery was ready!

Grandma sent Ann out into the kitchen to put the loaves-in the oven
and lo and behold! the oven was full. Ann stood staring for a minute,
with a loaf of election cake in her hands; that and the bread would be
ruined if they were not baked immediately, as they were raised enough.
Mrs. Dorcas had taken Thirsey and stepped out somewhere, and there was
no one in the kitchen. Ann set the election cake back on the table.
Then, with the aid of the tongs, she reached into the brick oven and
took out every one of Mrs. Dorcas's pies and loaves. Then she arranged
them deliberately in a pitiful semicircle on the hearth, and put
Grandma's cookery in the oven.

She went back to the southwest room then, and sat quietly down to her
spinning. Grandma asked if she had put the things in, and she said
"Yes, ma'am," meekly. There was a bright red spot on each of her dark
cheeks.

When Mrs. Dorcas entered the kitchen, carrying Thirsey wrapped up in
an old homespun blanket, she nearly dropped as her gaze fell on the
fire-place and the hearth. There sat her bread and pies, in the most
lamentable half-baked, sticky, doughy condition imaginable. She opened
the oven, and peered in. There were Grandma's loaves, all a lovely
brown. Out they came, with a twitch. Luckily, they were done. Her own
went in, but they were irretrievable failures.

Of course, quite a commotion came from this. Dorcas raised her shrill
voice pretty high, and Grandma, though she had been innocent of the
whole transaction, was so blamed that she gave Dorcas a piece of her
mind at last. Ann surveyed the nice brown loaves, and listened to the
talk in secret satisfaction; but she had to suffer for it afterward.
Grandma punished her for the first time, and she discovered that that
kind old hand was pretty firm and strong. "No matter what you think or
whether you air in the rights on't, or not, a little gal mustn't ever
sass her elders," said Grandma.

But if Ann's interference was blamable, it was productive of one good
result--the matter came to Mr. Atherton's ears, and he had a stern
sense of justice when roused, and a great veneration for his mother.
His father's will should be carried out to the letter, he declared;
and it was. Grandma baked and boiled in peace, outwardly, at least,
after that.

Ann was a great comfort to her; she was outgrowing her wild,
mischievous ways, and she was so bright and quick. She promised to
be pretty, too. Grandma compared her favorably with her own
grandchildren, especially Mrs. Dorcas's eldest daughter Martha, who
was nearly Ann's age. "Marthy's a pretty little gal enough," she used
to say, "but she ain't got the snap to her that Ann has, though I
wouldn't tell Atherton's wife so, for the world."

She promised Ann her gold beads, when she should be done with them,
under strict injunctions not to say anything about it till the time
came; for the others might feel hard as she wasn't her own flesh and
blood. The gold beads were Ann's ideals of beauty and richness, though
she did not like to hear Grandma talk about being "done with them."
Grandma always wore them around her fair, plump old neck; she had
never seen her without her string of beads.

As before said, Ann was now very seldom mischievous enough to
make herself serious trouble; but, once in a while, her natural
propensities would crop out. When they did, Mrs. Dorcas was
exceedingly bitter. Indeed, her dislike of Ann was, at all times,
smouldering, and needed only a slight fanning to break out.

One stormy winter day Mrs. Dorcas had been working till dark, making
candle-wicks. When she came to get tea, she tied the white fleecy
rolls together, a great bundle of them, and hung them up in the
cellar-way, over the stair, to be out of the way. They were extra fine
wicks, being made of flax for the company candles. "I've got a good
job done," said Mrs. Dorcas, surveying them complacently. Her husband
had gone to Boston, and was not coming home till the next day, so she
had had a nice chance to work at them, without as much interruption as
usual.

Ann, going down the cellar stairs, with a lighted candle, after some
butter for tea, spied the beautiful rolls swinging overhead. What
possessed her to, she could not herself have told--she certainly had
no wish to injure Mrs. Dorcas's wicks--but she pinched up a little end
of the fluffy flax and touched her candle to it. She thought she would
see how that little bit would burn off. She soon found out. The flame
caught, and ran like lightning through the whole bundle. There was a
great puff of fire and smoke, and poor Mrs. Dorcas's fine candle-wicks
were gone. Ann screamed, and sprang downstairs. She barely escaped the
whole blaze coming in her face.

"What's that!" shrieked Mrs. Dorcas, rushing to the cellar door. Words
cannot describe her feeling when she saw that her nice candle-wicks,
the fruit of her day's toil, were burnt up.

If ever there was a wretched culprit that night, Ann was. She had not
meant to do wrong, but that, may be, made it worse for her in one way.
She had not even gratified malice to sustain her. Grandma blamed her,
almost as severely as Mrs. Dorcas. She said she didn't know what would
"become of a little gal, that was so keerless," and decreed that she
must stay at home from school and work on candle-wicks till Mrs.
Dorcas's loss was made good to her. Ann listened ruefully. She was
scared and sorry, but that did not seem to help matters any. She did
not want any supper, and she went to bed early and cried herself to
sleep.

Somewhere about midnight, a strange sound woke her up. She called out
to Grandma in alarm. The same sound had awakened her. "Get up, an'
light a candle, child," said she; "I'm afeard the baby's sick."

Ann scarcely had the candle lighted, before the door opened, and Mrs.
Dorcas appeared in her nightdress. She was very pale, and trembling
all over. "Oh!" she gasped, "it's the baby. Thirsey's got the croup,
an' Atherton's away, and there ain't anybody to go for the doctor. Oh,
what shall I do, what shall I do!" She fairly wrung her hands.

"Hev you tried the skunk's oil?" asked Grandma eagerly, preparing to
get up.

"Yes, I have, I have! It's a good hour since she woke up, an' I've
tried everything. It hasn't done any good. I thought I wouldn't
call you, if I could help it, but she's worse--only hear her! An'
Atherton's away! Oh! what shall I do, what shall I do?"

"Don't take on so, Dorcas," said Grandma, tremulously, but cheeringly.
"I'll come right along, an'--why, child, what air you goin' to do?"

Ann had finished dressing herself, and now she was pinning a heavy
homespun blanket over her head, as if she were preparing to go out
doors.

"I'm going after the doctor for Thirsey," said Ann, her black eyes
flashing with determination.

"Oh, will you, will you!" cried Mrs. Dorcas, catching at this new
help.

"Hush, Dorcas," said Grandma, sternly. "It's an awful storm out--jist
hear the wind blow! It ain't fit fur her to go. Her life's jist as
precious as Thirsey's."

Ann said nothing more, but she went into her own little room with the
same determined look in her eyes. There was a door leading from this
room into the kitchen. Ann slipped through it hastily, lit a lantern
which was hanging beside the kitchen chimney, and was out doors in a
minute.

The storm was one of sharp, driving sleet, which struck her face like
so many needles. The first blast, as she stepped outside the door,
seemed to almost force her back, but her heart did not fail her. The
snow was not so very deep, but it was hard walking. There was no
pretense of a path. The doctor lived half a mile away, and there
was not a house in the whole distance, save the meeting house and
schoolhouse. It was very dark. Lucky it was that she had taken the
lantern; she could not have found her way without it.

On kept the little slender, erect figure, with the fierce
determination in its heart, through the snow and sleet, holding the
blanket close over its head, and swinging the feeble lantern bravely.

When she reached the doctor's house, he was gone. He had started for
the North Precinct early in the evening, his good wife said; he was
called down to Captain Isaac Lovejoy's, the house next the North
Precinct Meeting House. She'd been sitting up waiting for him, it was
such an awful storm, and such a lonely road. She was worried, but she
didn't think he'd start for home that night; she guessed he'd stay at
Captain Lovejoy's till morning.

[Illustration: SHE ALMOST FAINTED FROM COLD AND EXHAUSTION.]

The doctor's wife, holding her door open, as best she could, in
the violent wind, had hardly given this information to the little
snow-bedraggled object standing out there in the inky darkness,
through which the lantern made a faint circle of light, before she had
disappeared.

"She went like a speerit," said the good woman, staring out into the
blackness in amazement. She never dreamed of such a thing as Ann's
going to the North Precinct after the doctor, but that was what the
daring girl had determined to do. She had listened to the doctor's
wife in dismay, but with never one doubt as to her own course of
proceeding.

Straight along the road to the North Precinct she kept. It would
have been an awful journey that night for a strong man. It seemed
incredible that a little girl could have the strength or courage to
accomplish it. There were four miles to traverse in a black, howling
storm, over a pathless road, through forests, with hardly a house by
the way.

When she reached Captain Isaac Lovejoy's house, next to the meeting
house in the North Precinct of Braintree, stumbling blindly into the
warm, lighted kitchen, the captain and the doctor could hardly believe
their senses. She told the doctor about Thirsey; then she almost
fainted from cold and exhaustion.

Good-wife Lovejoy laid her on the settee, and brewed her some hot herb
tea. She almost forgot her own sick little girl, for a few minutes,
in trying to restore this brave child who had come from the South
Precinct in this dreadful storm to save little Thirsey Wales's life.

When Ann came to herself a little, her first question was, if the
doctor were ready to go.

"He's gone," said Mrs. Lovejoy, cheeringly.

Ann felt disappointed. She had thought she was going back with him.
But that would have been impossible. She could not have stood the
journey for the second time that night, even on horseback behind the
doctor, as she had planned.

She drank a second bowlful of herb tea, and went to bed with a hot
stone at her feet, and a great many blankets and coverlids over her.

The next morning, Captain Lovejoy carried her home. He had a rough
wood sled, and she rode on that, on an old quilt; it was easier than
horseback, and she was pretty lame and tired.

Mrs. Dorcas saw her coming and opened the door. When Ann came up on
the stoop, she just threw her arms around her and kissed her.

"You needn't make the candle-wicks," said she. "It's no matter about
them at all. Thirsey's better this morning, an' I guess you saved her
life."

Grandma was fairly bursting with pride and delight in her little gal's
brave feat, now that she saw her safe. She untied the gold beads on
her neck, and fastened them around Ann's. "There," said she, "you may
wear them to school to-day, if you'll be keerful."

That day, with the gold beads by way of celebration, began a new era
in Ann's life. There was no more secret animosity between her and
Mrs. Dorcas. The doctor had come that night in the very nick of time.
Thirsey was almost dying. Her mother was fully convinced that Ann had
saved her life, and she never forgot it. She was a woman of strong
feelings, who never did things by halves, and she not only treated Ann
with kindness, but she seemed to smother her grudge against Grandma
for robbing her of the southwest fire-room.

THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER

The Inventory of the Estate of Samuel Wales Late of Braintree, Taken
by the Subscribers, March the 14th, 1761.

His Purse in Cash                                   £11-15-01
His apparrel                                         10-11-00
His watch                                            2-13-04
The Best Bed with two Coverlids, three sheets,
  two underbeds, two Bolsters, two pillows,
  Bedstead rope                                     £6
One mill Blanket, two Phlanel sheets, 12 toe Sheets £3-4-8
Eleven Towels & table Cloth                          0-15-0
a pair of mittens & pr. of Gloves                    0-2-0
a neck Handkerchief & neckband                       0-4-0
an ovel Tabel--Two other Tabels                      1-12-0
A Chist with Draws                                   2-8-0
Another Low Chist with Draws & three other Chists    1-10-0
Six best Chears and a great chear                    1-6-0
a warming pan--Two Brass Kittles                     1-5-0
a Small Looking Glass, five Pewter Basons            0-7-8
fifteen other Chears                                 0-15-0
fire arms, Sword & bayonet                           1-4-0
Six Porringers, four platters, Two Pewter Pots      £1-0-4
auger Chisel, Gimlet, a Bible & other Books          0-15-4
A chese press, great spinning-wheel, & spindle       0-9-0
a smith's anvil                                     £3-12-0
the Pillion                                          0-8-0
a Bleu Jacket                                        0-0-3

  AARON WHITCOMB.
  SILAS WHITE.

The foregoing is only a small portion of the original inventory of
Samuel Wales's estate. He was an exceedingly well-to-do man for these
times. He had a good many acres of rich pasture and woodland, and
considerable live stock. Then his home was larger and more comfortable
than was usual then; and his stock of household utensils plentiful.

He died three years after Ann Ginnins went to live with Grandma, when
she was about thirteen years old. Grandma spared her to Mrs. Polly for
a few weeks after the funeral; there was a great deal to be done, and
she needed some extra help. And, after all, Ann was legally bound to
her, and her lawful servant.

So the day after good Samuel Wales was laid away in the little
Braintree burying-ground, Ann returned to her old quarters for a
little while. She did not really want to go; but she did not object
to the plan at all. She was sincerely sorry for poor Mrs. Polly,
and wanted to help her, if she could. She mourned, herself, for Mr.
Samuel. He had always been very kind to her.

Mrs. Polly had for company, besides Ann, Nabby Porter, Grandma's old
hired woman whom she had made over to her, and a young man who had
been serving as apprentice to Mr. Samuel. His name was Phineas Adams.
He was very shy and silent, but a good workman.

Samuel Wales left a will bequeathing everything to his widow; that was
solemnly read in the fore-room one afternoon; then the inventory had
to be taken. That, on account of the amount of property, was quite an
undertaking; but it was carried out with the greatest formality and
precision.

For several days, Mr. Aaron Whitcomb and Mr. Silas White were stalking
majestically about the premises, with note-books and pens. Aaron
Whitcomb was a grave, portly old man, with a large head of white hair.
Silas White was little and wiry and fussy. He monopolized the greater
part of the business, although he was not half as well fitted for it
as his companion.

They pried into everything with religious exactitude. Mrs. Polly
watched them with beseeming awe and deference, but it was a great
trial to her, and she grew very nervous over it. It seemed dreadful to
have all her husband's little personal effects, down to his neckband
and mittens, handled over, and their worth in shillings and pence
calculated. She had a price fixed on them already in higher currency.

Ann found her crying one afternoon sitting on the kitchen settle, with
her apron over her head. When she saw the little girl's pitying look,
she poured out her trouble to her.

"They've just been valuing his mittens and gloves," said she, sobbing,
"at two-and-sixpence. I shall be thankful when they are through."

"Are there any more of his things?" asked Ann, her black eyes
flashing, with the tears in them.

"I think they've seen about all. There's his blue jacket he used to
milk in, a-hanging behind the shed door--I guess they haven't valued
that yet."

"I think it's a shame!" quoth Ann. "I don't believe there's any need
of so much law."

"Hush, child! You mustn't set yourself up against the judgment of your
elders. Such things have to be done."

Ann said no more, but the indignant sparkle did not fade out of her
eyes at all. She watched her opportunity, and took down Mr. Wales's
old blue jacket from its peg behind the shed door, ran with it
upstairs, and hid it in her own room behind the bed. "There," said
she, "Mrs. Wales sha'n't cry over that!"

That night, at tea time, the work of taking the inventory was
complete. Mr. Whitcomb and Mr. White walked away with their long
lists, satisfied that they had done their duty according to the law.
Every article of Samuel Wales's property, from a warming-pan to a
chest of drawers, was set down, with the sole exception of that old
blue jacket, which Ann had hidden.

She felt complacent over it at first; then she began to be uneasy.

"Nabby," said she confidentially to the old servant woman, when they
were washing the pewter plates together after supper, "what would they
do if anybody shouldn't let them set down all the things--if they hid
some of 'em away, I mean?"

"They'd make a dretful time on't," said Nabby impressively. She was
a large, stern-looking old woman. "They air dretful perticklar 'bout
these things. They hev to be."

Ann was scared when she heard that. When the dishes were done, she sat
down on the settle and thought it over, and made up her mind what to
do.

The next morning, in the frosty dawning, before the rest of the family
were up, a slim, erect little figure could have been seen speeding
across lots toward Mr. Silas White's. She had the old blue jacket
tucked under her arm. When she reached the house, she spied Mr. White
just coming out of the back door with a milking pail. He carried a
lantern, too, for it was hardly light.

He stopped and stared when Ann ran up to him.

"Mr. White," said she, all breathless, "here's--something--I guess yer
didn't see yesterday."

Mr. White set down the milk pail, took the blue jacket which she
handed him, and scrutinized it sharply by the light of the lantern.

"I guess we didn't see it," said he finally. "I will put it down--it's
worth about three pence, I judge. Where"--

"Silas, Silas!" called a shrill voice from the house. Silas White
dropped the jacket and trotted briskly in, his lantern bobbing
agitatedly. He never delayed a moment when his wife called; important
and tyrannical as the little man was abroad, he had his own tyrant at
home.

Ann did not wait for him to return; she snatched up the blue jacket
and fled home, leaping like a little deer over the hoary fields. She
hung up the precious old jacket behind the shed door again, and no one
ever knew the whole story of its entrance in the inventory. If she had
been questioned, she would have told the truth boldly, though. But
Samuel Wales's Inventory had for its last item that blue jacket,
spelled after Silas White's own individual method, as was many another
word in the long list. Silas White consulted his own taste with
respect to capital letters too.

After a few weeks, Grandma said she must have Ann again; and back she
went. Grandma was very feeble lately, and everybody humored her. Mrs.
Polly was sorry to have the little girl leave her. She said it was
wonderful how much she had improved. But she would not have admitted
that the improvement was owing to the different influence she had been
under; she said Ann had outgrown her mischievous ways.

Grandma did not live very long after this, however. Mrs. Polly had
her bound girl at her own disposal in a year's time. Poor Ann was
sorrowful enough for a long while after Grandma's death. She wore the
beloved gold beads round her neck, and a sad ache in her heart. The
dear old woman had taken the beads off her neck with her own hands
and given them to Ann before she died, that there might be no mistake
about it.

Mrs. Polly said she was glad Ann had them. "You might jist as well
have 'em as Dorcas's girl," said she; "she set enough sight more by
you."

Ann could not help growing cheerful again, after a while. Affairs in
Mrs. Polly's house were much brighter for her, in some ways, than they
had ever been before.

Either the hot iron of affliction had smoothed some of the puckers out
of her mistress's disposition, or she was growing, naturally, less
sharp and dictatorial. Any way, she was becoming as gentle and loving
with Ann as it was in her nature to be, and Ann, following her
impulsive temper, returned all the affection with vigor, and never
bestowed a thought on past unpleasantness.

For the next two years, Ann's position in the family grew to be more
and more that of a daughter. If it had not been for the indentures,
lying serenely in that tall wooden desk, she would almost have
forgotten, herself, that she was a bound girl.

One spring afternoon, when Ann was about sixteen years old, her
mistress called her solemnly into the fore-room. "Ann," said she,
"come here, I want to speak to you."

Nabby stared wonderingly; and Ann, as she obeyed, felt awed. There was
something unusual in her mistress's tone.

Standing there in the fore-room, in the august company of the best
bed, with its high posts and flowered-chintz curtains, the best chest
of drawers, and the best chairs, Ann listened to what Mrs. Polly had
to tell her. It was a plan which almost took her breath away; for it
was this: Mrs. Polly proposed to adopt her, and change her name to
Wales. She would be no longer Ann Ginnins, and a bound girl: but Ann
Wales, and a daughter in her mother's home.

Ann dropped into one of the best chairs, and sat there, her little
dark face very pale. "Should I have the--papers?" she gasped at
length.

"Your papers? Yes, child, you can have them."

"I don't want them," cried Ann, "never! I want them to stay just where
they are, till my time is out. If I am adopted, I don't want the
papers!"

Mrs. Polly stared. She had never known how Ann had taken the
indentures with her on her run-away trip years ago; but now Ann
told her the whole story. In her gratitude to her mistress, and her
contrition, she had to.

It was so long ago in Ann's childhood, it did not seem so very
dreadful to Mrs. Polly, probably. But Ann insisted on the indentures
remaining in the desk, even after the papers of adoption were made
out, and she had become "Ann Wales." It seemed to go a little way
toward satisfying her conscience. This adoption meant a good deal to
Ann; for besides a legal home, and a mother, it secured to her a
right in a comfortable property in the future. Mrs. Polly Wales was
considered very well off. She was a smart business-woman, and knew how
to take care of her property too. She still hired Phineas Adams to
carry on the blacksmith's business, and kept her farm-work running
just as her husband had. Neither she nor Ann were afraid of work, and
Ann Wales used to milk the cows, and escort them to and from pasture,
as faithfully as Ann Ginnins.

It was along in springtime when Ann was adopted, and Mrs. Polly
fulfilled her part of the contract in the indentures by getting the
Sunday suit therein spoken of.

They often rode on horseback to meeting, but they usually walked on
the fine Sundays in spring. Ann had probably never been so happy in
her life as she was walking by Mrs. Polly's side to meeting that first
Sunday after her adoption. Most of the way was through the woods;
the tender light green boughs met over their heads; the violets and
anemones were springing beside their path. There were green buds and
white blossoms all around; the sky showed blue between the waving
branches, and the birds were singing.

Ann in her pretty petticoat of rose-colored stuff, stepping daintily
over the young grass and the flowers, looked and felt like a part of
it all. Her dark cheeks had a beautiful red glow on them; her black
eyes shone. She was as straight and graceful and stately as an Indian.

"She's as handsome as a picture," thought Mrs. Polly in her secret
heart. A good many people said that Ann resembled Mrs. Polly in her
youth, and that may have added force to her admiration.

Her new gown was very fine for those days; but fine as she was, and
adopted daughter though she was, Ann did not omit her thrifty ways for
once. This identical morning Mrs. Polly and she carried their best
shoes under their arms, and wore their old ones, till within a short
distance from the meeting-house. Then the old shoes were tucked away
under a stone wall for safety, and the best ones put on. Stone walls,
very likely, sheltered a good many well-worn little shoes, of a
Puritan Sabbath, that their prudent owners might appear in the House
of God trimly shod. Ah! these beautiful, new, peaked-toed, high-heeled
shoes of Ann's--what would she have said to walking in them all the
way to meeting!

If that Sunday was an eventful one to Ann Wales, so was the week
following. The next Tuesday, right after dinner, she was up in a
little unfinished chamber over the kitchen, where they did such work
when the weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she heard
voices down below. They had a strange inflection, which gave her
warning at once. She dropped her work and listened. "What is the
matter?" thought she.

Then there was a heavy tramp on the stairs, and Captain Abraham French
stood in the door, his stern weather-beaten face white and set. Mrs.
Polly followed him, looking very pale and excited.

"When did you see anything of our Hannah?" asked Captain French,
controlling as best he could the tremor in his resolute voice.

Ann rose, gathering up her big blue apron, cards, wool and all. "Oh,"
she cried, "not since last Sabbath, at meeting! What is it?"

"She's lost," answered Captain French. "She started to go up to her
Aunt Sarah's Monday forenoon; and Enos has just been down, and they
haven't seen anything of her." Poor Captain French gave a deep groan.

Then they all went down into the kitchen together, talking and
lamenting. And then, Captain French was galloping away on his gray
horse to call assistance, and Ann was flying away over the fields,
blue apron, cards, wool and all.

"O, Ann!" Mrs. Polly cried after, "where are you going?"

"I'm going--to find--Hannah!" Ann shouted back, in a shrill, desperate
voice, and kept on.

She had no definite notion as to where she was going; she had only one
thought--Hannah French, her darling, tender, little Hannah French, her
friend whom she loved better than a sister, was lost.

A good three miles from the Wales home was a large tract of rough
land, half-swamp, known as "Bear Swamp." There was an opinion, more or
less correct, that bears might be found there. Some had been shot in
that vicinity. Why Ann turned her footsteps in that direction,
she could not have told herself. Possibly the vague impression of
conversations she and Hannah had had, lingering in her mind, had
something to do with it. Many a time the two little girls had remarked
to each other with a shudder, "How awful it would be to get lost in
Bear Swamp."

Any way, Ann went straight there, through pasture and woodland, over
ditches and stone walls. She knew every step of the way for a long
distance. When she gradually got into the unfamiliar wilderness of the
swamp, a thought struck her--suppose she got lost too! It would
be easy enough--the unbroken forest stretched for miles in some
directions. She would not find a living thing but Indians, and, maybe,
wild beasts, the whole distance.

If she should get lost she would not find Hannah, and the people would
have to hunt for her too. But Ann had quick wits for an emergency. She
had actually carried those cards, with a big wad of wool between them
all the time, in her gathered-up apron. Now she began picking off
little bits of wool and marking her way with them, sticking them on
the trees and bushes. Every few feet a fluffy scrap of wool showed the
road Ann had gone.

But poor Ann went on, farther and farther--and no sign of Hannah. She
kept calling her from time to time, hallooing at the top of her shrill
sweet voice: "Hannah! Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"

But never a response got the dauntless little girl, slipping almost up
to her knees sometimes, in black swamp-mud; and sometimes stumbling
painfully over tree-stumps, and through tangled undergrowth.

"I'll go till my wool gives out," said Ann Wales; then she used it
more sparingly.

But it was almost gone before she thought she heard in the distance a
faint little cry in response to her call: "Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"
She called again and listened. Yes; she certainly did hear a little
cry off toward the west. Calling from time to time, she went as nearly
as she could in that direction. The pitiful answering cry grew louder
and nearer; finally Ann could distinguish Hannah's voice.

Wild with joy, she came, at last, upon her sitting on a fallen
hemlock-tree, her pretty face pale, and her sweet blue eyes strained
with terror.

"O, Hannah!" "O, Ann!"

"How did you ever get here, Hannah?"

"I--started for aunt Sarah's--that morning," explained Hannah, between
sobs. "And--I got frightened in the woods, about a mile from father's.
I saw something ahead I thought was a bear. A great black thing! Then
I ran--and, somehow, the first thing I knew, I was lost. I walked and
walked, and it seems to me I kept coming right back to the same place.
Finally I sat down here, and staid; I thought it was all the way for
me to be found."

"O, Hannah! what did you do last night?"

"I staid somewhere, under some pine-trees," replied Hannah, with a
shudder; "and I kept hearing things--O, Ann!"

Ann hugged her sympathizingly. "I guess I wouldn't have slept much if
I had known," said she. "O, Hannah, you haven't had anything to eat!
ain't you starved?"

Hannah laughed faintly. "I ate up two whole pumpkin pies I was
carrying to aunt Sarah," said she. "Oh! how lucky it was you had
them." "Yes; mother called me back to get them, after I started. They
were some new ones, made with cream, and she thought aunt Sarah would
like them."

Pretty soon they started. It was hard work, for the way was very
rough, and poor Hannah weak. But Ann had a good deal of strength in
her lithe young frame, and she half-carried Hannah over the worst
places. Still both of the girls were pretty well spent when they came
to the last of the bits of wool on the border of Bear Swamp. However,
they kept on a little farther; then they had to stop and rest. "I know
where I am now," said Hannah, with a sigh of delight; "but I don't
think I can walk another step." She was, in fact, almost exhausted.

Ann looked at her thoughtfully. She hardly knew what to do. She could
not carry Hannah herself--indeed, her own strength began to fail; and
she did not want to leave her to go for assistance.

All of a sudden, she jumped up. "You stay just where you are a few
minutes, Hannah," said she. "I'm going somewhere. I'll be back soon."
Ann was laughing.

Hannah looked up at her pitifully: "O Ann, don't go!"

"I'm coming right back, and it is the only way. You must get home.
Only think how your father and mother are worrying!"

Hannah said no more after that mention of her parents, and Ann
started.

[Illustration: "A CONVEYANCE IS FOUND."]

She was not gone long. When she came in sight she was laughing, and
Hannah, weak as she was, laughed, too. Ann had torn her blue apron
into strips, and tied it together for a rope, and by it she was
leading a red cow.

Hannah knew the cow, and knew at once what the plan was. "O, Ann! you
mean for me to ride Betty?"

"Of course I do. I just happened to think our cows were in the
pasture, down below here. And we've ridden Betty, lots of times, when
we were children, and she's just as gentle now. Whoa, Betty, good
cow."

It was very hard work to get Hannah on to the broad back of her novel
steed, but it was finally accomplished. Betty had been a perfect pet
from a calf, and was exceedingly gentle. She started off soberly
across the fields, with Hannah sitting on her back, and Ann leading
her by her blue rope.

It was a funny cavalcade for Captain Abraham French and a score of
anxious men to meet, when they were nearly in sight of home; but they
were too overjoyed to see much fun in it.

Hannah rode the rest of the way with her father, on his gray horse;
and Ann walked joyfully by her side, leading the cow.

Captain French and his friends had, in fact, just started to search
Bear Swamp, well armed with lanterns, for night was coming on.

It was dark when they got home. Mrs. French was not much more
delighted to see her beloved daughter Hannah safe again, than Mrs.
Polly was to see Ann.

She listened admiringly to the story Ann told.

"Nobody but you would have thought of the wool or of the cow," said
she.

"I do declare," cried Ann, at the mention of the wool, "I have lost
the cards!"

"Never mind the cards!" said Mrs. Polly.