Not Quite Eighteen

"If we could find Great-uncle Roger's mine, we'd eat the chickens ourselves," said Roger, as he reluctantly turned to go.

"Yes, and if that apple-tree'd take to bearing gold apples, we wouldn't have to work at all. Hurry and do your chores before dark, Roger."

Mrs. Gale was a Spartan in her methods, but, for all that, she sighed a bitter sigh as Roger went out of the door.

"He's such a smart boy," she told herself, "there's nothing he couldn't do, – nothing, if he had a chance. I do call it hard. The folks who have plenty of money to do with have dull boys; and I, who've got a bright one, can't do anything for him! It seems as if things weren't justly arranged."

Hester spent all her spare time during the next week in searching for the lost Bunny. It rained hard one day, and all the following night; she could not sleep for fear that Bunny was getting wet, and looked so pale in the morning that her mother forbade her going to the hill.

"Your feet were sopping when you came in yesterday," she said; "and that's the second apron you've torn. You'll just have to let Bunny go, Hester; no two ways about it."

Then Hester moped and grieved and grew thin, and at last she fell ill. It was low fever, the doctor said. Several days went by, and she was no better. One noon, Roger came in from haying to find his mother with her eyes looking very much troubled. "Hester is light-headed," she said; "we must have the doctor again."

Roger went in to look at the child, who was lying in a little bedroom off the kitchen. The small, flushed face on the pillow did not light up at his approach. On the contrary, Hester's eyes, which were unnaturally big and bright, looked past and beyond him.

"Hessie, dear, don't you know Roger?"

"He said he'd find Bunny for me some day," muttered the little voice; "but he never did. Oh, I wish he would! – I wish he would! I do want her so much!" Then she rambled on about foxes, and the old spruce-tree, and the rocks, – always with the refrain, "I wish I had Bunny; I want her so much!"

"Mother, I do believe it's that wretched old doll she's fretted herself sick over," said Roger, going back into the kitchen. "Now, I'll tell you what! Mr. Hinsdale's going up to the town this noon, and he'll leave word for the doctor to come; and the minute I've swallowed my dinner, I'm going up to the hill to find Bunny. I don't believe Hessie'll get any better till she's found."

"Very well," said Mrs. Gale. "I suppose the hay'll be spoiled, but we've got to get Hessie cured at any price."

"Oh, I'll find the doll. I know about where Hessie was when she lost it. And the hay'll take no harm. I only got a quarter of the field cut, and it's good drying weather."

Roger made haste with his dinner. His conscience pricked him as he remembered his neglected promise and his indifference to Hester's griefs; he felt in haste to make amends. He went straight to the old spruce, which, he had gathered from Hester's rambling speech, was the scene of Bunny's disappearance. It was easily found, being the oldest and largest on the hillside.

Roger had brought a stout stick with him, and now, leaning over the cliff edge, he tried to poke with it in the branches below, while searching for the dolly. But the stick was not long enough, and slipped through his fingers, disappearing suddenly and completely through the evergreens.

"Hallo!" cried Roger. "There must be a hole there of some sort. Bunny's at the bottom of it, no doubt. Here goes to find her!"

His longer legs made easy work of the steep descent which had so puzzled his little sister. Presently he stood, waist-deep, in tangled hemlock boughs, below the old spruce. He parted the bushes in advance, and moved cautiously forward, step by step. He felt a cavity just before him, but the thicket was so dense that he could see nothing.

Feeling for his pocket-knife, which luckily was a stout one, he stood still, cutting, slashing, and breaking off the tough boughs, and throwing them on one side. It was hard work, but after ten minutes a space was cleared which let in a ray of light, and, with a hot, red face and surprised eyes, Roger Gale stooped over the edge of a rocky cavity, on the sides of which something glittered and shone. He swung himself over the edge, and dropped into the hole, which was but a few feet deep. His foot struck on something hard as he landed. He stooped to pick it up, and his hand encountered a soft substance. He lifted both objects out together.

The soft substance was a doll's woollen frock. There, indeed, was the lost Bunny, looking no whit the worse for her adventures, and the hard thing on which her wooden head had lain was a pickaxe, – an old iron pick, red with rust. Three letters were rudely cut on the handle, – R. P. G. They were Roger's own initials. Roger Perkins Gale. It had been his father's name also, and that of the great-uncle after whom they both were named.

With an excited cry, Roger stooped again, and lifted out of the hole a lump of quartz mingled with ore. Suddenly he realized where he was and what he had found. This was the long lost silver-mine, whose finding and whose disappearance had for so many years been a tradition in the township. Here it was that old Roger Gale had found his "speciment," knocked off probably with that very pick, and, covering up all traces of his discovery, had gone sturdily off to his farm-work, to meet his death next week on the hay-rigging, with the secret locked within his breast. For sixty years the evergreen thicket had grown and toughened and guarded the hidden cavity beneath its roots; and it might easily have done so for sixty years longer, if Bunny, – little wooden Bunny, with her lack-lustre eyes and expressionless features, – had not led the way into its tangles.

Hester got well. When Roger placed the doll in her arms, she seemed to come to herself, fondled and kissed her, and presently dropped into a satisfied sleep, from which she awoke conscious and relieved. The "mine" did not prove exactly a mine, – it was not deep or wide enough for that; but the ore in it was rich in quality, and the news of its finding made a great stir in the neighborhood. Mrs. Gale was offered a price for her hillside which made her what she considered a rich woman, and she was wise enough to close with the offer at once, and neither stand out for higher terms nor risk the chance of mining on her own account. She and her family left the quiet little farmhouse soon after that, and went to live in Worcester. Roger had all the schooling he desired, and made ready for Harvard and the law-school, where he worked hard, and laid the foundations of what has since proved a brilliant career. You may be sure that Bunny went to Worcester also, treated and regarded as one of the most valued members of the family. Hester took great care of her, and so did Hester's little girl later on; and even Mrs. Gale spoke respectfully of her always, and treated her with honor. For was it not Bunny who broke the long spell of evil fate, and brought good luck back to the Gale family?

A BIT OF WILFULNESS

THERE was a great excitement in the Keene's pleasant home at Wrentham, one morning, about three years ago. The servants were hard at work, making everything neat and orderly. The children buzzed about like active flies, for in the evening some one was coming whom none of them had as yet seen, – a new mamma, whom their father had just married.

The three older children remembered their own mamma pretty well; to the babies, she was only a name. Janet, the eldest, recollected her best of all, and the idea of somebody coming to take her place did not please her at all. This was not from a sense of jealousy for the mother who was gone, but rather from a jealousy for herself; for since Mrs. Keene's death, three years before, Janet had done pretty much as she liked, and the idea of control and interference aroused within her, in advance, the spirit of resistance.

Janet's father was a busy lawyer, and had little time to give to the study of his children's characters. He liked to come home at night, after a hard day at his office, or in the courts, and find a nicely arranged table and room, and a bright fire in the grate, beside which he could read his newspaper without interruption, just stopping now and then to say a word to the children, or have a frolic with the younger ones before they went to bed. Old Maria, who had been nurse to all the five in turn, managed the housekeeping; and so long as there was no outward disturbance, Mr. Keene asked no questions.

He had no idea that Janet, in fact, ruled the family. She was only twelve, but she had the spirit of a dictator, and none of the little ones dared to dispute her will or to complain. In fact, there was not often cause for complaint. When Janet was not opposed, she was both kind and amusing. She had much sense and capacity for a child of her years, and her brothers and sisters were not old enough to detect the mistakes which she sometimes made.

And now a stepmother was coming to spoil all this, as Janet thought. Her meditations, as she dusted the china and arranged the flowers, ran something after this fashion:

"She's only twenty-one, Papa said, and that's only nine years older than I am, and nine years isn't much. I'm not going to call her 'Mamma,' anyway. I shall call her 'Jerusha,' from the very first; for Maria said that Jessie was only a nickname, and I hate nicknames. I know she'll want me to begin school next fall, but I don't mean to, for she don't know anything about the schools here, and I can judge better than she can. There, that looks nice!" putting a tall spike of lilies in a pale green vase. "Now I'll dress baby and little Jim, and we shall all be ready when they come."

It was exactly six, that loveliest hour of a lovely June day, when the carriage stopped at the gate. Mr. Keene helped his wife out, and looked eagerly toward the piazza, on which the five children were grouped.

"Well, my dears," he cried, "how do you do? Why don't you come and kiss your new mamma?"

They all came obediently, pretty little Jim and baby Alice, hand in hand, then Harry and Mabel, and, last of all, Janet. The little ones shyly allowed themselves to be kissed, saying nothing, but Janet, true to her resolution, returned her stepmother's salute in a matter-of-fact way, kissed her father, and remarked:

"Do come in, Papa; Jerusha must be tired!"

Mr. Keene gave an amazed look at his wife. The corners of her mouth twitched, and Janet thought wrathfully, "I do believe she is laughing at me!" But Mrs. Keene stifled the laugh, and, taking little Alice's hand, led the way into the house.

"Oh, how nice, how pretty!" were her first words. "Look at the flowers, James! Did you arrange them, Janet? I suspect you did."

"Yes," said Janet; "I did them all."

"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Keene, and stooped to kiss her again. It was an affectionate kiss, and Janet had to confess to herself that this new – person was pleasant looking. She had pretty brown hair and eyes, a warm glow of color in a pair of round cheeks, and an expression at once sweet and sensible and decided. It was a face full of attraction; the younger children felt it, and began to sidle up and cuddle against the new mamma. Janet felt the attraction, too, but she resisted it.

"Don't squeeze Jerusha in that way," she said to Mabel; "you are creasing her jacket. Jim, come here, you are in the way."

"Janet," said Mr. Keene, in a voice of displeasure, "what do you mean by calling your mother 'Jerusha'?"

"She isn't my real mother," explained Janet, defiantly. "I don't want to call her 'Mamma;' she's too young."

Mrs. Keene laughed, – she couldn't help it.

"We will settle by and by what you shall call me," she said. "But, Janet, it can't be Jerusha, for that is not my name. I was baptized Jessie."

"I shall call you Mrs. Keene, then," said Janet, mortified, but persistent. Her stepmother looked pained, but she said no more.

None of the other children made any difficulty about saying "Mamma" to this sweet new friend. Jessie Keene was the very woman to "mother" a family of children. Bright and tender and firm all at once, she was playmate to them as well as authority, and in a very little while they all learned to love her dearly, – all but Janet; and even she, at times, found it hard to resist this influence, which was at the same time so strong and so kind.

Still, she did resist, and the result was constant discomfort to both parties. To the younger children the new mamma brought added happiness, because they yielded to her wise and reasonable authority. To Janet she brought only friction and resentment, because she would not yield.

So two months passed. Late in August, Mr. and Mrs Keene started on a short journey which was to keep them away from home for two days. Just as the carriage was driving away, Mrs. Keene suddenly said, —

"Oh, Janet! I forgot to say that I would rather you didn't go see Ellen Colton while we are away, or let any of the other children. Please tell nurse about it."

"Why mustn't I?" demanded Janet.

"Because – " began her mother, but Mr. Keene broke in.

"Never mind 'becauses,' Jessie; we must be off. It's enough for you, Janet, that your mother orders it. And see that you do as she says."

"It's a shame!" muttered Janet, as she slowly went back to the house. "I always have gone to see Ellen whenever I liked. No one ever stopped me before. I don't think it's a bit fair; and I wish Papa wouldn't speak to me like that before – her."