A Bookful of Girls

“Out of the ‘Big Bonus Placer Gold Mine!’ We scoop it right out to-day.”

“I wish you’d go ahead!” said Dan, for the guest had paused, and was examining the Cicero.

“Well, hydraulic mining improves, like every thing else, and three years ago a new company was formed. Luckily the old company had not gone into debt; perhaps they could not borrow money on their elephant. However that may be, they agreed to put half their stock back into the treasury, and it was sold at fifty cents a share, which gave us money to work with.”

“And it was a howling success!” cried Dan. “I remember; I’ve heard all about it.”

“Yes, we’ve paid out two dollars a share in dividends in the last six months, and the stock is held at fifteen or sixteen dollars a share to-day. The beauty of it is,” Mr. Horace Clapp added, glancing quietly from Dan to Polly, “I am convinced that you are both stockholders.”

“We?” they cried in a breath.

“Yes! For Jones tells me that your father was a doctor; that his name was Daniel Reddiman Fitch, and that he once lived in Bington, Ohio.”

“Yes,” said Polly; “that was when he was first married; before old Doctor Royce died, and left an opening in Fieldham, so that Father came back home again.”

“The name of such a stockholder stands on our books, but we haven’t heretofore been able to trace him.”

“That’s why old Jones pumped me so,” Dan remarked, giving his mind first to the more familiar aspects of the case.

“What a pity he never knew!” said Polly, with glistening eyes. “He was always so poor.”

“Your father’s original holdings were five thousand shares, so that you are the possessors of twenty-five hundred shares. If you sell it pretty soon, as I think you may as well do, you will have something over forty thousand dollars to invest; for there is, in addition to the stock, five thousand dollars in back dividends due you.”

Dan and Polly looked at each other almost aghast; but that was only for a moment.

“Why, Dan, you can have a saddle-horse of your own!” cried Polly.

“And so can you!”

“And we can – O Mr. Clapp, how rude we are!”

Mr. Clapp looked as if it were a kind of rudeness that he was enjoying very much. As he rose to go, he said:

“Don’t you think I’m a pretty good sort of a Santa Claus after all, Miss Polly?”

Polly seized his outstretched hand.

“I didn’t believe any one person could be so rich, and so good, too!” she declared.

“And, O Dan!” cried Polly, the minute they were alone together, “let’s send a New-Year’s box home. There’ll be just time enough. We can get one of those great carriage rugs for Uncle Seth, and a China silk for Aunt Lucia.”

“And I’ll send Cousin John’s boys some Indian bows and arrows.”

“And Cousin Martha a dozen Chinese cups and saucers.”

“And the old Professor a meerschaum pipe.”

“And Miss Louisa Bailey, and dear Mrs. Dodge, and the Widow Criswell, – what shall we send the Widow Criswell, Dan?”

“Some black-bordered pocket-handkerchiefs!” cried the irreverent Dan.

Before going to bed they stepped out on the porch to bid the Peak good-night.

“Going to be a fine day to-morrow, Polly.”

“All the days are fine in Colorado,” said Polly.

“You forget the blizzard last month.”

“Oh, but it was such a dear blizzard not to do you any harm when it caught you out!”

Dan grew thoughtful.

“Do you ever think, Polly, that we should never have come out here if it hadn’t been for you?”

“You know it was ‘Pike’s Peak or bust!’ with both of us, Dan.”

Dan looked critically from the great Peak, gleaming there in the starlight, to Polly’s uplifted face, and then, as they turned to go in, he exclaimed, for the hundred-and-first time:

“Polly, you beat the world!”

Nannie’s Theatre Party

CHAPTER I

NANNIE’S THEATRE PARTY

“Yes, my dear, I went to the theetter myself once when I was quite a girl, younger ’n you be, I guess. ’Twas Uncle ’Bijah Lane that took me, ’n’ he was so upsot by their hevin’ a fun’ral all acted out on the stage, that he come home and told Ma ’twa’n’t no fit place for young girls to go to, ’n’ I ain’t never ben inside a theetter sence. Doos seem good to see play-actin’ agin after all these years, I declare it doos!” – and Miss Becky took up her sewing, which she had laid down in a moment of enthusiasm.

“If you liked it half as well as I like to do it, Miss Becky, you’d like it even better than you do now,” replied Lady Macbeth, with a cheerful gusto, somewhat at odds with her tragic character.

Nannie Ray, herself still very new to the delights of theatre-going, had recently seen a great actress play Lady Macbeth, and, fired with the spirit of emulation, she had been enacting the sleep-walking scene for the benefit of her country neighbour. Miss Becky Crawlin lived only half a mile down the road from the old Ray homestead, where the family were in the habit of spending six months of the year. She and Nannie had always been great cronies, Miss Becky finding a perennial delight in “that child’s goin’s on.”

The “child” meanwhile had come to be sixteen years old, but no one would have given her credit for such dignity who had seen the incongruous little figure perched upon the slippery haircloth sofa, twinkling with delight at Miss Becky’s encomiums. She wore a voluminous nightgown, from under the hem of which a pink gingham ruffle insisted upon poking itself out; her long black hair hung over her shoulders in sufficiently tragic strands; her cheeks, liberally powdered with flour, gleamed treacherously pink through a chance break in their highly artificial pallor, while portentous brows of burnt cork did their best to make terrible a pair of very girlish and innocent eyes. A touch of realism which the original Lady Macbeth lacked was given by a streak of red crayon which lent a murderous significance to the small brown hand.

“I declare!” her admiring auditor went on, stitching away to make up for lost time, “I can’t see but you do’s well’s the lady I saw – only she was dressed prettier, and went round with a wreath on her head. A wreath’s always so becomin’! We used to wear ’em May Day, when I was a girl. They was made o’ paper flowers, all colours, so’s you could suit your complexion, and when it didn’t rain I must say we looked reel nice. ’Twas surprisin’, though, how quick a few drops o’ rain would wilt one o’ them paper wreaths right down so’s you could scurcely tell what ’twas meant for.”

“Tell me some more about the girl with the wreath, Miss Becky,” said Lady Macbeth, longing to curl herself up in a corner, but too mindful of her tragic dignity to unbend.

“Well, she looked reel pretty, but she didn’t hev sperit enough to suit my idees. She was kind o’ lackadaisical and namby-pamby, ’n’ when her young man sarsed her she didn’t seem to hev nothin’ to say for herself. I must say ’twas a heathenish kind of a play anyway, ’n’ I ain’t surprised that Uncle ’Bijah got sot agin it. The language wa’n’t sech as I’d ben brought up to, either.”

Lady Macbeth had leaned forward and was clasping her knees, thus unconsciously widening the expanse of pink gingham visible beneath the white robe. She was glad she had modified her Shakespeare to suit her listener, though “Out, dreadful spot!” was not nearly as bloodcurdling as the original.

Miss Becky, meanwhile, had not paused in her narration.

“There was a long-winded young man,” she was saying, “him that sarsed his girl, ’n’ he went slashin’ round, killin’ folks off in a kind of an aimless way, an’–”

“It must have been Hamlet that you saw!” cried Nannie, much excited. “Oh, I do so want to see Hamlet!”