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| : THE LITTLE COLONEL









HE — sBAIRNIE: SERIES

OF

Dainty Books for Children.
Crown 8vo, Cloth, Gilt, 1/6.

1. THE LITTLE COLONEL. By Annie Fellows-
Johnston. Illustrated by Etheldred B. Barry.

2. WEE DOROTHY’S TRUE VALENTINE. By
Laura Updegraff. Illustrated by Florence M.
Cooper, etc.

3. LITTLE KING DAVIE; or, ‘Kings and Priests
unto God.” By Nellie Hellis. 96th Thousand.

LONDON:
JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.









The Little Colonel.



THE LITTLE COLONEL

A rue Story

BY

ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON

“

AUTHOR OF ‘'' BIG BROTHER"

ILLUSTRATED BY ETHELDRED B. BARRY AND
FLORENCE M. COOPER.



LONDON
JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, WARWICK LANE, E.C.
[All Rights Reserved]

1897



TO ONE OF
KENTUCKY’S DEAREST LITTLE DAUGHTERS
“THE LITTLE COLONEL”? HERSELF—
THIS REMEMBRANCE OF A HAPPY SUMMER
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED



ILLUSTRATIONS.



‘Tur LITTLE COLONEL” . : . Frontispiece.

‘‘TyE Doc sAT MOTIONLESS ABOUT Two MINUTES’

“*?CausE I’M SO MUCH LIKE YOU,’ WAS THE START-
LING ANSWER”. . s . fs : °

“THE SAME TEMPER SEEMED TO BE BURNING IN THE
EYES OF THE CHILD”. 6 ‘ ‘ - 5

“WITH THE PARROT PERCHED ON THE BROOM SHE
WAS CARRYING” . . . b 5 6 .

“THE LITTLE COLONEL CLATTERED UP AND DOWN THE
HALL” Q , ‘ 6 . S 3

“SINGING AT THE TOP OF HER VOICE” : ; 3

“¢TELL ME Goop-By, BABy DEaR,’ SAID Mrs. SHER-
MAN” , . . ‘ . . .

«6 AMANTHIS,’ REPEATED THE CHILD DREAMILY ” °
«SHE CLIMBED UP IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR”, .

“THE SwEET LITTLE VOICE SANG IT TO THE END” .

PAGE

24
37

42

49

61

68

81



THE LITTLE COLONEL.

CHAPTER I.

Ir was one of the prettiest places in all Ken-
tucky where the Little Colonel stood that
morning. She was reaching up on tiptoes, her
eager little face pressed close against the iron
bars of the great entrance gate that led to a
fine old estate known as “ Locust.”

A ragged little Scotch and Skye terrier stood
on its hind feet beside her, thrusting his inquisi-
tive nose between the bars, and wagging his
tasselled tail in lively approval of the scene be-
fore them.

They were looking down a long avenue that
stretched for nearly a quarter of a mile between
rows of stately old locust trees.

At the far end they could see the white pillars
of a large stone house gleaming through the
Virginia creeper that nearly covered it. But
they could not see the old Colonel in his big
chair on the porch behind the cool screen of
vines.

At that very moment he had caught the rattle



2 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

of wheels along the road, and had picked up his
field glass to see who was passing. It was only
a colored man jogging along in the heat and
dust with a cart full of chicken coops. The
Colonel watched him drive up a lane that led to
the back of the new hotel that had just been
opened in this quiet country place. Then his
glance fell on the two small strangers coming
through his gate down the avenue toward him.
One was the friskiest dog he had ever seen in
his life. The other was a child he judged to be
about five years old.

Her shoes were covered with dust, and her
white sunbonnet had slipped off and was hang-
ing over her shoulders. A bunch of wild flowers
she had gathered on the way hung limp and
faded in her little warm hand. Her soft, light
hair was cut as short as a boy’s.

There was something strangely familiar about
the child, especially in the erect, graceful way
she walked.

Old Colonel Lloyd was puzzled. He had
lived all his life in Lloydsborough, and this was
the first time he had ever failed to recognize
one of the neighbors’ children. He knew every
dog and horse too, by sight if not by name.

Living so far back from the public road did
not limit his knowledge of what was going on





‘ 


THE LITTLE COLONEL. 3

in the world. A powerful field glass brought
every passing object in plain view, while he
was saved all annoyance of noise and dust.

“T ought to know that child as well as I know
my own name,” he said to himself. ‘But the
dog is astrangerin these parts. Liveliest thing
ITever set eyes on! They must have come
from the hotel. Wonder what they want.”

- He carefully wiped the lens for a better view.
When he looked again he saw that they evi-
dently had not come to visit him.

They had stopped half way down the avenue,
and climbed up on a rustic seat to rest.

The dog sat motionless about two minutes,
his red tongue hanging out as if he were com-
pletely exhausted.

Suddenly he gave a spring, and bounded away
through the tall bluegrass. He was back again
in a moment, with a stickin his mouth. Stand-
ing up with his fore paws in the lap of his little
mistress, he looked so wistfully into her face
that she could not refuse this invitation for a
romp.

The Colonel chuckled as they went tumbling
about in the grass to find the stick which the
child repeatedly tossed away.

He hitched his chair along to the other end
of the porch as they kept getting farther away
from the avenue.



4 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

It had been many a long year since those old
locust trees had seen asight like that. Children
never played any more under their dignified
shadows. ‘

Time had been (but they only whispered this.
among themselves on rare spring days like this)
when the little feet chased each other up and
down the long walk, as much at home as the
pewees in the beeches.

Suddenly the little maid stood up straight,
and began to sniff the air, as if some delicious
odor had blown across the lawn.

“Fritz,” she exclaimed in delight, “I ’mell
*trawberries |”

The Colonel, who could not hear the remark,
wondered at the abrupt pause in the game.
He understood it, however, when he saw them
wading through the tall grass, straight to his
strawberry bed. It was the pride of his heart,
and the finest for miles around. The first ber-
ries of the season had been picked only the day
before. Those that now hung temptingly red
on the vines he intended to send to his next
neighbor, to prove his boasted claim of always
raising the finest and earliest fruit.

He did not propose to have his plans spoiled
by these stray guests. Laying the field glass
in its accustomed place on the little table beside



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 5

his chair, he picked up his hat and strode down
the walk.

Colonel Lloyd’s friends all said he looked like
Napoleon, or rather like Napoleon might have
looked had he been born and bred a Kentuckian.

He made an imposing figure in his. suit of
white duck.

The Colonel always wore. white from May
till October.

There was a military precision about him,
from his erect carriage to the cut of the little
white goatee on his determined chin.

No one looking into the firm lines of his res-
olute face could imagine him ever abandoning
a purpose or being turned aside when he once
formed an opinion.

Most children were afraid of him. The
darkies: about the place shook in their shoes
when he frowned. ‘They had learned from ex-
perience that “ole Marse Lloyd had a tigah of
atempah in him.”

As he passed down the walk there were two
mute witnesses to his old soldier life. A spur
gleamed on his boot heel, for he had just re-
turned from his morning ride, and his right
sleeve hung empty.

He had won his title bravely. He had given
his only son and his strong right arm to the



6 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Southern cause. That had been nearly thirty
years ago.

He did not charge down on the enemy with
his usual force this time. The little head,
gleaming like sunshine in the strawberry patch,
reminded him so strongly of a little fellow who
used to follow him everywhere,— Tom, the
sturdiest, handsomest boy in the county, — Tom,
whom he had been so proud of, whom he had
so nearly: worshipped.

Looking at this fair head bent over the vines,
he could almost forget that Tom had ever out-
grown his babyhood, that he had shouldered a
rifle and followed him to camp, a mere boy, to
be shot down by a Yankee bullet in his first
battle.

The old Colonel could almost believe he had
him back again, and that he stood in the midst
of those old days the locusts sometimes whis-
pered about.

He could not hear the happiest of little voices -
that was just then saying, “Oh, Fritz, isn’t you
glad we came? An’ isn’t you glad we’ve got a
gran’fathah with such good ’trawberries ?”’

It was hard for her to put the s before her
consonants.

As the Colonel came nearer she tossed an-
other berry into the dog’s mouth. A _ twig



THE’ LITTLE: COLONEL. 7

snapped, and she raised a startled face toward
him. a

“Suh?” she said timidly, for it seemed to her
that the stern, piercing eyes. had spoken.

“What are you doing here, child?” he asked
ina voice so much kinder than his eyes that
she regained her usual self-possession at once.

“ Eatin’ ’trawberries,” she answered coolly.

“Who are you, anyway ?” he exclaimed, much
puzzled. As he asked the question his gaze
happened to rest on the dog, who was peering
at him through the ragged, elfish wisps of hair
nearly covering its face, with eyes that were
startlingly human.

“Peak when yo’ah ’poken to, Fritz,” she
said severely, at the same time popping another
luscious berry into her mouth.

Fritz obediently gave a long yelp. The
Colonel smiled grimly.

What’s your name?” he asked, this time
_ looking directly at her.

*“Mothah calls me her baby,” was the soft-
spoken reply, “but papa an’ Mom Beck they
calls me the Little Cun’l.”

“What under the sun do icy, call you that
for?” he roared.
~“? Cause I’m so much like you,’ seas the

startling answer.
; B



8 THE LITTLE COLONEL,

“Like me!” fairly gasped’ the ae
“How are you like me?”

“Oh, I’m got such a ‘vile femal, an’ I
stamps my foot when I gets mad, an’ gets all



BRR Srey
april 1

i Cao a all ly
oe Sn eel ae Ss

red in- the face. ony IT hollahs at folks, an’
looks jus’ zis way.” _

She drew her face down and puckered her
lips into such a sullen pout that it looked as
if a thunder-storm had passed over it. The
next instant she smiled up at him serenely.

The Colonel laughed. “What makes you
think I am like that?” he said. “You never
saw me before.” Po

“Yes, I have’ too,” she persisted. *‘ You’s
a-hangin’ in a gold frame over ou’ mantel.”



eu yacod



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 9

Just then a clear, high voice was heard call-
ing out in the road.

The child started up in alarm. “Oh deah,”
she exclaimed in dismay, at sight of the stains
on her white dress, where she had been kneel-
ing on the fruit, “that’s Mom Beck. Now
I'll be tied up, and maybe put to bed for
runnin’ away again. But'the berries is mighty
nice,” she added politely, “Good mawnin’,
suh. Fritz, we mus’ be goin’ now.”

The voice was coming nearer.

“Tl walk down to the gate with you,” said

the Colonel, anxious to learn something more
~ about his little guest,

“Oh, you’d bettah not, suh!” she cried in
alarm. “Mom Beck doesn’t like you a bit,
She just hates you! She’s goin’ to give you
a piece of her mind the next time she sees
you. I heard her tell Aunt Nervy so.”

There was as much real distress in the
child’s voice as if she were telling him of a
promised flogging.

“Lloyd! Aw Lloy-eed!” the call came
again.

A neat-looking colored woman glanced in at
the gate as she was passing by, and then stood
still in amazement. She had often found her
little charge playing along the roadside or hid-



10 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

ing behind trees, but she had never before
known her to pass through any one’s gate.

As the name came floating down to. him
through the clear air, a change came over the
Colonel’s stern face. He stooped over the
child. His hand trembled as he put it under
her soft chin and raised her eyes to his.

“Lloyd, Lloyd!” he repeated in a puzzled
way. ‘Can it be possible? There certainly is
a wonderful resemblance. You have my little
Tom’s hair, and only my baby Elizabeth ever
had such hazel eyes.”

He caught her up in his one arm, and strode
on to the gate, where the colored woman stood.

“Why, Becky, is that you?” he cried, recog-
nizing an old trusted servant who had lived at
Locust in his wife’s lifetime.

Her only answer was a sullen nod.

“Whose child is this?” he asked eagerly,
without seeming to notice her defiant looks.
“Tell me if you can.”

“How can I tell you, suh,” she demanded
indignantly, “when you have fo’bidden even her
name to be spoken befo’ you?”

A harsh look came into the Colonel’s eyes.
He put the child hastily down, and pressed his
lips together.

. “Don’t tie my sunbonnet, Mom Beck,” she



THE LITTLE COLONEL. II

begged. Then she waved her hand with an en-
gaging smile.

“Good by, suh,” she said graciously.
“We've had a mighty nice time!”

The Colonel took off his hat with his usual
courtly bow, but he spoke no word in’ reply.

When the last flutter of her dress had dis-
appeared around the bend of the road, he
walked slowly back toward the house.

Halfway down the long avenue where she
had stopped to rest, he sat down on the same
rustic seat. He could feel her soft little fingers
resting on his neck, where they had lain when
he carried her to the gate.

A very un-Napoleon-like mist blurred his
sight fora moment. It had been so long since
such a touch had thrilled him, so long since
any caress had been given him.

More than a score of years had gone by since
Tom had been laid in a soldier’s grave, and the
years that Elizabeth had been lost to him
seemed almost a lifetime.

And this was Elizabeth’s little daughter.
Something very warm and sweet seemed to
surge across his heart.as he thought of the Lit-
tle Colonel. He was glad, for a moment, that
they called her that ; glad that his only grand-
child looked enough like himself for others to
see the resemblance.



12 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

But the feeling passed as he remembered
that his daughter had married against his
wishes, and he had closed his doors forever
against her.

The old bitterness came back redoubled ‘in
its force.

The next instant he was stamping down the
avenue, roaring for Walker, his body-servant,
in such a tone that the cook’s advice was speed-
ily taken: “ Bettah hump yo’self outen dis heah
kitchen befo’ de ole tigah gits to lashin’ roun’
any pearter.” .



CHAPTER II.

Mom Beck carried the ironing-board out of
the hot kitchen, set the irons off the stove, and
then tiptoed out to the side porch of the little
‘cottage.

“Is yo’ head feelin’ any bettah, tones: ” she
said to the pretty, girlish-looking woman lying
in the hammock. “I promised to step up to
the hotel this evenin’ to see one of the cham-
bah-maids.. I thought I’d take the Little Cun’l
along with me if you was willin’, She’s always
wild to play with Mrs. Wyford’s children up
there.”

“Yes, I’m Better, Becky,” was the languid
reply. “Put a clean dress on Lloyd if you are
going to take her out.”

Mrs. Sherman closed her eyes again, thinking
gratefully, “ Dear, faithful old Becky! What a
comfort she ‘has been all my life, first as my
nurse, and now as Lloyd’s! She is worth her
weight in gold!” .

The afternoon shadows were stretching long
across the grass when Mom Beck led the child
up the green slope in front of the hotel.

. The Little Colonel had danced along so gayly:



14 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

with Fritz that her cheeks glowed like wild
roses. She made a quaint little picture with
such short sunny hair and dark eyes shining
out from under the broad-brimmed white hat she
wore.

Several ladies who were sitting on the shady
piazza, busy with their embroidery, noticed her
admiringly.

“It’s Elizabeth Lloyd’s little daughter,” one
of them explained. “Don’t you remember
what a scene there was some years ago when
she married a New York man? Sherman, I
believe, his name was, Jack Sherman. He was
a splendid fellow, and enormously wealthy.
Nobody could say a word against him, except
that he was a Northerner. That was enough
for the old Colonel, though. He hates Yankees
like poison. He stormed and swore, and for-
bade Elizabeth ever coming in his sight again.
He had her room locked up, and not a soul on
the place ever dares mention her name in 1 his
hearing.”

The Little Colonel sat down demurely on the
piazza steps to wait for the children. The
nurse had not finished dressing them for the
evening. :

She amused herself by showing Fritz ‘the
pictures in an illustrated weekly. It was not



THE LITTLE COLONEL: 15

long until:she began to feel that the ladies
were talking about her. She had lived among
older people so entirely that her thoughts were
much deeper than her baby speeches would
lead one to suppose.

She understood dimly, from what she had
heard the servants say, that there was some
trouble’ between her mother and grandfather.
Now she heard it rehearsed from beginning to
end. She could not understand what they
“meant by “bank failures” and “ unfortunate
investments,’ but she understood enough to
know that her father had lost nearly all his
money, and had gone west to make more.

Mrs. Sherman had moved from their elegant
New York home two weeks ago to this little
cottage in Lloydsborough that her mother had
left her. Instead of the houseful of servants
they used to have, there was only faithful Mom
Beck to do everything.

_ There was something magnetic in the child’s
eyes.

Mrs. Wyford shrugged her shoulders uneasily
as she caught their piercing gaze fixed on her.

“T do believe that little witch understood
every word I said,” she exclaimed.

“Oh, certainly not,” was the reassuring an-
swer. “She’s such a little thing.”



16 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

But she had heard it all, and understood
enough to make her vaguely unhappy. Going
home she did not frisk along with Fritz, but
walked soberly by Mom Beck’s side, holding
tight to the friendly black hand.

“We'll go through the woods,” said Mom
Beck, lifting her over the fence. “It’s not so
long that way.” ;

As they followed the narrow, straggling path
into the cool dusk of the woods, she began to
sing. The crooning chant was as mournful as °
a funeral dirge.

“ The clouds hang heavy, an’ it’s gwine to rain.
Fa’ well, my dyin’ friends.
I'm gwine to lie in the silent tomb.
Fa’ well, my dyin’ friends.”

A muffled little sob made her stop and look
down in surprise.

“Why, what’s the mattah, honey?” she ex-
claimed. ‘Did Emma Louise make you mad?
Or is you cryin’ ’cause you're so tied? Come!
Ole Becky’ll tote her baby the rest of the way.”

She picked the light form up in her arms,
and pressing the troubled little face against her
shoulder, resumed her walk and her song.

“Tt’s a world of trouble we’re travellin’ through,
Fa’ well, my dyin’ friends.”

“Oh, don’t, Mom Beck,” sobbed the child,



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 5 17

throwing her arms around the woman’s neck
and crying as though her heart would break.

“Land sakes, what zsthe mattah?”’ she asked
in alarm. She sat down on a mossy log, took
off the white hat, and looked into the flushed,
tearful face.

“Oh, it makes me so lonesome when you sing
that way,” wailed the Little Colonel. “I just
can’t ’tand it! Mom Beck, is my mothah’s
heart all broken? Is that why she is sick so
much, and will it kill her suah ’nuff?”’

“Who’s been tellin’ you such nonsense?”
asked the woman sharply.

“Some ladies at the hotel were talkin’ about
it. They said that gran’fathah didn’t love her
any moah, an’ it was just a-killin’ her.’ Mom
Beck frowned fiercely.

The child’s grief was so deep and intense
that she did not know just how to quiet her.
Then she said decidedly, ‘‘ Well, if that’s all
that’s a-troublin’ you, you can jus’ get down an’
walk home on yo’ own laigs. Yo’ mamma’s
a-grievin’ cause yo’ papa has to be away all the
time. She’s all wo’n out, too, with the work
of movin’, when she’s nevah been use to doin’
anything. But her heart isn’t broke any
moah’n my.neck is.”

The positive words and the decided toss



18 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Mom Beck gave her head settled the matter
for the Little Colonel. She wiped her eyes and
stood up much relieved.

“Don’t you nevah go to worryin’ ’bout what

you heahs,” continued the woman. “I tell you
p'intedly you cyarnt nevah b’lieve what you
heahs.”
- “Why doesn’t gran’fathah love my mothah?”
asked the child as they came in sight of the
cottage. She had puzzled over the knotty
problem all the way home. “How can papas
not love their little girls?”

“’Cause he’s stubbo’n,”’ was the unsatis-
factory answer. “All the Lloyds is. Yo’
mamma’s stubbo’n, an’ you’s stubbo’n—”’

“I’m not!” shrieked the Little Colonel,
stamping her foot. “You sha’n’t call me
hames !”’

Then she saw a familiar white hand waving
to her from the hammock, and she broke away
from Mom Beck with very red cheeks and very
bright eyes.

Cuddled close in her mother’s arms, she had
a queer feeling that she had grown a great deal
older in that short afternoon.

Maybe she had. For the first time in her
little life she kept her troubles to herself, and
did not once mention the thought that was
uppermost in her mind.



THE LITTLE COLONEL: 19

“Yo’ great-aunt Sally Tylah is comin’ this
mawin’,” said Mom Beck the day after their
visit to the hotel. ‘Do fo’ goodness’ sake
keep yo’self clean. I’se got too many spring
chickens to dress to think ’bout dressin’ you
up again.”

“ Did I evah see her befo’?” questioned the
Little Colonel.

“Why yes, the day we moved heah. Don’t
you know she came and stayed so long, and the
rockah broke off the little white rockin’-chair
when she sat down in it?”

“Oh, now I know!” laughed the child. “She’s
the big fat one with curls hangin’ round her
yeahs like shavin’s. I don’t like her, Mom Beck.
She keeps a-kissin’ me all the time, an’
a-’queezin’ me, an’ tellin’ me to sit on her lap
an’ be a little lady. Mom Beck, I de’pise to be
a little lady.”

There was no answer to her last reineele
Mom Beck had stepped into the pantry for
more eggs for the cake she was making.

“Fritz,” said the Little Colonel, “yo’ great;
aunt Sally Tylah’s comin’ this mawnin’, an’ if
you don’t want to say a to her yeu
have to come with me.’

A few minutes later a resolute little feure
squeezed between the palings of the garden
fence down by the gooseberry bushes.



20 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“Now walk on your tiptoes, Fritz!” com-
manded- the Little Colonel, “else somebody
will call us back.”

Mom Beck, busy with her extra baking, sup-
posed she was with her mother on the shady
vine-covered porch.

‘She would not have been singing quite so
gayly if she could have seen half a mile up the
foada

The ‘Little Colonel was sitting in the weeds

by the railroad track, deliberately taking off
her shoes and stockings.
«Just like a little niggah,” she said delight-
edly as she stretched out her bare feet. “Mom
Beck says I ought to know bettah. But it does
feel so good!”

. No telling how long she might have sat there
enjoying the forbidden pleasure of dragging
her rosy toes through the warm dust, if she had
not heard a horse’s hoof-beats coming rapidly
along.

“Fritz, its gran’fathah,” she whispered in
alarm, recognizing the erect figure of the rider
in its spotless suit of white duck.

“Sh! lie down in the weeds, quick! Lie down,
Tsay!”

They both made themselves as flat as possi-
ble, and lay there panting with the exertion of
keeping still.



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 21

Presently the Little Colonel raised her head

cautiously.
“Oh, he’s gone down that Jane!” she ex.
claimed. ‘ Now you can get up.” After a mo-

ment’s deliberation she asked, “ Fritz, would
you rathah have some *trawberries an’ be tied
up fo’ runnin’ away, or not be tied up and not
have any of those nice tas’en ’trawberries?”’



CHAPTER III.

Two hours later, Colonel Lloyd, riding down
the avenue under the locusts, was surprised by
a novel sight on his stately front steps.

Three little darkies and a big flop-eared
hound were crouched on the bottom step, look-
ing upat the Little Colonel, who sat just above
them.

She was industriously stirring something in
an old rusty pan with a big battered spoon.

“Now, May Lilly,” she ordered, speaking to
the largest and blackest of the group, “you run
an’ find some nice ’mooth pebbles to put in for
raisins. Henry Clay, you go get me some
moah sand. This is ’most too wet.”

“Here, you little pickaninnies!” roared the
Colonel as he recognized the cook’s children.
“What did I tell you about playing around
here, tracking dirt all over my premises? You
just chase back to the cabin where you be-
long!”

The sudden call startled Lloyd so that she
dropped the pan, and the great mud pie turned
upside down on the white steps.

“Well, you’re a pretty sight!” said the Colo-



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 23

nel as he glanced with disgust from her soiled
dress and muddy hands to her bare feet.

He had been in a bad humor all morning.
The sight of the steps covered with sand and
muddy tracks gave him an excuse to give vent
to his cross feelings.

It was one of his theories that a little girl
should always be kept as fresh and dainty as a
flower. He had never seen his own little
daughter in such a plight as this, and she had
never been allowed to step outside of her own
room without her shoes and stockings.

“What does your mother mean,” he cried
savagely, “ by letting you run barefooted around
the country just like poor white trash? An’
what are you playing with low-flung niggers
for? Haven’t you ever been taught any better ?
I suppose it’s some of your father’s miserable
Yankee notions.”

May Lilly, peeping around the corner of the
house, rolled her frightened eyes from one angry
face to theother. The same temper that glared
from the face of the man, sitting erect in his
saddle, seemed to be burning in the eyes of the
child who stood so defiantly before him.

The same kind of scowl drew their eyebrows
together darkly.

“Don’t you talk that. way to me,” cried the

Cc



24 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Little Colonel, trembling with a wrath she did
not know how to ex-

1a l press.
i | Suddenly she
i ass stooped, and snatch-

ing both hands full
of mud from the
_ overturned pie, flung
‘® it wildly over the
spotless white
coat.
Ciodiomnrel
Lloyd gasped
with astonish-
ment. It was





















































the first time in his life he
had ever been openly de-
fied. The next moment his anger gave way to
amusement,



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 25

“ By George!” he chuckled admiringly. ‘The
little thing has got spirit, sure enough. She’s
a Lloyd through and through. So that’s why
they call her the ‘ Little Colonel,’ is it ?”

There was a tinge of pride in the look he
gave her haughty little head and flashing eyes.

“There, there, child!” he said soothingly.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad, when you
were good enough to come and see me. It isn’t
often I havea little lady like you to pay me a
visit.”

“I didn’t come to see you, suh,”’ she answered
indignantly as she started toward the gate. “I
came to see May Lilly. But I nevah would
have come inside yo’ gate if I’d known you was
goin’ to hollah at me an’ be so cross.”

She was walking off with the air of an of-
fended queen, when the Colonel remembered
that if he allowed her to go away in that mood
she would probably never set foot on his grounds
again. Her display of temper had interested
him immensely.

Now that he had laughed off his ill humor,
he was anxious to see what other traits of char-
acter she possessed.

He wheeled his horse across the walk to bar
her way, and quickly dismounted.

“Oh, now, wait a minute,” he said in a coax-



26 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

ing tone. “Don’t you want a nice big saucer of
strawberries and cream before you go? Walk-
er’s picking some now. And you haven't seen
my hothouse. It’s just full of the loveliest
flowers you ever saw. You like roses, don’t
you, and pinks and lilies and pansies?”

He saw he had struck the right chord as
soon as he mentioned the flowers. The sullen
look vanished as if by magic. Her face changed
as suddenly as an April day.

“Qh, yes!” she cried, with a beaming smile.
“T loves ’m bettah than anything!”

He tied his horse, and led the way to the
conservatory. He opened the door for her to
pass through, and then watched her closely
to see what impression it would make on her.
He had expected a delighted exclamation of
surprise, for he had good reason to be proud of
his rare plants. They were arranged with a
true artist’s eye for color and effect.

She did not say a word for a moment, but
drew a long breath, while the delicate pink in
her cheeks deepened and her eyes lighted up.
Then she began going slowly from flower to
flower, laying her face against the cool velvety
purple of the pansies, touching the roses with
her lips, and tilting the white lily-cups to look
into their golden depths. oe

t



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 27

As she passed from one to another as lightly
as a butterfly might have done, she began
chanting in a happy undertone.

Ever since she had learned to talk she had a
quaint little way of singing to herself. All the
names that pleased her fancy she strung to-
gether in a crooning melody of her own.

_ There was no special tune. It sounded
happy, although nearly always in a minor key.

“Oh, the jonquils an’ the lilies!”’ she sang.
“All white an’ gold an’ yellow. Oh, they’re
all a-smilin’ at me, an’ a-sayin’ howdy! howdy !”

She was so absorbed in her intense enjoy-
ment that she forgot all about the old Colonel.
She was wholly unconscious that he was watch-
ing or listening.

“She really does love them,” he thought com-
‘placently. “To see her face one would think
she had found a fortune.”

It was another bond between them.

After a while he took a small basket from
the wall and began to fill it with his choic-
est blooms.

“You shall have these to take home,” he
said. ‘Now come into the house and get your
strawberries.”

She followed. him reluctantly, turning back
several times for one more long sniff of the de-
licious fragrance.



28 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

She was not at all like the Colonel’s ideal of
what alittle girl should be, as she sat in one of
the high, stiff chairs, enjoying her strawberries.
Her dusty little toes wriggled around in the
curls on Fritz’s back, as she used him for a
foot-stool. Her dress was draggled and dirty,
and she kept leaning over to give the dog ber-
ries and cream from the spoon she was eating
with herself.

He forgot all this, however, when she began
to talk to him.

“My great-aunt Sally Tylah is to ou’ house
this mawnin’,” she announced confidentially.
“That’s why we came off. Do you know
my Aunt Sally Tylah?”

“Well, slightly!” chuckled the Colonel.
“She was my wife’s half sister. So you don’t
like her, eh? Well, I don’t like her either.”

He threw back his head and laughed heartily.
The more the child talked the more entertain-
ing he found her. He did not remember when
he had ever been so amused before as he was
by this tiny counterpart of himself.

When the last berry had vanished, she
slipped down from the tall chair.

“Do you ’pose it’s very late?”’ she asked in
an anxious voice. “Mom Beck will be comin’
for me soon.”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 29

‘ “Yes, it is nearly noon,” he answered. “It
didn’t do much good to run away from your
Aunt Tyler; she’ll see you after all.”

“Well, she can’t ’queeze me an’ kiss me,
cause I’ve been naughty, an’ I’ll be put to bed
like I was the othah day, just as soon as I get
home. I ’most wish I was there now,” she
sighed. “It’s so fa’ an’ the sun’s so hot. I
lost my sunbonnet when I was comin’ heah,
too.”

Something in the tired, dirty face prompted
the old Colonel to say, “ Well, my horse hasn’t
been put away yet. I'll take you home on
Maggie Boy.”

The next moment he repented making such
an offer, thinking what the neighbors might
say if they should meet him on the road with
Elizabeth’s child in his arm. ;

But it was too late. He could not unclasp
the trusting little hand that was slipped in his.
He could not cloud the happiness of the eager
little face by retracting his promise.

He swung himself into the saddle, with her
in front.

Then he put his one arm around her with a
firm clasp, as he reached forward to take the
bridle.

“You couldn’t take Fritz on behin’, could



30 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

you?” she asked anxiously. “He's mighty
ti’ed too.”

“No,” said the Colonel with alaugh. “Mag.
gie Boy might object and throw us all off.”

Hugging her basket of flowers close in her
arms, she leaned her head against him con-
tentedly as they cantered down the avenue.

“Look!” whispered all the locusts, waving
their hands to each other excitedly. “Look!
The master has his own again. The dear old
times are coming back to us.”

“ How the trees blow!”” exclaimed the child,
looking up at the green arch overhead. “See!
They’s all a-noddin’ to each othah.”

“We'll have to get my shoes an’ ’tockin’s,”
she said presently, when they were nearly
home. ‘“They’re in that fence cawnah behin’
a log.”

The Colonel obediently got down and handed
them to her. As he mounted again he saw a
carriage coming toward them. He recognized
one of his nearest neighbors. Striking the
astonished Maggie Boy with his spur, he
turned her across the railroad track, down the
steep embankment, and into an unfrequented
lane.

“This road is just back of your garden,” he
said. “Can you get through the fence if I
take you there?”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 31

“That's the way we came out,’ was the
answer. “See that hole where the palin’s are
off ?””

Just as he was about to lift her down, she
put one arm around his neck, and kissed him
softly on the cheek.

“Good by, gran’fatha’,” she said in her most
winning way. ‘I’ve had a mighty nice time.”
Then she added in alower tone, ‘“ Kuse me fo’
throwin’ mud on yo’ coat.”

He held her close a moment, thinking noth-
ing had ever before been half so sweet as the
way she called him grandfather.

From that moment his heart went out to her
as it had to little Tom and Elizabeth. It made
no difference if her mother had forfeited his
love. It made no difference if Jack Sherman
was her father, and that the two men heartily
hated each other.

* It was his own little grandchild he held in
his arms.

She had sealed the relationship with a trust-
ing kiss.

“Child,” he said huskily, “you will come and
see me again, won’t you, no matter if they do
tell you not to? You shall have all the flowers
and berries you want, and you can ride Maggie
Boy as often as you please.”



32 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

She looked up into his face. It was very
familiar to her. She had looked at his por-
trait often, unconsciously recognizing a kindred
spirit that she longed to know.

Her ideas of grandfathers gained from stories
and observation led her to class them with
fairy god-mothers. She had always wished for
one.

The day they moved to Lloydsborough, Lo-
cust had been pointed out to her as her grand-
father’s home. From that time on she slipped
away with Fritz on every possible occasion to
peer through the gate, hoping for a glimpse of
him.

“Yes, I’ll come suah!” she promised. “I
likes you just lots, gran’fathah |”

He watched her scramble through the hole
in the fence. Then he turned his horse’s head
slowly homeward.

A scrap of white lying on the grass attracted
his attention as he neared the gate.

“Tt’s the lost sunbonnet,” he said with a
smile. He carried it into the house and hung
it on the hat-rack in the wide front hall.

‘“‘Qle marse is crosser’n two sticks,” growled
Walker to the cook at dinner. ‘‘There ain’t no
livin’ with him. What do you s’pose is the
mattah ?” ;



CHAPTER IV.

Mom Beck was busy putting lunch on the
table when the Little Colonel looked in at
the kitchen door.

So she did not see a little tramp, carrying her
shoes in one hand and a basket in the other,
who paused there a moment. But when she
took up the pan of beaten biscuit she was
puzzled to find that several were missing.

“It beats my time,” she said aloud. “The
parrot couldn’t have reached them, an’ Lloyd
an’ the dog have been in the pa’lah all mawnin’.
Somethin’ has jus’ natch’ly done sperrited ’em
away.”

Fritz was gravely licking his lips, and the
Little Colonel had her mouth full, when they
suddenly made their appearance on the front
porch.

Aunt Sally Tyler gave a little shrick and
stopped rocking.

“Why, Lloyd Sherman!” gasped her mother
in dismay. “Where have you been? I thought
you were with Becky all the time. I was sure
I heard you singing out there a little while

” '

ago,



34 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“T’ve been to see my gran’fathah,” said the
child, speaking very fast. “I made mud pies
on his front ’teps, an’ we both of us got mad, an’
I throwed mud on him, an’ he gave me some
*trawberries an’ all these flowers, an’ brought
me home on Maggie Boy.”

She stopped out of breath.

Mrs. Tyler and her niece exchanged as-
tonished glances.

“But, baby, how could you disgrace mother
so by going up there looking like a dirty little
beggar?”

“He didn’t care,” replied Lloyd calmly.
“He made me promise to come again, no
mattah if you all did tell me not to.”

Just then Becky announced that lunch was
ready, and carried the child away to make her
presentable.

To Lloyd’s great surprise she was not put to
bed, but was allowed to go to the table as soon
as she was dressed. It was not long until she
had told every detail of the morning’s ex-
perience.

While she was taking her afternoon nap, the
two ladies sat out on the porch, gravely dis-
cussing all she had told them.

“Tt doesn’t seem right for me to allow her to
go there,” said Mrs. Sherman, “after the way



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 35

papa has treated us. I can never forgive him
for all the terrible things he has said about
Jack, and I know Jack can never be friends
with him on account of what he has said about
‘me. He has been so harsh and unjust that I
don’t want my little Lloyd to have anything to
do with him. I wouldn’t for worlds have him
think that I encouraged her going there.”

“Well, yes, I know,” answered her aunt
slowly. ‘But there are some things to con-
sider besides your pride, Elizabeth. There’s
the child herself, you know. Now that Jack
has lost so much, and your prospects are so
uncertain, you ought to think of her interests.
It would be a pity for Locust to go to strangers
when it has been in your family for so many
generations. That’s what it certainly will do
unléss something turns up to interfere. Old
Judge Woodard told me himself that your
father had made a will, leaving everything he
owns to some medical institution. Imagine
Locust being turned into a sanitarium or a
training school for nurses!”

“Dear old place!” said Mrs. Sherman, with
tears in her eyes. “No. one ever had a happier
childhood than I passed under these old locusts.
Every tree seems like a friend. I would be
glad for. Lloyd to enjoy the place as I did.”



36 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“TI’d let her go as much as she _ pleases,
Elizabeth. She’s so much like the old Colonel
that they ought to understand each other and
get along capitally. Who knows, it might end
in you all making up some day.”

Mrs. Sherman raised her head haughtily.
“No, indeed, Aunt Sally. I can forgive and
forget much, but you are greatly mistaken
if you think I can go to such lengths as that.
He closed his doors against me with a curse,
for no reason on earth but that the man I
loved was born north of the Mason and Dixon
line. There never was a nobler man living than
Jack, and papa would have seen it if he hadn’t
deliberately shut his eyes and refused to look at
him. He was just prejudiced and stubborn.”

Aunt Sally said nothing, but her thoughts
took the shape of Mom Beck’s declaration,
“The Lloyds is all stubbo’n.”

“T wouldn’t go through his gate now if he
got down on his knees and begged me,”’ con-
tinued Elizabeth hotly.

“It’s too bad,” exclaimed her aunt ; “ he was
always so perfectly devoted to ‘little daughter’
as he used to call you. I don’t like him my-
self. We never could get along together at all,
because he is so high strung and overbearing.
But I know it would have made your poor



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 37

mother mighty unhappy if she could have fore-
seen all this.”

Elizabeth sat with the tears dropping down on
her little white hands, as her aunt proceeded to
work on her sympathies in every way she could
think of.

Presently Lloyd came out all fresh and rosy
from her long nap, and went to play in the
shade of the great beech trees that guarded the
cottage.

“T never saw a child with
such an influence over animals,”
said her mother as Lloyd came
around the house with the par-
rot perched on
the broom she
was carrying. JM
“She’ll walk — We
right up to any
strange dog and
make friends with it, no
matter how savage-looking
it is. And there’s Polly,
so old and cross that she screams and scolds
dreadfully if any of us go near her. But Lloyd
dresses her up in doll’s clothes, puts paper bon-
nets on her, and makes her just as uncomfort-
able as she pleases. Look! that is one of her
favorite amusements. ’









38 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

_ The Little Colonel squeezed the parrot intoa
tiny doll carriage, and began to trundle it back
and forth as fast as she could run.

“Ha! ha!’ screamed the bird. “Polly is a
lady! Oh, Lordy! I’m so happy!”

“She caught that from the washerwoman,”
laughed Mrs. Sherman. “I should think the
poor thing would be dizzy from whirling around
so fast.”

“Quit that, chillun; stop yo’ fussin’,”
screamed Polly as Lloyd grabbed her up and
began to pin a shawl around her neck. She
clucked angrily, hut never once attempted to
snap at the dimpled fingers that squeezed her
tight. Suddenly, as if her patience was com-
pletely exhausted, she uttered a disdainful “ Oh
pshaw!” and flew up into an old cedar tree.

“Mothah! Polly won’t play with me any
moah,” shrieked the child, flying into a rage.
She stamped and scowled and grew red in the
face. Then she began beating the trunk of the
tree with the old broom she had been carrying.

“Did you ever see anything so much like
the old Colonel?” said Mrs. Tyler in astonish- |

ment.. “I wonder if she acted that way this
morning.”

“J don’t doubt it at all,’ answered Mrs.
Sherman. “She'll be over it in just a mo-

ment. These little spells never.last long.”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 39

Mrs. Sherman was right. Ina few moments
Lloyd came up the walk, singing.

“T wish you'd tell me a pink story,” she said
coaxingly as she leaned against her mother’s
knee.

“Not now, dear ; don’t you see that I am busy
talking to Aunt Sally? Run andask Mom Beck
for one.”

“What on earth does she mean by a pink
story?” asked Mrs. Tyler.

“Oh, she is so fond of colors. She is always
asking for a pink or a blue or a white story.
She wants everything in the story tinged
with whatever color she chooses, — dresses,
parasols, flowers, sky, even the icing on the
cakes and the paper on the walls.”

“What an odd little thing she is!” exclaimed
Mrs. Tyler. “Isn’t she lots of company for
you?”

She need not have asked that question if she
could have seen them that evening, sitting to-
gether in the early twilight.

Lloyd was in her mother’s lap, leaning her
head against her shoulder as they rocked slowly
back and forth on the dark porch.

There was an occasional rattle of wheels
along the road, a twitter of sleepy birds, a dis-

tant croaking of frogs.
D



40 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Mom Beck’s voice floated in from the kitchen,
where she was stepping briskly around.

“Oh, the clouds hang heavy, an’ it’s gwine to rain.
Fa’well, my dyin’ friends,’’
she sang.

Lloyd put her arms closer around her
mother’s neck.

“Let's talk about Papa Jack,” she said.
“What you ’pose he’s doin’ now, ’way out
west.”

Elizabeth, feeling like a tired, homesick child
herself, held her close, and was comforted as she
listened to the sweet little voice talking about
the absent father.

The moon came up after a while, and
streamed in through the vines of the porch.
The hazel eyes slowly closed as Elizabeth be-
gan to hum an old-time negro lullaby.

“Wondah if she’ll run away to-morrow,”
whispered Mom Beck as she came out to carry
her in the house.

“Who'd evah think now, lookin’ at her pretty,
innocent face, that she could be so naughty?
Bless her little soul!”

The kind old black face was laid lovingly a
moment against the fair soft cheek of the Little
Colonel. Then she lifted her in her strong
arms, and carried her gently away to bed.



CHAPTER V.

SUMMER lingers long among the Kentucky
_ hills. Each passing day seemed fairer than the
last to the Little Colonel, who had never before
known anything of country life.
Roses climbed up and almost hid the small
_ white cottage. Red birds sang in the wood-
bine. Squirrels chattered in the beeches. She
was out of doors all day long.

Sometimes she spent hours watching the ants
carry away the sugar she sprinkled for them.
Sometimes she caught flies for an old spider
that had his den under the porch steps.

“He is an ogah” (ogre), she explained to
Fritz. “He’s bewitched me so’s I have to kill
whole families of flies for him to eat.”

She was always busy and always happy.

Before June was half over it got to be a
common occurrence for Walker to ride up to
the gate on the Colonel’s horse. The excuse
was always to have a passing word with Mom
Beck. But before he rode away, the Little
Colonel was generally mounted in front of him.
It was not long before she felt almost as much
at home at Locust as she did at the cottage.



42 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

a

The neighbors began to comment on it after
awhile. ‘He will surely make up with Eliza-
beth at this
rate,” they said.
But at the end
>“. of the summer

“ the father and
daughter had
'- not even had a
' passing glimpse
of each other.

One day, late
in September,
as the Little
Colonel clat-
tered up and
down the hall
with her grand-
father’s spur
buckled on her
tiny foot, she called
back over her shoulder:
“Papa Jack’s comin’
home to-morrow.”
ell The Colonel paid no

SS “S attention.
“Tsay,” she repeated,
“Papa Jack’s comin’ home to-morrow.”



,



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 43

“Well,” was the gruff response. ‘ Why
couldn’t he stay where he was? I suppose you
won’t want te come here any more after he gets
back.”

“No, I ’pose not,’ she answered so carc-
lessly that he was conscious of a very jealous
feeling.

“Chilluns always like to stay with their
fathahs when they’s nice as my Papa Jack is.”

The old man growled something behind his
newspaper that she did not hear. He would
have been glad to choke this man who had
come between him and his only child, and he
hated him worse than ever when he realized
what a large place he held in Lloyd’s little
heart.

She did not go back to Locust the next day,
nor for weeks after that.

She was up almost as soon as Mom Beck next
morning, thoroughly enjoying the bustle of
preparation.

She had a finger in everything, from polish-
ing the silver to turning the ice-cream freezer.

Even Fritz was scrubbed till he came out of
his bath with his curls all white and shining.
He was proud of himself, from his silky bangs
to the tip of his tasselled tail.

Just before train time, the Little Coloncl



44 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

stuck his collar full of late pink roses, and stood
back to admire the effect. Her mother came
to the door, dressed for the evening. She wore
an airy-looking dress of the palest, softest blue.
There was a white rosebud caught in her dark
hair. A bright color, as fresh as Lloyd’s own,
tinged her cheeks, and the glad light in her
brown eyes made them unusually brilliant.

Lloyd jumped up and threw her arms about
her. ‘Oh, mothah,” she cried, “you an’ Fritz
is so bu’ful!”

The engine whistled up the road at the cross-
ing. ‘Come, we have just time to get to the
station,” said Mrs. Sherman, holding out her
hand.

They went through the gate, down the narrow
path that ran beside the dusty road. The train
had just stopped in front of the little station
when they reached it.

A number of gentlemen, coming out from
the city to spend Sunday at the hotel, came
down the steps.

They glanced admiringly from the beautiful,
girlish face of the mother to the happy child
dancing impatiently up and down at her side.
They could not help smiling at Fritz as he
frisked about in his imposing rose-collar.

“Why, where’s Papa Jack?” asked Lloyd in



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 45

distress as passenger after passenger stepped
down. “Isn’t he goin’ to come?”

The tears were beginning to gather in her
eyes, when she saw him in the door of the car;
not hurrying along to meet them as he always
used to come, so full of life and vigor, but lean.
ing heavily on the porter’s shoulder, looking
very pale and weak.

Lloyd looked up at her mother, from whose
face every particle of color had faded. Mrs.
Sherman gave a low, frightened cry as she
sprang forward to meet him.

“Oh, Jack! what is the matter? What has
happened to you?” she exclaimed as he took
her in his arms. The train had gone on, and
they were left alone on the platform.

“Just a little sick spell,” he answered a smile. “We had a fire out at the mines,
and I overtaxed myself some. I’ve had fever
ever since, and it has pulled me down consider-
ably.”

“T must send somebody for a carriage,” she
said, looking around anxiously.

“No, indeed,” he protested. ‘It’s only a few
steps ; I can walk it as well as not. The sight
of you and the baby has made me stronger
already.”

He sent a colored boy on ahead with his



46 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

valise, and they walked slowly up the path,
with Fritz running wildly around them, barking
a glad welcome.

“ How sweet and homelike it all looks!” he
said as he stepped into the hall, where Mom
Beck was just lighting the lamps. Then he
sank down on the couch, completely exhausted,
and wearily closed his eyes.

The Little Colonel looked at his white face in
alarm. All the gladness seemed to have been
taken out of the homecoming.

Her mother was busy trying to make him
comfortable, and paid no attention to the dis-
consolate little figure wandering about the house
alone. Mom Beck had gone for the doctor.

The supper was drying up in the warming
oven. The ice-cream was melting in the freezer.
Nobody seemed to care. There was no one to
notice the pretty table with its array of flowers
and cut glass and silver.

When Mom Beck came back, Lloyd ate all by
herself, and then sat out on the kitchen door-
step while the doctor made his visit.

She was just going mournfully off to bed with
an aching lump in her throat, when her mother
opened the door.

“ Come tell papa good night,” she said. “He’s
lots better now.”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 47

She climbed up on the bed beside him, and
buried her face on his shoulder to hide the tears
she had been trying to keep back all evening.

“ How the child has grown!” he exclaimed.
““Do you notice, Beth, how much plainer she
talks? She does not seem at all like the baby
I left last spring. Well, she’ll soon be six years
old, —a real little woman. She'll be papa’s
little comfort.”

The ache in her throat was all gone after that.
She romped with Fritz all the time she was un-
dressing.

Papa Jack was worse next morning. It was
hard for Lloyd to keep quiet when the late
September sunshine was so gloriously yellow
and the whole outdoors seemed so wide awake.

She tiptoed out of the darkened room where
her father lay, and swung on the front gate un-
til she saw the doctor riding up on his bay horse.
It seemed to her that the day never would pass.

Mom Beck, rustling around in her best dress
ready for church, that afternoon, took pity on
the lonesome child.

“Go get yo’ best hat, honey,’
Pll take you with me.”

It was one of the Little Colonel’s greatest
pleasures to be allowed to go to the colored
- church.

’

she said, ‘an’



48 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

She loved to listen to the singing, and would
sit perfectly motionless while the sweet voices
blended like the chords of some mighty organ
as they sent the old hymns rolling heavenward.

Service had already commenced by the time
they took their seats. Nearly everybody in the
congregation was swaying back and forth in
time to the mournful melody of “ Sinnah, sinnah,
where’s you boun’?”

One old woman across the aisle began clap-
ping her hands together, and repeated in a sing-
song tone, “Oh, Lordy! I’m so happy!”

“ Why, that’s just what our parrot says,” ex-
claimed Lloyd, so much surprised that she spoke
right out Joud.

Mom Beck put her handkerchief over her
mouth, and a general smile went around.

After that the child was very quiet until the
time came to take the collection. She always
enjoyed this part of the service more than any-
thing else. Instead of passing baskets around,
each person was invited to come forward and
lay his offering on the table.

Woolly heads wagged and many feet kept time
to the tune:

“Oh! I’se boun’ to git to glory.
Hallelujah! Le’ me go!”’

The Little Colonel proudly marched up with



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 49

Mom Beck’s contribution, and then watched the
others pass down the aisle. One young girl in
a gorgeously trimmed dress paraded up to the
table several times, singing at the top of her
voice.

“Look at that good-fo’-nothin’
Lize Richa’ds,” whispered Mom
Beck’s nearest neighbor, with a
sniff. “She done got a nickel
changed into pennies so she could
ma’ch up an’ show herself five
times.”

It was nearly sundown
when they started home.
A tall colored man, wear-
ing a high silk hat and
carrying a gold-headed
cane, joined them on the
way out.

“Howdy, Sistah Po’tah,” /
he said, gravely shaking fi
hands. ‘That wasa fine dis-
co’se we had the pleasuah ===
of listenin’ to this evenin’.”’

“’Deed it was, Brothah Fostah,”’ she an-
swered. “ How’s all up yo’ way?”

The Little Colonel, running on after a couple
‘of white butterflies, paid no attention to the











50 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

conversation until she heard her own name
mentioned.

“Mistah Sherman came home last night, I
heah.”

“Yes, but not to stay long, I’m afraid. He’s
a mighty sick man, if ’many judge. He’s down
with fevah, —regulah typhoid. He doesn’t look
to me like he’s long for this world. What’s to
become of poah Miss ’Lizabeth if that’s the
‘case, is moah’n J know.”

“We mustn’t cross the bridge till we come
to it, Sistah Po’tah,” he suggested.

“T know that; but a lookin’-glass broke
yeste’day mawnin’ when nobody had put fingah
on it. An’ his picture fell down off the wall
while I was sweepin’ the pa’lah. Pete said his
dawg done howl all night last night, an’ I’ve
dremp three times hand runnin’ ’bout muddy
watah.”

Mom Beck felt a little hand clutch her skirts,
and turned to see a frightened little face looking
anxiously up at her.

“Now what’s the mattah with you, honey ?”
she asked. “I’m only a-tellin’ Mistah Fostah
about some silly old signs my mammy used to
believe in. But they don’t mean nothin’ at all.”

Lloyd couldn’t have told why she was un-
happy.. She had not understood all that Mom



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 51

Beck had said, but her sensitive little mind was
shadowed by a foreboding of trouble.

The shadow deepened as the days passed.
Papa Jack got worse instead of better. There
were times when he did not recognize any one,
and talked wildly of things that had happened
out at the mines.

All the long beautiful October went by, and
still he lay in the darkened room. Lloyd wan-
dered listlessly from place to place, trying to
keep out of the way and to make as little
trouble as possible.

“T’m a real little woman now,” she repeated
proudly whenever she was allowed to pound ice
or carry fresh water. “I’m papa’s little com-
fort.

One cold, frosty evening she was standing in
the hall, when the doctor came out of the room
and began to put on his overcoat.

Her mother followed him to take his directions
for the night.

He was an old friend of the family’s. Eliza-
beth had climbed on his knees many a time when
she was a child. She loved this faithful, white-
haired old doctor almost as dearly as she had
her father.

“My daughter,” he said kindly, laying his

hand on her shoulder, “you are wearing your-



52 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

self out, and will be down yourself if you are
not careful. You must have a professional
nurse. No telling how long this is going to
last. As soon as Jack is able to travel you must
have a change of climate.”

Her lips trembled. ‘“ We can’t afford it, doc-
tor,” she said. ‘Jack has been too sick from
the very first to talk about business. He
always said a woman should not be worried
with such matters, anyway. I don’t know what
arrangements he has made out west. For all
I know, the little I have in my purse now
may be all that stands between us and the
poorhouse.”

The doctor drew on his gloves.

“Why don’t you tell your father how matters
are?” he asked.

Then he saw he had ventured a step too far.

“I believe Jack would rather die than take
help from his hands,” she answered, drawing
herself up proudly. Her eyes flashed. “I
would, too, as far as I am concerned myself.”

Then a tender look came over her pale, tired
face as she added gently, “ But I’d do anything
on earth to help Jack get well.”

The doctor cleared his throat vigorously, and
bolted out with a gruff good night. As he rode
past Locust, he took solid satisfaction in shak-
ing his fist at the light in an upper window.



CHAPTER VI.

Tue Little Colonel followed her mother to
the dining-room, but paused on the threshold
as she saw her throw herself into Mom Beck’s
arms and burst out crying.

“Qh, Becky!” she sobbed, “what is going
to become of us? The doctor says we must
have a professional nurse, and we must go away
from here soon. There are only a few dollars
left in my purse, and I don’t know what we’ll
do when they are gone. I just £now Jack is go-
ing to die, and then I’ll die too, and then what
will become of the baby?”

Mom Beck sat down and took the trembling
form in her arms.

“There, there!’ she said soothingly, ‘‘ have
yo’ cry out. It will do you good. Poah chile!
all wo’n out with watchin’ an’ worry. Ne’m min’,
ole Becky is as good as a dozen nuhses yet. I'll
get Judy to come up an’ Jook aftah the kitchen.
An’ nobody ain’ gwine to die, honey. Don’t.
you go to slayin’ all you’s got befo’ you’s called
on to do it. The good Lawd is goin’ to pah-
vide fo’ us same as Abraham.”

The last Sabbath’s sermon was still fresh in
her mind.



54 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“Tf we only hold out faithful, there’s boun’
to be aram caught by the hawns some place,
even if we haven’t got eyes to see through the
thickets. The Lawd will pahvide whethah it’s
a burnt offerin’ or a meal’s vittles. He sho’ly
will.”

Lloyd crept away frightened. It seemed
such an awful thing to her to see her mother cry.

All. at once her bright, happy world had
changed to such a strange, uncertain place.
She felt as if all sorts of terrible things were
about to happen.

She went into the parlor and crawled into a
dark corner under the piano, feeling that there
was no place to go for comfort, since the one
who had always kissed away her little troubles
was so heartbroken herself.

There was a patter of soft feet across. the
carpet, and Fritz poked his sympathetic nose
into her face. She put her arms around him
and laid her head against his curly back with a
desolate sob.

It is pitiful to think how much imaginative
children suffer through their wrong COREE
of things.

She had seen the little roll of bills in her
mother’s pocketbook. She had seen how much
smaller it grew every time it was taken out to



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 55

pay for the expensive wines and medicines that
had to be bought so often. She had heard her
mother tell the doctor that was all that stood
between them and the poorhouse.

There was no word known to the Little Colo-
nel that brought such thoughts of horror as
the word poorhouse.

Her most vivid recollection of her life in New
York was something that happened a few weeks
before they left there. One day in the park
she ran away from the maid, who, instead of
Mom Beck, had taken charge of her that after-
noon.

When the angry woman found her, she fright-
ened her almost into a spasm by telling her
what always happened to naughty children who
ran away.

“ They take all their pretty clothes off,” she
said, “and dress them up in old things made of
bed ticking. Then they take’m to the poor-
house, where nobody but beggars live. They
don’t have anything to eat but cabbage and
corn-dodger, and they have to eat that out of
tin pans. And they just have a pile of straw
to sleep in.”

On their way home she had pointed out to
- the frightened child a poor woman who was

grubbing in an ash barrel.
E



56 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“That’s the way people get to look who live
in poorhouses,”’ she said.

It was this memory that was troubling the
Little Colonel now.

“Oh, Fritz!” she whispered, with the tears
running down her cheeks, “I can’t beah to
think of my pretty mothah goin’ there. That
woman’s eyes were all red, an’ her hair was jus’
awful. She was so bony an’ stahved-lookin’,
It would jus’ kill poah Papa Jack to lie on
straw an’ eat out of a tin pan. I know it
would!”

When Mom Beck opened the door, hunting
her, the room was so dark that she would have
gone away if the dog had not come running
out from under the piano.

“You heah too, chile?” she asked in sur-
prise. “I have to go down now an’ see if I
can get Judy to come help to-morrow. Do you
think you can undress yo’self to-night ?”

“Of co’se,’ answered the Little Colonel.
Mom Beck was in such a hurry to be off that
she did not notice the tremble in the voice that
answered her.

“Well, the can’le is lit in yo’ room. So run
along now like a nice little lady, an’ don’t
bothah yo’ mamma. She got her hands full
already.”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 57

* All right,” answered the child.

A quarter of an hour later she stood in her
little white nightgown with her hand on the
door knob.

She opened the door just a crack and peeped
in. Her mother laid her finger on her lips and
beckoned silently. In another instant Lloyd
was in her lap. She had cried herself quiet in
the dark corner under the piano; but there was
something more pathetic in her eyes than tears.
It was the expression of one who understood
and sympathized.

«Oh, mothah,” she whispered, “ we does have
such lots of troubles.”

“ Yes, chickabiddy, but I hope they will soon
be over now,” was the answer as the anxious
face tried to smile bravely for the child’s ‘sake.
“Papa is sleeping so nicely now he is sure to be
better in the morning.”

That comforted the Little Colonel some, but
for days she was haunted by the fear of the
poorhouse.

Every time her mother paid out any money
she looked anxiously to see how much was still
left. She wandered about the place, touching
the trees and vines with caressing hands, feel-
ing that she might soon have to leave them.

~Shé loved them all so dearly, — every stick



58 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

and stone, and even the stubby old snowball
bushes that never bloomed.

Her dresses were outgrown and faded, but no
one had any time or thought to spend on getting
her new ones. A little hole began to come in
the toe of each shoe.

She was still wearing her summer sunbonnet,
although the days were getting frosty.

She was a proud little thing. It mortified
her for any one to see her looking so shabby.
Still she uttered no word of complaint for fear
of lessening the little amount in the pocketbook,
that her mother had said stood between them
and the poorhouse.

She sat with her feet tucked under her when
any one called.

“JT wouldn’t mind bein’ a little beggah so
much myself,” she thought, “but I jus’ can’t
have my bu’ful sweet mothah lookin’ like that
awful red-eyed woman.”

One day the doctor called Mrs. Sherman out
into the hall. “I have just come from your
father’s,” he said. “He is suffering from a
severe attack of rheumatism. He is confined
to his room, and is positively starving for com-
pany. Hetold me he would give anything in
the world to have his little grandchild with
him. There were tears in his eyes when he



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 59

said it, and that means a good deal from him.
He fairly idolizes her. The servants have told
him she mopes around and is getting thin and
pale. He is afraid she will come down with the
fever too. He told me to use any stratagem I
liked to get her there. But I think it’s better
to tell you frankly how matters stand. It will
do the child good to have a change, Elizabeth,
and I solemnly think you ought to let her go,
for a week at least.”

“But, doctor, she has never been away from
me a single night in her life. She’d die of
home sickness, and I know she’ll never consent
to leave me. Then suppose Jack should get
worse —”

“We'll suppose nothing of the kind,” he in-
terrupted brusquely. ‘Tell Becky to pack up
her things. Leave Lloyd to me. I'll get her
consent without any trouble.”

“Come, Colonel,” he called as he left the
house. “I’m going to take you a little ride.”

No one ever knew what the kind old fellow
said to her to induce her to go to her grand-
father’s.

She came back from her ride looking brighter
than she had in a long time. She felt that in
some way, although in what way she could not
understand, her going would help them to es-
cape the dreaded poorhouse.



60 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“Don’t send Mom Beck with me,” she
pleaded, when the time came to start. “You
come with me, mothah.”

Mrs. Sherman had not been past the gate for
weeks, but she could not refuse the coaxing
hands that clung to hers.

It was a dull, dreary day. There was a chill-
ing hint of snow in the damp air. The leaves
whirled past them with a mournful rustling.

Mrs. Sherman turned up the collar of Lloyd’s
cloak.

“© You must have a new one soon,” she said
with a sigh. “Maybe one of mine could be
made over for you. And those poor little
shoes! I must think to send to town for a new
pair.”

The walk was over so soon. The Little
Colonel’s heart beat fast as they came in sight
of the gate. She winked bravely to keep back
the tears ; for she had promised the doctor not
to let her mother see her cry.

A week seemed such a long time to look for-
ward to.

She clung to her mother’s neck, feeling that
she could never give her up so long.

“Tell me good-by, baby dear,” said Mrs.
Sherman, feeling that she could not trust her-
self to stay much longer. “It is too cold for



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 61

you to stand here. Run on, and I'll watch you
till you get inside the door.”

The Little Colonel started bravely down the
avenue, with Fritz at her heels. Every few



steps she turned to look back and kiss her
hand.

Mrs. Sherman watched her through a blur of
tears. It had been nearly seven years since she



62 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

had last stood at that old gate. Such a crowd
of memories came rushing up!

She looked again. There was a flutter of a
white handkerchief as the Little Colonel and
Fritz went up the steps. Then the great front
door closed behind them



CHAPTER VII.

Tuar early twilight hour just before the
lamps were lit was the lonesomest one the
Little Colonel had ever spent.

Her grandfather was asleep upstairs. There
was a cheery wood fire crackling on the hearth
of the big fireplace in the hall, but the great
house was so still. The corners were full of
shadows.

She opened the front door with a wild long-
ing to run away.

“Come, Fritz,” she said, closing the door
softly behind her, “let’s go down to the gate.”

The air was cold. She shivered as they
raced along under the bare branches of the
locusts. She leaned against the gate, peering
out through the bars. The road stretched
white through the gathering darkness, in the
direction of the little cottage.

« Oh, I want to go home so bad!” she sobbed.
“I want to see my mothah.”

She laid her hand irresolutely on the latch,
pushed the gate ajar, and then hesitated.

“No, I promised the doctah I'd stay,” she
thought. “He said I could help mothah and



64. THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Papa Jack, both of ’em, by stayin’ heah, an’ I'l]
do it.”

Fritz, who had pushed himself through the
partly opened gate to rustle around among the
dead leaves outside, came bounding back with
something in his mouth.

“Heah, suh!” she called. “Give it tome!”
He dropped a small gray kid glove in her out.
stretched hand. “Oh, it’s mothah’s!”’ she cried.
“T reckon she dropped it when she was tellin’
me good-by. Oh you deah old dog fo’ findin’
Lbs)

She laid the glove against her cheek as fondly
as if it had been her mother’s soft hand. There
was something wonderfully comforting in the
touch.

As they walked slowly back toward the
house she rolled it up and put it lovingly away
in her tiny apron pocket.

All that week it was a talisman whose touch
helped the homesick little soul to be brave and
womanly.

When Maria, the colored housekeeper, went
into the hall to light the lamps, the Little
Colonel was sitting on the big fur rug in front
of the fire, talking contentedly to Fritz, who lay
with his curly head in her lap.

“You all’s goin’ to have tea in the Cun’l’s



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 65

room to-night,” said Maria. “He tole me to
tote it up soon as he rung the bell.”

“There it goes now,” cried the child, jump-
ing up from the rug.

She followed Maria up the wide stairs. The
Colonel was sitting in a large easy-chair,
wrapped in a gayly flowered dressing-gown, that
made his hair look unusually white by contrast.

His dark eyes were intently watching the
door. As it opened to let the Little Colonel
pass through, a very tender smile lighted up his
stern face.

“So you did come to see grandpa after all,”
he cried triumzphantly. “Come here and give
meakiss. Seems toeme you've been staying
away a mighty long time.”

As she stood beside him with his arm around
her, Walker came in with a tray full of dishes.

“We're going to have a regular little tea-
party,” said the Colonel.

Lloyd watched with sparkling eyes as Walket
set out the rare old-fashioned dishes. There
was a fat little silver sugar-bowl with a butterfly
perched on each side to form the handles, and
there was a slim, graceful cream-pitcher shaped
like a lily.

“They belonged to your great-yreat-grand-
mother,” said the Colonel, “and they’re going



66 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

to be yours some day if you grow up and have
a house of your own.”

The expression on her beaming face was
worth a fortune to the Colonel.

When Walker pushed her chair up to the
table, she turned to her grandfather with shin-
ing eyes.

“Oh, it’s just like a pink story,” she cried,
clapping her hands. “The shades on the
can’les, the icin’ on the cake, an’ the posies in
the bowl,— why, even the jelly is that colah
too. Oh, my darlin’ little teacup! It’s jus’
like a pink rosebud! I’m so glad I came!”

The Colonel smiled at the success of his plan.
In the depths of his satisfaction he even had a
plate of quail and toast set down on the hearth
for Fritz.

“This is the nicest pahty I evah was at,”
remarked the Little Colonel as Walker helped
her to jam the third time.

Her grandfather chuckled.

“Blackberry jam always makes me think of
Tom,” he said. ‘Did you ever hear what your
uncle Tom did when he was a little fellow in
dresses ?”’

She shook her head gravely.

“Well, the children were all playing hide-
and-seek one day. They hunted high and



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 67

they hunted low after everybody else had been
caught, but they couldn’t find Tom. At last
they began to call, ‘Homefree! Youcan come
home free!’ but he did not come. When he
had been hidden so long they were frightened
about him they went to their mother and told
her he wasn’t to be found anywhere. She
looked down the well and behind the fire-boards
in the fireplaces. They called and called
till they were out of breath. Finally she
thought of looking in the big dark pantry where
she kept her fruit. There stood Mister Tom.
He had openeda jar of blackberry jam, and was
just going for it with both hands. The jam was
all over his face and hair and little gingham
apron, and even up his wrists. He was the
funniest sight I ever saw.”

The Little Colonel laughed heartily at his
description, and begged for more stories. Be-
fore he knew it he was back in the past with
his little Tom and Elizabeth.

Nothing could have entertained the child
more than these scenes he recalled of her
mother’s childhood.

« All her old playthings are up in the garret,”
he said as they rose from the table. “I'll have
them brought down to-morrow. There’s a doll
I brought her from New Orleans once when



68 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

she was about your size. No telling what it
looks like now, but it was a beauty when it was
new.”

Lloyd clapped her hands and spun around
the room like a top.

“Oh, I’m so glad I came!” she exclaimed for
the third time. “What did she call the doll,
gran’fathah, do you remembah?”





’

“IT never paid much attention to such things,’
he answered, “ but I do remember the name of
this one, because she named it for her mother,
— Amanthis.”

“ Amanthis,” repeated the child dreamily as
she leaned against his knee. “I think that



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 69

is a lovely name, gran’fathah. I wish they
had called me that.” She repeated it softly
several times. “It sounds like the wind
a-blowin’ through white clovah, doesn’t it?”

“Tt is a beautiful name to me, my child,”
answered the old man, laying his hand tenderly
on her soft hair, “but not so beautiful as the
woman who bore it. She was the fairest
flower of all Kentucky. There never was
another lived as sweet and gentle as your
grandmother Amanthis.”

He stroked her hair absently and gazed into
the fire. He scarcely noticed when she slipped
away from him.

She buried her face a moment in the bowl of
pink roses. Then she went to the window and
drew back the curtain. Leaning her head
against the window:sill, she began stringing on
the thread of a tune the things that just then
thrilled her with a sense of their beauty.

“Oh, the locus’ trees a-blowin’,” she sang
softly. ‘An’ the moon a-shinin’ through them.
An’ the starlight an’ pink roses; an’ Aman-
this —an’ Amanthis |”

She hummed it over and over until Walker
had finished carrying the dishes away.

It was a strange thing that the Colonel’s
unfrequent moods of tenderness were like



7O THE LITTLE COLONEL.

those warm days that they call weather
breeders.

They were-sure to be followed by a change of
atmosphere. This time as the fierce rheumatic
pain came back he stormed at Walker and
scolded him for everything he did and every-
thing he left undone.

When Maria came up to put Lloyd to bed,
Fritz was tearing around the room barking at
his shadow.

“Put that dog out M’ria!” roared the
Colonel, almost crazy with its antics. ‘Take it
downstairs and put it out of the house, I say!
Nobody but a heathen would let a dog sleep in
the house, anyway.”

The homesick feeling began to creep over
Lloyd again. She had expected to keep Fritz
in her room at night for company. But for the
touch of the little glove in her pocket, she
would have said something ugly to her grand-
father when he spoke so harshly.

His own ill-humor was reflected in her scowl
as she followed Maria down the stairs to drive
Fritz out into the dark.

They stood a moment in the open door, after
Maria had slapped him with her apron to make
him go off the porch.

“Qh, look at the new moon!” cried Lloyd,



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 71

pointing to the slender crescent in the autumn
sky. :

‘“‘T’se feared to, honey,” answered Maria,
“less I should see it through the trees. That
‘ud bring me bad luck for a month, suah. I'll
go out on the Jawn where it’s open, an’ look at
it ovah my right shouldah.”

While they were walking backward down
the path, intent on reaching a place where they
could have an uninterrupted view of the moon,
Fritz sneaked around to the other end of the
porch.

No one was watching. He slipped into the
_ house as noiselessly as his four soft feet could
carry him.

Maria, going through the dark upper hall
with a candle held high above her head and
Lloyd clinging to her skirts, did not see a
tasselled tail swinging along in front of her. It
disappeared under the big bed when she led
Lloyd into the room next the old Colonel’s.

- The child felt very sober while she was being
put to bed.

The furniture was heavy and dark. An ugly
portrait of a cross old man in a wig frowned at
her from over the mantel. The dancing fire-
light made his eyes frightfully life-like.

The bed was so high she had to climb on a

F



UB ‘THE LITTLE COLONEL.

chair to get in. She heard Maria’s heavy feet
go shuffling down the stairs. A door banged.
Then it was so still] she could hear the clock
tick in the next room.

It was the first time in all her life that her
mother had not come to kiss her good night.

Her lips quivered, and a big tear rolled down
on the pillow.

She reached out to the chair beside her bed,
where her clothes were hanging, and felt in her
apron pocket for the little glove. She sat up
in bed, and looked at it in the dim firelight.
Then she held it against her face. “Oh, I
want my mothah! I want my mothah!” she
sobbed in a heartbroken whisper.

Laying her head on her knees, she began to
cry quietly, but with great sobs that nearly
choked her.

There was a rustling under the bed. She
lifted her wet face in alarm. Then she smiled
‘through her tears, for there was Fritz, her own
dear dog, and not an unknown horror waiting
to grab her.

He stood on his hind legs, eagerly trying to
lap away her tears with his friendly red tongue.

She clasped him in her arms with an ecstatic
hug. “Oh, you're such a comfort !”’ she whis-
pered. “I can go to sleep now.”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 73

She spread her apron on the bed, and mo-
tioned him to jump. With one spring he was
beside her.

It was nearly midnight, when the door from
the Colonel’s room was noiselessly opened.

‘The old man stirred the fire gently until it
burst into a bright flame. Then he turned to
the bed. “You rascal!” he whispered, looking
at Fritz, who raised his head quickly with a
threatening look in his wicked eyes.

Lloyd lay with one hand stretched out, hold-
ing the dog’s protecting paw. The other held
something against her tear-stained cheek.

“What under the sun!” he thought as he
drew it gently from her fingers. The little
glove lay across his hand, slim and aristocratic-
looking. He knew instinctively whose it was.
“Poor little thing’s been crying,” he thought.
«She wants Elizabeth. AndsodoI! Andso do
I!” his heart cried out with bitter longing. “It’s
never been like home since she left.”

He laid the glove back on her pillow, and

went to his room.
- “Tf Jack Sherman should die,” he said to
himself many times that night, “then she
would come home again. Oh, little daughter,
little daughter! why did you ever leave
rie?” -



Cl AP AE Reavaiile

Tue first thing that greeted the Little Colo-
nel’s eyes when she opened them next morning
was her mother’s old doll. Maria had laid it on
the pillow beside her.

It was beautifully dressed, although in a
queer, old-fashioned style that seemed very
strange to the child.

She took it up with careful fingers, remem-
bering its great age. Maria had warned her
not to waken her grandfather, so she admired it
in whispers.

Jus’ think, Fritz,” she exclaimed, “ this doll
has seen my gran’mothah Amanthis, an’ it’s
named for her. My mothah wasn’t any bigger’n
me when she played with it. I think it is
the loveliest doll I evah saw in my whole
life.”

Fritz gave a jealous bark.

“Sh!” commanded his little mistress.
“Didn’t you heah M’ria say, ‘Fo’ de Lawd’s
sake don’t wake up ole Marse?’ Why don’t
you mind?”

The Colonel was not in the best of humors
after such a wakeful night, but the sight of her



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 79

happiness made him smile in spite of himself,
when she danced into his room with the doll.

She had eaten an early breakfast and gone
back upstairs to examine the other toys that
were spread out in her room.

The door between the two rooms was ajar.
All the time he was dressing and taking his.
coffee he could hear her talking to some one.
He supposed it was Maria. But as he glanced
over his mail he heard the Little Colonel saying,
“May Lilly, do you know about Billy Goat Gruff?
Do you want me to tell you that story?”

He leaned forward until he could look through
the narrow opening of the door. Two heads
were all he could see,— Lloyd’s, soft-haired
and golden, May Lilly’s, covered with dozens of
tightly braided little black tails.

He was about to order May Lilly back to the
cabin, when he remembered the scene that fol-
lowed the last time he had done so. He con-
cluded to keep quiet and listen.

“Billy Goat Gruff was so fat,” the story went
on, “jus’ as fat as gran’fathah.”

The Colonel glanced up with an amused smile
at the fine figure reflected in an opposite mirror.

“ Trip-trap, trip-trap, went Billy Goat Gruff’s
little feet ovah the bridge to the giant’s house.”

Just at this point Walker, who was putting



76 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

things in order, closed the door between the
rooms.

“Open that door, you black rascal!” called
the Colonel, furious at the interruption.

In his haste to obey, Walker knocked over a
pitcher of water that had been left on the floor
beside the washstand.

Then the Colonel yelled at him to be ae
about mopping it up, so that by the time the
door was finally opened, Lloyd was finishing
her story.

The Colonel looked in just in time to see her
put her hands to her temples, with her fore-
fingers protruding from her forehead like horns.
She said in a deep voice, as she brandished
them at May Lilly, “ With my two long speahs
Dll poke yo’ eyeballs through yo’ yeahs.”

The little darky fell back giggling. “That
sut’n’y was like a billy-goat. We had one once
that ‘ud make a body step around mighty peart.
It slip up behine me one mawnin’ on the poach,
an’ fo’ a while I thought my haid was buss open
suah. I got up toreckly, though, an’ I cotch
him, and when I done got through, mistah Billy-
goat feel po’ly moah’n a week. He sut’n’y
did.”
Walker grinned, for he had witnessed the
scene,



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 77

Just then Maria put her head in at the door
to say, “ May Lilly, yo’ mammy’s callin’ you.” |

Lloyd and Fritz followed her noisily down-
stairs. Then for nearly an hour it was very
quiet in the great house.

The Colonel, looking out of the window, could
see Lloyd playing hide-and-seek with Fritz under
the bare locust trees.

When she came in her cheeks were glowing
from her run in the frosty air. Her eyes shone
like stars, and her face was radiant.

“See what I’ve found down in the dead
leaves,” she cried. “A little blue violet,
bloomin’ all by itself.”

She brought a tiny cup from the next room,
that belonged to the set of doll dishes, and put
the violet in it.

“ There!” she said, setting it on the table at
her grandfather’s elbow. “ Now I’Jl put Aman-
this in this chair, where you can look at her, an’
you won't get lonesome while I’m playin’ out-
doors.”

He drew her toward him and kissed her.

“Why, how cold your hands are!” he ex-
claimed. “Staying in this warm room all the
time makes me forget it is so wintry outdoors.
» I don’t believe you are dressed warmly enough.
You ought not to wear sunbonnets this time of
year.”



78 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Then for the first time he noticed her out-
grown cloak and shabby shoes.

“What are you wearing these old clothes
for?” he said impatiently. ‘“ Why didn’t they
dress you up when you were going visiting? It
isn’t showing proper respect to send you off in
the oldest things you’ve got.”

It was a sore point with the Little Colonel.
It hurt her pride enough to have to wear old
clothes without being scolded for it. Besides,
she felt that in some way her mother was being
blamed for what could not be helped.

“They’s the best I’ve got,’ she answered,
proudly choking back the tears. “ don’t need
any new ones, ’cause maybe we'll be goin’ away
pretty soon.”

“Going away!” he echoed blankly.
“Where?”

She did not answer until he repeated the
question. Then she turned her back on him,
and started toward the door. The tears she
was too proud to let him see were running
down her face.

““We’s goin’ to the poah-house,” she exclaimed
defiantly, “jus’ as soon as the money in the
pocketbook is used up. It was nearly gone
when I came away.”

Here she began to sob, as she fumbled at the
door she could not see to open.



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 79

“T’m goin’ home to my mothah right now.
She loves me if my clothes are old and ugly.”

“Why, Lloyd,” called the Colonel, amazed
and, distressed by her sudden burst of grief.
“Come here to grandpa. Why didn’t you tell
me so before?”

The face, the tone, the outstretched arm, al.
drew her irresistibly to him. It was a relief to
lay her head on his shoulder and unburden her-
self ofsthe fear that had haunted her so many
days.

With her arms around his neck, and the
precious little head held close to his heart, the
old Colonel was in such a softened mood that
he would have promised anything to comfort her.

“There, there,” he said soothingly, stroking
her hair with a gentle hand, when she had told
him all her troubles. “Don’t you worry about
that, my dear. Nobody is going to eat out of
tin pans and sleep on straw. Grandpa just
won't let them.”

She sat up and wiped her eyes on her apron.
“But Papa Jack would die befo’ he’d take help
from you,” she wailed. ‘An’ so would mothah.
I heard her tell the doctah so.”

The tender expression on the Colonel’s face
changed to one like flint, but he kept on strok-
ing her hair.



80 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“People sometimes change their minds,” he
said grimly. “I wouldn’t worry over a little
thing like that if I were you. Don’t you want
to run downstairs and tell M’ria to give you a
piece of cake?”

“Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, smiling up at him.
“T’ll bring you some too.”

When the first train went into Louisville that
afternoon, Walker was on board with an order
in his pocket to one of the largest dry goods es-
tablishments in the city. When he came out
again that evening, he carried a large box into
the Colonel’s room.

Lloyd’s eyes shone as she looked into it.
There was an elegant fur-trimmed cloak, a
pair of dainty shoes, and a muff that she caught
up with a shrick of delight.

“What kind of a thing is this?’’ grumbled
the Colonel as he took out a hat that had been
carefully packed in one corner of the box.
“T told them to send the most stylish thing
they had. It looks like a scare-crow,” he
continued, as he set it askew on the child’s
head.

She snatched it off to look at it herself.
“Oh, it’s jus’ like Emma Louise Wyfo’d’s!”
she exclaimed. ‘“ You didn’t put it on straight.
See! This is the way it goes.”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 8I

She climbed up in front of the mirror, and
put it on as she had seen Emma Louise wear

hers.

“Well, it’s a regu-
lar Napoleon hat,” ex-
claimed the Colonel,
much pleased. “So
little girls nowadays
have taken to wear-
ing soldier's caps,
have they? It’s right
becoming to you with
your short hair.
Grandpa is real proud
of his ‘little Colonel.’”’

She gave him the
military salute he had
taught her, and then
ran to throw her arms

around him. ‘Oh, f
gran’fathah!” she ex- t
claimed between her Ny XN
kisses, “you’se jus’as_ |

good as Santa Claus,
every bit.”



eyo 00

ur Mi
{ i

The Colonel’s rheumatism was better next
day; so much better that toward evening he
walked downstairs into the long drawing-room.



"82 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

The room had not been illuminated in years as
it was that night.

Every wax taper was lighted in the silver
candelabra, and the dim old mirrors multiplied
their lights on every side. A great wood fire
threw a cheerful glow over the portraits and
the frescoed ceiling. All the linen covers had
been taken from the furniture.

Lloyd, who had never seen this room except
with the chairs shrouded and the blinds down,
came running in presently. She was bewildered
at first bythe change. Then she began walking
softly around the room, examining everything.

In one corner stood a tall gilded harp that
her grandmother had played in her girlhood.
The heavy cover had kept it fair and untar-
nished through all the years it had stood un-
used. To the child’s beauty-loving eyes it
seemed the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

She stood with her hands clasped behind her
as her gaze wandered from its pedals to the
graceful curves of its tallframe. It shone like
burnished gold in the soft firelight.

“Qh, gran’fathah!” she asked at last in a
low, reverent tone, “where did you get it?
Did an angel leave it heah fo’ you?”

He did not answer for a moment. Then he
said huskily as he looked up at a portrait over



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 83°

the mantel, “Yes, my darling, an angel did
leave it here. She always was one. Come
here to grandpa.”

He took her on his knee and pointed up to
the portrait. The same harp was in the pic-
ture. Standing beside it, with one hand rest-
ing on its shining strings, was a young girl all
in white.

“That’s the way she looked the first time I
ever saw her,” said the Colonel dreamily. “A
June rose in her hair, and another at her throat ;
and her soul looked right out through those
great, dark eyes —the purest, sweetest soul God
ever made! My beautiful Amanthis !”

“My bu’ful Amanthis!” repeated the child
in an awed whisper.

She sat gazing into the lovely young face for
a long time, while the old man seemed lost in
dreams.

“‘Gran’fathah,” she said at length, patting
his cheek to attract his attention, and then
nodding toward the portrait, “did se love my
mothah like my mothah loves me?”

“Certainly, my dear,” was the gentle reply.

It was the twilight hour, when the homesick
feeling always came back strongest to Lloyd.

“Then I jus’ know that if my bu’ful gran’-
mothah Amanthis could come down out of that



84 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

frame, she’d go straight and put her arms
around my mothah an’ kiss away all her sorry
feelin’s.”

The Colonel fidgeted uncomfortably in his
chaira moment. Then to his great relief the
tea-bell rang.



CHAPTER IX.

Every evening after that during Lloyd’s visit
the fire. burned on the hearth of the long draw-
ing-room. All the wax candles were lighted,
and the vases were kept full of flowers, fresh
from the conservatory.

She loved to steal into the room before her
grandfather came down and carry on imaginary
conversations with the old portraits.

Tom’s handsome, boyish face had the great-
est attraction for her. His eyes looked down
so smilingly into hers that she felt he surely
understood every word she said to him.

Once Walker overheard her saying, “ Uncle
Tom, I’m goin’ to tell you a story ’bout Billy
Goat Gruff.”

Peeping into the room, he saw the child look-
ing earnestly up at the picture, with her hands
clasped behind her, as she began to repeat her
favorite story. ‘It do beat all,” he said to him-
self, “how one little chile like that can wake up
a whole house. She’s the life of the place.”

The last evening of her visit as the Colonel
was coming downstairs he heard the faint
vibration of a harpstring. It was the first time



86 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Lloyd had ever ventured to touch one. He
paused on the steps opposite the door, and
looked in.

“Heah, Fritz,’ she was saying, “you get
up on the sofa, an’ be the company, an’ I'll sing
fo’ you.”

Fritz, on the rug before the fire, opened one
sleepy eye and closed it again. She stamped
her foot and repeated her order. He paid no
attention. Then she picked him up bodily, and
with much puffing and pulling lifted him into
a chair.

He waited until she had gone back to the
harp, and then with one spring disappeared un-
-der the sofa.

“N’m min’,” she said in a disgusted tone,
“Tl pay you back, mistah.” Then she looked
up at the portrait. ‘‘Uncle Tom,” she said,
‘‘you be the company, an’ I'll play fo’ you.”

’ Her fingers touched the strings so lightly
that there was no discord in the random tones.
Her voice carried the air clear and true, and the
faint trembling of the harpstrings interfered
with the harmony no more than if a wandering
breeze had been tangled in them as it passed.

“ Sing me the songs that to me were so deah
Long, long ago, long ago.
‘Tell me the tales I delighted to heah
Long, long ago, long ago.”



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 87





































88 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

The sweet little voice sang it to the end with-
out missing a word. It was the lullaby her
mother oftenest sang to her.

The Colonel, who had sat down on the steps
to listen, wiped his eyes.

“My ‘long ago’ is all that I have left to me,”
he thought bitterly, “for to-morrow this little
one, who brings back my past with every word
and gesture, will leave me too. Why can’t that
Jack Sherman die while he’s about it, and let
me have my own back again ?”

That question recurred to him many times
during the week after Lloyd’s departure. He
missed her happy voice at every turn. He
missed her bright face at the table. The house
seemed so big and desolate without her. He
ordered all the covers put back on the drawing-
room furniture, and the door locked as before.

It was a happy moment for the Little Colonel
when she was lifted down from Maggie Boy at
the cottage gate.

She went dancing into the house so glad to
find herself in her mother’s arms that she for-
got allabout the new cloak and muff that had
made her so proud and happy.

She found her father propped up among the
pillows, his fever all gone, and the old mischiev-
ous twinkle in his eyes.



THE LITTLE COLONEL. 89

He admired her new clothes extravagantly,
paying her joking compliments until her face
beamed; but when she had danced off to find
Mom Beck, he turned to his wife. ‘“ Elizabeth,”
he said wonderingly, ‘“ what.do you suppose the
old fellow gave her clothes for? I don’t like it.
I’m no beggar if I have lost lots of money.
After all that’s passed between us I don’t feel
like taking anything from his hands, or letting
my child do it either.” -

To his great surprise she laid her head down
on his pillow beside his and burst into tears.

“Oh, Jack,” she sobbed, ‘“‘I spent the last
dollar this morning. I wasn’t going to tell you,
but I don’t know what is to become of us. He
gave Lloyd those things because she was just in
rags, and I couldn’t afford to get anything new.”

He looked perplexed. ‘‘ Why, I brought home
so much,” he said in a distressed tone. “I
knew I was in for a long siege of sickness, but
I was sure there was enough to tide us over
that.”

She raised her head. ‘‘ You brought money
home!” she replied in surprise. ‘I hoped you
had, and looked through all your things, but
there was only a little change in one of your
pockets. You must have imagined it when you
were delirious,”



gO THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“What!” he cried, sitting bolt upright, and
then sinking weakly back among the pillows.
“You poor child! You don’t mean to tell me
you have been skimping along all these weeks
on just that check I sent you before starting
home.”

“Yes,” she sobbed, her face still buried in
the pillow. She had borne the strain of contin-
ued anxiety so long that she could not stop her
tears, now they had once started.

It was with a very thankful heart she watched
him take a pack of letters from the coat she
brought to his bedside, and draw out a sealed
envelope.

“Weil, I never once thought of looking
among those letters for money,’ she exclaimed
as he held it up with a smile.

His investments of the summer before had
prospered beyond his greatest hopes, he told her.
“Brother Rob is looking after my interests out
west, as well as his own,” he explained, “and
as his father-in-law is the grand mogul of the
place, I have the inside track. Then that firm
I went security for in New York is nearly on
its feet again, and I’ll have back every dollar
I ever paid out for them. Nobody ever lost
anything by those men in the long run. We'll
be on top again by this time next year, little






| : THE LITTLE COLONEL






HE — sBAIRNIE: SERIES

OF

Dainty Books for Children.
Crown 8vo, Cloth, Gilt, 1/6.

1. THE LITTLE COLONEL. By Annie Fellows-
Johnston. Illustrated by Etheldred B. Barry.

2. WEE DOROTHY’S TRUE VALENTINE. By
Laura Updegraff. Illustrated by Florence M.
Cooper, etc.

3. LITTLE KING DAVIE; or, ‘Kings and Priests
unto God.” By Nellie Hellis. 96th Thousand.

LONDON:
JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.






The Little Colonel.
THE LITTLE COLONEL

A rue Story

BY

ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON

“

AUTHOR OF ‘'' BIG BROTHER"

ILLUSTRATED BY ETHELDRED B. BARRY AND
FLORENCE M. COOPER.



LONDON
JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, WARWICK LANE, E.C.
[All Rights Reserved]

1897
TO ONE OF
KENTUCKY’S DEAREST LITTLE DAUGHTERS
“THE LITTLE COLONEL”? HERSELF—
THIS REMEMBRANCE OF A HAPPY SUMMER
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
ILLUSTRATIONS.



‘Tur LITTLE COLONEL” . : . Frontispiece.

‘‘TyE Doc sAT MOTIONLESS ABOUT Two MINUTES’

“*?CausE I’M SO MUCH LIKE YOU,’ WAS THE START-
LING ANSWER”. . s . fs : °

“THE SAME TEMPER SEEMED TO BE BURNING IN THE
EYES OF THE CHILD”. 6 ‘ ‘ - 5

“WITH THE PARROT PERCHED ON THE BROOM SHE
WAS CARRYING” . . . b 5 6 .

“THE LITTLE COLONEL CLATTERED UP AND DOWN THE
HALL” Q , ‘ 6 . S 3

“SINGING AT THE TOP OF HER VOICE” : ; 3

“¢TELL ME Goop-By, BABy DEaR,’ SAID Mrs. SHER-
MAN” , . . ‘ . . .

«6 AMANTHIS,’ REPEATED THE CHILD DREAMILY ” °
«SHE CLIMBED UP IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR”, .

“THE SwEET LITTLE VOICE SANG IT TO THE END” .

PAGE

24
37

42

49

61

68

81
THE LITTLE COLONEL.

CHAPTER I.

Ir was one of the prettiest places in all Ken-
tucky where the Little Colonel stood that
morning. She was reaching up on tiptoes, her
eager little face pressed close against the iron
bars of the great entrance gate that led to a
fine old estate known as “ Locust.”

A ragged little Scotch and Skye terrier stood
on its hind feet beside her, thrusting his inquisi-
tive nose between the bars, and wagging his
tasselled tail in lively approval of the scene be-
fore them.

They were looking down a long avenue that
stretched for nearly a quarter of a mile between
rows of stately old locust trees.

At the far end they could see the white pillars
of a large stone house gleaming through the
Virginia creeper that nearly covered it. But
they could not see the old Colonel in his big
chair on the porch behind the cool screen of
vines.

At that very moment he had caught the rattle
2 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

of wheels along the road, and had picked up his
field glass to see who was passing. It was only
a colored man jogging along in the heat and
dust with a cart full of chicken coops. The
Colonel watched him drive up a lane that led to
the back of the new hotel that had just been
opened in this quiet country place. Then his
glance fell on the two small strangers coming
through his gate down the avenue toward him.
One was the friskiest dog he had ever seen in
his life. The other was a child he judged to be
about five years old.

Her shoes were covered with dust, and her
white sunbonnet had slipped off and was hang-
ing over her shoulders. A bunch of wild flowers
she had gathered on the way hung limp and
faded in her little warm hand. Her soft, light
hair was cut as short as a boy’s.

There was something strangely familiar about
the child, especially in the erect, graceful way
she walked.

Old Colonel Lloyd was puzzled. He had
lived all his life in Lloydsborough, and this was
the first time he had ever failed to recognize
one of the neighbors’ children. He knew every
dog and horse too, by sight if not by name.

Living so far back from the public road did
not limit his knowledge of what was going on


‘ THE LITTLE COLONEL. 3

in the world. A powerful field glass brought
every passing object in plain view, while he
was saved all annoyance of noise and dust.

“T ought to know that child as well as I know
my own name,” he said to himself. ‘But the
dog is astrangerin these parts. Liveliest thing
ITever set eyes on! They must have come
from the hotel. Wonder what they want.”

- He carefully wiped the lens for a better view.
When he looked again he saw that they evi-
dently had not come to visit him.

They had stopped half way down the avenue,
and climbed up on a rustic seat to rest.

The dog sat motionless about two minutes,
his red tongue hanging out as if he were com-
pletely exhausted.

Suddenly he gave a spring, and bounded away
through the tall bluegrass. He was back again
in a moment, with a stickin his mouth. Stand-
ing up with his fore paws in the lap of his little
mistress, he looked so wistfully into her face
that she could not refuse this invitation for a
romp.

The Colonel chuckled as they went tumbling
about in the grass to find the stick which the
child repeatedly tossed away.

He hitched his chair along to the other end
of the porch as they kept getting farther away
from the avenue.
4 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

It had been many a long year since those old
locust trees had seen asight like that. Children
never played any more under their dignified
shadows. ‘

Time had been (but they only whispered this.
among themselves on rare spring days like this)
when the little feet chased each other up and
down the long walk, as much at home as the
pewees in the beeches.

Suddenly the little maid stood up straight,
and began to sniff the air, as if some delicious
odor had blown across the lawn.

“Fritz,” she exclaimed in delight, “I ’mell
*trawberries |”

The Colonel, who could not hear the remark,
wondered at the abrupt pause in the game.
He understood it, however, when he saw them
wading through the tall grass, straight to his
strawberry bed. It was the pride of his heart,
and the finest for miles around. The first ber-
ries of the season had been picked only the day
before. Those that now hung temptingly red
on the vines he intended to send to his next
neighbor, to prove his boasted claim of always
raising the finest and earliest fruit.

He did not propose to have his plans spoiled
by these stray guests. Laying the field glass
in its accustomed place on the little table beside
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 5

his chair, he picked up his hat and strode down
the walk.

Colonel Lloyd’s friends all said he looked like
Napoleon, or rather like Napoleon might have
looked had he been born and bred a Kentuckian.

He made an imposing figure in his. suit of
white duck.

The Colonel always wore. white from May
till October.

There was a military precision about him,
from his erect carriage to the cut of the little
white goatee on his determined chin.

No one looking into the firm lines of his res-
olute face could imagine him ever abandoning
a purpose or being turned aside when he once
formed an opinion.

Most children were afraid of him. The
darkies: about the place shook in their shoes
when he frowned. ‘They had learned from ex-
perience that “ole Marse Lloyd had a tigah of
atempah in him.”

As he passed down the walk there were two
mute witnesses to his old soldier life. A spur
gleamed on his boot heel, for he had just re-
turned from his morning ride, and his right
sleeve hung empty.

He had won his title bravely. He had given
his only son and his strong right arm to the
6 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Southern cause. That had been nearly thirty
years ago.

He did not charge down on the enemy with
his usual force this time. The little head,
gleaming like sunshine in the strawberry patch,
reminded him so strongly of a little fellow who
used to follow him everywhere,— Tom, the
sturdiest, handsomest boy in the county, — Tom,
whom he had been so proud of, whom he had
so nearly: worshipped.

Looking at this fair head bent over the vines,
he could almost forget that Tom had ever out-
grown his babyhood, that he had shouldered a
rifle and followed him to camp, a mere boy, to
be shot down by a Yankee bullet in his first
battle.

The old Colonel could almost believe he had
him back again, and that he stood in the midst
of those old days the locusts sometimes whis-
pered about.

He could not hear the happiest of little voices -
that was just then saying, “Oh, Fritz, isn’t you
glad we came? An’ isn’t you glad we’ve got a
gran’fathah with such good ’trawberries ?”’

It was hard for her to put the s before her
consonants.

As the Colonel came nearer she tossed an-
other berry into the dog’s mouth. A _ twig
THE’ LITTLE: COLONEL. 7

snapped, and she raised a startled face toward
him. a

“Suh?” she said timidly, for it seemed to her
that the stern, piercing eyes. had spoken.

“What are you doing here, child?” he asked
ina voice so much kinder than his eyes that
she regained her usual self-possession at once.

“ Eatin’ ’trawberries,” she answered coolly.

“Who are you, anyway ?” he exclaimed, much
puzzled. As he asked the question his gaze
happened to rest on the dog, who was peering
at him through the ragged, elfish wisps of hair
nearly covering its face, with eyes that were
startlingly human.

“Peak when yo’ah ’poken to, Fritz,” she
said severely, at the same time popping another
luscious berry into her mouth.

Fritz obediently gave a long yelp. The
Colonel smiled grimly.

What’s your name?” he asked, this time
_ looking directly at her.

*“Mothah calls me her baby,” was the soft-
spoken reply, “but papa an’ Mom Beck they
calls me the Little Cun’l.”

“What under the sun do icy, call you that
for?” he roared.
~“? Cause I’m so much like you,’ seas the

startling answer.
; B
8 THE LITTLE COLONEL,

“Like me!” fairly gasped’ the ae
“How are you like me?”

“Oh, I’m got such a ‘vile femal, an’ I
stamps my foot when I gets mad, an’ gets all



BRR Srey
april 1

i Cao a all ly
oe Sn eel ae Ss

red in- the face. ony IT hollahs at folks, an’
looks jus’ zis way.” _

She drew her face down and puckered her
lips into such a sullen pout that it looked as
if a thunder-storm had passed over it. The
next instant she smiled up at him serenely.

The Colonel laughed. “What makes you
think I am like that?” he said. “You never
saw me before.” Po

“Yes, I have’ too,” she persisted. *‘ You’s
a-hangin’ in a gold frame over ou’ mantel.”



eu yacod
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 9

Just then a clear, high voice was heard call-
ing out in the road.

The child started up in alarm. “Oh deah,”
she exclaimed in dismay, at sight of the stains
on her white dress, where she had been kneel-
ing on the fruit, “that’s Mom Beck. Now
I'll be tied up, and maybe put to bed for
runnin’ away again. But'the berries is mighty
nice,” she added politely, “Good mawnin’,
suh. Fritz, we mus’ be goin’ now.”

The voice was coming nearer.

“Tl walk down to the gate with you,” said

the Colonel, anxious to learn something more
~ about his little guest,

“Oh, you’d bettah not, suh!” she cried in
alarm. “Mom Beck doesn’t like you a bit,
She just hates you! She’s goin’ to give you
a piece of her mind the next time she sees
you. I heard her tell Aunt Nervy so.”

There was as much real distress in the
child’s voice as if she were telling him of a
promised flogging.

“Lloyd! Aw Lloy-eed!” the call came
again.

A neat-looking colored woman glanced in at
the gate as she was passing by, and then stood
still in amazement. She had often found her
little charge playing along the roadside or hid-
10 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

ing behind trees, but she had never before
known her to pass through any one’s gate.

As the name came floating down to. him
through the clear air, a change came over the
Colonel’s stern face. He stooped over the
child. His hand trembled as he put it under
her soft chin and raised her eyes to his.

“Lloyd, Lloyd!” he repeated in a puzzled
way. ‘Can it be possible? There certainly is
a wonderful resemblance. You have my little
Tom’s hair, and only my baby Elizabeth ever
had such hazel eyes.”

He caught her up in his one arm, and strode
on to the gate, where the colored woman stood.

“Why, Becky, is that you?” he cried, recog-
nizing an old trusted servant who had lived at
Locust in his wife’s lifetime.

Her only answer was a sullen nod.

“Whose child is this?” he asked eagerly,
without seeming to notice her defiant looks.
“Tell me if you can.”

“How can I tell you, suh,” she demanded
indignantly, “when you have fo’bidden even her
name to be spoken befo’ you?”

A harsh look came into the Colonel’s eyes.
He put the child hastily down, and pressed his
lips together.

. “Don’t tie my sunbonnet, Mom Beck,” she
THE LITTLE COLONEL. II

begged. Then she waved her hand with an en-
gaging smile.

“Good by, suh,” she said graciously.
“We've had a mighty nice time!”

The Colonel took off his hat with his usual
courtly bow, but he spoke no word in’ reply.

When the last flutter of her dress had dis-
appeared around the bend of the road, he
walked slowly back toward the house.

Halfway down the long avenue where she
had stopped to rest, he sat down on the same
rustic seat. He could feel her soft little fingers
resting on his neck, where they had lain when
he carried her to the gate.

A very un-Napoleon-like mist blurred his
sight fora moment. It had been so long since
such a touch had thrilled him, so long since
any caress had been given him.

More than a score of years had gone by since
Tom had been laid in a soldier’s grave, and the
years that Elizabeth had been lost to him
seemed almost a lifetime.

And this was Elizabeth’s little daughter.
Something very warm and sweet seemed to
surge across his heart.as he thought of the Lit-
tle Colonel. He was glad, for a moment, that
they called her that ; glad that his only grand-
child looked enough like himself for others to
see the resemblance.
12 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

But the feeling passed as he remembered
that his daughter had married against his
wishes, and he had closed his doors forever
against her.

The old bitterness came back redoubled ‘in
its force.

The next instant he was stamping down the
avenue, roaring for Walker, his body-servant,
in such a tone that the cook’s advice was speed-
ily taken: “ Bettah hump yo’self outen dis heah
kitchen befo’ de ole tigah gits to lashin’ roun’
any pearter.” .
CHAPTER II.

Mom Beck carried the ironing-board out of
the hot kitchen, set the irons off the stove, and
then tiptoed out to the side porch of the little
‘cottage.

“Is yo’ head feelin’ any bettah, tones: ” she
said to the pretty, girlish-looking woman lying
in the hammock. “I promised to step up to
the hotel this evenin’ to see one of the cham-
bah-maids.. I thought I’d take the Little Cun’l
along with me if you was willin’, She’s always
wild to play with Mrs. Wyford’s children up
there.”

“Yes, I’m Better, Becky,” was the languid
reply. “Put a clean dress on Lloyd if you are
going to take her out.”

Mrs. Sherman closed her eyes again, thinking
gratefully, “ Dear, faithful old Becky! What a
comfort she ‘has been all my life, first as my
nurse, and now as Lloyd’s! She is worth her
weight in gold!” .

The afternoon shadows were stretching long
across the grass when Mom Beck led the child
up the green slope in front of the hotel.

. The Little Colonel had danced along so gayly:
14 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

with Fritz that her cheeks glowed like wild
roses. She made a quaint little picture with
such short sunny hair and dark eyes shining
out from under the broad-brimmed white hat she
wore.

Several ladies who were sitting on the shady
piazza, busy with their embroidery, noticed her
admiringly.

“It’s Elizabeth Lloyd’s little daughter,” one
of them explained. “Don’t you remember
what a scene there was some years ago when
she married a New York man? Sherman, I
believe, his name was, Jack Sherman. He was
a splendid fellow, and enormously wealthy.
Nobody could say a word against him, except
that he was a Northerner. That was enough
for the old Colonel, though. He hates Yankees
like poison. He stormed and swore, and for-
bade Elizabeth ever coming in his sight again.
He had her room locked up, and not a soul on
the place ever dares mention her name in 1 his
hearing.”

The Little Colonel sat down demurely on the
piazza steps to wait for the children. The
nurse had not finished dressing them for the
evening. :

She amused herself by showing Fritz ‘the
pictures in an illustrated weekly. It was not
THE LITTLE COLONEL: 15

long until:she began to feel that the ladies
were talking about her. She had lived among
older people so entirely that her thoughts were
much deeper than her baby speeches would
lead one to suppose.

She understood dimly, from what she had
heard the servants say, that there was some
trouble’ between her mother and grandfather.
Now she heard it rehearsed from beginning to
end. She could not understand what they
“meant by “bank failures” and “ unfortunate
investments,’ but she understood enough to
know that her father had lost nearly all his
money, and had gone west to make more.

Mrs. Sherman had moved from their elegant
New York home two weeks ago to this little
cottage in Lloydsborough that her mother had
left her. Instead of the houseful of servants
they used to have, there was only faithful Mom
Beck to do everything.

_ There was something magnetic in the child’s
eyes.

Mrs. Wyford shrugged her shoulders uneasily
as she caught their piercing gaze fixed on her.

“T do believe that little witch understood
every word I said,” she exclaimed.

“Oh, certainly not,” was the reassuring an-
swer. “She’s such a little thing.”
16 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

But she had heard it all, and understood
enough to make her vaguely unhappy. Going
home she did not frisk along with Fritz, but
walked soberly by Mom Beck’s side, holding
tight to the friendly black hand.

“We'll go through the woods,” said Mom
Beck, lifting her over the fence. “It’s not so
long that way.” ;

As they followed the narrow, straggling path
into the cool dusk of the woods, she began to
sing. The crooning chant was as mournful as °
a funeral dirge.

“ The clouds hang heavy, an’ it’s gwine to rain.
Fa’ well, my dyin’ friends.
I'm gwine to lie in the silent tomb.
Fa’ well, my dyin’ friends.”

A muffled little sob made her stop and look
down in surprise.

“Why, what’s the mattah, honey?” she ex-
claimed. ‘Did Emma Louise make you mad?
Or is you cryin’ ’cause you're so tied? Come!
Ole Becky’ll tote her baby the rest of the way.”

She picked the light form up in her arms,
and pressing the troubled little face against her
shoulder, resumed her walk and her song.

“Tt’s a world of trouble we’re travellin’ through,
Fa’ well, my dyin’ friends.”

“Oh, don’t, Mom Beck,” sobbed the child,
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 5 17

throwing her arms around the woman’s neck
and crying as though her heart would break.

“Land sakes, what zsthe mattah?”’ she asked
in alarm. She sat down on a mossy log, took
off the white hat, and looked into the flushed,
tearful face.

“Oh, it makes me so lonesome when you sing
that way,” wailed the Little Colonel. “I just
can’t ’tand it! Mom Beck, is my mothah’s
heart all broken? Is that why she is sick so
much, and will it kill her suah ’nuff?”’

“Who’s been tellin’ you such nonsense?”
asked the woman sharply.

“Some ladies at the hotel were talkin’ about
it. They said that gran’fathah didn’t love her
any moah, an’ it was just a-killin’ her.’ Mom
Beck frowned fiercely.

The child’s grief was so deep and intense
that she did not know just how to quiet her.
Then she said decidedly, ‘‘ Well, if that’s all
that’s a-troublin’ you, you can jus’ get down an’
walk home on yo’ own laigs. Yo’ mamma’s
a-grievin’ cause yo’ papa has to be away all the
time. She’s all wo’n out, too, with the work
of movin’, when she’s nevah been use to doin’
anything. But her heart isn’t broke any
moah’n my.neck is.”

The positive words and the decided toss
18 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Mom Beck gave her head settled the matter
for the Little Colonel. She wiped her eyes and
stood up much relieved.

“Don’t you nevah go to worryin’ ’bout what

you heahs,” continued the woman. “I tell you
p'intedly you cyarnt nevah b’lieve what you
heahs.”
- “Why doesn’t gran’fathah love my mothah?”
asked the child as they came in sight of the
cottage. She had puzzled over the knotty
problem all the way home. “How can papas
not love their little girls?”

“’Cause he’s stubbo’n,”’ was the unsatis-
factory answer. “All the Lloyds is. Yo’
mamma’s stubbo’n, an’ you’s stubbo’n—”’

“I’m not!” shrieked the Little Colonel,
stamping her foot. “You sha’n’t call me
hames !”’

Then she saw a familiar white hand waving
to her from the hammock, and she broke away
from Mom Beck with very red cheeks and very
bright eyes.

Cuddled close in her mother’s arms, she had
a queer feeling that she had grown a great deal
older in that short afternoon.

Maybe she had. For the first time in her
little life she kept her troubles to herself, and
did not once mention the thought that was
uppermost in her mind.
THE LITTLE COLONEL: 19

“Yo’ great-aunt Sally Tylah is comin’ this
mawin’,” said Mom Beck the day after their
visit to the hotel. ‘Do fo’ goodness’ sake
keep yo’self clean. I’se got too many spring
chickens to dress to think ’bout dressin’ you
up again.”

“ Did I evah see her befo’?” questioned the
Little Colonel.

“Why yes, the day we moved heah. Don’t
you know she came and stayed so long, and the
rockah broke off the little white rockin’-chair
when she sat down in it?”

“Oh, now I know!” laughed the child. “She’s
the big fat one with curls hangin’ round her
yeahs like shavin’s. I don’t like her, Mom Beck.
She keeps a-kissin’ me all the time, an’
a-’queezin’ me, an’ tellin’ me to sit on her lap
an’ be a little lady. Mom Beck, I de’pise to be
a little lady.”

There was no answer to her last reineele
Mom Beck had stepped into the pantry for
more eggs for the cake she was making.

“Fritz,” said the Little Colonel, “yo’ great;
aunt Sally Tylah’s comin’ this mawnin’, an’ if
you don’t want to say a to her yeu
have to come with me.’

A few minutes later a resolute little feure
squeezed between the palings of the garden
fence down by the gooseberry bushes.
20 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“Now walk on your tiptoes, Fritz!” com-
manded- the Little Colonel, “else somebody
will call us back.”

Mom Beck, busy with her extra baking, sup-
posed she was with her mother on the shady
vine-covered porch.

‘She would not have been singing quite so
gayly if she could have seen half a mile up the
foada

The ‘Little Colonel was sitting in the weeds

by the railroad track, deliberately taking off
her shoes and stockings.
«Just like a little niggah,” she said delight-
edly as she stretched out her bare feet. “Mom
Beck says I ought to know bettah. But it does
feel so good!”

. No telling how long she might have sat there
enjoying the forbidden pleasure of dragging
her rosy toes through the warm dust, if she had
not heard a horse’s hoof-beats coming rapidly
along.

“Fritz, its gran’fathah,” she whispered in
alarm, recognizing the erect figure of the rider
in its spotless suit of white duck.

“Sh! lie down in the weeds, quick! Lie down,
Tsay!”

They both made themselves as flat as possi-
ble, and lay there panting with the exertion of
keeping still.
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 21

Presently the Little Colonel raised her head

cautiously.
“Oh, he’s gone down that Jane!” she ex.
claimed. ‘ Now you can get up.” After a mo-

ment’s deliberation she asked, “ Fritz, would
you rathah have some *trawberries an’ be tied
up fo’ runnin’ away, or not be tied up and not
have any of those nice tas’en ’trawberries?”’
CHAPTER III.

Two hours later, Colonel Lloyd, riding down
the avenue under the locusts, was surprised by
a novel sight on his stately front steps.

Three little darkies and a big flop-eared
hound were crouched on the bottom step, look-
ing upat the Little Colonel, who sat just above
them.

She was industriously stirring something in
an old rusty pan with a big battered spoon.

“Now, May Lilly,” she ordered, speaking to
the largest and blackest of the group, “you run
an’ find some nice ’mooth pebbles to put in for
raisins. Henry Clay, you go get me some
moah sand. This is ’most too wet.”

“Here, you little pickaninnies!” roared the
Colonel as he recognized the cook’s children.
“What did I tell you about playing around
here, tracking dirt all over my premises? You
just chase back to the cabin where you be-
long!”

The sudden call startled Lloyd so that she
dropped the pan, and the great mud pie turned
upside down on the white steps.

“Well, you’re a pretty sight!” said the Colo-
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 23

nel as he glanced with disgust from her soiled
dress and muddy hands to her bare feet.

He had been in a bad humor all morning.
The sight of the steps covered with sand and
muddy tracks gave him an excuse to give vent
to his cross feelings.

It was one of his theories that a little girl
should always be kept as fresh and dainty as a
flower. He had never seen his own little
daughter in such a plight as this, and she had
never been allowed to step outside of her own
room without her shoes and stockings.

“What does your mother mean,” he cried
savagely, “ by letting you run barefooted around
the country just like poor white trash? An’
what are you playing with low-flung niggers
for? Haven’t you ever been taught any better ?
I suppose it’s some of your father’s miserable
Yankee notions.”

May Lilly, peeping around the corner of the
house, rolled her frightened eyes from one angry
face to theother. The same temper that glared
from the face of the man, sitting erect in his
saddle, seemed to be burning in the eyes of the
child who stood so defiantly before him.

The same kind of scowl drew their eyebrows
together darkly.

“Don’t you talk that. way to me,” cried the

Cc
24 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Little Colonel, trembling with a wrath she did
not know how to ex-

1a l press.
i | Suddenly she
i ass stooped, and snatch-

ing both hands full
of mud from the
_ overturned pie, flung
‘® it wildly over the
spotless white
coat.
Ciodiomnrel
Lloyd gasped
with astonish-
ment. It was





















































the first time in his life he
had ever been openly de-
fied. The next moment his anger gave way to
amusement,
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 25

“ By George!” he chuckled admiringly. ‘The
little thing has got spirit, sure enough. She’s
a Lloyd through and through. So that’s why
they call her the ‘ Little Colonel,’ is it ?”

There was a tinge of pride in the look he
gave her haughty little head and flashing eyes.

“There, there, child!” he said soothingly.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad, when you
were good enough to come and see me. It isn’t
often I havea little lady like you to pay me a
visit.”

“I didn’t come to see you, suh,”’ she answered
indignantly as she started toward the gate. “I
came to see May Lilly. But I nevah would
have come inside yo’ gate if I’d known you was
goin’ to hollah at me an’ be so cross.”

She was walking off with the air of an of-
fended queen, when the Colonel remembered
that if he allowed her to go away in that mood
she would probably never set foot on his grounds
again. Her display of temper had interested
him immensely.

Now that he had laughed off his ill humor,
he was anxious to see what other traits of char-
acter she possessed.

He wheeled his horse across the walk to bar
her way, and quickly dismounted.

“Oh, now, wait a minute,” he said in a coax-
26 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

ing tone. “Don’t you want a nice big saucer of
strawberries and cream before you go? Walk-
er’s picking some now. And you haven't seen
my hothouse. It’s just full of the loveliest
flowers you ever saw. You like roses, don’t
you, and pinks and lilies and pansies?”

He saw he had struck the right chord as
soon as he mentioned the flowers. The sullen
look vanished as if by magic. Her face changed
as suddenly as an April day.

“Qh, yes!” she cried, with a beaming smile.
“T loves ’m bettah than anything!”

He tied his horse, and led the way to the
conservatory. He opened the door for her to
pass through, and then watched her closely
to see what impression it would make on her.
He had expected a delighted exclamation of
surprise, for he had good reason to be proud of
his rare plants. They were arranged with a
true artist’s eye for color and effect.

She did not say a word for a moment, but
drew a long breath, while the delicate pink in
her cheeks deepened and her eyes lighted up.
Then she began going slowly from flower to
flower, laying her face against the cool velvety
purple of the pansies, touching the roses with
her lips, and tilting the white lily-cups to look
into their golden depths. oe

t
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 27

As she passed from one to another as lightly
as a butterfly might have done, she began
chanting in a happy undertone.

Ever since she had learned to talk she had a
quaint little way of singing to herself. All the
names that pleased her fancy she strung to-
gether in a crooning melody of her own.

_ There was no special tune. It sounded
happy, although nearly always in a minor key.

“Oh, the jonquils an’ the lilies!”’ she sang.
“All white an’ gold an’ yellow. Oh, they’re
all a-smilin’ at me, an’ a-sayin’ howdy! howdy !”

She was so absorbed in her intense enjoy-
ment that she forgot all about the old Colonel.
She was wholly unconscious that he was watch-
ing or listening.

“She really does love them,” he thought com-
‘placently. “To see her face one would think
she had found a fortune.”

It was another bond between them.

After a while he took a small basket from
the wall and began to fill it with his choic-
est blooms.

“You shall have these to take home,” he
said. ‘Now come into the house and get your
strawberries.”

She followed. him reluctantly, turning back
several times for one more long sniff of the de-
licious fragrance.
28 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

She was not at all like the Colonel’s ideal of
what alittle girl should be, as she sat in one of
the high, stiff chairs, enjoying her strawberries.
Her dusty little toes wriggled around in the
curls on Fritz’s back, as she used him for a
foot-stool. Her dress was draggled and dirty,
and she kept leaning over to give the dog ber-
ries and cream from the spoon she was eating
with herself.

He forgot all this, however, when she began
to talk to him.

“My great-aunt Sally Tylah is to ou’ house
this mawnin’,” she announced confidentially.
“That’s why we came off. Do you know
my Aunt Sally Tylah?”

“Well, slightly!” chuckled the Colonel.
“She was my wife’s half sister. So you don’t
like her, eh? Well, I don’t like her either.”

He threw back his head and laughed heartily.
The more the child talked the more entertain-
ing he found her. He did not remember when
he had ever been so amused before as he was
by this tiny counterpart of himself.

When the last berry had vanished, she
slipped down from the tall chair.

“Do you ’pose it’s very late?”’ she asked in
an anxious voice. “Mom Beck will be comin’
for me soon.”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 29

‘ “Yes, it is nearly noon,” he answered. “It
didn’t do much good to run away from your
Aunt Tyler; she’ll see you after all.”

“Well, she can’t ’queeze me an’ kiss me,
cause I’ve been naughty, an’ I’ll be put to bed
like I was the othah day, just as soon as I get
home. I ’most wish I was there now,” she
sighed. “It’s so fa’ an’ the sun’s so hot. I
lost my sunbonnet when I was comin’ heah,
too.”

Something in the tired, dirty face prompted
the old Colonel to say, “ Well, my horse hasn’t
been put away yet. I'll take you home on
Maggie Boy.”

The next moment he repented making such
an offer, thinking what the neighbors might
say if they should meet him on the road with
Elizabeth’s child in his arm. ;

But it was too late. He could not unclasp
the trusting little hand that was slipped in his.
He could not cloud the happiness of the eager
little face by retracting his promise.

He swung himself into the saddle, with her
in front.

Then he put his one arm around her with a
firm clasp, as he reached forward to take the
bridle.

“You couldn’t take Fritz on behin’, could
30 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

you?” she asked anxiously. “He's mighty
ti’ed too.”

“No,” said the Colonel with alaugh. “Mag.
gie Boy might object and throw us all off.”

Hugging her basket of flowers close in her
arms, she leaned her head against him con-
tentedly as they cantered down the avenue.

“Look!” whispered all the locusts, waving
their hands to each other excitedly. “Look!
The master has his own again. The dear old
times are coming back to us.”

“ How the trees blow!”” exclaimed the child,
looking up at the green arch overhead. “See!
They’s all a-noddin’ to each othah.”

“We'll have to get my shoes an’ ’tockin’s,”
she said presently, when they were nearly
home. ‘“They’re in that fence cawnah behin’
a log.”

The Colonel obediently got down and handed
them to her. As he mounted again he saw a
carriage coming toward them. He recognized
one of his nearest neighbors. Striking the
astonished Maggie Boy with his spur, he
turned her across the railroad track, down the
steep embankment, and into an unfrequented
lane.

“This road is just back of your garden,” he
said. “Can you get through the fence if I
take you there?”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 31

“That's the way we came out,’ was the
answer. “See that hole where the palin’s are
off ?””

Just as he was about to lift her down, she
put one arm around his neck, and kissed him
softly on the cheek.

“Good by, gran’fatha’,” she said in her most
winning way. ‘I’ve had a mighty nice time.”
Then she added in alower tone, ‘“ Kuse me fo’
throwin’ mud on yo’ coat.”

He held her close a moment, thinking noth-
ing had ever before been half so sweet as the
way she called him grandfather.

From that moment his heart went out to her
as it had to little Tom and Elizabeth. It made
no difference if her mother had forfeited his
love. It made no difference if Jack Sherman
was her father, and that the two men heartily
hated each other.

* It was his own little grandchild he held in
his arms.

She had sealed the relationship with a trust-
ing kiss.

“Child,” he said huskily, “you will come and
see me again, won’t you, no matter if they do
tell you not to? You shall have all the flowers
and berries you want, and you can ride Maggie
Boy as often as you please.”
32 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

She looked up into his face. It was very
familiar to her. She had looked at his por-
trait often, unconsciously recognizing a kindred
spirit that she longed to know.

Her ideas of grandfathers gained from stories
and observation led her to class them with
fairy god-mothers. She had always wished for
one.

The day they moved to Lloydsborough, Lo-
cust had been pointed out to her as her grand-
father’s home. From that time on she slipped
away with Fritz on every possible occasion to
peer through the gate, hoping for a glimpse of
him.

“Yes, I’ll come suah!” she promised. “I
likes you just lots, gran’fathah |”

He watched her scramble through the hole
in the fence. Then he turned his horse’s head
slowly homeward.

A scrap of white lying on the grass attracted
his attention as he neared the gate.

“Tt’s the lost sunbonnet,” he said with a
smile. He carried it into the house and hung
it on the hat-rack in the wide front hall.

‘“‘Qle marse is crosser’n two sticks,” growled
Walker to the cook at dinner. ‘‘There ain’t no
livin’ with him. What do you s’pose is the
mattah ?” ;
CHAPTER IV.

Mom Beck was busy putting lunch on the
table when the Little Colonel looked in at
the kitchen door.

So she did not see a little tramp, carrying her
shoes in one hand and a basket in the other,
who paused there a moment. But when she
took up the pan of beaten biscuit she was
puzzled to find that several were missing.

“It beats my time,” she said aloud. “The
parrot couldn’t have reached them, an’ Lloyd
an’ the dog have been in the pa’lah all mawnin’.
Somethin’ has jus’ natch’ly done sperrited ’em
away.”

Fritz was gravely licking his lips, and the
Little Colonel had her mouth full, when they
suddenly made their appearance on the front
porch.

Aunt Sally Tyler gave a little shrick and
stopped rocking.

“Why, Lloyd Sherman!” gasped her mother
in dismay. “Where have you been? I thought
you were with Becky all the time. I was sure
I heard you singing out there a little while

” '

ago,
34 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“T’ve been to see my gran’fathah,” said the
child, speaking very fast. “I made mud pies
on his front ’teps, an’ we both of us got mad, an’
I throwed mud on him, an’ he gave me some
*trawberries an’ all these flowers, an’ brought
me home on Maggie Boy.”

She stopped out of breath.

Mrs. Tyler and her niece exchanged as-
tonished glances.

“But, baby, how could you disgrace mother
so by going up there looking like a dirty little
beggar?”

“He didn’t care,” replied Lloyd calmly.
“He made me promise to come again, no
mattah if you all did tell me not to.”

Just then Becky announced that lunch was
ready, and carried the child away to make her
presentable.

To Lloyd’s great surprise she was not put to
bed, but was allowed to go to the table as soon
as she was dressed. It was not long until she
had told every detail of the morning’s ex-
perience.

While she was taking her afternoon nap, the
two ladies sat out on the porch, gravely dis-
cussing all she had told them.

“Tt doesn’t seem right for me to allow her to
go there,” said Mrs. Sherman, “after the way
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 35

papa has treated us. I can never forgive him
for all the terrible things he has said about
Jack, and I know Jack can never be friends
with him on account of what he has said about
‘me. He has been so harsh and unjust that I
don’t want my little Lloyd to have anything to
do with him. I wouldn’t for worlds have him
think that I encouraged her going there.”

“Well, yes, I know,” answered her aunt
slowly. ‘But there are some things to con-
sider besides your pride, Elizabeth. There’s
the child herself, you know. Now that Jack
has lost so much, and your prospects are so
uncertain, you ought to think of her interests.
It would be a pity for Locust to go to strangers
when it has been in your family for so many
generations. That’s what it certainly will do
unléss something turns up to interfere. Old
Judge Woodard told me himself that your
father had made a will, leaving everything he
owns to some medical institution. Imagine
Locust being turned into a sanitarium or a
training school for nurses!”

“Dear old place!” said Mrs. Sherman, with
tears in her eyes. “No. one ever had a happier
childhood than I passed under these old locusts.
Every tree seems like a friend. I would be
glad for. Lloyd to enjoy the place as I did.”
36 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“TI’d let her go as much as she _ pleases,
Elizabeth. She’s so much like the old Colonel
that they ought to understand each other and
get along capitally. Who knows, it might end
in you all making up some day.”

Mrs. Sherman raised her head haughtily.
“No, indeed, Aunt Sally. I can forgive and
forget much, but you are greatly mistaken
if you think I can go to such lengths as that.
He closed his doors against me with a curse,
for no reason on earth but that the man I
loved was born north of the Mason and Dixon
line. There never was a nobler man living than
Jack, and papa would have seen it if he hadn’t
deliberately shut his eyes and refused to look at
him. He was just prejudiced and stubborn.”

Aunt Sally said nothing, but her thoughts
took the shape of Mom Beck’s declaration,
“The Lloyds is all stubbo’n.”

“T wouldn’t go through his gate now if he
got down on his knees and begged me,”’ con-
tinued Elizabeth hotly.

“It’s too bad,” exclaimed her aunt ; “ he was
always so perfectly devoted to ‘little daughter’
as he used to call you. I don’t like him my-
self. We never could get along together at all,
because he is so high strung and overbearing.
But I know it would have made your poor
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 37

mother mighty unhappy if she could have fore-
seen all this.”

Elizabeth sat with the tears dropping down on
her little white hands, as her aunt proceeded to
work on her sympathies in every way she could
think of.

Presently Lloyd came out all fresh and rosy
from her long nap, and went to play in the
shade of the great beech trees that guarded the
cottage.

“T never saw a child with
such an influence over animals,”
said her mother as Lloyd came
around the house with the par-
rot perched on
the broom she
was carrying. JM
“She’ll walk — We
right up to any
strange dog and
make friends with it, no
matter how savage-looking
it is. And there’s Polly,
so old and cross that she screams and scolds
dreadfully if any of us go near her. But Lloyd
dresses her up in doll’s clothes, puts paper bon-
nets on her, and makes her just as uncomfort-
able as she pleases. Look! that is one of her
favorite amusements. ’






38 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

_ The Little Colonel squeezed the parrot intoa
tiny doll carriage, and began to trundle it back
and forth as fast as she could run.

“Ha! ha!’ screamed the bird. “Polly is a
lady! Oh, Lordy! I’m so happy!”

“She caught that from the washerwoman,”
laughed Mrs. Sherman. “I should think the
poor thing would be dizzy from whirling around
so fast.”

“Quit that, chillun; stop yo’ fussin’,”
screamed Polly as Lloyd grabbed her up and
began to pin a shawl around her neck. She
clucked angrily, hut never once attempted to
snap at the dimpled fingers that squeezed her
tight. Suddenly, as if her patience was com-
pletely exhausted, she uttered a disdainful “ Oh
pshaw!” and flew up into an old cedar tree.

“Mothah! Polly won’t play with me any
moah,” shrieked the child, flying into a rage.
She stamped and scowled and grew red in the
face. Then she began beating the trunk of the
tree with the old broom she had been carrying.

“Did you ever see anything so much like
the old Colonel?” said Mrs. Tyler in astonish- |

ment.. “I wonder if she acted that way this
morning.”

“J don’t doubt it at all,’ answered Mrs.
Sherman. “She'll be over it in just a mo-

ment. These little spells never.last long.”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 39

Mrs. Sherman was right. Ina few moments
Lloyd came up the walk, singing.

“T wish you'd tell me a pink story,” she said
coaxingly as she leaned against her mother’s
knee.

“Not now, dear ; don’t you see that I am busy
talking to Aunt Sally? Run andask Mom Beck
for one.”

“What on earth does she mean by a pink
story?” asked Mrs. Tyler.

“Oh, she is so fond of colors. She is always
asking for a pink or a blue or a white story.
She wants everything in the story tinged
with whatever color she chooses, — dresses,
parasols, flowers, sky, even the icing on the
cakes and the paper on the walls.”

“What an odd little thing she is!” exclaimed
Mrs. Tyler. “Isn’t she lots of company for
you?”

She need not have asked that question if she
could have seen them that evening, sitting to-
gether in the early twilight.

Lloyd was in her mother’s lap, leaning her
head against her shoulder as they rocked slowly
back and forth on the dark porch.

There was an occasional rattle of wheels
along the road, a twitter of sleepy birds, a dis-

tant croaking of frogs.
D
40 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Mom Beck’s voice floated in from the kitchen,
where she was stepping briskly around.

“Oh, the clouds hang heavy, an’ it’s gwine to rain.
Fa’well, my dyin’ friends,’’
she sang.

Lloyd put her arms closer around her
mother’s neck.

“Let's talk about Papa Jack,” she said.
“What you ’pose he’s doin’ now, ’way out
west.”

Elizabeth, feeling like a tired, homesick child
herself, held her close, and was comforted as she
listened to the sweet little voice talking about
the absent father.

The moon came up after a while, and
streamed in through the vines of the porch.
The hazel eyes slowly closed as Elizabeth be-
gan to hum an old-time negro lullaby.

“Wondah if she’ll run away to-morrow,”
whispered Mom Beck as she came out to carry
her in the house.

“Who'd evah think now, lookin’ at her pretty,
innocent face, that she could be so naughty?
Bless her little soul!”

The kind old black face was laid lovingly a
moment against the fair soft cheek of the Little
Colonel. Then she lifted her in her strong
arms, and carried her gently away to bed.
CHAPTER V.

SUMMER lingers long among the Kentucky
_ hills. Each passing day seemed fairer than the
last to the Little Colonel, who had never before
known anything of country life.
Roses climbed up and almost hid the small
_ white cottage. Red birds sang in the wood-
bine. Squirrels chattered in the beeches. She
was out of doors all day long.

Sometimes she spent hours watching the ants
carry away the sugar she sprinkled for them.
Sometimes she caught flies for an old spider
that had his den under the porch steps.

“He is an ogah” (ogre), she explained to
Fritz. “He’s bewitched me so’s I have to kill
whole families of flies for him to eat.”

She was always busy and always happy.

Before June was half over it got to be a
common occurrence for Walker to ride up to
the gate on the Colonel’s horse. The excuse
was always to have a passing word with Mom
Beck. But before he rode away, the Little
Colonel was generally mounted in front of him.
It was not long before she felt almost as much
at home at Locust as she did at the cottage.
42 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

a

The neighbors began to comment on it after
awhile. ‘He will surely make up with Eliza-
beth at this
rate,” they said.
But at the end
>“. of the summer

“ the father and
daughter had
'- not even had a
' passing glimpse
of each other.

One day, late
in September,
as the Little
Colonel clat-
tered up and
down the hall
with her grand-
father’s spur
buckled on her
tiny foot, she called
back over her shoulder:
“Papa Jack’s comin’
home to-morrow.”
ell The Colonel paid no

SS “S attention.
“Tsay,” she repeated,
“Papa Jack’s comin’ home to-morrow.”



,
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 43

“Well,” was the gruff response. ‘ Why
couldn’t he stay where he was? I suppose you
won’t want te come here any more after he gets
back.”

“No, I ’pose not,’ she answered so carc-
lessly that he was conscious of a very jealous
feeling.

“Chilluns always like to stay with their
fathahs when they’s nice as my Papa Jack is.”

The old man growled something behind his
newspaper that she did not hear. He would
have been glad to choke this man who had
come between him and his only child, and he
hated him worse than ever when he realized
what a large place he held in Lloyd’s little
heart.

She did not go back to Locust the next day,
nor for weeks after that.

She was up almost as soon as Mom Beck next
morning, thoroughly enjoying the bustle of
preparation.

She had a finger in everything, from polish-
ing the silver to turning the ice-cream freezer.

Even Fritz was scrubbed till he came out of
his bath with his curls all white and shining.
He was proud of himself, from his silky bangs
to the tip of his tasselled tail.

Just before train time, the Little Coloncl
44 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

stuck his collar full of late pink roses, and stood
back to admire the effect. Her mother came
to the door, dressed for the evening. She wore
an airy-looking dress of the palest, softest blue.
There was a white rosebud caught in her dark
hair. A bright color, as fresh as Lloyd’s own,
tinged her cheeks, and the glad light in her
brown eyes made them unusually brilliant.

Lloyd jumped up and threw her arms about
her. ‘Oh, mothah,” she cried, “you an’ Fritz
is so bu’ful!”

The engine whistled up the road at the cross-
ing. ‘Come, we have just time to get to the
station,” said Mrs. Sherman, holding out her
hand.

They went through the gate, down the narrow
path that ran beside the dusty road. The train
had just stopped in front of the little station
when they reached it.

A number of gentlemen, coming out from
the city to spend Sunday at the hotel, came
down the steps.

They glanced admiringly from the beautiful,
girlish face of the mother to the happy child
dancing impatiently up and down at her side.
They could not help smiling at Fritz as he
frisked about in his imposing rose-collar.

“Why, where’s Papa Jack?” asked Lloyd in
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 45

distress as passenger after passenger stepped
down. “Isn’t he goin’ to come?”

The tears were beginning to gather in her
eyes, when she saw him in the door of the car;
not hurrying along to meet them as he always
used to come, so full of life and vigor, but lean.
ing heavily on the porter’s shoulder, looking
very pale and weak.

Lloyd looked up at her mother, from whose
face every particle of color had faded. Mrs.
Sherman gave a low, frightened cry as she
sprang forward to meet him.

“Oh, Jack! what is the matter? What has
happened to you?” she exclaimed as he took
her in his arms. The train had gone on, and
they were left alone on the platform.

“Just a little sick spell,” he answered a smile. “We had a fire out at the mines,
and I overtaxed myself some. I’ve had fever
ever since, and it has pulled me down consider-
ably.”

“T must send somebody for a carriage,” she
said, looking around anxiously.

“No, indeed,” he protested. ‘It’s only a few
steps ; I can walk it as well as not. The sight
of you and the baby has made me stronger
already.”

He sent a colored boy on ahead with his
46 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

valise, and they walked slowly up the path,
with Fritz running wildly around them, barking
a glad welcome.

“ How sweet and homelike it all looks!” he
said as he stepped into the hall, where Mom
Beck was just lighting the lamps. Then he
sank down on the couch, completely exhausted,
and wearily closed his eyes.

The Little Colonel looked at his white face in
alarm. All the gladness seemed to have been
taken out of the homecoming.

Her mother was busy trying to make him
comfortable, and paid no attention to the dis-
consolate little figure wandering about the house
alone. Mom Beck had gone for the doctor.

The supper was drying up in the warming
oven. The ice-cream was melting in the freezer.
Nobody seemed to care. There was no one to
notice the pretty table with its array of flowers
and cut glass and silver.

When Mom Beck came back, Lloyd ate all by
herself, and then sat out on the kitchen door-
step while the doctor made his visit.

She was just going mournfully off to bed with
an aching lump in her throat, when her mother
opened the door.

“ Come tell papa good night,” she said. “He’s
lots better now.”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 47

She climbed up on the bed beside him, and
buried her face on his shoulder to hide the tears
she had been trying to keep back all evening.

“ How the child has grown!” he exclaimed.
““Do you notice, Beth, how much plainer she
talks? She does not seem at all like the baby
I left last spring. Well, she’ll soon be six years
old, —a real little woman. She'll be papa’s
little comfort.”

The ache in her throat was all gone after that.
She romped with Fritz all the time she was un-
dressing.

Papa Jack was worse next morning. It was
hard for Lloyd to keep quiet when the late
September sunshine was so gloriously yellow
and the whole outdoors seemed so wide awake.

She tiptoed out of the darkened room where
her father lay, and swung on the front gate un-
til she saw the doctor riding up on his bay horse.
It seemed to her that the day never would pass.

Mom Beck, rustling around in her best dress
ready for church, that afternoon, took pity on
the lonesome child.

“Go get yo’ best hat, honey,’
Pll take you with me.”

It was one of the Little Colonel’s greatest
pleasures to be allowed to go to the colored
- church.

’

she said, ‘an’
48 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

She loved to listen to the singing, and would
sit perfectly motionless while the sweet voices
blended like the chords of some mighty organ
as they sent the old hymns rolling heavenward.

Service had already commenced by the time
they took their seats. Nearly everybody in the
congregation was swaying back and forth in
time to the mournful melody of “ Sinnah, sinnah,
where’s you boun’?”

One old woman across the aisle began clap-
ping her hands together, and repeated in a sing-
song tone, “Oh, Lordy! I’m so happy!”

“ Why, that’s just what our parrot says,” ex-
claimed Lloyd, so much surprised that she spoke
right out Joud.

Mom Beck put her handkerchief over her
mouth, and a general smile went around.

After that the child was very quiet until the
time came to take the collection. She always
enjoyed this part of the service more than any-
thing else. Instead of passing baskets around,
each person was invited to come forward and
lay his offering on the table.

Woolly heads wagged and many feet kept time
to the tune:

“Oh! I’se boun’ to git to glory.
Hallelujah! Le’ me go!”’

The Little Colonel proudly marched up with
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 49

Mom Beck’s contribution, and then watched the
others pass down the aisle. One young girl in
a gorgeously trimmed dress paraded up to the
table several times, singing at the top of her
voice.

“Look at that good-fo’-nothin’
Lize Richa’ds,” whispered Mom
Beck’s nearest neighbor, with a
sniff. “She done got a nickel
changed into pennies so she could
ma’ch up an’ show herself five
times.”

It was nearly sundown
when they started home.
A tall colored man, wear-
ing a high silk hat and
carrying a gold-headed
cane, joined them on the
way out.

“Howdy, Sistah Po’tah,” /
he said, gravely shaking fi
hands. ‘That wasa fine dis-
co’se we had the pleasuah ===
of listenin’ to this evenin’.”’

“’Deed it was, Brothah Fostah,”’ she an-
swered. “ How’s all up yo’ way?”

The Little Colonel, running on after a couple
‘of white butterflies, paid no attention to the








50 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

conversation until she heard her own name
mentioned.

“Mistah Sherman came home last night, I
heah.”

“Yes, but not to stay long, I’m afraid. He’s
a mighty sick man, if ’many judge. He’s down
with fevah, —regulah typhoid. He doesn’t look
to me like he’s long for this world. What’s to
become of poah Miss ’Lizabeth if that’s the
‘case, is moah’n J know.”

“We mustn’t cross the bridge till we come
to it, Sistah Po’tah,” he suggested.

“T know that; but a lookin’-glass broke
yeste’day mawnin’ when nobody had put fingah
on it. An’ his picture fell down off the wall
while I was sweepin’ the pa’lah. Pete said his
dawg done howl all night last night, an’ I’ve
dremp three times hand runnin’ ’bout muddy
watah.”

Mom Beck felt a little hand clutch her skirts,
and turned to see a frightened little face looking
anxiously up at her.

“Now what’s the mattah with you, honey ?”
she asked. “I’m only a-tellin’ Mistah Fostah
about some silly old signs my mammy used to
believe in. But they don’t mean nothin’ at all.”

Lloyd couldn’t have told why she was un-
happy.. She had not understood all that Mom
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 51

Beck had said, but her sensitive little mind was
shadowed by a foreboding of trouble.

The shadow deepened as the days passed.
Papa Jack got worse instead of better. There
were times when he did not recognize any one,
and talked wildly of things that had happened
out at the mines.

All the long beautiful October went by, and
still he lay in the darkened room. Lloyd wan-
dered listlessly from place to place, trying to
keep out of the way and to make as little
trouble as possible.

“T’m a real little woman now,” she repeated
proudly whenever she was allowed to pound ice
or carry fresh water. “I’m papa’s little com-
fort.

One cold, frosty evening she was standing in
the hall, when the doctor came out of the room
and began to put on his overcoat.

Her mother followed him to take his directions
for the night.

He was an old friend of the family’s. Eliza-
beth had climbed on his knees many a time when
she was a child. She loved this faithful, white-
haired old doctor almost as dearly as she had
her father.

“My daughter,” he said kindly, laying his

hand on her shoulder, “you are wearing your-
52 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

self out, and will be down yourself if you are
not careful. You must have a professional
nurse. No telling how long this is going to
last. As soon as Jack is able to travel you must
have a change of climate.”

Her lips trembled. ‘“ We can’t afford it, doc-
tor,” she said. ‘Jack has been too sick from
the very first to talk about business. He
always said a woman should not be worried
with such matters, anyway. I don’t know what
arrangements he has made out west. For all
I know, the little I have in my purse now
may be all that stands between us and the
poorhouse.”

The doctor drew on his gloves.

“Why don’t you tell your father how matters
are?” he asked.

Then he saw he had ventured a step too far.

“I believe Jack would rather die than take
help from his hands,” she answered, drawing
herself up proudly. Her eyes flashed. “I
would, too, as far as I am concerned myself.”

Then a tender look came over her pale, tired
face as she added gently, “ But I’d do anything
on earth to help Jack get well.”

The doctor cleared his throat vigorously, and
bolted out with a gruff good night. As he rode
past Locust, he took solid satisfaction in shak-
ing his fist at the light in an upper window.
CHAPTER VI.

Tue Little Colonel followed her mother to
the dining-room, but paused on the threshold
as she saw her throw herself into Mom Beck’s
arms and burst out crying.

“Qh, Becky!” she sobbed, “what is going
to become of us? The doctor says we must
have a professional nurse, and we must go away
from here soon. There are only a few dollars
left in my purse, and I don’t know what we’ll
do when they are gone. I just £now Jack is go-
ing to die, and then I’ll die too, and then what
will become of the baby?”

Mom Beck sat down and took the trembling
form in her arms.

“There, there!’ she said soothingly, ‘‘ have
yo’ cry out. It will do you good. Poah chile!
all wo’n out with watchin’ an’ worry. Ne’m min’,
ole Becky is as good as a dozen nuhses yet. I'll
get Judy to come up an’ Jook aftah the kitchen.
An’ nobody ain’ gwine to die, honey. Don’t.
you go to slayin’ all you’s got befo’ you’s called
on to do it. The good Lawd is goin’ to pah-
vide fo’ us same as Abraham.”

The last Sabbath’s sermon was still fresh in
her mind.
54 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“Tf we only hold out faithful, there’s boun’
to be aram caught by the hawns some place,
even if we haven’t got eyes to see through the
thickets. The Lawd will pahvide whethah it’s
a burnt offerin’ or a meal’s vittles. He sho’ly
will.”

Lloyd crept away frightened. It seemed
such an awful thing to her to see her mother cry.

All. at once her bright, happy world had
changed to such a strange, uncertain place.
She felt as if all sorts of terrible things were
about to happen.

She went into the parlor and crawled into a
dark corner under the piano, feeling that there
was no place to go for comfort, since the one
who had always kissed away her little troubles
was so heartbroken herself.

There was a patter of soft feet across. the
carpet, and Fritz poked his sympathetic nose
into her face. She put her arms around him
and laid her head against his curly back with a
desolate sob.

It is pitiful to think how much imaginative
children suffer through their wrong COREE
of things.

She had seen the little roll of bills in her
mother’s pocketbook. She had seen how much
smaller it grew every time it was taken out to
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 55

pay for the expensive wines and medicines that
had to be bought so often. She had heard her
mother tell the doctor that was all that stood
between them and the poorhouse.

There was no word known to the Little Colo-
nel that brought such thoughts of horror as
the word poorhouse.

Her most vivid recollection of her life in New
York was something that happened a few weeks
before they left there. One day in the park
she ran away from the maid, who, instead of
Mom Beck, had taken charge of her that after-
noon.

When the angry woman found her, she fright-
ened her almost into a spasm by telling her
what always happened to naughty children who
ran away.

“ They take all their pretty clothes off,” she
said, “and dress them up in old things made of
bed ticking. Then they take’m to the poor-
house, where nobody but beggars live. They
don’t have anything to eat but cabbage and
corn-dodger, and they have to eat that out of
tin pans. And they just have a pile of straw
to sleep in.”

On their way home she had pointed out to
- the frightened child a poor woman who was

grubbing in an ash barrel.
E
56 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“That’s the way people get to look who live
in poorhouses,”’ she said.

It was this memory that was troubling the
Little Colonel now.

“Oh, Fritz!” she whispered, with the tears
running down her cheeks, “I can’t beah to
think of my pretty mothah goin’ there. That
woman’s eyes were all red, an’ her hair was jus’
awful. She was so bony an’ stahved-lookin’,
It would jus’ kill poah Papa Jack to lie on
straw an’ eat out of a tin pan. I know it
would!”

When Mom Beck opened the door, hunting
her, the room was so dark that she would have
gone away if the dog had not come running
out from under the piano.

“You heah too, chile?” she asked in sur-
prise. “I have to go down now an’ see if I
can get Judy to come help to-morrow. Do you
think you can undress yo’self to-night ?”

“Of co’se,’ answered the Little Colonel.
Mom Beck was in such a hurry to be off that
she did not notice the tremble in the voice that
answered her.

“Well, the can’le is lit in yo’ room. So run
along now like a nice little lady, an’ don’t
bothah yo’ mamma. She got her hands full
already.”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 57

* All right,” answered the child.

A quarter of an hour later she stood in her
little white nightgown with her hand on the
door knob.

She opened the door just a crack and peeped
in. Her mother laid her finger on her lips and
beckoned silently. In another instant Lloyd
was in her lap. She had cried herself quiet in
the dark corner under the piano; but there was
something more pathetic in her eyes than tears.
It was the expression of one who understood
and sympathized.

«Oh, mothah,” she whispered, “ we does have
such lots of troubles.”

“ Yes, chickabiddy, but I hope they will soon
be over now,” was the answer as the anxious
face tried to smile bravely for the child’s ‘sake.
“Papa is sleeping so nicely now he is sure to be
better in the morning.”

That comforted the Little Colonel some, but
for days she was haunted by the fear of the
poorhouse.

Every time her mother paid out any money
she looked anxiously to see how much was still
left. She wandered about the place, touching
the trees and vines with caressing hands, feel-
ing that she might soon have to leave them.

~Shé loved them all so dearly, — every stick
58 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

and stone, and even the stubby old snowball
bushes that never bloomed.

Her dresses were outgrown and faded, but no
one had any time or thought to spend on getting
her new ones. A little hole began to come in
the toe of each shoe.

She was still wearing her summer sunbonnet,
although the days were getting frosty.

She was a proud little thing. It mortified
her for any one to see her looking so shabby.
Still she uttered no word of complaint for fear
of lessening the little amount in the pocketbook,
that her mother had said stood between them
and the poorhouse.

She sat with her feet tucked under her when
any one called.

“JT wouldn’t mind bein’ a little beggah so
much myself,” she thought, “but I jus’ can’t
have my bu’ful sweet mothah lookin’ like that
awful red-eyed woman.”

One day the doctor called Mrs. Sherman out
into the hall. “I have just come from your
father’s,” he said. “He is suffering from a
severe attack of rheumatism. He is confined
to his room, and is positively starving for com-
pany. Hetold me he would give anything in
the world to have his little grandchild with
him. There were tears in his eyes when he
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 59

said it, and that means a good deal from him.
He fairly idolizes her. The servants have told
him she mopes around and is getting thin and
pale. He is afraid she will come down with the
fever too. He told me to use any stratagem I
liked to get her there. But I think it’s better
to tell you frankly how matters stand. It will
do the child good to have a change, Elizabeth,
and I solemnly think you ought to let her go,
for a week at least.”

“But, doctor, she has never been away from
me a single night in her life. She’d die of
home sickness, and I know she’ll never consent
to leave me. Then suppose Jack should get
worse —”

“We'll suppose nothing of the kind,” he in-
terrupted brusquely. ‘Tell Becky to pack up
her things. Leave Lloyd to me. I'll get her
consent without any trouble.”

“Come, Colonel,” he called as he left the
house. “I’m going to take you a little ride.”

No one ever knew what the kind old fellow
said to her to induce her to go to her grand-
father’s.

She came back from her ride looking brighter
than she had in a long time. She felt that in
some way, although in what way she could not
understand, her going would help them to es-
cape the dreaded poorhouse.
60 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“Don’t send Mom Beck with me,” she
pleaded, when the time came to start. “You
come with me, mothah.”

Mrs. Sherman had not been past the gate for
weeks, but she could not refuse the coaxing
hands that clung to hers.

It was a dull, dreary day. There was a chill-
ing hint of snow in the damp air. The leaves
whirled past them with a mournful rustling.

Mrs. Sherman turned up the collar of Lloyd’s
cloak.

“© You must have a new one soon,” she said
with a sigh. “Maybe one of mine could be
made over for you. And those poor little
shoes! I must think to send to town for a new
pair.”

The walk was over so soon. The Little
Colonel’s heart beat fast as they came in sight
of the gate. She winked bravely to keep back
the tears ; for she had promised the doctor not
to let her mother see her cry.

A week seemed such a long time to look for-
ward to.

She clung to her mother’s neck, feeling that
she could never give her up so long.

“Tell me good-by, baby dear,” said Mrs.
Sherman, feeling that she could not trust her-
self to stay much longer. “It is too cold for
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 61

you to stand here. Run on, and I'll watch you
till you get inside the door.”

The Little Colonel started bravely down the
avenue, with Fritz at her heels. Every few



steps she turned to look back and kiss her
hand.

Mrs. Sherman watched her through a blur of
tears. It had been nearly seven years since she
62 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

had last stood at that old gate. Such a crowd
of memories came rushing up!

She looked again. There was a flutter of a
white handkerchief as the Little Colonel and
Fritz went up the steps. Then the great front
door closed behind them
CHAPTER VII.

Tuar early twilight hour just before the
lamps were lit was the lonesomest one the
Little Colonel had ever spent.

Her grandfather was asleep upstairs. There
was a cheery wood fire crackling on the hearth
of the big fireplace in the hall, but the great
house was so still. The corners were full of
shadows.

She opened the front door with a wild long-
ing to run away.

“Come, Fritz,” she said, closing the door
softly behind her, “let’s go down to the gate.”

The air was cold. She shivered as they
raced along under the bare branches of the
locusts. She leaned against the gate, peering
out through the bars. The road stretched
white through the gathering darkness, in the
direction of the little cottage.

« Oh, I want to go home so bad!” she sobbed.
“I want to see my mothah.”

She laid her hand irresolutely on the latch,
pushed the gate ajar, and then hesitated.

“No, I promised the doctah I'd stay,” she
thought. “He said I could help mothah and
64. THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Papa Jack, both of ’em, by stayin’ heah, an’ I'l]
do it.”

Fritz, who had pushed himself through the
partly opened gate to rustle around among the
dead leaves outside, came bounding back with
something in his mouth.

“Heah, suh!” she called. “Give it tome!”
He dropped a small gray kid glove in her out.
stretched hand. “Oh, it’s mothah’s!”’ she cried.
“T reckon she dropped it when she was tellin’
me good-by. Oh you deah old dog fo’ findin’
Lbs)

She laid the glove against her cheek as fondly
as if it had been her mother’s soft hand. There
was something wonderfully comforting in the
touch.

As they walked slowly back toward the
house she rolled it up and put it lovingly away
in her tiny apron pocket.

All that week it was a talisman whose touch
helped the homesick little soul to be brave and
womanly.

When Maria, the colored housekeeper, went
into the hall to light the lamps, the Little
Colonel was sitting on the big fur rug in front
of the fire, talking contentedly to Fritz, who lay
with his curly head in her lap.

“You all’s goin’ to have tea in the Cun’l’s
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 65

room to-night,” said Maria. “He tole me to
tote it up soon as he rung the bell.”

“There it goes now,” cried the child, jump-
ing up from the rug.

She followed Maria up the wide stairs. The
Colonel was sitting in a large easy-chair,
wrapped in a gayly flowered dressing-gown, that
made his hair look unusually white by contrast.

His dark eyes were intently watching the
door. As it opened to let the Little Colonel
pass through, a very tender smile lighted up his
stern face.

“So you did come to see grandpa after all,”
he cried triumzphantly. “Come here and give
meakiss. Seems toeme you've been staying
away a mighty long time.”

As she stood beside him with his arm around
her, Walker came in with a tray full of dishes.

“We're going to have a regular little tea-
party,” said the Colonel.

Lloyd watched with sparkling eyes as Walket
set out the rare old-fashioned dishes. There
was a fat little silver sugar-bowl with a butterfly
perched on each side to form the handles, and
there was a slim, graceful cream-pitcher shaped
like a lily.

“They belonged to your great-yreat-grand-
mother,” said the Colonel, “and they’re going
66 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

to be yours some day if you grow up and have
a house of your own.”

The expression on her beaming face was
worth a fortune to the Colonel.

When Walker pushed her chair up to the
table, she turned to her grandfather with shin-
ing eyes.

“Oh, it’s just like a pink story,” she cried,
clapping her hands. “The shades on the
can’les, the icin’ on the cake, an’ the posies in
the bowl,— why, even the jelly is that colah
too. Oh, my darlin’ little teacup! It’s jus’
like a pink rosebud! I’m so glad I came!”

The Colonel smiled at the success of his plan.
In the depths of his satisfaction he even had a
plate of quail and toast set down on the hearth
for Fritz.

“This is the nicest pahty I evah was at,”
remarked the Little Colonel as Walker helped
her to jam the third time.

Her grandfather chuckled.

“Blackberry jam always makes me think of
Tom,” he said. ‘Did you ever hear what your
uncle Tom did when he was a little fellow in
dresses ?”’

She shook her head gravely.

“Well, the children were all playing hide-
and-seek one day. They hunted high and
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 67

they hunted low after everybody else had been
caught, but they couldn’t find Tom. At last
they began to call, ‘Homefree! Youcan come
home free!’ but he did not come. When he
had been hidden so long they were frightened
about him they went to their mother and told
her he wasn’t to be found anywhere. She
looked down the well and behind the fire-boards
in the fireplaces. They called and called
till they were out of breath. Finally she
thought of looking in the big dark pantry where
she kept her fruit. There stood Mister Tom.
He had openeda jar of blackberry jam, and was
just going for it with both hands. The jam was
all over his face and hair and little gingham
apron, and even up his wrists. He was the
funniest sight I ever saw.”

The Little Colonel laughed heartily at his
description, and begged for more stories. Be-
fore he knew it he was back in the past with
his little Tom and Elizabeth.

Nothing could have entertained the child
more than these scenes he recalled of her
mother’s childhood.

« All her old playthings are up in the garret,”
he said as they rose from the table. “I'll have
them brought down to-morrow. There’s a doll
I brought her from New Orleans once when
68 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

she was about your size. No telling what it
looks like now, but it was a beauty when it was
new.”

Lloyd clapped her hands and spun around
the room like a top.

“Oh, I’m so glad I came!” she exclaimed for
the third time. “What did she call the doll,
gran’fathah, do you remembah?”





’

“IT never paid much attention to such things,’
he answered, “ but I do remember the name of
this one, because she named it for her mother,
— Amanthis.”

“ Amanthis,” repeated the child dreamily as
she leaned against his knee. “I think that
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 69

is a lovely name, gran’fathah. I wish they
had called me that.” She repeated it softly
several times. “It sounds like the wind
a-blowin’ through white clovah, doesn’t it?”

“Tt is a beautiful name to me, my child,”
answered the old man, laying his hand tenderly
on her soft hair, “but not so beautiful as the
woman who bore it. She was the fairest
flower of all Kentucky. There never was
another lived as sweet and gentle as your
grandmother Amanthis.”

He stroked her hair absently and gazed into
the fire. He scarcely noticed when she slipped
away from him.

She buried her face a moment in the bowl of
pink roses. Then she went to the window and
drew back the curtain. Leaning her head
against the window:sill, she began stringing on
the thread of a tune the things that just then
thrilled her with a sense of their beauty.

“Oh, the locus’ trees a-blowin’,” she sang
softly. ‘An’ the moon a-shinin’ through them.
An’ the starlight an’ pink roses; an’ Aman-
this —an’ Amanthis |”

She hummed it over and over until Walker
had finished carrying the dishes away.

It was a strange thing that the Colonel’s
unfrequent moods of tenderness were like
7O THE LITTLE COLONEL.

those warm days that they call weather
breeders.

They were-sure to be followed by a change of
atmosphere. This time as the fierce rheumatic
pain came back he stormed at Walker and
scolded him for everything he did and every-
thing he left undone.

When Maria came up to put Lloyd to bed,
Fritz was tearing around the room barking at
his shadow.

“Put that dog out M’ria!” roared the
Colonel, almost crazy with its antics. ‘Take it
downstairs and put it out of the house, I say!
Nobody but a heathen would let a dog sleep in
the house, anyway.”

The homesick feeling began to creep over
Lloyd again. She had expected to keep Fritz
in her room at night for company. But for the
touch of the little glove in her pocket, she
would have said something ugly to her grand-
father when he spoke so harshly.

His own ill-humor was reflected in her scowl
as she followed Maria down the stairs to drive
Fritz out into the dark.

They stood a moment in the open door, after
Maria had slapped him with her apron to make
him go off the porch.

“Qh, look at the new moon!” cried Lloyd,
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 71

pointing to the slender crescent in the autumn
sky. :

‘“‘T’se feared to, honey,” answered Maria,
“less I should see it through the trees. That
‘ud bring me bad luck for a month, suah. I'll
go out on the Jawn where it’s open, an’ look at
it ovah my right shouldah.”

While they were walking backward down
the path, intent on reaching a place where they
could have an uninterrupted view of the moon,
Fritz sneaked around to the other end of the
porch.

No one was watching. He slipped into the
_ house as noiselessly as his four soft feet could
carry him.

Maria, going through the dark upper hall
with a candle held high above her head and
Lloyd clinging to her skirts, did not see a
tasselled tail swinging along in front of her. It
disappeared under the big bed when she led
Lloyd into the room next the old Colonel’s.

- The child felt very sober while she was being
put to bed.

The furniture was heavy and dark. An ugly
portrait of a cross old man in a wig frowned at
her from over the mantel. The dancing fire-
light made his eyes frightfully life-like.

The bed was so high she had to climb on a

F
UB ‘THE LITTLE COLONEL.

chair to get in. She heard Maria’s heavy feet
go shuffling down the stairs. A door banged.
Then it was so still] she could hear the clock
tick in the next room.

It was the first time in all her life that her
mother had not come to kiss her good night.

Her lips quivered, and a big tear rolled down
on the pillow.

She reached out to the chair beside her bed,
where her clothes were hanging, and felt in her
apron pocket for the little glove. She sat up
in bed, and looked at it in the dim firelight.
Then she held it against her face. “Oh, I
want my mothah! I want my mothah!” she
sobbed in a heartbroken whisper.

Laying her head on her knees, she began to
cry quietly, but with great sobs that nearly
choked her.

There was a rustling under the bed. She
lifted her wet face in alarm. Then she smiled
‘through her tears, for there was Fritz, her own
dear dog, and not an unknown horror waiting
to grab her.

He stood on his hind legs, eagerly trying to
lap away her tears with his friendly red tongue.

She clasped him in her arms with an ecstatic
hug. “Oh, you're such a comfort !”’ she whis-
pered. “I can go to sleep now.”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 73

She spread her apron on the bed, and mo-
tioned him to jump. With one spring he was
beside her.

It was nearly midnight, when the door from
the Colonel’s room was noiselessly opened.

‘The old man stirred the fire gently until it
burst into a bright flame. Then he turned to
the bed. “You rascal!” he whispered, looking
at Fritz, who raised his head quickly with a
threatening look in his wicked eyes.

Lloyd lay with one hand stretched out, hold-
ing the dog’s protecting paw. The other held
something against her tear-stained cheek.

“What under the sun!” he thought as he
drew it gently from her fingers. The little
glove lay across his hand, slim and aristocratic-
looking. He knew instinctively whose it was.
“Poor little thing’s been crying,” he thought.
«She wants Elizabeth. AndsodoI! Andso do
I!” his heart cried out with bitter longing. “It’s
never been like home since she left.”

He laid the glove back on her pillow, and

went to his room.
- “Tf Jack Sherman should die,” he said to
himself many times that night, “then she
would come home again. Oh, little daughter,
little daughter! why did you ever leave
rie?” -
Cl AP AE Reavaiile

Tue first thing that greeted the Little Colo-
nel’s eyes when she opened them next morning
was her mother’s old doll. Maria had laid it on
the pillow beside her.

It was beautifully dressed, although in a
queer, old-fashioned style that seemed very
strange to the child.

She took it up with careful fingers, remem-
bering its great age. Maria had warned her
not to waken her grandfather, so she admired it
in whispers.

Jus’ think, Fritz,” she exclaimed, “ this doll
has seen my gran’mothah Amanthis, an’ it’s
named for her. My mothah wasn’t any bigger’n
me when she played with it. I think it is
the loveliest doll I evah saw in my whole
life.”

Fritz gave a jealous bark.

“Sh!” commanded his little mistress.
“Didn’t you heah M’ria say, ‘Fo’ de Lawd’s
sake don’t wake up ole Marse?’ Why don’t
you mind?”

The Colonel was not in the best of humors
after such a wakeful night, but the sight of her
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 79

happiness made him smile in spite of himself,
when she danced into his room with the doll.

She had eaten an early breakfast and gone
back upstairs to examine the other toys that
were spread out in her room.

The door between the two rooms was ajar.
All the time he was dressing and taking his.
coffee he could hear her talking to some one.
He supposed it was Maria. But as he glanced
over his mail he heard the Little Colonel saying,
“May Lilly, do you know about Billy Goat Gruff?
Do you want me to tell you that story?”

He leaned forward until he could look through
the narrow opening of the door. Two heads
were all he could see,— Lloyd’s, soft-haired
and golden, May Lilly’s, covered with dozens of
tightly braided little black tails.

He was about to order May Lilly back to the
cabin, when he remembered the scene that fol-
lowed the last time he had done so. He con-
cluded to keep quiet and listen.

“Billy Goat Gruff was so fat,” the story went
on, “jus’ as fat as gran’fathah.”

The Colonel glanced up with an amused smile
at the fine figure reflected in an opposite mirror.

“ Trip-trap, trip-trap, went Billy Goat Gruff’s
little feet ovah the bridge to the giant’s house.”

Just at this point Walker, who was putting
76 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

things in order, closed the door between the
rooms.

“Open that door, you black rascal!” called
the Colonel, furious at the interruption.

In his haste to obey, Walker knocked over a
pitcher of water that had been left on the floor
beside the washstand.

Then the Colonel yelled at him to be ae
about mopping it up, so that by the time the
door was finally opened, Lloyd was finishing
her story.

The Colonel looked in just in time to see her
put her hands to her temples, with her fore-
fingers protruding from her forehead like horns.
She said in a deep voice, as she brandished
them at May Lilly, “ With my two long speahs
Dll poke yo’ eyeballs through yo’ yeahs.”

The little darky fell back giggling. “That
sut’n’y was like a billy-goat. We had one once
that ‘ud make a body step around mighty peart.
It slip up behine me one mawnin’ on the poach,
an’ fo’ a while I thought my haid was buss open
suah. I got up toreckly, though, an’ I cotch
him, and when I done got through, mistah Billy-
goat feel po’ly moah’n a week. He sut’n’y
did.”
Walker grinned, for he had witnessed the
scene,
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 77

Just then Maria put her head in at the door
to say, “ May Lilly, yo’ mammy’s callin’ you.” |

Lloyd and Fritz followed her noisily down-
stairs. Then for nearly an hour it was very
quiet in the great house.

The Colonel, looking out of the window, could
see Lloyd playing hide-and-seek with Fritz under
the bare locust trees.

When she came in her cheeks were glowing
from her run in the frosty air. Her eyes shone
like stars, and her face was radiant.

“See what I’ve found down in the dead
leaves,” she cried. “A little blue violet,
bloomin’ all by itself.”

She brought a tiny cup from the next room,
that belonged to the set of doll dishes, and put
the violet in it.

“ There!” she said, setting it on the table at
her grandfather’s elbow. “ Now I’Jl put Aman-
this in this chair, where you can look at her, an’
you won't get lonesome while I’m playin’ out-
doors.”

He drew her toward him and kissed her.

“Why, how cold your hands are!” he ex-
claimed. “Staying in this warm room all the
time makes me forget it is so wintry outdoors.
» I don’t believe you are dressed warmly enough.
You ought not to wear sunbonnets this time of
year.”
78 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Then for the first time he noticed her out-
grown cloak and shabby shoes.

“What are you wearing these old clothes
for?” he said impatiently. ‘“ Why didn’t they
dress you up when you were going visiting? It
isn’t showing proper respect to send you off in
the oldest things you’ve got.”

It was a sore point with the Little Colonel.
It hurt her pride enough to have to wear old
clothes without being scolded for it. Besides,
she felt that in some way her mother was being
blamed for what could not be helped.

“They’s the best I’ve got,’ she answered,
proudly choking back the tears. “ don’t need
any new ones, ’cause maybe we'll be goin’ away
pretty soon.”

“Going away!” he echoed blankly.
“Where?”

She did not answer until he repeated the
question. Then she turned her back on him,
and started toward the door. The tears she
was too proud to let him see were running
down her face.

““We’s goin’ to the poah-house,” she exclaimed
defiantly, “jus’ as soon as the money in the
pocketbook is used up. It was nearly gone
when I came away.”

Here she began to sob, as she fumbled at the
door she could not see to open.
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 79

“T’m goin’ home to my mothah right now.
She loves me if my clothes are old and ugly.”

“Why, Lloyd,” called the Colonel, amazed
and, distressed by her sudden burst of grief.
“Come here to grandpa. Why didn’t you tell
me so before?”

The face, the tone, the outstretched arm, al.
drew her irresistibly to him. It was a relief to
lay her head on his shoulder and unburden her-
self ofsthe fear that had haunted her so many
days.

With her arms around his neck, and the
precious little head held close to his heart, the
old Colonel was in such a softened mood that
he would have promised anything to comfort her.

“There, there,” he said soothingly, stroking
her hair with a gentle hand, when she had told
him all her troubles. “Don’t you worry about
that, my dear. Nobody is going to eat out of
tin pans and sleep on straw. Grandpa just
won't let them.”

She sat up and wiped her eyes on her apron.
“But Papa Jack would die befo’ he’d take help
from you,” she wailed. ‘An’ so would mothah.
I heard her tell the doctah so.”

The tender expression on the Colonel’s face
changed to one like flint, but he kept on strok-
ing her hair.
80 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“People sometimes change their minds,” he
said grimly. “I wouldn’t worry over a little
thing like that if I were you. Don’t you want
to run downstairs and tell M’ria to give you a
piece of cake?”

“Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, smiling up at him.
“T’ll bring you some too.”

When the first train went into Louisville that
afternoon, Walker was on board with an order
in his pocket to one of the largest dry goods es-
tablishments in the city. When he came out
again that evening, he carried a large box into
the Colonel’s room.

Lloyd’s eyes shone as she looked into it.
There was an elegant fur-trimmed cloak, a
pair of dainty shoes, and a muff that she caught
up with a shrick of delight.

“What kind of a thing is this?’’ grumbled
the Colonel as he took out a hat that had been
carefully packed in one corner of the box.
“T told them to send the most stylish thing
they had. It looks like a scare-crow,” he
continued, as he set it askew on the child’s
head.

She snatched it off to look at it herself.
“Oh, it’s jus’ like Emma Louise Wyfo’d’s!”
she exclaimed. ‘“ You didn’t put it on straight.
See! This is the way it goes.”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 8I

She climbed up in front of the mirror, and
put it on as she had seen Emma Louise wear

hers.

“Well, it’s a regu-
lar Napoleon hat,” ex-
claimed the Colonel,
much pleased. “So
little girls nowadays
have taken to wear-
ing soldier's caps,
have they? It’s right
becoming to you with
your short hair.
Grandpa is real proud
of his ‘little Colonel.’”’

She gave him the
military salute he had
taught her, and then
ran to throw her arms

around him. ‘Oh, f
gran’fathah!” she ex- t
claimed between her Ny XN
kisses, “you’se jus’as_ |

good as Santa Claus,
every bit.”



eyo 00

ur Mi
{ i

The Colonel’s rheumatism was better next
day; so much better that toward evening he
walked downstairs into the long drawing-room.
"82 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

The room had not been illuminated in years as
it was that night.

Every wax taper was lighted in the silver
candelabra, and the dim old mirrors multiplied
their lights on every side. A great wood fire
threw a cheerful glow over the portraits and
the frescoed ceiling. All the linen covers had
been taken from the furniture.

Lloyd, who had never seen this room except
with the chairs shrouded and the blinds down,
came running in presently. She was bewildered
at first bythe change. Then she began walking
softly around the room, examining everything.

In one corner stood a tall gilded harp that
her grandmother had played in her girlhood.
The heavy cover had kept it fair and untar-
nished through all the years it had stood un-
used. To the child’s beauty-loving eyes it
seemed the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

She stood with her hands clasped behind her
as her gaze wandered from its pedals to the
graceful curves of its tallframe. It shone like
burnished gold in the soft firelight.

“Qh, gran’fathah!” she asked at last in a
low, reverent tone, “where did you get it?
Did an angel leave it heah fo’ you?”

He did not answer for a moment. Then he
said huskily as he looked up at a portrait over
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 83°

the mantel, “Yes, my darling, an angel did
leave it here. She always was one. Come
here to grandpa.”

He took her on his knee and pointed up to
the portrait. The same harp was in the pic-
ture. Standing beside it, with one hand rest-
ing on its shining strings, was a young girl all
in white.

“That’s the way she looked the first time I
ever saw her,” said the Colonel dreamily. “A
June rose in her hair, and another at her throat ;
and her soul looked right out through those
great, dark eyes —the purest, sweetest soul God
ever made! My beautiful Amanthis !”

“My bu’ful Amanthis!” repeated the child
in an awed whisper.

She sat gazing into the lovely young face for
a long time, while the old man seemed lost in
dreams.

“‘Gran’fathah,” she said at length, patting
his cheek to attract his attention, and then
nodding toward the portrait, “did se love my
mothah like my mothah loves me?”

“Certainly, my dear,” was the gentle reply.

It was the twilight hour, when the homesick
feeling always came back strongest to Lloyd.

“Then I jus’ know that if my bu’ful gran’-
mothah Amanthis could come down out of that
84 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

frame, she’d go straight and put her arms
around my mothah an’ kiss away all her sorry
feelin’s.”

The Colonel fidgeted uncomfortably in his
chaira moment. Then to his great relief the
tea-bell rang.
CHAPTER IX.

Every evening after that during Lloyd’s visit
the fire. burned on the hearth of the long draw-
ing-room. All the wax candles were lighted,
and the vases were kept full of flowers, fresh
from the conservatory.

She loved to steal into the room before her
grandfather came down and carry on imaginary
conversations with the old portraits.

Tom’s handsome, boyish face had the great-
est attraction for her. His eyes looked down
so smilingly into hers that she felt he surely
understood every word she said to him.

Once Walker overheard her saying, “ Uncle
Tom, I’m goin’ to tell you a story ’bout Billy
Goat Gruff.”

Peeping into the room, he saw the child look-
ing earnestly up at the picture, with her hands
clasped behind her, as she began to repeat her
favorite story. ‘It do beat all,” he said to him-
self, “how one little chile like that can wake up
a whole house. She’s the life of the place.”

The last evening of her visit as the Colonel
was coming downstairs he heard the faint
vibration of a harpstring. It was the first time
86 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

Lloyd had ever ventured to touch one. He
paused on the steps opposite the door, and
looked in.

“Heah, Fritz,’ she was saying, “you get
up on the sofa, an’ be the company, an’ I'll sing
fo’ you.”

Fritz, on the rug before the fire, opened one
sleepy eye and closed it again. She stamped
her foot and repeated her order. He paid no
attention. Then she picked him up bodily, and
with much puffing and pulling lifted him into
a chair.

He waited until she had gone back to the
harp, and then with one spring disappeared un-
-der the sofa.

“N’m min’,” she said in a disgusted tone,
“Tl pay you back, mistah.” Then she looked
up at the portrait. ‘‘Uncle Tom,” she said,
‘‘you be the company, an’ I'll play fo’ you.”

’ Her fingers touched the strings so lightly
that there was no discord in the random tones.
Her voice carried the air clear and true, and the
faint trembling of the harpstrings interfered
with the harmony no more than if a wandering
breeze had been tangled in them as it passed.

“ Sing me the songs that to me were so deah
Long, long ago, long ago.
‘Tell me the tales I delighted to heah
Long, long ago, long ago.”
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 87


































88 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

The sweet little voice sang it to the end with-
out missing a word. It was the lullaby her
mother oftenest sang to her.

The Colonel, who had sat down on the steps
to listen, wiped his eyes.

“My ‘long ago’ is all that I have left to me,”
he thought bitterly, “for to-morrow this little
one, who brings back my past with every word
and gesture, will leave me too. Why can’t that
Jack Sherman die while he’s about it, and let
me have my own back again ?”

That question recurred to him many times
during the week after Lloyd’s departure. He
missed her happy voice at every turn. He
missed her bright face at the table. The house
seemed so big and desolate without her. He
ordered all the covers put back on the drawing-
room furniture, and the door locked as before.

It was a happy moment for the Little Colonel
when she was lifted down from Maggie Boy at
the cottage gate.

She went dancing into the house so glad to
find herself in her mother’s arms that she for-
got allabout the new cloak and muff that had
made her so proud and happy.

She found her father propped up among the
pillows, his fever all gone, and the old mischiev-
ous twinkle in his eyes.
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 89

He admired her new clothes extravagantly,
paying her joking compliments until her face
beamed; but when she had danced off to find
Mom Beck, he turned to his wife. ‘“ Elizabeth,”
he said wonderingly, ‘“ what.do you suppose the
old fellow gave her clothes for? I don’t like it.
I’m no beggar if I have lost lots of money.
After all that’s passed between us I don’t feel
like taking anything from his hands, or letting
my child do it either.” -

To his great surprise she laid her head down
on his pillow beside his and burst into tears.

“Oh, Jack,” she sobbed, ‘“‘I spent the last
dollar this morning. I wasn’t going to tell you,
but I don’t know what is to become of us. He
gave Lloyd those things because she was just in
rags, and I couldn’t afford to get anything new.”

He looked perplexed. ‘‘ Why, I brought home
so much,” he said in a distressed tone. “I
knew I was in for a long siege of sickness, but
I was sure there was enough to tide us over
that.”

She raised her head. ‘‘ You brought money
home!” she replied in surprise. ‘I hoped you
had, and looked through all your things, but
there was only a little change in one of your
pockets. You must have imagined it when you
were delirious,”
gO THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“What!” he cried, sitting bolt upright, and
then sinking weakly back among the pillows.
“You poor child! You don’t mean to tell me
you have been skimping along all these weeks
on just that check I sent you before starting
home.”

“Yes,” she sobbed, her face still buried in
the pillow. She had borne the strain of contin-
ued anxiety so long that she could not stop her
tears, now they had once started.

It was with a very thankful heart she watched
him take a pack of letters from the coat she
brought to his bedside, and draw out a sealed
envelope.

“Weil, I never once thought of looking
among those letters for money,’ she exclaimed
as he held it up with a smile.

His investments of the summer before had
prospered beyond his greatest hopes, he told her.
“Brother Rob is looking after my interests out
west, as well as his own,” he explained, “and
as his father-in-law is the grand mogul of the
place, I have the inside track. Then that firm
I went security for in New York is nearly on
its feet again, and I’ll have back every dollar
I ever paid out for them. Nobody ever lost
anything by those men in the long run. We'll
be on top again by this time next year, little
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 9!

wife; so don’t borrow any more trouble cn that
score.”

The doctor made his last visit that afternoon.
It really seemed as if there would never be any
more dark days at the little cottage.

“The clouds have all blown away and left
us their silver linings,” said Mrs. Sherman the
day her husband was able to go out of doors
for the first time. He walked down to the post
office, and brought back a letter from the West.
It had such encouraging reports of his business
that he was impatient to get back to it. He
wrote a reply early in the afternoon, and in-
sisted on going to mail it himself.

“Til never get my strength back,” he pro-
tested, “unless I have more exercise.”

It was a cold, gray November day. A few
flakes of snow were falling when he started.

“Tl stop and rest at the Tylers’,’ he
called back, ‘“‘so don’t be uneasy if I’m out
some time.”

After he left the post office the fresh air
tempted him to go farther than he had intended.
At along distance from his home his strength
seemed suddenly to desert him. The snow be-

_gan to fall in earnest. Numb with cold, he
groped his way back to the house, almost faint-
ing from exhaustion.
g2 THE LITTLE COLONEL,

Lloyd was blowing soap-bubbles when she
saw him come in and fall heavily across the
couch. The ghastly pallor of his face and his
closed eyes frightened her so that she dropped
the little clay pipe she was using. As she
stooped to pick up the broken pieces, her
mother’s cry startled her still more. “Lloyd,
run call Becky, quick, quick! Oh, he’s
dying!”

Lloyd gave one more terrified look and ran
to the kitchen, screaming for Mom Beck. No
one was there.

The next instant she was running bareheaded
as fast as she could go, up the road to Locust.
She was confident of finding help there.

The snowflakes clung to her hair and blew
against her soft cheeks. All she could see was
her mother wringing her hands, and her father’s
white face. When she burst into the house
where the Colonel sat reading by the fire, she
was so breathless at first that she could only
gasp when she tried to speak.

“Come quick!” she cried. ‘* Papa Jack’s
a-dyin’! Come stop him!”

At her first impetuous words the Colonel was °
on his feet. She caught him by the hand and
led him to the door before he fully realized what
she wanted. Then he drew back. She was im-
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 93

patient at the slightest delay, and only half an-
swered his questions.

“Oh, come, gran’fathah!” she pleaded. “Don’t °
wait to talk!” But he held her until he had
learned all the circumstances. He was con-
vinced by what she told him that both Lloyd
and her mother were unduly alarmed. When
he found that no one had sent for him, but that
the child had come of her own accord, he re-
fused to go.

He did not believe that the man was dying,
and he did not intend to step aside one inch
from the position he had taken. For seven
years he had kept the vow he made when he
swore to be a stranger to his daughter. He
would keep it for seventy times seven years if
need be.

She looked at him perfectly bewildered. She
had been so accustomed to his humoring her
slightest whims, that it had never occurred to her
he would fail to help ina time of such distress.

“Why, gran’fathah,” she began, her lips
trembling piteously. Then her whole expres-
sion changed. Her face grew startlingly white,
and her eyes seemed so big and black. The
Colonel looked at her in surprise. He had
never seen a child in such a passion before.
“T-hate you! I hate you!” she exclaimed,
4. THE LITTLE COLONEL.

allina tremble. ‘ You’s a cruel, wicked man.
I'll nevah come heah again, nevah! nevah!
nevah !”

The tears rolled down her cheeks as she
banged the door behind her and ran down the
avenue, her little heart so full of grief and dis-
appointment that she felt she could not possi-
bly bear it.

For more than an hour the Colonel walked
up and down the room, unable to shut out the
anger and disappointment of that little face.

He knew she was too much like himself ever
to retract her words. She would never come
back. He never knew until that hour how
much he loved her, or how much she had come
to mean in his life. She was gone hopelessly
beyond recall, unless —

He unlocked the door of the drawing-room
and wentin. A faint breath of dried rose leaves
greeted him. He walked over to the empty
fireplace and looked up at the sweet face of the
portrait along time. Then he leaned his arm
onthe mantel and bowed his head on it. “Oh,
Amanthis,” he groaned, “tell me what to do.”

Lloyd’s own words came back to him. “ She’d
go right straight an’ put her arms around my
mothah an’ kiss away all the sorry feelin’s.”

It was a long time he stood there. The bat-
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 95

tle between his love and pride was a hard one.
At last he raised his head and saw that the
short winter day was almost over. Without
waiting to order his horse he started off in the
falling snow toward the cottage.
CHAPTER X.

A coop many forebodings crowded into the
Colonel’s mind as he walked hurriedly on. He
wondered how he would be received. What if
Jack Sherman had died after all? What if
Elizabeth should refuse to see him? A dozen
times before he reached the gate he pictured to
himself the probable scene of their meeting.

He was out of breath and decidedly disturbed
in mind when he walked up the path. As he
paused on the porch steps, Lloyd came running
around the house carrying her parrot on a
broom.

Her hair was blowing around her rosy face
under the Napoleon hat she wore, and she was
singing.

The last two hours had made a vast change in
her feelings. Her father had only fainted from
exhaustion.

When she came running back from Locust,
she was afraid to go in the house, lest what she
dreaded most had happened while she was gone.
She opened .the door timidly and peeped in.
Her father’s eyes were open. Then she heard
him speak. She ran into the room, and bury-
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 97

ing her head in her mother’s lap, sobbed out
the story of her visit to Locust.

To her great surprise her father began to
laugh, and laughed so heartily as she repeated
her saucy speech to her grandfather, that it
took the worst sting out of her disappoint-
ment.

All the time the Colonel had been fighting
his pride among the memories of the dim old
drawing-room, Lloyd had been playing with
Fritz and Polly.

Now as she came suddenly face to face with
her grandfather, she dropped the disgusted bird
in the snow, and stood staring at him with
startled eyes. If he had fallen out of the sky
she could not have been more astonished.

“Where is your mother, child?” he asked,
trying to speak calmly. With a backward look,
as if she could not believe the evidence of her
own sight, she led the way into the hall.

“Mothah! Mothah!” she called, pushing
open the parlor door. “Come heah, quick!”

The Colonel, taking the, hat from his white
head, and dropping it on the floor, took an ex-
pectant step forward. There wasa slight rustle,
and Elizabeth stood in the doorway. For just a
moment they looked into each other’s faces.
Then the Colonel held out his arm.
¢3 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

“Little daughter,” he said in a tremulous
voice. The love of a lifetime seemed to trem-
ble in those two words.

In an instant her arms were around his neck,
and he was “kissing away the sorry feelin’s” as
tenderly as the lost Amanthis could have done.

As soon as Lloyd began to realize what was
happening, her face grew radiant. She danced
around in such excitement that Fritz barked
wildly.

“Come an’ see Papa Jack, too,” she cried,
leading him into the next room.

Whatever deep-rooted prejudices Jack Sher-
man may have had, they were unselfishly put
aside after one look into his wife’s happy face.

He raised himself on his elbow as the digni-
fied old soldier crossed the room. The white
hair, the empty sleeve, the remembrance of all
the old man had lost, and the thought that after
all he was Elizabeth’s father, sent a very ten-
der feeling through the younger man’s heart.

«Will you take my hand, sir?” he asked, sit-
ting up and offering it in his straightforward
way.

“Of co’se he will!” exclaimed Lloyd, who
still clung to her grandfather's arm. ‘‘ Of co’se
he will!”

“I have been too near death to harbor ill will
THE LITTLE COLONEL. 99

any longer,” said the younger man as their
hands met in a strong forgiving clasp.

The old Colonel smiled grimly.

“T had thought that even death itself could
not make me give in,” he said, “but I’ve had
to make a complete surrender to the Little
Colonel.”

* * # * * #

That Christmas there was such a celebration
at Locust that May Lilly and Henry Clay
nearly went wild in the general excitement of
the preparation. Walker hung up cedar and
holly and mistletoe till the big house looked like
a bower. Maria bustled about, airing rooms and
bringing out stores of linen and silver.

The Colonel himself filled the great punch
bowl that his grandfather had brought from
Virginia.

“T’m glad we’re goin’ to stay heah to-night,”
said Lloyd as she hung up her stocking Christ-
mas eve. ‘It will be so much easiah fo’ Santa
Claus to get down these big chimneys.”

In the morning when she found four tiny
stockings hanging beside her own, overflowing
with candy for Fritz, her happiness was com-
plete.

That night there was a tree in the drawing-
room that reached to the frescoed ceiling.
100 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

When May Lilly came in to admire it and get
her share from its loaded branches, Lloyd came
skipping up to her. “Oh, I’m goin’ to live
heah all wintah,’” she cried. “Mom Beck’s
goin’ to stay heah with me, too, while mothah
an’ Papa Jack go down South where the alliga-
tahs live. Then when they get well an’ come
back, Papa Jack is goin’ to build a house on the
othah side of the lawn. I’m to live in both
places at once; mothah said so.”

There were music and light, laughing voices
and happy hearts in the old home that night.
It seemed as if the old place had awakened
from a long dream and found itself young again.

The plan the Little Colonel unfolded to May
Lilly was carried out in every detail. It seemed
a long winter to the child, but it was a happy
one. There were not so many displays of tem-
per now that she was growing older, but the
letters that went southward every week were
full of her odd speeches and mischievous
pranks. The old Colonel found it hard to re-
fuse her anything. If it had not been for Mom
Beck’s decided ways the child would have been
sadly spoiled.

At last the spring came again. The pewees
sang in the cedars. The dandelions sprinkled
the roadsides like stars. The locust trees
THE LITTLE COLONEL, Io!

tossed up the white spray of their fragrant
blossoms with every wave of their green
boughs.

“They'll soon be heah! They’ll soon be
heah!” chanted the Little Colonel every day.

The morning they came she had been down
the avenue a dozen times to look for them be-
fore the carriage had even started to meet
them.

“ Walkah,” she called, “cut me a big locus’
bough. I want to wave it fo’ a flag!”

Just as he dropped a branch down at her feet,
she caught the sound of wheels. “Hurry,
gran’fathah,” she called; “they’s comin’.” But
the old Colonel had already started on toward
the gate to meet them. The carriage stopped,
and in a moment more Papa Jack was tossing
Lloyd up in his arms, while the old Colonel was
helping Elizabeth to alight.

“Tsn’t this a happy mawnin’?”’ exclaimed the
Little Colonel as she leaned from her seat on
her father’s shoulder to kiss his sunburned
cheek.

“A very happy morning,” echoed her grand-
father as he walked on toward the house with
Elizabeth’s hand clasped close in his own.

Long after they had passed up the steps the
old locusts kept echoing the Little Colonel’s
102 THE LITTLE COLONEL.

words. Years ago they had showered their fra-
grant blossoms in this same path to make a
sweet white way for Amanthis’ little feet to
tread when the Colonel brought home his
bride.

They had dropped their tribute on the coffin
lid when Tom was carried home under their
drooping branches. The soldier-boy had loved
them so, that a little cluster had been laid on
the breast of the gray coat he wore.

Night and day they had guarded this old
home like silent sentinels that loved it well.

Now, as they looked down on the united
family, a thrill passed through them to their
remotest bloom-tipped branches.

It sounded only like a faint rustling of leaves,
but it was the locusts whispering together.
“The children have come home at last,” they
kept repeating. “What a happy morning!
Oh, what a happy morning!”
Sclections from Jarrolds’ Mew Books.

NEW BOOK ABOUT BEARS.
Crown 8vo0, Cloth elerant, 216,



To Central Africa on

an Iceberg being the Travels

and Adventures of a White Bear.
By CHARLES Squire and FRANK
MACLEAN. With 31 Beautiful Ilus-
trations by WINIFRED AUSTEN. 2nd
Edition.

A tale in which all the characters are
animals. An adventurous polar bear, im-
pressed with the idea that ‘*home-keeping
bears have ever homely wits,” charters an
iceberg, and sets out on a tour of explora-
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the authors, and graphically illustrated by
Miss Austen.

‘An amusing account of the adventures of a
Polar Bear, which by force of circumstances,
needless to relate, finds itself in Central Atrica.’—
The Morning.

“ Another fanciful book in the same series, which
will gratify both boys and girls, is a story entrtled
‘A Bear's Journey to Central Africa on an Iceberg.’
The story is full of animation, and the drawings
are full of spirit."—Morwich Mercury.

_ ‘A humorous account of the adventures of a Pula, tear, which, by a conjunction ot
circumstances, finds itself in Central Africa. Profusely illustrated by Miss Winifred Austen,
whose sketches of animal life are well known.”—LZast Anglian Daily Times.

“ Our Polar friend’s adventures are of an amusing character, and splendidly illustrated by
the able pencil of Miss Winifred Austen.” —Christian Age.

“A yery amusing book of quite original design, and is bound to be appreciated by the
young reader. An exceedingly humorous account of the adventures of a Polar Bear, which
finds itself in Central Africa. The book is nicely illustrated by a profusion of sketches by
Miss Winifred Austen, who has made a worthy representation in the portrayal of animal
life.’"—Nozxfolk Chronicle.

“This is the most uproariously funny animal story-book that we have had for a long time.
It is all about the adventures of a white Polar Bear that floats away southward on an iceberg to
see the world, and the wonderful things he sees and his amusing adventures are told in a racy
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But the bear pays him out by getting the monkey on to his iceberg, and threatening to throw
him into the water if he did not tell the truth, and he makes the chimpanzee recant thus : ‘ Be
careful,’ said the White Bear, ‘and remember that you are on your oath. Is there such a
thing as a Ginger Bear?’ ‘I never head of it,’ said the Chimpanzee. ‘Then why did you
say there was?’ said the White Bear. ‘Is the Hyzna his own aunt?’ ‘No,’ said the

Chimpanzee, ‘and I never said he was. The Hyzna said it.’ ‘Then the Hyena ought ta
’ be ashamed of himself,’ said the White Bear in a judicial tone. ‘Does the Giraffe teach
history?’ ‘No,’ said the Chimpanzee; ‘but he eats dates.’ And more of the same sort
The dialogue throughout is delightfully amusing.” —Pal/ Mall Gazette.





London: Jarrold and Sons, to and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of all Bookselers and at the Bookstalls,
Selections from “Jarrolds’ New Books,

THE “KING PIPPIN” SERIES,
Crown 8v0, Cloth elegant. 3/6 each.

Told in the Sunshine; or, Farry Hotmay Tasks.
By Mary H. Derennam, Author of ‘ r King and Home,” “ The
Captain of Five,” “Fair Meadow’s Farm,” “A Little Candle,” ** Mistress
Phil,’ &c. With Thirty-five Beautiful Illustrations by FLoRENCE M.
Cooper.

Miss Debenham, in her ‘‘ Holiday Tasks,” has produced a most interesting
book for young people. The ‘‘ Holiday Tasks” consist of a number of tales
told by some delightful people during their winter residence on the Riviera.
The graceful illustrations are the work of Florence M. Cooper, and add no
little to the charm of the book.















“This is a book of fairy stories, which is delightful to read and to look at. The
illustrations are worthy of the text, or, to put it in other words, the text and the pictures
share equally in fairy gracefulness. An introductory chapter explains how the stories began
and how the book got its name. All the stories have a scent of woods, groves, and mountains
orout isnt: They are full of nature-feeling, as well as of curious adventures,’—lVorthern

‘hronicle,

“A charming little book is ‘The Holiday Tasks,’ by Mary H. Debenham. These are
stories told by visitors to the Riviera to a child—stories from all parts and about all sorts of
people. They are well written, and can be appreciated by ch.ldren of all ages.”—Pall Mail
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“A delightful collection of stories about everything under the sun, told by all sorts and
conditions of people.”"— Morning Leader.

“Tt consists of a series of tales told as ‘Holiday Tasks,’ and is decidedly a bright and
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‘© We hail with satisfaction a new story for children by Miss M. H. Debenham, entitled
' Holiday Tasks.’ These tasks consist of a number of tales told by delightful people during
their residence in the Riviera. Appropriately and profusely illustrated. It will form a
delightful present for a child of few or considerable years.” —/Vo7/olk Chronicle.



London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of all Booksellers and at the Bookstalls,
Selections from Jarrolds’ Mew Books.

ATTRACTIVE BOOK FOR CHILDREN,
Crown 8vo, Cloth elegant. 3/6.



King Pippin; A Srorv ror
CHILDREN. By Mrs. GERARD Forp,
Author of ‘Pixie of Hill House
Farm,” “ Master Rex,” “I Too,” &c.
With Forty beautifully-executed Illus-
trations by FLORENCE M. Cooper
and C. F. M: CLeverty. 2nd Ed.

Mrs. Gerard Ford, in ‘King Pippin,”
gives a delightful study of, child-life, its
joys and sorrows. The hero is a lovable
little fellow, whose frank and winning ways
disarm even the crustiest of grandmothers,
and win for him the affection of all manner
of unlikely people. The book is charm-
ingly illustrated by Miss Cooper.



“Mrs. Gerard Ford. the popular auther of ‘ Pixie’ aud *ilaster Kex,’ 1s to the front uns
winter with a new. story for young folks—‘King Pippin’—prettily told and daintily
illustrated, and published by Messrs. Jarrold and Sons.”— 7he Star. c

“Both language and sentiment in Mrs. Gerard Ford’s ‘King Pippin’ are perfectly
unexceptionable on the score of sincerity and truth to life. The juvenile hero is a delightful
little fellow - simple, manly, and unaffected.”—Daily Mews.

“Mrs. Gerard Ford, the authoress of ‘ King Pippin,’ has already won for herself a name as
a writer of children’s books, and her present effort will add largely to her reputation. It is an
ideal book for the little ones, and the originality of the style, together with the wealth of
illustrations, will make it a great favourite.”—Nor/olk Chronicle.

“Mrs. Gerard Ford's pretty story of ‘King Pippin’ will be greatly esteemed by little
folks. The story of Charlie Farwell is so wholly natural, that one 1eels the gifted author is
writing from actual knowledge.”—Dundee Advertiser.

“*King Pippin,’ the little fellow who is the hero of the new story, is a dear little chap,
with a very quaint way of expressing lis opinions, and laudable habit of standing by them
when formed. There are other life-like characters in the story, but none are at all prominent,
so omnipresent is the little ‘King.’ The tale is a very interesting one, and well worth
seeing. "—Western Daily Mercury.

‘Mrs. Ford is almost equally effective whether she writes in verse or prose, and a prettier
or more wholesome story than ‘King Pippin’ it would be hard to find.”—Shefield Daily
Telegraph.

“Mothers who wish to delight children of about eight years old cannot do better than
prceuts this book. There are forty good illustrations, and several poems that children will
ike."—East Anglian Daily Times.

“This is a capital book for younger children. It is full to the brim with childish incident,
and here and there sparkles with real childish humour. Lucky, indeed, will be the girl or
boy who gets ‘King Pippin’ for a prize. It will be a veritable treasure.”—Teachers' Aid.

London: Jarrold and Sons, ro and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of all Booksellers and at the Bookstalts.
Selections from Jarrolds’ Wew Boolis.

THE “SNUG CORNER” SERIES.
Crown 8v0, Art Linen. 3/6 each,

A series of bright, imaginative stories, artistically bound and profusely
illustrated, intended for the young—of all ages.

Our Little Sunbeams: Srorms ror THE LitTLe
Ones. By Auice F. Jackson, Author of ** Fatry Tales and True,”
“© The Doll's Dressmaker,? &c. Illustrated by K. M. SKEAPING.

A book of pleasant and
+ \-written stories for young
children. The stories—o:
sketches, as they may be
called, such as ‘*On the
Sands,” &c.—aré all of a
nice tone, and contain un-
obtrusively an unmistakable
lesson. The appropriate
illustrations by K. M. Skeap-
ing add to the attractiveness
of this book for the little
ones.

“The tales are pretty and
leasing stories of the real life of
Fittle boys and girls. They are
always bright and interesting,
and the pictures add to the attrac-

tiveness of the book.” —The Scots-
man.

‘Alice F. Jackson has the gift
of talking directly to young folks,
and securing their interest at once
in her characters and their adven-
tures."—The Star.

“*Our Little Sunbeams,’ by
Alice F. Jackson, is another book
for children. The print is large,
the pictures numerous and well-
produced, and the binding very
tasteful. The writer has con-
siderable skill in mingling wise
lessons with her stories.” —Britiss
Weekly.

‘A collection of wholesome little tales."— Birmingham Daily Post.
“ Will make an excellent children’s gift book."—Aastern Morning News.
"A selection of pretty stories for children, and is capitally illustrated." — Te Record.

“Brightly written. Issued in attractive binding, and with good illustrations." —/#de-
pendent.

“ A very welcome addition to any child’s bookshelf." —Zastern Daily Press.

London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of all Booksellers and at the Bookstalls.






Selections from Jarrolds’ New Books.
eRe OS a a a
THE “SNUG CORNER" SERIES,

Crown 8v0, Art Linen. 3/6 each,

A series of bright, imaginative stories, artistically bound and profusely
illustrated, intended for the young—of all ages.

The Holiday Prize: A Mopzrn Farry Tate. By ELLINoR
* Davenport ADAMs, Author of ‘* Comrades 7; rue,” ‘* Colonel Russells
Baby,” ** Rodin’s Ride,” &c. lustrated by K. M. SkEapINnc,

ye KBR, shill
{3 Lie A Wl i The prize, concern-
af Re py yy oa Hy:







; ing which Miss Daven-
37 port Adams writes, is
lo be given, at the end
of the summer holidays,
to the boy who, among
his girl _ playfellows
proves himself‘‘a veray
parfit gentil knight.”
A pleasant vein of hu-
mour runs through the
story, but neither this,
nor the interest of the
simple plot, is allowed
to obscure the lesson
of chivalrous unselfish-
p hess so clearly and con-
ww? — vincingly taught.

an







“\ A sweet story of how a romantic young lady acted as godmother to all the village boys,
and when they tire of her discipline she offers a prize to the boy who during the holidays
should bear himself most like a perfect knight towards tne girls. It is an amusing and profit-
able book.” —Daily Chronicle.

‘* Persons in search of a tale for refined and well-educated children will be delighted to meet
with a volume conspicuous, not only for its literary merit, but for the excellence of its tone,’—
The Globe.

“It is a cleverly-written tale. The story throughout is both natural and pleasant."—The
Scotsman.

“We can predict success for this bright and wholesome story."—Birmingham Daily
Gazette.

‘A bright, imaginative story, artistically bound and illustrated."—Peterborough Adver-
tiser.

‘There is much in the story to interest and amuse juvenile readers of both sexes, and the
book should prove a.really acceptable gift.” Western Datly Press.

“*The Holiday Prize’ is bright and.imaginative, and is still further enhanced by the
artistic illustrations.”"—Gentlewoman.



London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, EC.
Of all Booksellers and at the Buokstalls,
Selections from Sarrolds’ Mew Books.



THE “SNUG CORNER” SERIES.
Crown 8vo, Art Linen. 3/6 each.

A series of bright, imaginative stories, artistically bound and profusely
illustrated, intended for the young—of ad/ ages.

The Little Men in Scarlet, and other Fairy

Tales. By Frances H. Low, Author of ‘Queen Victoria's
Dolls,” &c. Tllustrated by J. J. GuTHRIE.

‘* The tales are playful
without being stupid,
and healthy without be-
ing specifically moral.
They are prettily il-
lustrated, and make’ a
capital children’s book.’
—The Scotsman.

‘* Fresh and attractive.
All the tales are interest-
ing." —Cambridge Dailr
News.

“The stories are wel,
told, and the book should
be a most acceptable
present for young folks.”
—The Sun.

‘They are jolly stories,
The book is made de-
lightful in appearance.”
—Western Mercury.







‘The tales are prettily told, and shouia prove interesting to young folks." —The Star.
‘ Pleasantly written and good. The book itself is neatly got up."—Glasgow Herald.

‘Contains a dozen or more delightful fairy tales, told in an effective manner. Mr. J. J.
Guthrie contributes a number of attractive illustrations.” —Birmingham Daily Gazette.

‘Full of interesting and wholesome stories, which cannot fail to engross the closest atten-
tion of the juvenile reader." —Devon and Exeter Gazette.

‘©A book of agreeable fairy stories, with good moral implications."—Birmingham Daily
Post.

‘Miss Low is well known as one of the ablest among lady journalists, and her reputation
will be advanced by this instructive book of fairy tales. Their spirit and teaching are excel-
lent, while they have the inestimable merit of possessing great interest and freshness as
stories."— British Weekly.

‘A collection of quaint and charming fairy tales."—Cheltenham Chronicle.

‘© Prettily-written volume of fairy tales."—Newcastle Daily Leader.

‘‘ Amusing tales, and some that are more than amusing, being enchaining in their interest.”
—Cork Examiner.

“The youthful mind will unconsciously imbibe many wholesome truths, skilfully wovea
tato the stories." —/pswich Journal.

“The author possesses a considerable share of the rare kind of skill that renders the
introduction of animals and inanimate objects with something like human faculties plausible
—Manchester Guardian,





London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of alt Booksellers and at the Bookstalls.
Selections from farrolds’ Sew Books.

THE “SNUG CORNER" SERIES.



Crown 8vo0, Art Linen. 3/6 each.

A series of bright, imaginative stories, artistically bound and profusely
illustrated, intended for the young—of al/ ages.

The Morals and Emo=-

tions of a Doll: a
Srory For Girts. By Mrs. S. B.
Martin, Author of ‘‘Lady Brough,”
&c. Illustrated by K. M. SKEAP-
ING. —








Angelina, the doll-heroine, tells her
own story, and tells it pleasantly and
simply. Little girls who love their dolls
will find it delightful reading, none the
less because lessons of thoughtfulness and
self-denial are inculcated under a pleasant
guise Mr. Skeaping’s illustrations add
charm to the book.

SS

“The volume belongs to the ‘Snug Corner’
Series, and it would be difficult to find a more
seasonable gift for the children. It is lightly
and naturally written, and its little story is
calculated to foster loyalty, love, and generosity.”
—Aberdeen Daily Free Press.

“It is particularly well told, and the illustrations are not only numerous and suitable, but,
above all, sug.estive of many forms of amusement, with which the care of a doll may be
Becta: The book must prove most acceptable at this season to children."—/Voz/olh

ronicle,

The Garden of Time.

By Mrs. Davipson of Tulloch,
Author of “ Kzten’s Goblins,’ “A
Story of Stops,” &c. Illustrated by J.
J. GUTHRIE.

“‘The Garden of Time” may be safely
recommended and safely purchased by any
who are seeking a Christmas present. It
is a story of Wonderland—or perhaps we
should say of Dreamland—and the adven-
tures of Daff and Koko will delight all
lovers of graceful phantasy.







London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of all Bookse lers and at the Bookstalls.
Selections from Jarrolds’ Mew Books.



POPULAR 2/6 BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
Profusely Illustrated,



Wild Kathleen: or, Boru

SIDES OF THE CHANNEL. By
Grack STEBBING, Author of
“© That Bother of a Boy,” &c,
Illustrated. 2s, 6d. 2nd Edition.

Wild Kathleen is a beautiful and
talented Irish girl, transformed from a
madcap lassie into a noble woman by
a faithful and unselfish love. Incident
after incident brings out the various traits
of her character, and its development.

‘* A pleasant story with the scenery laid now in
Ireland and now in England, is Miss Grace Steb-
bing’s ‘Wild Kathleen: or, Both Sides of the
Channel.’ The heroine, a young girl, dissuades,
by the influence of her wit and popularity, a band
of Moonlighters from a murderous outrage on
which they were bent. In fact, the novel shows
us agreeably the brighter side of existence to be
found even in the most troubled part of Ireland.”
—Daily Chronicle.

‘Tt is one of the best books of the season, and
should be included in the list of all rewards.”—
—Teachers' Aid.



Jacqueline’s Message. A tale of the French Revolu-
tion of 1789. By L. E. Weexs, Author of ‘‘ Reminiscences of Early
Days in France.” Ilustrated. 2s. 6d. 2nd Edition.

**Jacqueline’s Message” traces the connection that existed between the
Huguenot persecutions and the French Revolution of 1789, in the tale of a
family during those two dark periods of French history. Much information is
interwoven.

. A book for girls, and a very pleasant and elevating one.”"—Pal/ Mall Gazette.

‘Is written in a plain, sensible fashion, and would be a pleasant way of teaching young
people something of the Reign of Terror."—The Whitehall Review.

Elias Trust’s Boys. By Marcarer Surrey, Author
of ‘* My Hero,” “ Dotty,” &c. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. 2nd Edition,

“Lessons of filial duty and thrift are admirably inculcated. The pages are as bright
as the tone of the story is undoubtedly healthful.”"—7he Christian,



London: Jarrold and Sens, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of all Booksellers and at the Bookstatis,
Selections from “Jarrolds’ Mew Books,



OUR GIRLS’ BOOKSHELF,
Crown 8vo0, Cloth elegant. 3/6.

Harum Scarum. sy

EsmME Sruarvt. Illustrated by E.
F. MANNING. 2nd Edition.

A bright. breezy story, full of life and
“go.” The heroine is a young lady
from the bush, who suddenly finds her-
self the inmate of an English home dis-
tinguished for its stately propriety. The
atmosphere is not congenial, and over-
flowing spirits and masterful ways lead
toendless scrapes. The illustrations add
additional charm to a book already widely
popular.

‘Miss Esmé Stuart has created a charming
character in ‘Harum Scarum,’ a tomboy of a
girl, who suddenly brought from the wilds of
Australia to the coldness and severity of the
house of an aristocratic relative in England,
turns it topsy-turvy, and wins the love of every-
body by her goodness of heart and gaiety.”—
The Star.

‘A vivacious and life-like character sketch of a wilful untamed Australian girl. This girl
has a bright breezy nature and an indomitable will. An extremely amusing story, teeming
with natural and spontaneous fun that never for a moment degenerates into frivolous
buffoonery.”—Daily Telegraph.



“ There is a good deal of fascination in the whole story, by reason of its earnestness and
probability, and it deserves to enjoy extensive circulation.”—Bel/ast News Letter.

“The tale is admirably told, and it is full of life and interest. A light satire on present-
day conventionalities is perceptible in the dialogue, which is for the most part clever and
natural.” —Dundee Advertiser.

‘Such as relish a bright breezy story told with unflagging vivacity should procure ‘Harum
Scarum.’ This 1s one of the brightest and in parts the merriest of recent novels.” —Pudlishers'
Circular.

‘There is an atmosphere of wholesome high spirits and natural kindness about the book,
which makes it refreshing to turn to after two or three novels full of social problems and
subtle characters. We recommend it to readers who look to novels for enlivenment rather
than for instruction or perplexity.”—Sectator.

‘*A pleasant, simple story, brightly told and full of delightful touches of clever character-

painting, the life of the poor relation—who came from Australia to be educated by her

aughty relation, Lady Dove —will be welcomed by all who like to spend an idle hour or two
over something that'is sweet, pure, and wholesome.” —A berdeen Free Press.



London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
Of ail Booksellers and at the Bookstalls,
Selections from -Jarrolds’ Mew Books.

BEAUTIFUL JOE.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DOG.

BY MARSHALL SAUNDERS.
$2nd Thousand. Illustrated, 8/- (Post 44d.) Gilt Edges, 8/6.







The Countess of Aberdeen writes of the Canadian Edition of '' Beautiful Joe" :—""Iam
sure that all lovers of animals will welcome this book with eagerness as being eminently
calculated to spread that knowledge and thought for dumb beasts which will lead te

their humane treatment.” @
“The narrative is admirably conveyed and interesting from every point of view. If we

bad be wish and our way, the book should be in every school and in every house.”"—T7he
orld,

“The book is charmingly got up, and would make an excellent school-prize."—British
Weekly,

“It is a capital story, and is certain to be popular among all lovers of animals,"— Sheffield
Patly Telegraph.

‘For Sunday-school libraries and for reading alike in families, it is a most appropriate
volume, sure to draw out the sympathies of young readers to tacir four-footed companions,

and to teach them valuable lessons as to the right and kind treatment of dumb creatures.’
—The Freeman,



London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C.
QO all Booksellers and at the Bookstalls.
Selections from Jarrolds’ Mew Books.

BLACK BEAUTY.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HORSE.

120 Entirely New Illustrations. to, Cloth Elegant,
§!. (Postage Ahad.)

“Had the Society
for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals
published this, we
should say it had
published its best
work.” —Review.

“Tt would be diffi-
cult to conceive one
more admirably suit-
ed to its purpose.”

Nonconformist,




“The story is sim-
ply told and cleverly
put together, and
while it may be read
with pleasure and
profit by educated
people, it is an excel-
lent book to put into
the hands of stable-
boys, or any who
have to do with
horses.”

Essex Standard.

“As a book for
yours people it will
popular for its
Picturesque illustra-
tions of all possible
aspects of a horse's
career,

Ipswich Journal,

Of this book 180,000 have been printed in this country alone. It has
also been very extensively reproduced in the United States, and Editions
have been published in France and Italy.

The present 4to Edition has been produced at great expense. It
contains 120 Illustrations by that eminent Artist, JOHN BEER, Esq,
facsimiled by the half-tone process, with beautiful results. It is artistically
bound, and will no doubt be highly appreciated as a suitable gift book by
many of the thousands who have been delighted with it in its cheaper
form ; for as the Editor of Zhe Animal World says, ‘‘The more often we
have turned over.the leaves of ‘Black Beauty,’ the greater has been our
delight.”

The Popular Editions at 2/-, 1 6, and 1)- are still on Sale.

London: .Jarrold & Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.C,
Of all Booksellers and at the Bookstalls,
Selections from Jarrolds’ Mew Books.



BOOKS OF ADVENTURE FOR BOYS,

Crown 800, Lllustrated, Handsomely Bound, Cloth, Olivine Edges.
Price 35. 6d. (Postage 44d.)

After School. By Rosert Overton. With 24 Illus-
trations by REINHOLD THIELE. 3rd Edition. 3s. 6d.



Twenty-four complete short stories of
school-life, home-life, and later-life, deal-
ing largely with the experiences and
adventures of the two boys Higgins and
their companions, the scrapes they got
into, and how they got out of them.
With twenty-four full-page illustrations.

“Schoolboys never tire of reading stories in
which their fellows play the chief parts, ard they
will find a delightful collection of fresh tales in
‘After School,’ by Mr. Robert Overton, who
knows the English public schoolboy so well
that it is at times difficult to believe that he is
not one himself at the present moment. There
are 24 stories, chiefly the work of Higgins sen.
and Higgins jun., and they are all so full of
merriment, and are all such perfect pictures of
school life that it is difficult to determine which
is the best amongst them. Birchingham Hall,
the school these two delightful boys turn topsy-
turvy, will remain a pleasant recollection long
after the stories in which they relate their many
deeds and misdeeds have been read and laid
aside.” The Star.



“The funniest, most entertaining, and most wholesome collection of stories ever written. ”
—Christian Age.

‘ Tt contains a number of short stories, describing incidents of school-life, and purporting
5 be the work of the boys themselves. Some of them are highly laughable.” —Morning
ast.

“It is clever, and the tales amusing and serious by turns. Indeed the stories are very
suitable for boys.”—Belfast Evening Telegraph.

“The incidents are told with considerable cleverness, and there is a freshness about
the whole story that every reader will appreciate."—Chvistian World.

“We consider it as the funniest, the most entertaining, and the most wholesome collection
of stories for boys ever written.’—Christian Age.

‘A book to delight all schoolboys. It is full of merriment, and of mischief, and of rattle
and go.’—Glasgow Herald.

London: Jarrold and Sons, 10 and 11, Warwick Lane, E.Cc.
Of all Booksellers and at the Bookstalls.



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