Read Ebook: A Pair of Them by Raymond Evelyn Copeland Charles Illustrator

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Ebook has 729 lines and 31606 words, and 15 pages

"Guess it won't do for me to think about that just now, or any other of our good times, old Max! Good fellow, fine fellow! Poor old doggie! It's going to be as hard on you as on me, I'm afraid."

"It's an outrageous law. There ought to be exceptions to it. All dogs--Well, there's no other dog like Max. Ah! hum. Old doggie!"

The Gray Gentleman was tempted to ask questions, but the little girl was sure to do that; so he waited. In a few minutes she had gotten the whole sad story from her old friend, the gardener, and her sunny head had gone down upon the dog's black one in a paroxysm of grief.

A moment later it was lifted defiantly.

"But he shan't. He shall not! Nobody shall ever, ever take our Max away! Why--why--it wouldn't be the Place without him! Why--why--the children--Oh! Nettie! oh! Tom!" and catching sight of a group of playmates Bonny-Gay darted toward them, calling as she ran: "They're going to take him away! They're going to take him away!"

Tom planted his feet wide apart upon the smooth path and obstructed her advance.

"Take who away, Bonny-Gay? Where to? When?"

"Max! Our Max! He can never come here any more. This is his last day in our park--his very last!" and the child flung herself headlong upon the shaven grass, for once regardless of rules.

Not so regardless was Max, the trusty. It didn't matter to him that this was Bonny-Gay, his best-loved playmate, or that her frantic sorrow was all on his account. What he saw was his duty and he did it, instantly. From a distance the Gray Gentleman watched the dog race toward the prostrate little girl and shake her short skirts vigorously, loosing them now and then to bark at her with equal vigor.

Presently she sprang up and to the footpath, and again indulged in a wild embrace of the faithful canine. Indeed, he was at once the center of an ever-increasing company of small people, who seemed to vie with each other in attempts to hug his breath away and to outdo everybody in the way of fierce indignation. Finally, this assembly resolved itself into an advancing army, and with Tom and Bonny-Gay as leaders--each tightly holding to one of the dog's soft ears, as they marched him between them--they returned to the spot where the lion calmly awaited them, and Tom announced their decision:

"We won't ever let him go. There's no need for you nor the law-men nor nobody to interfere. This dog belongs to this park; and this park belongs to us children; and if anybody tries to--tries to--to--do--things--he won't never be let! So there! And if he is, we'll--we'll augernize; and we'll get every boy and girl in all the streets around to come, too; and we'll all go march to where the law-men live; and we won't never, never leave go talking at them till they take it all back. 'Cause Max isn't going to be took. That's the fact, Mr. Weems, and you can just tell them so."

"Yes," cried Nettie, "and my big brother goes to the law school and he'll suesan them. And my big sister's friends will help; and if he does have to, I'll never, never--NEVER--play in this hateful old park ever again. I will not!"

"Whew!" whistled the Gray Gentleman, softly. "This looks serious. A children's crusade, indeed. Well, that should be irresistible." And this old lover of all little people looked admiringly over the group of flushed and indignant faces; and at the noble animal which was the very center of it, and whose silent protest was the most eloquent of all. His own heart echoed their indignation and he quietly resolved to make an effort on their and Max's behalf.

But the dire, unspoken threats of the children, and the silent resolution of the Gray Gentleman, were useless. For when upon the next morning the sun rose over the pleasant Place, and the monument and the lion began to cast their shadows earthward, there was no Max to gambol at their feet, and over the heart of Bonny-Gay had fallen her first real grief.

She was out early, to see if the dreadful thing were true; and the Gray Gentleman met her and scarcely knew her--without the smiles.

When he did recognize her he said, hopefully:

"We'll trust it's all for the best, my dear. Besides, you will now have more time for the thirteen dolls, and the parrot, and the two canaries, and--"

"But they--they aren't Max! He was the only! We loved him so and now he'll just be wasted on strangers! Oh! it's too bad, too bad!"

The Gray Gentleman clasped the little hand in sympathy.

"I am very sorry for your sorrow, Bonny-Gay, and yet I can't believe that Max is 'wasted.' No good thing ever is. Besides that, I have a plan in my head. With your parents' permission, I am going to take you this day to visit your twin sister."

"My--twin--sister! Why there isn't any. Don't you remember? I told you. I'm the only, only one. There never was any other."

"Nevertheless, I am obliged to contradict you. Very rude, I know, and I shouldn't do so, if I were not so positive of what I claim. I hope you'll love her and I think you will. After breakfast I'll see you again. Good morning."

With that he walked briskly away and Bonny-Gay saw him enter the big gray house in the middle of the Place. The house where the wooden shutters had always been up, ever since she could remember, until just this spring, when a few of the windows had been uncovered to let the sunlight in.

"My--twin--sister! How queer that is!" mused the watching child.

WHERE THE HOUSES ARE SMALL

Mary Jane dropped her crutches on the floor and readjusted the baby. He had a most trying habit of not staying "put," and sometimes the other children slapped him. Mary Jane never did that. She merely set him up again, gave his cheek a pat or a kiss, and went on about her business.

For, indeed, she was almost the very busiest small body in the world. Besides her own mother's five other children there were the neighbors' broods, big and little, with never a soul to mind them save their self-constituted nurse.

That very morning Mrs. Bump had paused in her washing to look up and exclaim:

Then, after a regretful sigh for this beatific state of things, the mother thrust her strong arms again into the suds, with a splash and a rub-a-dub-dub which told plainly enough from whom Mary Jane inherited her energy.

Just then Mrs. Stebbins thrust her head out of the window, next door, to remark:

"There was fifty-four of them gardens given out. My boy's goin' to raise cabbages."

"You don't say! Now, ain't that fine? I wish I had a son to get one, but all my boys is girls, save the baby, and he don't count. Though he'll grow, won't he, mother's lamb? He'll grow just as fast as he can and get a playground garden, good's the next one, so he will, the precious!" chirruped Mrs. Bump, to the year-old heir of the house.

"Gah, gah!" cooed the baby; and emphasized his reply by losing his balance against the wall and rolling over on his face. He was too fat and too phlegmatic to right himself, so Mary Jane hopped back across the narrow room and set him up again, laughing as if this were the funniest thing she had ever seen.

"Pshaw, daughter! If I was you and you was me, I'd leave him lie that way a spell. He don't 'pear to have the sense the rest of you had, no he don't, the sweet! Maybe that's because he's a boy. But even a boy might learn something after a while, if he was let. Only you're so right on hand all the time he expects you to just about breathe for him, seems."

"Now, mother, now! And you know he's the biggest, roundest--"

"Pudding-headedest!" growled a masculine voice, at the narrow doorway.

Mrs. Bump wheeled round so sharply that her rubbing-board fell out of the tub and scared the baby, who promptly began to scream.

"Why father! You home? It can't be dinner-time, yet. What's happened? Anything wrong?"

"Is anything ever right?" demanded the man, sulkily.

"Plenty of things," answered the wife, cheerfully, though her heart sank.

"One of the right things is my getting kicked out, I s'pose."

"Father! you don't mean it! No."

"I'm not much of a joker, am I?"

"No. That you're not. But tell me, man."

With a quiver in the usually cheerful voice, Mrs. Bump wiped the suds from her arms and went to her husband. Laying her hand kindly upon his shoulder she demanded, as was her right, to know the facts of the disaster that had befallen them.

"'Twon't take long to tell, woman. The company's cuttin' down expenses and I was one of the expenses lopped off. That's all."

The question was sternly put and the man cowered before it.

"It's the truth, any way. No matter how it happened, here I am and no work." With that he dropped his arms upon the window sill and his face upon his arms, and lapsed into a sullen silence.

Mrs. Bump caught her breath, whisked away a tear that had crept into her eye, and returned to her tub. Mary Jane ceased staring at her parents, tipped the baby's home-made go-cart on end, rolled him into it, righted the awkward vehicle, threw its leather strap over her shoulders, called to the children: "Come!" and hopped away upon her crutches.

Though she paused, for just one second, beside her father and imprinted a hasty kiss upon the back of his bent head. A kiss so light it seemed he could scarcely have felt it, though it was quite sufficient to thrill the man's soul with an added sense of regret and degradation.

"We're off to the park, mother, and I've taken a loaf with me!" she called backward, as she clicked out of sight.

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