What Two Children Did by Charlotte E. Chittenden

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WHAT TWO
CHILDREN DID

BY
CHARLOTTE E. CHITTENDEN

NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1903,
BY GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
_Published, September, 1903_

[E-book Transcriber's Note: Obvious typos have been corrected and
missing punctuation provided.]

Contents

I. ON THE WAY
II. AT THE SHORE
III. BETH AND HER DOLLS
IV. THE WEDDING
V. THE NEW WAY
VI. A PLAN
VII. THE SECRET
VIII. THE REWARD
IX. ONCE A YEAR
X. BETH'S BIRTHDAY
XI. THE DAY AFTER
XII. SUNDAY
XIII. THE FOUR TOGETHER
XIV. THE WEDDING AND THE VISIT
XV. THE LOST INVITATION
XVI. THE MAIL AND ETHELWYN'S VISIT
XVII. OUT AT GRANDMOTHER'S
XVIII. HOW THEY BOUGHT A BABY
XIX. BOBBY'S GRANDFATHER
XX. THE VISIT TO THE HOME

What Two Children Did

_CHAPTER I_
_On the Way_

In the train we're watching
Outdoors speeding by:
Endless moving pictures,
Framed by earth and sky.

"Mistakes are very easy to make, I think," said Ethelwyn, with an uneasy
look at her mother who sat opposite, thinking hard about something. The
reason Ethelwyn knew her mother was thinking, was because at such times
two little lines came and stood between her eyes, like sentinels.

"Do you think God made a mistake when He sent us here?" asked Beth.

They were in a Pullman car which was moving rapidly along in the
darkness. Inside it was very bright and beautiful, and would have been
most interesting to the children, had it not been for those two lines in
their dear mother's face.

"She is thinking about the naughty things we have done," said Ethelwyn
to Beth in a tragic tone, at the same time taking a mournful bite out of
a large, sugary cooky. They had eaten steadily since starting, and any
one who did not understand children, would have been alarmed at possible
consequences.

On the seat between them there was a hospitable-looking basket with a
handle over the middle and two covers that opened on either side of the
handle. Underneath the covers and the napkins the children, entirely to
their joy, had found sandwiches without limit. Some were cut round,
others square, and all were without crust; inside they found minced
chicken, creamy and delicious, also ham and a little mustard, and best
of all were the small, brown squares with peanut butter between.

"It's like Christmas or a birthday, having these sandwiches," said
Ethelwyn. "They're all different and all good, and each one seems better
than the others."

Then they began on the cookies, and bit scallops out of the edges, while
between times they thought about their last mistake and their mother's
forehead lines.

Sitting up straight against the velvet cushioned seat, the two children
looked about the same age; the two heads were nearly on a level, as were
both pairs of feet stuck out straight in front of them; but Ethelwyn's
came a little farther out than Beth's, and her golden head came a little
farther up on the seat than Beth's dark one.

Just now there was a small cloud on their horizon. Although they found
the interior of their palace car, the porter, and the passengers,
fascinating, and the luncheon an endless feast, they both felt that
before they slept they must straighten things out; hence their first
question.

Mrs. Rayburn came back presently to a realizing consciousness of the two
anxious faces opposite hers, and with a smile dismissed the sentinel
lines.

"God never makes mistakes," said she, with refreshing faith and
emphasis. "It is we who do that."

"I think," said Beth, slowly pondering on this, "that the old surplus in
the garden of Eden who bothered Adam and Eve has something to do with
it."

"Serpent, child," said Ethelwyn crushingly, beginning on cake.

"Surplus, I mean," said Beth, getting out a piece of cake for herself.
"I'd give a good deal, sister, if you wouldn't always count your
chickens before they're hatched!" Whereupon she climbed down and went
over to sit by her mother, where she glared indignantly at her sister.
Her dear "bawheady" doll was in her arms.

This doll was so called because early in life he had lost his wig, and
thereby developed a capability for being a baby, a bishop, or a boy.
There was a fascinating hole on top of his head, thus making it possible
to secrete things like medicine or food until they were fished out with
a buttonhook or darning needle. He was fed on cake now, but was
generally given crusts, when there were any, because Beth did not like
them.

"Why did you ask that question?" asked their mother.

"We thought you looked as though we'd made you an awful lot of trouble,"
said Ethelwyn, regarding the gorgeous ceiling of the car.

"Yes, you did, although I was not thinking of it just then; you ran
away--"

"Walked, mother," corrected Beth, "to the 'lectric car, with
grandmother's gold dollar, to go down to buy a trunk specially for our
dolls--"

"It was fun, mother," put in Ethelwyn, "only when we stood up and fussed
to see who'd push the button to get off, the man slowed up so fast we
both fell through a fat man's newspaper into his lap and upon his toes.
He was angry too, for he just said 'ugh,' when we asked him to excuse
us, please. The trunk man gave us back four big silver nickels with the
trunk; we put them inside, and you can have them, mother, to help heal
your feelings."

"Your mistake was in not asking--"

"We thought you'd better not be 'sturbed, 'cause ever since grandpa and
brother died, you've thought such a lot, and looked so worried--"

"But I was more worried about you when I found you weren't in the house
or grounds; I thought you might be lost, and I was about telephoning to
the police station about it, when you came, and there was just time to
catch the train."

Then Ethelwyn got down, and went over to squeeze in on the other side of
her mother. She knelt on the cushions and patted the dear face until the
little smile they loved, came out again, and drove the care lines away.

"Children are such a worry, mother," she said in a funny, prim fashion,
"that I should think you'd be sorry you ever bought us."

"But we are going to be good from now on, so good you'll nearly die
laughing," said Beth, getting up to pat her side of the face.

Their mother laughed now in a bright fashion they loved, and squeezed
them up tightly.

"No, no, chickens," she said, "I'm never sorry I bought you; you were
bargains, both of you, but I've had much to think of, and plan for, in
the last few months, and perhaps I've neglected you somewhat."

"Can you tell us 'bout things, mother?" asked Ethelwyn. "P'raps we could
help some."

"Yes, I am going to, but not now, for the porter wishes to make up our
beds."

"There are stickers in my eyes," said Beth, yawning. "There's one more
question I'd like to know about though," she said as they moved across
the aisle. "If God can't make mistakes, why does He let it be so easy
for folks to?"

"That I don't just know," said her mother, "but it's a good sign when we
know they are mistakes."

It was only a short time after this that they were all asleep in their
curtained beds, and while it was still dark, and the children were too
sleepy to realize much about it, they reached their destination and were
driven to the seashore, cottage where they were to spend the summer.

_CHAPTER II_
_At the Shore_

Underneath the washing waves
The requiem of the sea,
For those whose hopes are buried there,
Is tolling ceaselessly.

It was interesting to go to sleep in a Pullman car, and to wake up in a
dainty room hung with rosebud chintz draperies, and with an altogether
delightful air of coziness about it.

But there was something outside their room that, like a magnet, drew
them out of bed. They climbed on chairs, and gazed eagerly out of the
windows.

The house they were in, was on a hill. Pine trees grew near, and there
below them and very near, was the great silvery blue sea, with the
sunshine flashing on its tossing waves? The children gasped with
delight.

"It's another door to Paradise," said Ethelwyn.

"The gold place that shows where the sun sets is another one," said
Elizabeth. Then they heard their mother, who had come in quietly, and in
a moment was cuddling them up in her arms.

"We've lost a lot of time, I'm afraid," said Ethelwyn after they had
given her a bear hug and a kiss.

"That ocean is the prettiest thing, mother. P'raps that's the way to
Paradise where father and grandfather and brother have gone."

"Yes," said their mother, helping them into their clothes. "It is one of
the ways."

"Tell us about this place, please," begged Ethelwyn, "and how we
happened to come to such a de-lic-ious place. Will you have to work so
hard, motherdy, here? And will the little lines come between your eyes?"
Whereupon Elizabeth at once abandoned to their fate, her harness garters
with their many buckles, and climbed up to see. Yes, the lines had gone,
and she kissed the place to make sure before she climbed down again.

"Hoty potys is the twissedest things," she remarked, worse tangled than
ever.

"Hose supporters, dear child," corrected Ethelwyn with the exasperating
air that always roused Beth's wrath.

"This cottage," mother hastened to say, while she untangled the buckles
with one hand and buttoned Ethelwyn's waist with the other, "belongs to
Mrs. Stevens and her daughter, Dorothy. I have known them for years.
Recently they wrote asking me to bring you children and come to them for
the summer; they, too, were lonely, and they knew that I needed rest,
quiet, and time to plan for the future. There are few people living
here but fisher folk--"

"Christ's people?"

"Yes, like them in trade, at least. They are poor and need help--"

"Are we rich people now, and can we buy things for them?"

"Your grandfather left you a great deal of money, children, and you must
learn to use it generously. It was his wish, and mine, that you should
begin at once to think about such things before you learn to love money
for its own sake, and what it will buy."

"O, we don't care at all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on
tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it
away as not, 'cause we've always you, mother dear."

"Is the money more than grandmother's gold dollar?" asked Ethelwyn.

"Much more."

"O, then we'll have fun spending it for folks; I'd like to. But, oh,
I'm hungrier than I ever was before."

"Me, too," said Beth. "I feel a great big appeltite inside me."

They decided at once that the dining-room also was charming, with its
cheery open fire of snapping pine knots, for the air outside was chilly.
Then, too, there was a parrot on a pole, who greeted them with, "Well,
well, well, what's all this? Did you ever?"

Miss Dorothy Stevens had the kind of face that children take to at once.
There never could be any question about Aunty Stevens, who laughed every
time they said anything, and who on top of their excellent breakfast,
brought them in some most delicious cookies--just the kind you would
know she could make, sugary and melty, entirely perfect, in fact,--to
take down on the beach for luncheon.

After breakfast was over they at once started for the beach. Sierra
Nevada, their colored nurse, following them with small buckets, shovels,
wraps, and cushions.

"Mother, this is the nicest place, and I love the Stevenses; but why are
they sad around the eyes, and dressed in black, like you? Has their
father gone to Paradise too?" asked Ethelwyn, as they walked along.

"Yes, dear. Besides, the young captain whom Dorothy was going to marry
went away last year and, his ship was wrecked and he has never been
heard from. So they fear he was drowned."

"O, mother, can this pretty sea do that? What was it they were saying
about a tide?"

Their mother tried to explain all she knew about the tides, and when she
had finished, Ethelwyn said:

"I think it would be easier to remember to call it tied, and then
untied."

_CHAPTER III_
_Beth and Her Dolls_

Dollie's poor mother is quite full of care,
As she who lived in a shoe,
For this child is tousled, this one undressed--
Mother has all she can do.
More dollies there are, than possible clothes,
Some of them must go to bed.
And some to be healed by mother with glue,
Lacking an arm or a head.
Then others, wearing the invalid's clothes,
Care not a fling or a jot
Nor know that to-morrow their own fate may be
The bed, or the mucilage pot.

The first Sunday that the children were at the seashore was warm and
beautiful.

Mrs. Rayburn and Mrs. Stevens went to church in the picturesque stone
chapel built by a sea captain, as a memorial to his daughter who was
drowned on the coast some years before this.

"We'll be really better girls to stay at home some of the church time,"
said Ethelwyn at breakfast, "we'll go this evening with Miss Dorothy."

"My dolls are needing a bath and their best clothes for Sunday-school,"
said Beth to Ethelwyn, who had decided to go down on the beach; "and I
can do it all comfy and nice while you are gone."

So Ethelwyn and 'Vada went for a run on the beach, and mother Elizabeth,
with a look of happy care on her face, and her beloved six dolls in her
arms, came out on the porch, where she had already taken a basin of
water, soap, a tiny sponge, and towels.

Directly she became aware of some one near her, and looking up saw a
girl with dark eyes and short, straight hair watching the proceedings
with much interest, her hands clasped behind her back.

"My name is Nan," said the visitor as soon as she caught Elizabeth's
eye, "Who are you? Is this your house? We've just come, and mother is in
bed with a headache, and father's gone to church, so I'm roaming around
seeking something to devour--"

"Does that mean eat?" said Elizabeth, a scene in one of her picture
books of lions devouring their prey coming into her mind.

"I think it's what my father calls a figure of speech. He's a
minister--a clergyman, you know. We've come down here to board, and he's
going to have the services in the Chapel of the Heavenly Rest. Mother's
sick about always, so I have to roam around--Say, I know a game; let's
baptize your children."

"They don't need it; they're not born in sin--"

"Everything is," emphatically. "Don't try to teach a minister's child
things, for pity's sake. I'll do the baptizing. Come along."

The rainwater barrel, half sunken in the ground, was at one of the rear
corners of the house.

"We are not allowed to play in that, I think," said Elizabeth uneasily.

"That doesn't mean me, I'm older'n you. Here, give me the doll without a
wig."

Down went the beloved "bawheady" with a thud that carried desolation to
Beth's tender heart. Four others followed in quick succession before
Beth could protest. Then clinging to Arabella, she started to run. Nan
tried to run after her, but caught her foot on the barrel's brim and
straightway joined the five dolls. Elizabeth opened her mouth to shriek,
when in an opportune moment, a young man appeared on the scene, and
speedily fished out Miss Nan, who dripped and coughed and choked;
inarticulate, but evidently wrathy sounds wrestled for utterance in her
throat. At last she shook herself free.

"I'm perfectly degusted with this whole preformance," she said as she
went stalking off, dripping as she went.

Then the young man laughed and laughed, until he became aware of
Elizabeth wistfully staring at him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"My dolls. They're baptized clear to the bottom; please get 'em out."

"I'll do it, if you will take this note to Miss Dorothy Stevens," said
the young man, at once throwing off his coat and pushing up his shirt
sleeve. Beth, before she trotted off, saw that he had a blue anchor on
his arm. When she came back, the rescued five lay stretched on the grass
in a pathetic row, and she at once ran to her prostrate children.

"You are to go to the parlor and tell Miss Dorothy all about it," she
said, in passing, to their rescuer. "Your note made Miss Dorothy cry;
and she was all white 'round her mouth. Thank you for the dolls," she
called as an afterthought.

So busy was she drying her afflicted family that it was some time after
the others had reached home that 'Vada, wildly excited, came to find
Elizabeth and to tell her that Miss Dorothy's sweetheart had come back.

"From Paradise?" queried Beth, getting up at once and bristling all over
with questions she wanted to ask him about that interesting place.

"Mighty nigh," said 'Vada, rolling her eyes. "He was shipwrecked on the
raging main, and hit on de head wid somefin that done knock all de sense
out of him, so he's pick up by some folks dat didn't know 'im, an' he
went cruisin' aroun', till he come to, and, by 'me by, back to see his
sweetheart."

Elizabeth went into the parlor later on, and stared so insistently at
the young captain that her mother drew her gently to one side and
whispered to her.

"But I'm anxious to see a sweetheart that has been in Paradise, mother,"
she explained.

_CHAPTER IV_
_The Wedding_

Bells ring,
Birds sing,
Every one is gay;
Hearts beat,
Chimes sweet,
On a bridal day.

It was one of the things for the children to remember always, that Miss
Dorothy was married while they were there to help.

They helped so much in the matter of scraping all the cake and icing
pans, stoning, and especially eating, raisins, that it was a wonder they
were not ill.

The morning on which the wedding was to take place dawned as bright and
golden as could be desired.

It was a very simple, pretty wedding in the stone chapel, towards which,
in the early morning, the bridal party walked. Nan, Ethelwyn, and
Elizabeth went ahead, bearing flowers, and after them came Miss Dorothy
in her white gown, clinging to the arm of her sailor lover.

Mrs. Stevens and the children's mother, together with a few friends,
awaited them in the pretty church, and Nan's father married them. They
then all went to the bride's home for breakfast, immediately after
which, the young couple were going away for a year. This fact, and the
mother's sad face impaired the appetites of the guests, with three noble
exceptions. The trio at the end of the table ate with zest and
unimpaired enthusiasm, of the good things that they fondly believed
might never have reached their present point of perfection had it not
been for their skill.

"Should you think," Elizabeth paused to say, in a somewhat muffled
voice, entirely owing to plum cake and not grief, "that one of us is
married too?"

"My father," returned Nan loftily, "is not given to making mistakes of
that kind. There weren't husbands enough to go 'round anyway."

"What is a husband?"

"You've been helping make one, child, and you ask that!"

So Elizabeth concluded it was a small portion of the refreshments that
had escaped her notice.

Afterwards they went down to the harbor from which the bride and groom
were to sail.

"Like the owl and the pussy cat," said Ethelwyn, cheerfully.

As they kissed their friend good-bye, they placed around her neck a
pretty chain, hanging from which was a medallion with their pictures
painted on it.

"You can look at us when you get lonesome," suggested Beth.

The last good-bye was said, and they drove sadly home in a fine,
drenching rain that had suddenly fallen like a vail over their golden
day.

'Vada had started the open fires and they were cheerfully cracking,
while Polly from her pole croaked crossly, "Shut up, do! Quit making all
that fuss!"

Mrs. Rayburn took Aunty Stevens away with her, and by and by in the
afternoon, they found her tucked up on the couch in their sitting-room
looking somewhat happier.

"Aren't you glad you have us, and specially mother?" asked Beth, kissing
her.

There was only one answer possible to this, and it was given with such
emphasis that Ethelwyn nodded and said, "That's the way we feel. Mother
knows how to fix things right better'n anybody, unless it should be
God."

"Let's sing awhile, sister, while mother thinks of a story or two,"
suggested Beth.

So they squatted in front of the grate and sang,

"Chick-a-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee,
I am so glad that Jesus loves me."

Then they sang what they called "Precious Julias,"

"Little children who love Mary Deemer."

"Why," Beth stopped to ask, "does it say Precious Julias when it's 'bout
Mary Deemer, sister?"

"Middle name, prob'ly," answered Ethelwyn; "anyway that's Mary Deemer,"
pointing to a picture of Murillo's "Magdalene," "and the reason that
she's loved by children, is because she is pretty and good. If you are
good, Elizabeth, people will love you."

"I'm as good as you are, anyway," began Beth wrathfully, when she saw
Nan in the doorway.

"May I come in?" she asked, wistfully. "Mother has a headache, father's
gone fishing in a boat, and I've a toothpick in my side."

"Come in, deary," said Mrs. Rayburn, who felt an infinite pity for
sturdy little Nan, with her invalid mother. "Bless me, what cold hands!
What's this thing you have in your side?" she continued, cuddling Nan up
in her lap.

Nan breathed a contented breath. "O, it's gone now. It's a sharp,
pointed thing that sticks me when I'm lonesome."

"We're having Sunday-school, the singing part, and you may come if
you're good, and know a verse, and won't baptize the Sunday-school,"
said Beth, multiplying conditions rapidly.

"I know a verse that father says he thinks ought to be in the Bible,"
said Nan.

"Let's not have Sunday-school," she continued, snuggling down on Mrs.
Rayburn's shoulder. "It's so nice here, and I want to tell you 'bout my
dream I had the other night. Dreamed I went to heaven awhile, and when I
came home I slid down fifty miles of live wire and sissed all the way
down like a hot flatiron."

"There's a gold crack in the sky now that shows a little weenty bit of
Heaven's floor, I think, right now," said Ethelwyn, going to the west
window.

They all followed her, and sure enough there was the gold of the sky
shining through the misty rain clouds.

"Now, if God and the angels would just peek out a minute, I'd be
thankful," said Elizabeth.

_CHAPTER V_
_The New Way_

It's--hard--to--work--
And easy to play;
I'll tell you what we've done,
We play our work
And work our play,
And all the hard is gone.

The children were always glad when Mrs. Flaharty came to wash, for she
was never too busy to talk to them, nor to let them wash dolls' clothes
in some of her suds, nor, in her own way, to converse, and to explain
things to them.

One Monday morning the two were in the back yard with gingham aprons
tied around their waists for trails, and with one of Aunty Stevens'
bright saucepans which they put on their heads in turn. In this rig,
they felt that their appearance left little to be desired.

They were having literary exercises while Mrs. Flaharty was hanging the
white clothes on the line, and, by reason of her exceeding interest in
the proceedings, she took her time about it too.

In the midst of Ethelwyn's recitation of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," she
paused to say, after, "The eager children cry,"

"What do you s'pose the silly things cried for?"

"'Cause they didn't have any lamb, prob'ly," promptly replied Elizabeth
from the audience, where she sat surrounded by her dolls. "Hurry up,
sister, it's my turn."

"Is it ager, children, you're askin' about?" asked Mrs. Flaharty,
flopping out a sheet. "If you'd ever had the ager, what wid the pain in
your bones an' the faver in your blood, you'd be likely to cry--whin you
had the stren'th."

"Is it shaking ager?" asked Elizabeth doubtfully. "Oh, I didn't know
that. Come and sit down on the steps, Mrs. Flaharty, and I'll tell a
story I made up for this special 'casion."

"It's troo wid the white does I am, an' I reckin I can sit and take me
breath before I begin on the colored; besides, I'd have to be takin'
away the foine costumes ye has roun' your waists, if I wint now." So
Mrs. Flaharty sat down ponderously.

"I've a poem, too," said Ethelwyn, taking her place in the audience, and
Elizabeth began:

"Once there was a little boy whose father was cross to him, and kept him
home all the while, and when he let him go anywhere, he said he
'mustn't' and 'don't' so much, it spoiled all his fun. Once the boy went
in the woods where lived a fairy prince. 'Go not near the fairy prince,'
had said the boy's father so much that the boy thought he'd die if he
did. So the fairy prince looked over the back fence and said, 'Avast
there,' so the boy avasted as fast as he could. 'I'm in trouble,' said
the fairy prince. 'What about?' said the boy. 'I can walk only on one
foot till somebody cuts off my little toe,' said the prince.

"So the boy did it with his father's razor, and it thundered and
lightened, and his father came and scolded over the back fence, but the
prince waved his magic cut toe; then they all banged and went up on a
Fourth of July sky rocket, till the father fell off and bumped all his
crossness out of him, and like birds of a fevver, they all lived
togevver afterwards."

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