The garret was a great resort for the children whenever they were shut in by storm or chilly weather, the big chimneys making it quite warm enough to play in.
Essie used to go there, every now and then, and sit with Bobbo, Ally’s tabby kitten, in her lap, or with Erminie, the white angora, and dream her dreams among the warm chimneys.
Often Ally would come up, too, with her dolls. Sometimes Will was there, when he had not learned his Latin, sent partly as punishment, and partly that he might study away from disturbances, for at the rate he was going on he would never be ready for college.
But Will was not there that day when Essie had been telling Ally her dreams, and Aunt Susan came up to put something away, not observing them at all, as both sat among the chests, silent for the moment.
Aunt Susan had turned about to go down again, when an old bureau caught her eye. She seemed to hesitate a moment, then stopped, and opened a low drawer. She snatched something up to her lips; and then she sank down upon the floor, and sat there, holding a little yellow shirt to her face, and crying bitterly.
For an instant the two children were frightened to see Aunt Susan cry—that very grave and serene person!
“Oh, it’s her baby’s!” Essie whispered to Ally. But though she would have liked to comfort Aunt Susan, she sat still.
But the next moment little Ally sprang up, ran to Aunt Susan, and threw her arms about her neck, and brought her little face round upon Aunt Susan’s cheek till the tears wet it. “Oh, I know just how you feel!” she whispered. “I’m so sorry for you! was it a dear baby?”
“Oh, you are a dear baby!” cried Aunt Susan, taking her in her arms.
And perhaps that was the beginning of the strong friendship between Aunt Susan and Ally.
For Aunt Susan remembered very vividly that morning in the garret on the day long after—away over near the end of this story—when Ally was found, after the time when she had gone up, as Janet had suspected, to see the Children of the Hill.
But there were sunny days as well as stormy ones, along through that first autumn, and often all the children in the house would be gone out nutting.
At last came the great frost, to open the burrs, and Pincher said next morning that if they didn’t make haste that very day the squirrels would gather all the rest of the nuts.
John and Michael were spared to beat the trees, and down below the children filled baskets and bags. Squirrels ran everywhere, indignant, darting aloft like streaks of light, scolding as they sat with their tails over their heads among the few golden leaves left, and chattering at the children below.
Ally and Essie, as usual, went off by themselves, Pincher following them. “The oxens,” said he, “allus go together, yoke-fellows, same ez you two do!”
“Pincher!” suddenly called Essie, “look here!”
“Oh, Pincher, do!” cried Ally. “Please do look here!”
“Well, that’s what I call luck,” said Pincher, coming up and stooping over the find—a hoard of nuts that some industrious squirrel, whose nest was probably in a hollow of the tree above, had stored among the roots and dead leaves—an enormous quantity.
“Wal, these had orter do ye!” said Pincher. “Ye couldn’t eat more nuts ’n them.”
Ally and Essie scooped up the nuts by double-handfuls into their baskets, and Pincher filled his bag.
“Oh! isn’t this great, Ally?” said Essie. “Just think of the nut-candy!”
“And the nut-cake!” added Ally.
“And the nuts toasted on the end of a hat-pin—oh, we mustn’t lose one!” said Essie.
And full of glee, full of eager greed, too, if it must be told, they didn’t lose one.
Pincher hung the bag on his back, and carried the baskets, and the three hurried home together. Pincher took the nuts up and spread them out on the garret floor to dry. Ally and Essie fenced them off from other stores that might be poured out there later, with a dozen or so of old bricks that happened to be there, Pincher dragging up to one end the big hair trunk full of gold-laced soldier’s jackets; then the twins completed the barricade with a row of old school-books along the front.
The little girls stood up and viewed their possessions like two happy misers, and counted up the good things they would do with them like two great philanthropists—so many to stuff the next turkey for Diane, the cook, so many more for the minister’s wife, and a lot for the old woman in the hollow across the mountain.
Ally and Essie awoke the next morning to find all the lovely breezes and melting weather of yesterday had vanished in a fierce storm that was beating up from the coast, tossing the trees, and lashing the panes with rivers of rain and cold sleet.
Home never seemed any sweeter to the Children of the Valley than it did that morning as they basked in the warmth of the great fire roaring up the chimney, and rosy with well-being, planned out their play over their breakfast of dainty sausages, and buckwheat-cakes and maple-syrup.
It was while making sure of the very last drops of the sweetness on her plate, and looking up, startled by a fresh fury of the rain and sleet against the window-panes, that some sudden disturbing thought struck Essie.
Essie had remembered the little cub, and wondered if his mother had made him comfortable anywhere! And then, immediately, she saw in her mind’s eye a beautiful great squirrel scratching at the big heap of autumn leaves at the foot of his tree, and stopping, full of consternation, to find his winter’s store of food gone, with no dinner to-day—no dinner to-morrow—starvation afterwards! And all his family! Oh! And she had done it! She and Ally had done it! They had robbed him, they had left him nothing to eat all winter! She saw his angry surprise; she saw him scamper up the tree to tell his wife; she heard him chattering over his loss; she saw him sitting dejected and bewildered, not knowing which way to turn, and hungry! And she and Ally had had such a nice breakfast.
Then Essie began to sob; she slipped down and away from the table, and out of the room.
Ally followed her in amazement, calling and trying to overtake her, as she ran up-stairs and up-stairs to the garret itself, and threw herself, sobbing still, on the floor beside the nuts.
“Oh, Essie! what is it? What is the matter?” cried Ally, throwing herself beside her. “Does your tooth ache?”
“Oh, it’s the squirrel! the squirrel!” Essie moaned.
“The squirrel?”
“Oh, Ally! you and I robbed him! We took all he had! Oh, just think of him out in this storm and with nothing to eat, and his wife and the little squirrels—and they’ll all die—they’ll starve!”
By this time Ally felt it too, and sat silent, staring at Essie.
“Don’t you suppose there’s anything we can do?” asked Essie. “I never thought we were so wicked! Oh! don’t you think we might carry the nuts back?” she implored.
Ally sprang up. “Oh, yes, we might, if Pincher helped us! But Pincher’s gone round the mountain to the blacksmith’s with the horses. Uncle Billy is away too. Perhaps—perhaps Old Uncle”—
“Oh, I would be afraid!” said Essie.
“So am I afraid,” said Ally stoutly. “But you stay here, Essie. Oh, I wish Uncle Billy wasn’t always going away!”
There was a noise of discussion in Old Uncle’s office when Ally timidly turned the handle of the door, and paused there, ready to fly.
Old Uncle was looking over some accounts, and taking certain of his head-men to task for their short-comings. “What is it?” he cried sharply, as Ally hesitated.
“I—I—wanted to speak to you,” said Ally, and Old Uncle saw the tear still lying on her cheek.
“Well, then,” said Old Uncle to the two men whom he had been arraigning—some would say blowing up—a moment before, “you go out to the kitchen, and tell Diane to give you some of her buckwheat cakes and maple-syrup—Diane makes a good cup of coffee, too—and we’ll see to this later. But I’m not going to let any such carelessness pass! Now, little one!”
For a moment Ally hung back—and then, like a burst of the gale itself, she ran and climbed Old Uncle’s knee, and threw her arms about his neck, and told him every word of her story, her little face hidden under his chin.
“Well, well,” said Old Uncle, “that is bad. But it isn’t so bad it can’t be mended, maybe. Pretty tough on the squirrel. Yes, Ally, I, too, call it cruel.”
“Oh, it is, it is!” sobbed Ally. “We know it is! And Essie wants to take the nuts back.”
“In this storm?”
“Oh, we wouldn’t mind!”
“But you’d be drenched. And you’d take cold.”
“We’d rather!” persisted Ally, sitting up.
“And have to take medicine, and stay up-stairs in bed all day? And you couldn’t remember the place!”
“Oh, yes we could!” she cried eagerly. “We know the very tree—the old pine that Pincher said was as old as a pine can be, and that has been struck by lightning so often. The squirrel has his nest up there, and the nuts were in a great hollow at the root. Oh, we know the very spot!” And Ally’s smile now was so bright that it made her tears look like sparks of fire.
“And you want to take the nuts back,” said Old Uncle. “What for? Because you took what wasn’t yours, or because you pity the squirrel?”
“Oh, both, Uncle! both! And we haven’t eaten one!”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve found your consciences. Almost all the nuts on the trees and lying on the ground are yours, if you choose to take them. But the nuts that the squirrels have laid away—why, that’s another story! Let’s see. It’s a rather tough storm. Aunt Susan will be sure you’ll be made sick—I tell you what we’ll do. We won’t tell her!” said Old Uncle. “Where’s the bag and the baskets? In the garret? Run up and put the nuts in, and then get on your cloaks and leggings and overshoes, and your hooded waterproofs, and come down here, both of you. Quietly now, quietly.”
Ally danced back to Essie. And presently the twins, and Old Uncle—loaded down with bag and baskets—stole out of the side-door, like conspirators.
They found the hickory-wood without any difficulty, and the old pine-tree on its farther edge, with two scolding squirrels far aloft in it. The children put back the nuts, and joyously pulled and piled over them the wet leaves and moss, scattering about a few particularly fat ones, while Old Uncle pictured to them the bewilderment of Mr. Squirrel when he should find his nuts there after all. He said Mrs. Squirrel would declare they must have been dreaming, or else had a bad nightmare.
Never did rosier and happier little women come dripping out of a storm than Essie and Ally that day.
“Oh!” cried Aunt Susan, meeting them in the hall “where have you three been? I’m afraid you’ve caught”—
“Give them hot baths at once, and let Maria and Aunt Rose rub them down hard, and put them to bed till dinner-time,” said Old Uncle. “They went off without asking you, and must be punished!” But how his eyes twinkled!
“Oh! I just love Old Uncle, don’t you?” asked Essie, as they slipped into the warm bed.
“And I guess he loves us now,” said Ally. And they chattered until they fell asleep, and woke only in time for dinner and dumplings.