Carolyn of the Corners Part 21

"An' one day at dinner, when they had some visitors," chuckled Mr.

Parlow, "it got too much for Chet Gormley. Ha'f-way through the deacon's blessin' the boy began to eat. I spect he couldn't help it. The deacon didn't have his eyes shut very tight, an' he seen him, and frowned.

"But that didn't make no manner o' odds to Chet. He'd got a taste, and his appet.i.te was whetted. He begun mowin' away like a good feller. With righteous indignation, the deacon cleared his throat, and then ended his long prayer with this:

"An' for what we air about to receive, _and for what Chet Gormley has already received_, let us be truly grateful."

Carolyn May laughed politely, but she could sympathise with poor Chet.

He did look hungry, he was so long and lathlike. So they chatted throughout the meal, and the little girl began to feel better in her mind.

"I think you are lovely, Miss Amanda," she said as she helped wipe the dishes after the carpenter had gone back to the shop. "I shall always love you. I guess that anybody who ever _did_ love you would keep right on doing so till they died! They just couldn't help it!"

"Well, now, that is a compliment!" laughed Miss Amanda. "You think if I once made friends I couldn't lose them?"

"I'm sure they'd always love you-_just the same_," repeated Carolyn May earnestly. She had Uncle Joe in mind now. "How could they help doing it?

Even if-if they didn't darest show it."

"What's that?" asked Miss Amanda, looking at her curiously.

"Yes, ma'am. Maybe they wouldn't darest show it," said the little girl confidently. "But they'd just have to love you. You must be a universal fav'rite, Miss Amanda."

"Indeed?" said the woman, laughing again, yet with something besides amus.e.m.e.nt expressed in her countenance. "And how about you, Chicken Little? Aren't you universally beloved, too?"

"Oh, I don't expect so, Miss Amanda," said the child. "I wish I was."

"Why aren't you?"

"I-I-Well, I guess it's just because I'm not," Carolyn May said desperately. "You see, after all, Miss Amanda, I'm only a charity child."

"A _what_?" gasped Miss Amanda, almost dropping the salad dish she was herself wiping. "What are you, child?"

"I'm charity," Carolyn May repeated, having hard work to choke back the tears. "You know-my papa and mamma-didn't-didn't leave any money for me."

"Oh, my child!!" exclaimed Miss Amanda. "Who told you that?"

"I-I just heard about it," confessed the little visitor.

"Not from Aunty Rose Kennedy?"

"Oh, no, ma'am."

"Did that-Did your uncle tell you such a thing?"

"Oh, no! He's just as good as he can be. But, of course, he doesn't much like children. You know he doesn't. And he just 'bominates dogs!

"So, you see," added the child, "I _am_ charity. I'm not like other little girls that's got papas and mammas. Course, I knowed that before, but it didn't ever seem-seem so hard as it does now," she confessed, with a sob.

"My dear! my dear!" cried Miss Amanda, dropping on her knees beside the little girl, "don't talk so! I know your uncle must love you."

"Do you s'pose so?" queried Carolyn May, trying not to cry.

"He _must_! How could he help loving you? Immersed as Joseph Stagg is in business and his own selfish projects, he cannot be so hard-hearted as not to love his only sister's child."

Carolyn May clutched at her, suddenly and tightly.

"Oh, Miss Mandy!" she gasped, "don't you s'pose he loves other folks, too? You know-folks he'd begun to love ever so long ago?"

The woman's smooth cheeks burned suddenly, and she stood up.

"I'm 'most sure he'd never stop loving a person, if he'd once begun to love 'em," said Carolyn May, with a high opinion of the faithfulness of Uncle Joe's character. "But how do I know he ever has loved me the least tiny bit?"

Miss Amanda was evidently impressed by this query. How could the child be sure? Mr. Stagg was not in the habit of revealing his deeper thoughts and feelings to the world. And, yet, if she would but admit it, Amanda Parlow believed that she, if any person could, rightly measured the hardware dealer's character.

She sat down in a low rocking-chair and drew Carolyn May into her lap.

The little girl sobbed a bit, but rested her head quietly on the woman's bosom.

"Do you want to know if your Uncle Joe loves you?" she asked Carolyn May at last. "Do you?"

"Oh, I do!" cried the little girl.

"Then ask him," advised Miss Amanda. "That's the only way to do with Joe Stagg, if you want to get at the truth. Out with it, square, and ask him."

"Oh, Miss Mandy! would _you_ dare?" gasped Carolyn May.

"It doesn't matter what I'd dare," said the other drily. "You go ahead and ask him-and ask him point-blank."

"I will do it," Carolyn May said seriously. Afterwards she wondered if that were not the way, too, to settle the difficulty between Uncle Joe and pretty Miss Amanda.

After the child had gone the woman went back into the little cottage, and her countenance did not wear the farewell smile that Carolyn May had looked back to see.

Gripping at her heart was the old pain she had suffered years before, and the conflict that had scared her mind so long ago was roused again.

Time, if not the great physician for all wounds, surely dulls the ache of them. Miss Amanda's emotions had been dulled during the years which had pa.s.sed since she and Joseph Stagg had broken their troth. Carolyn May-surely with the best intentions in the world-had rasped this wound.

The woman sat in the kitchen rocker and wrung her hands tightly as she thought.

How peacefully, how beautifully, her life had begun! She had bloomed into young womanhood and had met every prospect of happiness on its threshold. She had loved and had been loved. She had been as sure of her lover's heart in those days as she was of her own.

Then had come the crash of all her hopes and all her believing. Too proud to demand an explanation of her lover, too much her father's daughter to show Joseph Stagg what she really felt and suffered, Amanda Parlow had gone her way, not steeling her heart to tenderness, but striving to satisfy its longings with a work which, after all, she realised was a thankless task.

She lavished her sympathy on the afflicted; but, deep in her soul, she felt no satisfaction in this. She felt that the higher qualities of her nature were not developed. She craved that satisfaction in life which a woman finds in a home, in a husband, and in little children.

"Oh, Joe! Oh, Joe! How could you?" she moaned, rocking herself to and fro. "How could you?"

CHAPTER XIII-BREAKING THROUGH

Carolyn May always spent a part of each Sat.u.r.day afternoon, unless it rained, in the neglected graveyard behind The Corners church. One might think that this was not a very cheerful spot for a little girl-and a dog-at any time. But the little girl, as a usual thing, carried her own cheerfulness with her.