The Little Colonel's House Party

corner of a cross-roads store. A man riding over from the nearest town twice a week brought the mail-bag on horseback. So few letters found their way in

the address through his square-bowed spectacles with a c

get his father's weekly paper. He sat on the counter dangling his big bare feet against a n

re-bowed spectacles. "Jake," he asked, "ever hear

Betty. Don't you know? She's that little orphan they're a-b

ll you that. They keep her because they're her nearest of living kin, which isn't very near, after all; fourth or fifth cousins to her father, or something like that. Any-how, they're all she

ppleton has her hands so full of cookin' for farm hands and all, that she can't half tend to her ow

sipy old squire, who often talked to himself when he could find no other audience. "I wonder who

oss the floor, and leaned lazily on th

all for herself. I never got one in my life. I'll take it up to her,

ny before handing it to the boy. "It might lie here all week in case none of

e it. Jake mounted and rode off slowly, his bare feet dangling far below the stirrups. It was two miles to the Appleton farm, down a hot, dusty road, and he took his time i

en her turn at the butter-making in the spring-house, thumping the heavy dasher up and down in the cedar churn until her arms ached. But it was cool and pleasant down in the spring-house with the water trickling out in a ceaseless drip-drip on the cold stones. She dabbled her fingers

fter the dinner was over more dishes to wash. Then there were some towels to iron. It was two o'c

a tiny mirror that she could see only a part of her face at a time. When her big brown eyes, wistful and questioning as a fawn's, were reflected in it, there was no room for the sensitive little mouth. Or if she stood

o do as she pleased until supper-time. Once out of the house, she walked slowly along through the shady orchard, swinging her sunbonnet by the strin

nd her, and a shrill voice called: "Wait, Betty, wait a minute!" It was Davy Appleton. Betty's little lamb, they calle

e had been any celebration of the event. But there never had been a birthday cake with candles on it on the Appleton table. It would have

or her to wait. The two never tired of each other. He was content to follow and ask no questions, for he had learned long ago to look twice before he spoke o

summer afternoons, through the tangle of grass and weeds and myrtle vines, to read the names on the tombstones and smell the pinks and lilies that struggled up year after year above the neglected mounds.

little Betty, hungry for something new, they seemed a veritable gold-mine. She had found that no key barred her way into this little red treasure-house of a bookcase, and a board propped agains

were twelve in all, and had come in several different Christmas boxes, and each one had Betty's name on the fly-leaf, with the date o

ghts," or "Pilgrim's Progress," or "Mother Goose," had to sit with his hands behind his back while she carefully turned the leaves. Besides these three, there was "Alice in Wonderland," and "?sop's Fables," there was "Robinson Crusoe," and "Little Women," and two volumes of fairy tales in green and gold with a gorgeous

s coming next, even before she turned the page; and she had read them to t

children who never did wrong, and unnaturally bad children who never did right. At the end there was always the word MORAL, in big capital letters

were, and how long ago their first childish readers laid them aside. The hands that had held them first had years before g

d to Davy, who lay outside on the grass, staring up at the sky. Davy's short fat legs could not climb from the board to

of every page to explain something. Often he fell asleep in the middle of the most interesting part, and then Betty read on to herself, with

lutter drowsily, when they heard the slow thud of a horse's hoofs in the thi

ognising the boy who had helpe

e not hurting anything, but maybe some of the church people wouldn't like it,

o had stood up for a better view, but

out, good-naturedly, "Hello, stickin'-plaster, where's Betty? Somewhere aroun

T IT, QUICK, DA

t it, quick, Davy," she cried. The little bare feet twinkled through the grass to meet the old sorrel horse, and

alongside the window and droppin

ever got a letter in my life except in my Christmas boxes. My godmother always writ

sappointed. The old blaze-faced sorrel had carried him out of sight before she had finished cutting it open with a pin. Then she spread the letter

spread over Betty's face as she read. Her

elled on the cars since I was old enough to remember it, and they've sent passes for me to go. I've never had any girls to play with in all my life, and now there will be two besides Lloyd; and, oh, Davy, best of all, I'll see my bea

he set aside his usual custom and asked a question. "Why are you cryi

to my own family; to somebody who really belongs to you more than just fourth cousins, you know. A godmother must be the next best thing to a real moth

Then she walked slowly down the narrow aisle of the little meeting-house, between its double rows of narrow straight-backed pews. As she reached the bench-like altar, extending

depths of a glad little heart. "It's the nicest s

n, she went skipping across the road regardless of the dust. Down the lane they went, between the rows of cherry-trees; across the orchard and up the path. Somehow the world had never before seemed half so beautiful to Betty as it did now. The May

p and gay

bells of L