While Caroline Was Growing

Caroline rocked herself back and forth from her waist, defying the uncompromisingly straight chair which inclosed her portly little person.

"Bounded 'n th' north by Mass'joosetts; bounded 'n th' north by Mass'joosetts; bounded 'n th' north by Mass'joosetts," she intoned in a monotonous chant. But her eyes were not upon the map; like those of the gentleman in the poem, they were with her heart, and that was far away.

Out of the window the spring was coming on, in waves of tree-bloom and bright grass; the birds bickered sweetly in the sun-patches; everything was reaching on tiptoe for the delicious thrill of May--and she was bounding Connecticut! It was idiotic. What was a knowledge of the uninteresting limits of her native State compared to that soft fresh wind on her cheek, that indescribable odor of brown earth?

Two fat birds descended with a twitter into a crystal rain-pool, and bathed, with splashes of spray; Caroline's feet itched in her ribbed stockings. A soiled and freckled boy, bare from the knees, whistled by the window, jangling a can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on one ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a pure inconsequence of good feeling seized him, and he splashed deliberately in it, grinning around him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned the top button of her stout boots. He caught her eye.

"Where you going?" she called through the glass.

"Oh, I d'no--anywheres, I guess!" he answered invitingly. "Want to come?"

"I can't. I have to go to school," she said shortly.

"And so ought he--you ought to be ashamed of yourself, calling through the window to that Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice. Caroline twitched her shoulder spitefully.

"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no better than a common tramp, that boy," proceeded the voice. "Look at his clothes!"

"Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing," Caroline grumbled. "I wish he had mine!"

"Fishing! He never wears them anywhere. He hasn't got them to wear. And he'd be glad enough to get yours, I can tell you."

"He wouldn't do any such thing! He told me Saturday he'd rather be a dog than a girl; he'd get more use of his legs!"

There was a scandalized silence. Caroline waited grimly.

"What are you doing?" said the voice at last. "Studying my jography," she replied.

"Well, mind you do, then."

"I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time," she muttered sullenly.

Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and crooning.

"Bounded 'n th' east by Rho Disland; bounded 'n th' east by Rho Disland; bounded 'n th' east by Rho Disland."

The housemaid appeared just under the window, dragging a small step-ladder and a pail of glistening, soapy water. Her head was coifed in a fresh starched towel, giving her the appearance of a holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order; her eyes were large and mournful. She appealed instantly to Caroline's imagination.

"Oh, Katy, what a lovely Mother Superior you would make!" she cried enthusiastically.

"I'm a Presbyterian, Miss Car'line," said Katy reprovingly. "You'd better go on with your lessons," and she threw up the window from the outside.

A great puff of spring air burst into the room and turned it into a garden. Moist turf and sprouting leaves, wet flagstones and blowing fruit-blossoms, the heady brew of early morning in the early year assailed Caroline's quivering nostrils and intoxicated her soul.

"Oh, Katy, don't it smell grand!" she cried.

Katy wrung the soapy cloth and attacked the upper sash.

"You've got the nose of a bloodhound," she observed. "I b'lieve you'd smell molasses cookies half a mile."

Caroline sighed.

"I didn't mean them," she said. "I meant----"

"You'd better be at your lesson; your aunty'll be here in a minute if she hears you talking, now!"

Katy was severe, but fundamentally friendly. Caroline groaned and applied herself.

"Bounded 'n th' south by Long Island Sound; bounded 'n th' south by Long Island Sound; bounded 'n th' _south_--oh, look!"

Up the neat flagged path of the side yard a spotted fox-terrier approached, delicately erect upon his hind legs, his mouth spread in cheerful smiles, his ears cocked becomingly. He paused, he waved a salute, and as a shrill whistle from behind struck up a popular tune, he waltzed accurately up to the side porch and back, retaining to the last note his pleased if painstaking smile.

Caroline gasped delightedly; Katy's severity relaxed.

"That's a mighty cute little dog," she admitted.

Another shrill whistle, and the dog returned, limping on three legs, his ears drooping, his stumpy tail dejected. He paused in the middle of the walk, and at a sharp clap, as of two hands, he dropped limply on his side, rolled to his back, and stiffened there pathetically, his eyes closed.

Caroline's chin quivered; Katy's position on the ladder was frankly that of one who has paid for an orchestra-chair; Maggie had left the cookies and stood grinning in the kitchen door; an aunt appeared in an upper window.

One more clap, and the actor returned to life and left them, but only for a moment. He was back again, erect and smiling, a small wicker basket balanced on his paws. Marching sedately up to Maggie, he paused, and glanced politely down at the basket, then up at her.

Flesh and blood could not resist him. Hastily tugging out from her petticoat a bulging pocket-book, she deposited a dime in the basket; the aunt, with extraordinary accuracy, dropped a five-cent piece from the window; Katy mourned her distance from her own financial center, and Caroline ran for her bank. It was a practical mechanism, the top falling off at her onslaught with the ease of frequent exercise, and she returned in time to slip six pennies under the two hot cookies that Maggie had added to her first contribution. At each tribute the terrier barked twice politely, and only when there was no more to be hoped for did he trot off around the corner of the house, the cookies swaying at a perilous angle under his quivering nostrils.

A moment later a tall young man stepped across the grass and lifted a worn polo-cap from a reddish-yellow head.

"Much obliged, all," he said, with an awkward little bow. "Good day!"

He turned, whistled to the terrier, and was going on, when he caught the heartfelt admiration of Caroline's glance.