Red-Robin

Red-Robin, by Jane Abbott

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Title: Red-Robin
Author: Jane Abbott
Illustrator: Harriet Roosevelt Richards
Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #19057]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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RED-ROBIN ***

Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net

RED-ROBIN BY JANE ABBOTT
AUTHOR OF KEINETH, HIGHACRES, APRILLY, Etc.

With Illustrations By HARRIET ROOSEVELT RICHARDS
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
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[Illustration: THE EFFECT WAS VERY CHRISTMASY--Page 196]
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TO BETSY
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Prologue--A Story Before the Story 11 I. The Orphan Doll 19 II. A
Prince 28 III. The House of Forsyth 39 IV. Red-Robin 49 V. Jimmie 61
VI. The Forsyth Heir 70 VII. Beryl 79 VIII. Robin Asserts Herself 90
IX. The Lynchs 103 X. The Lady of the Rushing Waters 114 XI. Pot
Roast and Cabbage Salad 126 XII. Robin Writes a Letter 138 XIII.
Susy Castle 151 XIV. A Gift to the Queen 164 XV. The Party 176 XVI.
Christmas at the Manor 190 XVII. The House of Laughter 204 XVIII.
The Luckless Stocking 220 XIX. Granny 235 XX. Robin's Beginning
250 XXI. At the Granger Mills 266 XXII. The Green Beads 279 XXIII.
Robin's Rescue 292 XXIV. Madame Forsyth Comes Home 305
Epilogue--A Story After the Story 318
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ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

The Effect Was Very Christmasy Frontispiece The Beautiful Little Girl
Had Not Spoken To Her 20 "Couldn't I Run Away With You?" 56 "It's
Like The House of Bread And Cake" 119
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RED-ROBIN
PROLOGUE
A STORY BEFORE THE STORY
On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that she
might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was about her.
There was so very, very much beauty--the sky, azure blue overhead and
paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the whispering tree
under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like waves of a
sea, the bird nesting above her, everything--
And Moira O'Donnell, who had never been farther than the boundaries
of her county, knew the whole world was beautiful, too.
Behind her, hid in a hollow, stood the small cottage where, at that very
moment, her grandmother was preparing the evening meal. And,
beyond, in the village was the little old stone church and Father
Murphy's square bit of a house with its wide doorstep and its roof of
thatch, and Widow Mulligan's and the Denny's and the Finnegan's and
all the others.
Moira loved them all and loved the hospitable homes where there was
always, in spite of poverty, a bounty of good feeling.
And before her, just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could
hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the
winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she went
down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the grass and
dream her dreams to its lifting music.

Her dream always began with: "Oh, Moira O'Donnell, it's all yours! It's
all yours!" Which, of course, sounded like boasting, or a miser gloating
over his gold, and might have seemed very funny to anyone so stupid
as to see only the girl's shabby dress and her bare feet, gleaming like
white satin against the green of the grass. But no fine lady in that land
felt richer than Moira when she began her dreaming.
Of late, her dreams were taking on new shapes, as though, with her
growth, they reached out, too. And today, as she lay very still in the
grass, something big, that was within her and yet had no substance,
lifted and sung up to the blue arch of the sky and on to the sun and
away westward with it, away like a bird in far flight.
Beyond that golden horizon of heaving sea was everything one could
possibly want; Moira had heard that when she was a tiny girl. America,
the States, they were words that opened fairy doors.
Father Murphy had told her much about that world beyond the sea. He
had visited it once; had spent six weeks with his sister who had married
and settled on a farm in the state of Ohio. His sister's husband had all
sorts of new-fangled machinery for plowing and seeding, and for his
reaping! And Father