While Caroline Was Growing

Caroline Was Growing, by
Josephine Daskam Bacon

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Title: While Caroline Was Growing
Author: Josephine Daskam Bacon
Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19869]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CAROLINE WAS GROWING ***

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WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING

BOOKS ABOUT CHILDREN BY JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
THE MADNESS OF PHILIP MEMOIRS OF A BABY BIOGRAPHY
OF A BOY THE IMP AND THE ANGEL SISTER'S VOCATION
TEN TO SEVENTEEN
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW
YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO

WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
BY
JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1911
* * * * *
All rights reserved

Copyright, 1906, by P. F. Collier & Son Copyright, 1907, by the S. S.
McClure Co. Copyright, 1909, by the S. S. McClure Co., Benjamin B.
Hampton, P. F. Collier & Son, and by the Phelps Publishing Company
* * * * *
Copyright, 1911, by The Macmillan Company

* * * * *
Set up and Electrotyped. Published March, 1911
Norwood Press: Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

To S. B. long Caroline's admirer, from J. D. B.

CONTENTS
PAGE
I. AN IDYL OF THE ROAD 1
II. A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL 38
III. THE PRIZE 77
IV. WHERE THIEVES BREAK IN 113
V. A PILLAR OF SOCIETY 158
VI. HIS FATHER'S HOUSE 202
VII. THE PRETENDERS 235
VIII. A WATCH IN THE NIGHT 269
IX. THE ENDS OF THE EARTH 297

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portière and

disappeared. 66
"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt! Mein Gott!
but it is marvellous." 74
"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly. 118
Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched abandon, around
the tinkling, glistening fountain. 274
Across the court was a lighted room with a long French window, and in
the center of this window there sat in a high, carved chair a very old
woman. 282
Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a heavy arbor
vitæ, flat on her stomach. 299

WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING
* * * * *
I
AN IDYL OF THE ROAD
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