While Caroline Was Growing | Page 2

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.
"Want to pat him?" he inquired.
She nodded and approached them.
"Shake hands with the lady, William Thayer, and tell her how d'you
do," he commanded, as she knelt beside the wonderful creature.
The terrier offered a cool, tremulous paw, and barked with cheerful
interrogation as she shook it rapturously.
"Those were fine cookies," said the young man. "I had 'em for breakfast.
I'm going to buy