While Caroline Was Growing | Page 3

a bone for William Thayer, and then he'll have some,
too."
"Was that all you had?" she inquired, horror-stricken. He nodded. "But
I'll make it up on dinner," he added lightly.
Caroline sprang to her feet.
"You go over there behind that barn and wait a minute," she
commanded.

The young man--he was only a boy--blushed under his tan and bit his
lip.
"I didn't mean--I'll get along all right; you needn't bother," he muttered,
conscious of Katy's suspicious eye.
"Oh, do! Please do!" she entreated. "I'll be out there in just a minute;
hurry up, before Maggie gets through those cookies!"
He turned toward the barn, and Caroline ran back to the house.
"Is that man gone? What are you doing, Caroline?" called the invisible
voice.
"Yes, he's gone. I was patting the dog," she answered boldly, stepping
through the dining-room into the pantry and glancing hastily about.
Only a plate of rolls was in sight; the place was ostentatiously clean
and orderly. She sighed and pushed through the swinging door; the
refrigerator was a more delicate affair. But Maggie's broad back was
bent over her ovenful, and Caroline clicked the door-knob
unchallenged.
Two chops sat sociably on a large plate; a little mound of spinach
rested on one side of them, a huge baked potato on the other. She slid
the plate softly from the metal shelf, peeping apprehensively at Maggie,
tumbled the rolls on to the top, and sped into the dining-room. From a
drawer in the sideboard she abstracted a silver fork which she slipped
into her pocket, adding, after a moment of consideration, a salt-shaker.
Stepping to the door, she paused on the little porch for a hasty survey.
The coast seemed clear, and she sped across the yard, the silver jingling
in her pocket. She was safe from the back, but a flank movement on
Maggie's part would have been most disastrous, and it was with full
appreciation of the audacity of her performance that she scudded
around the barn and gained the cherry-tree behind it.
The young man was sitting on the grass, his head against the tree; his
eyes brightened as she approached.

"Have any luck?" he inquired.
She held out the plate, and, as he took it, fumbled in her pocket for the
fork.
"It's all cold," she murmured apologetically, "but I knew Maggie'd
never warm it. Do you mind?"
"Not a bit," he answered, with a whimsical glance at her eagerness to
serve him. "I always did like greens," he added, as he accepted the fork
and attacked the spinach.
"Here, William Thayer!"
He handed one of the chops to the dog, and stared as Caroline drew out
the salt-cellar.
"Did you--well, by--that's pretty kind, now!"
"Potatoes are so nasty without it," she explained.
"Yes, that's why I don't us'ally eat 'em," he replied.
There was a moment's silence, while he ate with the frank morning
appetite of twenty, and Caroline watched him, her sympathetic jaws
moving with his, her eyes shining with hospitality.
"Nice place you've got here," he suggested, breaking a roll.
"Yes. I wish I'd brought you some butter, but I didn't dare cut any off; it
was in a jar, and it clatters so. ("Oh, that's all right!") This is nicer than
it used to be out here. It was the chicken-yard, and ashes and things got
put here; but nobody keeps chickens any more, and this is all new grass.
They took down the back part of the barn, too, and painted it, and now
it's the stables, or you can say carriage-house," she explained
instructively.
He threw his chop-bone to William Thayer and drew a long breath.

"That was pretty good," he said, "and I'm much obliged to you, Miss."
Caroline swelled with importance at the title. "I must have walked four
or five miles, and it's not such fun with an empty stomach. I came from
Deepdale."
"Oh, how lovely!" cried she. "By the pond?"
"Yes, by the pond. I gave William Thayer a swim, and I had a little nap.
It's nice and pretty all around there. I cut some sassafras root; want
some?"
He felt in his pockets, and produced a brown, aromatic stump; Caroline
sucked at it with a relish.
"Where are you going now?" she asked respectfully, patting William
Thayer's back while his master caressed his ear.
"Oh, I don't know exactly. There's some nice woods back of the town; I
think I'll look 'em through, and then go on to New Derby. I read in the
paper about some kind of a firemen's parade there to-morrow, and if
there's a lot of people, we'll earn something. We haven't made much
lately, because William Thayer hurt his leg, and I've been sparing of
him--haven't I, pup? But he's all right now."
He