  LOVE'S (VERY) YOUNG DREAM. CISSY found our hero in a sad state of depression. Prissy had gone off to evening service, and had promised to introduce a special petition that he might beat the Smoutchy boys; but Gen'l Smith shook his head. "With Prissy you can't never tell. Like as not she may go and pray that Nipper Donnan may get converted, or die and go to heaven, or something like that. She'd do it like winking, without a thought for how I should feel! That's the sort of girl our Priss is!" "Oh, surely not so bad as that," said Cissy, very properly scandalised. "She would, indeed," said Hugh John, nodding "I wouldn't have forgived them," cried the piping voice of Toady Lion, suddenly appearing through the shrubbery (his own more excellent form was "scrubbery"), with his arms full of the new brass cannons; "I wouldn't have forgived them a bit. I'd have cutted off all their heads." "Go 'way, little pig!" cried Cissy indignantly. "Toady Lion isn't a little pig," said Hugh John, with dignity; "he is my brother." "But he kept all the cannons to himself," remonstrated Cissy. "'Course he did; why shouldn't he? He's only a little boy, and can't grow good all at once," said Hugh John, with more Christian charity than might have been expected of him. "You've been growing good yourself," said Cissy, thrusting out her upper lip with an expression of bitter reproach and disappointment; "I'd better go home." "I'll hit you if you say that, Cissy," cried Hugh John, "but anyway you shan't call Toady Lion a little pig." "I like being little pig," said Toady Lion impassively; "little piggie goes 'Grunt-grunt!'" And he illustrated the peculiarities of piglings by pulling the air up through his nostrils in various keys. "Little pigs is nice," he repeated at the end of this performance. Cissy was very angry. Things appeared to be particularly horrid that afternoon. She had started out to help everybody, and had only managed to quarrel with them. Even her own familiar Hugh John had lifted up his heel against her. It was the last straw. But she was resolved to not give in now. "Good little boy"—she said tauntingly—"it is such a mother's pet! It will be good then, and go and ask Nipper's pardon, and send back Donald to make nice mutton pies; it shall then——!" Hugh John made a rush at this point. There was a wild scurry of flight, and the gravel flew every way. Cissy was captured behind the stable, and Hugh John was about to administer punishment. His hand was doubled. It was drawn back. "Yes," cried Cissy, "hit a girl! Any boy can beat you. But you can hit a girl! Hit hard, brave soldier!" Hugh John's hand dropped as if struck by lightning. "I never did!" he said; "I fought ten of them at once and never even cried when they—when they——" And the erstwhile dauntless warrior showed unmistakable signs of being perilously near a descent into the vale of tears. "When they what?" queried Cissy softly, suddenly beginning to be sorry. "Well, when they tortured me," said Hugh John. "'HIT HARD, BRAVE SOLDIER.'" Cissy went up suddenly and kissed him. It was only a peck which reached land at the top corner of his ear; but it made Hugh John crimson hotly, and fend Cissy off with his elbow as if she had been a big boy about to strike. "There, now," she said, "I've done it. I promised I would, and what's more, I'll say it out loud—'I love you!' There! And if you don't mind and behave, I'll tell people. I will, now then. But all the same, I'm sorry I was a beast to you." "Well, don't do it again," said Hugh John, somewhat mollified, slightly dropping the point of his defensive elbow. "Anybody might have seen you, and then what would they think?" "All right," said Cissy soothingly, "I won't any more." "Say 'Hope-you-may-die!'" Cissy promptly hoped she might come to an early grave in the event of again betraying, even in private, the exuberance of her young affection. "Now, Hugh John," said Cissy, when peace had been restored in this manner, and they were wandering amicably across the back meadow where they could not be seen from the house windows, taking alternate sucks at a stick of brown toffee with crumbs stuck firmly on it, the property of Cissy, "I've something to tell you. I've found the allies for you; and we can whop the Smoutchies and take the castle now—any time." The eyes of General Napoleon Smith glistened. "If that's true," he said, "you can kiss me again—no, not now," he added hastily, moving off a little, "but after, when it's all over, you "Will you say 'I love you, Cissy'?" But this was more than Hugh John had bargained for. He asked time for consideration. "It won't be till the Smoutchy boys are beaten and the castle ours for good," pleaded Cissy. Hugh John felt that it was a great price to pay, but after all he did want dreadfully to beat the Smoutchy boys. "Well, I'll try," he said, "but you must say, 'Hope-you'll-die and double-die,' if you ever tell!" Again Cissy took the required oath. "Well?" said he expectantly, his mind altogether on the campaign. Cissy told him all about the gipsy encampment and the history of the meeting with Billy Blythe. Hugh John nodded. Of course he knew all about that, but would they join? Were they not rather on the side of the Smoutchies? They looked as if they would be. "Oh, you can't never tell a bit beforehand," said Cissy eagerly. "They just hate the town boys; and Bill Blythe says that Nipper Donnan's father said, that when the town got the castle they would soon clear the gipsies off your common—for that goes with the castle." Hugh John nodded again more thoughtfully. There was certainly something in that. He had heard his father say as much to his lawyer when he himself was curled up on the sofa, pretending to read Froissart's "Chronicles," but really listening as hard as ever he could. "You are a brick," he cried, "you are indeed, Cissy. Come on, let's go at once and see Billy Blythe." And he took her hand. She held back a moment. They were safe behind the great ivy bush at the back of the stables. "Couldn't you say it now?" she whispered, with a soft light in her eyes; "I wish you could. Try." Hugh John's face darkened. He unshipped his elbow from his side to be ready for action. "Well, I won't ask you till after," she said regretfully. "'Tain't fair, I know; but—" she looked at him again yet more wistfully, still holding him by the hand which had last passed over the mutual joint-stock candy-stick; "don't you think you could do the other—just once?" "What other?" grumbled Hugh John, sulking. He felt that Cissy was taking an unfair advantage. "Oh, you know," said Cissy, "what I did to you a little while ago." "'Twasn't to be till after," urged our hero, half relenting. Like a woman, Cissy was quick to see her advantage. "Just a little one to be going on with?" she pleaded. Hugh John sighed. Girls were incomprehensible. Prissy liked church and being washed. Cissy, of whom he had more hopes, liked kissing. "Well," he said, "goodness knows why you like it. I'm sure I don't and never shall. But—" He ran to the corner and looked round into the stable-yard. All was quiet along the Potomac. He walked more sternly to the other corner, and "All right," he said. "Come on, Cissy, and get it over—only don't be too long." Cissy was thirteen, and tall for her age, but though fully a year younger, Hugh John was tall also, so that when she came joyously forward and put her hands on his shoulders, their eyes were exactly on a level. "You needn't go shutting your eyes and holding your breath, as if it were medicine. 'Tisn't so very horrid," said Cissy, with her hands still on his shoulder. "Go on!" said Hugh John in a muffled voice, nerving himself for the coming crisis. Cissy's lips just touched his, rested a moment, and were gone. Hugh John let out his breath with a sigh of relief like an explosion; then he stepped back, and promptly wiped off love's gage with the sleeve of his coat. "Hold on," cried Cissy; "that isn't fair. You know it ain't!" Hugh John knew it and submitted. Cissy swept the tumbled hair from about her eyes. She had a very red spot on either cheek; "'WASN'T IT SPLENDID?'" "Oh, I don't mind," she said; "I can easily do it over again—for keeps this time, mind!" Then she kissed him once, twice, and three times. It was nicer than kissing Janet Sheepshanks, he thought; and as for Prissy—well, that was different too. A little hammer thumped in his heart, and made it go "jumpetty-jump," as if it were lame, or out of breath, or had one leg shorter than the other. After all Ciss was the nicest girl there was, if she did behave stupidly and tiresomely about this. "Just once?" He would do it after all. It wasn't much to do—to give Cissy such a treat. So he put his arms about her neck underneath her curls, pulled her close up to him, and kissed her. It felt funny, but rather nice. He did not remember doing that to any one since he was a little boy, and his mother used to come and say "Good-night" to him. Then he opened his arms and pushed Cissy away. They walked out through the orchard yards apart, as if they had just been introduced. Cissy's eyes were full of the happiness of love's achievement. As for Hugh John, he was crimson to the neck and felt infinitely degraded in his own estimation. They came to the orchard wall, where there was a stile which led in the direction of Oaklands. Cissy ran up the rude steps, but paused on the top instead of going over. Hugh John was looking the other way. Somehow, do what he would, his eyes could not be brought to meet hers. "Are you not coming?" she said coaxingly. "No," he answered, gruffly enough; "to-morrow will do for Billy." "Good-night," she said softly. Her voice was almost a whisper. Hugh John grunted inarticulately. "Look here!" she said, bending down till her eyes were on a level with his chin. He could not help glancing up once. There was a mischievous smile in them. It had never struck him before that Cissy was very pretty. But somehow now he was glad that she was. Prissy was nice-looking too—but, oh! quiet different. He continued to look at Cissy Carter standing with the stile between them. "Wasn't it splendid!" she said, still keeping her shining eyes on his. "Oh, middling," said Hugh John, and turning on his heel he went into the stable without even saying "Good-bye." Cissy watched him with a happy smile on her face. Love was her fetish—her Sambo Soulis—and she had worshipped long in secret. Till now she had let the worm concealment prey upon her cheek. True, it had not as yet affected her appetite nor kept her a moment awake. But now all was different. Her heart sang, and the strangest thing was that all the landscape, the fields and woods, and everything seemed to be somehow painted in brighter colours. In fact, they looked just as they do when you bend down and look at them through between your legs. You know the way. |
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