Always at the Junction he had to lie still until Uncle Neal made the fire and the room was warm; but here it was already warm, and he could hear steam hissing somewhere. It seemed to be coming from the gilt pipes under the window. Wondering what was on the other side of the screen, he slid out from under the bunny blankets and peeped cautiously around the wall of Mother Goose pictures. It was Libby on the other side in another little white bed just like his. With one spring he pounced up on top of it, and squirmed in beside her.

The first moment of Libby's awakening was as bewildering as Will'm's had been. Then she began to have a confused recollection of the night before. She remembered being lifted from the pillow on the car seat, and hugged and kissed, and having her limp, sleepy arms thrust into elusive coat sleeves. Somebody held her hand and hurried her down the aisle after her father, who was carrying Will'm, because he was so sound asleep that they couldn't even put his overcoat on him. It was just wrapped around him. Then she remembered jolting across the city in an omnibus, with her head on a muff in a lady's lap, and of leaning against that same lady afterwards while her clothes were being unbuttoned, and her eyelids kept falling shut. She had never been so sleepy in her whole life, that she could remember.

Suddenly she sat straight up in bed and stared at something hanging on the post of the low footboard; a Christmas stocking all red and silver, and for her! Even from where she was she could read the name that Miss Santa Claus had printed in big letters on the scrap of paper pinned to it: "LIBBY."

Only those who have thrilled with that same speechless rapture can know a tithe of the bliss which filled Libby's soul, as she seized it, her first Christmas stocking, and began to explore it with fingers trembling in their eagerness. When down in the very toe she found the "little shiny gold ring like Maudie Peters's," all she had breath for was a long indrawn "Aw-aw-aw!" of ecstasy.

"Oh, Will'm!" she exclaimed, when she could find speech, "aren't you glad we bleeved?"

"But I aren't got any stocking," he said gloomily, eyeing her enviously while she slipped the ring on her finger and waved her hand around to admire the effect.

"But you got all you asked for: the ride on the cars," she reminded him cheerfully. "Did you look on your post to see if there was anything?" No, he had not looked, and at the suggestion he sprang out of Libby's bed like a furry white kitten in his little teazledown nightdrawers made with feet to them, and knelt on top of his own bunny blankets.

"Oh, Libby! There is one. There is!" he cried excitedly. "It slipped around to the back of the post where I couldn't see it before. There's an orange and a lantern just like yours, and what's this? Oh, look!"

The awesome joy of his voice made Libby join him on the other side of the Mother Goose screen, and she snatched the little punch from him almost as eagerly as he had snatched it from the stocking, to try it on the slip of paper which bore the name "WILL'M," pinned across the toe. They had watched the conductor using his the previous day, and had each wished for one to use in playing their favorite game. Clip, it went, and their heads bumped together in their eagerness to see the result. There in the paper was a clear-cut hole in the shape of a tiny star, and on the blanket where it had fallen from the hole, was the star itself. The punch which the conductor had used made round holes. This was a thousand times nicer.

Up till this moment, in the bewilderment of finding themselves in their new surroundings, the children had forgotten all about Miss Santa Claus and her story of Ina and the swans. But now Libby looked up, as Will'm snatched back the punch and began clipping holes in the paper as fast as he could clip. The shower of stars falling on the blanket made her think of the star-flower charm, which they had been advised to begin using first thing in the morning. Immediately[121]
[122]
[123] Libby retired to her side of the screen and began to dress.

"Don't you know," she reminded Will'm, "she said that we must be particular to start right. It's like hooking up a dress. If you start crooked, everything will keep on being crooked all the way down. I'm going to get started right, for I've found it's just as easy to be good as it is to be bad when you once get used to trying."

Will'm wasn't paying attention. He had punched the slip of paper so full of holes it wouldn't hold another one, and now he tried the punch on the edge of one of the soft blankets, just to see if it would make a blue star drop out. But the punch didn't cut blankets as evenly as it did paper. Only a snip of wool came loose and stuck in the punch, and the hole almost closed up afterward when he picked at it a little. He didn't show it to Libby.

That is the last he thought of the charm that day, for their father put his head in at the door to call "Merry Christmas," and say that he'd be in in a few minutes to help him into his clothes, and that their mother would come too to tie Libby's hair-ribbons and hurry things along, because they must hustle down to breakfast to see the grand surprise she had for them.

Then Will'm hurried so fast that he was in his clothes by the time his father came in; he had even washed his own face and hands after a fashion, and there was nothing to be done for him but to brush his hair, and while his father was doing that, he talked and joked in such an entertaining way that Will'm did not feel at all strange with him as he had expected to do. But he felt strange when presently his father exclaimed, "Here's mother," and somebody put her arms around him and kissed him and wished him a Merry Christmas, and then did the same to Libby.

She looked so smiling and home-like that she seemed more like Miss Sally Watts or somebody they had known at the Junction than a stepmother. If Will'm hadn't known that she was one, and that he was expected to love her, he would have liked her right away, almost as much as he did Miss Sally. But he felt shy and uncomfortable, and he didn't know what to call her. The name "mama" did not belong to her. It never could. That belonged to the beautiful picture hanging on the wall where it could be seen from both little beds, last thing at night and first thing in the morning. They had had a smaller picture just like it at the Junction, but this was more beautiful because it showed the soft pink in her cheeks and the blue in her smiling eyes, and the other was only a photograph. Will'm knew as well as Libby did that the reason their father had kept talking about "your mother" all the time he was brushing his hair, was because he wanted them to call her that. But he couldn't! He didn't know her well enough. He felt that it would choke him to call her anything but She or Her.

While his father carried him down to breakfast pick-a-back, She led Libby by the hand, and told about finding the stockings pinned to the car seats, and about a beautiful girl who suddenly appeared beside her in the aisle, and asked her to be sure to hang them where the children could find them first thing in the morning. Santa Claus had asked her to be sure that they got them. She had on a long red coat and a little fur cap with a red feather in it. There wasn't any time to ask her questions, for while they were trying to waken the children and hurry them off the train which stopped such a few minutes, she just smiled and vanished.

Libby and Will'm looked at each other and said in the same breath, "Miss Santa Claus!" Libby would have gone on to explain who she was, but they had reached the dining-room door, and there in the center of the breakfast table stood a Christmas tree, tipped with shining tapers and every branch a-bloom with the wonderful fruitage of Yuletide. It was the first one they had ever seen, all lighted and glistening, so it is no wonder that its glories drove everything else out of their thoughts. There was a tricycle for Will'm waiting beside his chair, with a card on it that said "With love from father and mother." And in Libby's chair with the same kind of a card was a doll, with not only real hair, but real eyelashes, and a trunk full of the most beautiful clothes that She had made.

As it was a holiday their father could give his entire time to making them forget that they were miles and miles from Grandma Neal and the Junction. So what with the snow fort in the yard, and a big Christmas dinner and a long sleighride afterward, they were whirled from one exciting thing to another, till nightfall. Even then there was no time to grow lonely, for their father sat in the firelight, a child on each knee, holding them close while She played on the piano, soft sweet lullabies so alluring that the Sandman himself had to steal out to listen.

It was different next morning when their father had to go back to the office, but the "hooking up" started out all right for Libby. She remembered it while she was washing her hands, and saw the gleam of the little new ring on her finger. So her first shy question when they were left alone with Her, was: "Don't you want me to do something?"

The desire to please was so evident that the answer was accompanied by a quick hug which held her close for a moment.

"Yes, dear, if you can just play with your little brother and keep him contented awhile, it will be more help than anything."

Libby skipped promptly away to do her bidding. She knew that Will'm would want to go thundering up and down the back hall in his tricycle, playing train with the lantern and the punch. She would far rather devote her time to the new doll, for she hadn't yet tried on half its wardrobe. But Miss Santa Claus's words came back to her very clearly: "It will be like picking a little white flower whose name is obedience!" Feeling that she was following in the footsteps of the Princess Ina, she threw herself into the game of Railroad Train until Will'm found it more thrilling than it had ever been before.

Later in the morning they trundled the tricycle out into the back yard, to ride up and down the long brick pavement which led to the alley gate. The snow had been swept off and the bricks were dry and clean. They took turns riding. The tricycle was the engine, and the one whose turn it was to go on foot ran along behind, personating the train.

They had been at this sport some time, when they suddenly became aware that some one was watching them. A small boy with curious bulging eyes, and a mouth open like a round O was peeking in at them, between the pickets of the alley gate. He was a boy two years bigger and older than Will'm, but he was unkempt looking, and his stockings wrinkled down over his shoe-tops, and there was a ring of molasses or jam or something around his mouth.

The discovery dampened their zest in the game somewhat. It made Will'm, who had never played with any one but Libby, a trifle self-conscious. He stopped letting off steam with his lips, and wheeling around, trundled back to the house in silence. Libby, too, was disconcerted. Her car-wheels failed her. She trailed back in his wake a little girl, instead of a noisy train. Yet the discovery did not stop the game altogether. At the kitchen steps they turned as they had been doing all along and bravely started towards the alley again. This time the gate opened and the dirty little boy came in. It was Benjy, known to all the neighborhood, if not to them, for he wandered around it like a stray cat. Wherever he saw a door ajar he entered, and stayed until something attracted his attention elsewhere. He went home only when he was sent for. If nothing of interest pulled him the other way he went unresistingly, if not he was dragged. Wherever he happened to be at mealtime, he stayed, whether he was invited or not. There was something almost spooky in Benjy's sudden appearances, and in his all-devouring curiosity. It wasn't the childish normal kind that asks questions. It was the gaping, uncanny kind that silently peers over into your open pocketbook, or stands looking into your mouth while you talk.

Older people disliked him because he would leave his play to stand in front of them and gape and listen, and he was always grubby and unbuttoned. Although he was six years old it was no concern of his that his stockings were always turning down over his shoe tops. If the public preferred to see them smooth then the public must attend to his gartersnaps.

The tricycle having reached the end of the walk, came to a halt. Benjy opened the gate, walked in and took possession. It was from no sense of fear that Will'm climbed down and let Benjy assume control. It was simply that a new force had come into his life, a strangely fascinating one. He had never had anything to do with boys before, and this one, bigger than himself, dominated him from the start. He found it much more thrilling to follow his lead than his sister's. After a few futile attempts to keep on with the game, Libby fell out of it. Not that Benjy objected to her. He simply ignored her, and Will'm took his cue from him. So she sat on the kitchen steps and watched them, till she felt cold and went into the house.

The coming of Benjy left Libby free to turn to her own affairs, but somehow she could not do it with quite the same zest, feeling that she had been shouldered out of Will'm's game by an interloper. She thoroughly disapproved of Benjy from the first glance. He was a trial to her orderly little soul, and his lack of neatness added to her resentment at being ignored. When Will'm was called in out of the cold later in the afternoon, Benjy followed as a matter of course. Several times she fell upon him and yanked him into shape with masterful touches which left him as neatly geared together as Will'm always was. But by the time he had squirmed out of her hands his gartersnaps were out of a job again, and his waist and little trousers were parting company at the belt.

All that day he stayed on, till he was dragged home at dusk like a lump of dough. He didn't resist when the maid came for him. He simply relaxed and left all the exertion of getting home entirely to her. When the door closed behind him Libby drew a long breath of relief as if she had been seven and twenty instead of just seven. He hadn't done anything, but his wild suggestions had kept Will'm on the verge of doing things all day. He was in the act of prying the seat off his new tricycle by Benjy's orders when she went in and stopped him, and she went into the nursery just in time to keep him from doing some unheard-of thing to the radiator, so that it would blow off steam like a real engine.

Will'm had always been such a sensible child, with a conscience of his own about injuring things, that she couldn't understand why all of a sudden he should be possessed to do a hundred things that he ought not to do. It was a relief to find that the spell lifted with Benjy's removal. He came and cuddled down beside her in the big armchair before the fire, waiting for supper time to come, and somehow she felt that she had her own little brother again. He had seemed like a stranger all day. But her exile from his company had not been without its compensations.

"I can play 'Three Blind Mice! See how they run!'" she told him as they rocked back and forth. "She taught me. She came in while I was touching the keys just as easy, so they hardly made a sound, and asked me did I want to learn to play on them. And I said oh, yes, more than anything in the world. And she said that was exactly the way she used to feel when she was a little girl like me, living at the Junction. She wore her hair in little braids like mine and tiptoed around like a little mouse when she was in strange places, and sometimes when she looked at me she could almost believe it was her own little self come back again. Then she showed me how to make my fingers run down the keys just like the three mice did. She's going to teach me more every day till I can play it for father some night. But you must cross your heart and body not to tell 'cause I want to s'prise him."

Will'm crossed as directed, and stood by much impressed when Libby climbed up on the piano-stool and played the seven notes which she had learned, over and over: "Three blind mice! See how they run!"

"To-morrow she's going to show me as far as 'They all took after the farmer's wife.' I wish it was to-morrow right now!"

She gave an eager little wiggle that sent her slipping off the stool. "Oh, I like it here, now," she exclaimed, reseating herself and beginning an untiring reiteration of the seven notes.

"So do I—some," answered Will'm. "I like it 'count of Benjy. But I don't like to hear so much blind mice. You make 'm run too long." Libby felt vaguely aggrieved by his criticism, but her pleasure in her own performance was something too great to forego.

Next morning while they were dressing, the door opened silently and Benjy appeared on Will'm's side of the screen. He came so noiselessly that it gave Libby a start when later on she was made aware of his presence. His host, equally wordless, was struggling with a little union-suit of woolen underwear. He was wordless because he was so busily occupied trying to get into it, and the unexpected entrance made him still more anxious to cover himself. Grandma Neal had always helped him with it, but he had valiantly fought off all offers of help since coming to his new home. This morning, slightly bothered by the presence of his self-invited guest, he got it so twisted that no matter how he turned it, one leg and one sleeve were always wrong side out.

Benjy, watching with his curious bulging eyes, and his mouth making a round open O, was of no more help than one of those heathen idols, who having eyes, see not, and having hands, handle not. But he finally made a suggestion. He was eager to begin playing.

"Aw, leave 'm go. Don't try to put 'em on."

It was this unexpected remark in a voice, not her brother's, which made Libby drop her button-hook, on the other side of the screen.

"But I'll be cold," objected Will'm, staring at the strip of wintry landscape which showed through his window.

"Naw, you won't," was the confident answer. "Your outside clothes are thick."

"But I never have left them off," said Will'm, ready to cry over the exasperating tangle of legs and sleeves.

Libby, all dressed but buttoning her shoes, heard Will'm being thus tempted of the Evil One, and peeping around the giant picture-book cover, discovered him standing in nothing but his tiny knee breeches, preparing to slip his Russian blouse of blue serge over his bare back.

"Why, Will'm Branfield! Stop this minute and put on your underclothes!" she demanded. Then growing desperate as her repeated commands were not obeyed, she called threateningly, "If you don't put them on this minute I'll tell on you."

"Huh! Who'll you tell?" jeered Benjy. "Mr. Bramfeel's down cellar, talkin' to the furnace man, and Will'm doesn't have to mind Her. She ain't his mother."

The question gave Libby pause. Not that it left her undecided about telling, but it reminded her that she had no title to give "Her," when she called for help. It was like trying to open a door that had no knob, to call into space without having any handle of a name to take hold of first. There was no time to lose. Will'm was buttoning himself up in his blouse.

Libby hurried to the top of the stairs and called: "Sa-ay!" There was no answer, so she called again, "Sa-ay!" Then at the top of her voice, "Say! Will'm's leaving off his flannels. Please come and make him behave!"

The next instant her heart began to beat violently, and she waited in terror to see what was going to happen. She wished passionately that she had not told. Suppose she had brought down some cruel punishment on her little brother! Her first impulse had been to array herself on the side of law and order, but her second was to spread her wings like an old hen in defense of its only chick.

When She came into the room Will'm was backed up defiantly against the wall. She looked so pleasant and smiling as she bent over him in her pretty morning gown, that it took the courage out of him. If she had been cross he could have fought her. But she just stood there looking so big and capable and calm, taking it for granted that he would put on his flannels as soon as she had untwisted the funny knot they were in, that there wasn't anything to do but obey. Will'm was a reasonable child, and if they had been alone that would have been the last of the matter. But he resented being made to mind before his company, and he resented her saying to him, "Better run on home, Benjy."

She might as well have told an oyster to run on home. He gave no sign of having heard her, and when the children went down to breakfast, he calmly went with them. He had had his, and would not sit down, but stood leaning against the table, pushing the cloth awry, watching every mouthful everybody swallowed, until Libby saw her father make a queer face. He said something to Her in long syllabled words, so long that only grown people could understand. And she laughed and answered that even disagreeable things might prove to be blessings in disguise, if they helped others to take root in strange places.

Benjy was dragged home again before lunch, but returned immediately after, still chewing, and bearing traces of it on both face and fingers. In the interval of his absence, "Mis' Bramfeel" as he called her, had occasion to go up-stairs. On a certain step of the stairway when her eyes were on a level with the nursery floor, she saw through its open door, something white, stuffed away back under the bureau on Will'm's side of the room. Wondering what it could be, she went in and poked it out with a cane which the boys had been playing with. To her amazement the bundle proved to be Will'm's little white union-suit. Again Libby waited with beating heart and clasped hands while he was called in and buttoned firmly into it. She forbade him sternly not to take it off again till bedtime, but nothing else happened, and Libby breathed freely once more. Grandma Neal would have spanked him she thought. Will'm needed spanking now and then if one could only be sure that it wouldn't be done too hard.

Mr. Branfield did not come home till late that night. He was called out of town on business. As soon as the telephone message came, She gave the cook a holiday, and told Libby she was going to get supper herself. Libby could choose whatever she and Will'm liked best, and they'd surprise him with it after Benjy had been dragged home. So Libby chose, and was left to keep house while She hurried down to the only place in town where she was sure of getting what Libby had chosen, and carried it home herself, and cooked it just as they used to cook them at the Junction when she was a little girl and lived there years ago. And Libby had the best time helping. As she followed Her about the kitchen she thought of the things she intended to tell Maudie Peters the first time they went back to the Junction to visit.

She and Libby talked a great deal about that prospective visit, for She had made playhouses under the same old thorn-tree by the brook where Libby's last one was. And she had coasted down Clifford hill many a time, and she had even sat in the third seat from the front in the row next to the western wall, one whole term of school. That was Libby's own seat. No wonder she knew just how Libby felt about everything when she could remember so many experiences that were like this little girl's who followed her back and forth from table to stove, bringing up all her own childhood before her.

Will'm sniffed expectantly as he climbed up to the supper table. A delicious and a beloved odor had reached him. He smiled like a full moon when his plate was put in front of him, and his spoon went hurriedly up to his mouth. "Oh, rabbit dravy!" he sighed ecstatically.

She had gone back to the kitchen for something else, and Libby took occasion to say reprovingly, "Yes, and She went a long, long way to get that rabbit, just because I told her you love 'm so. And She cooked it herself and burned her hand a-doing it. She was gathering a star-flower for you, even if you have been bad and forgot what Miss Santa Claus told you!"

When She came back with the rest of the supper, Will'm stole a glance at her hands. Sure enough, one was bound up in a handkerchief. It had not been blistered by nettles, but it had been blistered for him. Hastily swallowing what was in his spoon, he slid down from the table.

"Why, what's the matter, dear?" she asked in surprise. "Don't you like it after all?"

He cast one furtive, abashed look at her as he sidled towards the door. There was confession in that look, and penitence and a sturdy resolve to make what atonement he could. Then from the hall he called back the rather enigmatical answer, "I haven't got 'em on, but I'm going to put 'em on!" And the "rabbit dravy" waited while he clattered up the stairs to wriggle out of his suit and into the flannels, which Benjy's jeers had made him discard just before supper, for the third time that day.