Miss Pike had “a kind of a way with her,” as Mary expressed it, which was charming alike to old and young and rich and poor. In the three days she spent at Camp Comfort she won the hearts of the Pecks, who lived half a mile at the left; also the hearts of the Browns, who lived half a mile at the right. And across the river, in that benighted red cottage, her presence was felt like a full beam of sunshine.

She was interested at once in poor, wretched, overworked little Pecielena, who, she saw, was far superior to her vagabond brothers and sisters. She told the Quintette she would like to become better acquainted with the child, and suggested asking her over to the camp to dinner. Pecielena had never even knocked at their door since the night of the hailstorm; but Mary espied her at a distance with her milk-pail, and ran up to her, saying, with beaming good will,—

“Pecy, we’ll let you come to our house to dinner to-morrow if you want to!”

Some people might not have considered this a very cordial invitation, but Pecy was more than satisfied with it, and, as her mother had been won by Miss Pike, there was no objection made to her going.

“What, eat dinner at that house! Would the girls let her sit down with them at the table?” she wondered, feeling as if a star had dropped at her feet.

Meanwhile Dr. and Mrs. Gray had arrived, their carriage fairly loaded with eatables, a huge plum pudding riding between them, to make room for which little Ethel had to be perched at their feet on a cricket. It was Dr. Gray’s first vacation, and he would have preferred a day at the seaside; but when he heard that the Quintette would “break camp” in another week, he decided to visit Old Bluff and make Mary happy.

“How good you are, papa, and how I love you!” said she, springing into his arms, while the girls rolled the dainties out of the carriage like peas out of a pod.

“Oh, mamma!” said she, when she had her mother to herself at last in her own hammock, “we are going to have that heathen I told you of to dinner. And I haven’t said one word to Miss Pike about my giving her my pin-money, not one word. There are three poor families,—Jack calls them a ‘peck of brown pancakes;’ he means the Pecks, and Browns, and Pancakes, you know. And the girls want to do something for all of them, and I suppose they think I’m cold-hearted and stingy.”

“Well, you don’t like them to think that, do you?”

“Yes, I do, mamma; it’s no more than fair,” said Mary stoutly.

Mrs. Gray had never in her life felt so well pleased with her young daughter as at this moment. It was very clear now that Mary had been honestly disgusted with her own conduct, and had chosen this way to punish herself for her false charity and love of display.

“And I’ll not spoil it all by praising her,” thought the discreet mother.

When she went into the house with Mary the girls began to talk about Pecielena. They were rather “in fancy” with her since Miss Pike had taken her up.

“You don’t know how she has improved, auntie, since we came here,” said Lucy. “She used to be saucy; but somehow she’s afraid of us now, and we never see her unless we meet her, or go where she is.”

“And she doesn’t look the same in the new calico dress, does she, Miss Pike?” said Sadie. “She isn’t handsome, but she has soft, graceful ways like a kitten, and like a swan, and like a gazelle; and you ought to see her row a boat! If mother’s willing, I’m going to give her my dark green ladies-cloth dress to make over.”

“I’m going to show her how to bang her hair,” said Fanny. “And I have a Kate Greenaway dress she may have.”

This, with a side-glance at Mary. “I’d as lief let her have my handbag as not,” remarked Blanche Jones.

“Shan’t you do anything, Flaxie? You have so much money of your own.”

Mrs. Gray could scarcely restrain an amused smile as Mary replied in a low voice,

“Perhaps I’ll do something—I’ll see”—and then had to steal out of the room for fear she might add,—

“Yes, indeed I’m going to do more than all the rest of you put together. And if mamma’s willing, I shall teach Pecy her letters too!”

The young lady under discussion was now seen approaching the house.

“Why, this can’t be the little savage you’ve said so much about,” exclaimed Mrs. Gray, looking out of the rainbow-window. “But what a thin, old looking face!”

Pecy was in holiday attire. Miss Pike’s calico dress fitted her well, and it seems she did possess a pair of whole shoes, and had borrowed her mother’s pink sun-bonnet. To say she was modest and well-behaved would be incorrect; but Mrs. Gray did not find her as bold and impudent as had been at first represented.

Though twelve years old, she had never dined at a really civilized table; so now, when she found herself seated before an array of brown linen tablecloth, clean dishes, and tolerably bright silver, she was obviously quite bewildered. In her eyes, Dr. Gray was a wonderful man, while his wife and daughters were no less than queen and princesses. As for Miss Pike, she would probably have classed her among angels, if she had ever heard of such beings, which is hardly likely.

She could not manage a fork, and in attempting it, often dropped her food upon the tablecloth. But it was worst of all when the pie was served. Lucy, annoyed by her shocking manners, refrained from looking at her, as she said with cool politeness,—

“Pecielena, will you have a piece of pie?”

Now Miss Pancake, painfully aware of her awkwardness, was resolved for once to show her quickness and dexterity. Never stopping to see that Lucy was about to put the pie into a little plate, she held out her hand for a piece! You can hardly believe it, but that was the fashion at home. She always held out her hand when she wanted a piece of pie, and her mother flung it into her outstretched palm. How should she know that this was not the custom that prevailed in polite society? But when Lucy passed her a little plate with freezing dignity, she understood her mistake in a moment. She saw, too, that Mary and Fanny were exchanging glances of surprise and amusement. They would have laughed aloud if they had dared.

All this was too much for poor little Pecy, who had tried to behave so well. She sprang up suddenly, overturned her chair, and, never stopping for her pink sun-bonnet, ran for dear life out of the house. She did not cease running till she reached the bank; and then she sat down upon some stones and cried. It was an immense relief to get away from such overstrained gentility. Pie in little plates indeed! As if her own hand were not clean enough to hold a piece of pie!

She looked up at dear Old Bluff, and thought what a grand thing it is to be a mountain and not be expected to know anything about the fashions. She was sure she should never wish to see anything more of polite society.

But here was the strangest part of it; she had a secret longing for this very thing! She had already begun to wash her face every day, and, as far as possible, to comb her tangled hair. She was ashamed of her uncouth language, which she now perceived was quite unlike that of the young people at Camp Comfort. Oh, if she could talk like them! If she could read, as they did, out of books! Above all, if she only knew how to “behave!” There was a skill in carrying a fork to one’s mouth with food on it, that passed her comprehension. How could people do it? It seemed vastly harder to her than walking a tight-rope, which she had seen done at a circus!

Oh dear, to think they had invited her to a grand dinner, and she couldn’t “behave,” and they had laughed at her! There was something in this little girl, or she would not have been capable of so much shame. She had naturally a shrewd, bright mind, which, of course, had been running to waste. She had seen cities and villages whizzing by her from car-windows in travelling, but her little life had all been spent in backwoods places, and Camp Comfort was really almost her first near view of civilized life. Now she was waking to a new world. If she could only get to it, if she could only live in it! She had as many eyes, ears, and fingers as anybody else: Why couldn’t she be a nice, proper, polite little girl,—say, for instance, like that pretty Flaxie Frizzle, who had treated her so kindly and offered to take her with her to church?

Flaxie’s mother was so nice! Perhaps she had cows, and needed a little girl to milk them? But, oh dear, she wouldn’t hire anybody that couldn’t “behave!”

After this, Pecielena hovered about Camp Comfort longingly, but would have got no farther than the door-stone, if Flaxie had not come out and urged her to enter.

“Oh yes, come in, Pecy, come in, and have some raisins.”

It had been a bright day for Pecy when the Quintette came to Camp Comfort, a brighter day than she knew. Miss Pike had a “plan” for her. She meant to win the child away from her “queer” father and all her miserable surroundings, and have her reared carefully in a good Christian family. But Miss Pike did not speak of this at present. She never talked much about her plans till they were well matured.

Pecielena nearly cried her eyes out on the day the Quintette “broke camp.” They were obliged to go, for the Hunnicuts of Rosewood wanted the house. There was a farewell dirge on the cornet and harmonica, a touching farewell to Old Bluff and the River Dee, the big barn, the front door-yard, the white rose-bush, the spreading elms, the “broad-breasted old oak tree” in the corner; and the Quintette and the Trio retired again to private life.

“Pecy,” said Mary, as the little waif stood at the gate with her milk pail, looking mournfully at the grass, “Pecy, my mamma said I might ask you to go to my house at Laurel Grove. Would you like to go?”

“O may I?” almost screamed Pecy. “But I hain’t got no gown and bunnit to wear.”

“Don’t think about your clothes, dear; you look well enough; and when you get to my house, I’ll make you have a good time; now see if I don’t.”

Thus Pecy’s tears were happily dried. In a few weeks the “camping out” had become “old times;” a dear and fragrant memory, which the young people loved to recall. It had been a delight to the whole eight while it lasted; but what it had been to the poor families about Old Bluff,—the Pecks, Browns, and Pancakes,—who shall say?

And one day it occurred to busy Miss Pike that she hadn’t quite enough to do, for she was only teaching school, studying French and German, and getting up Christmas festivals for Laurel Grove and Rosewood children; but she must try to manage a Christmas Tree for the little outcasts of Old Bluff. There would be no leisure for it on Christmas Eve, the twenty fourth; neither on the twenty-fifth; but the twenty-sixth would answer every purpose.

And where could the tree be put? Where else but in the parlor of Camp Comfort itself? The Hunnicuts were willing at once. They had but one child, James, and he was ready to help. So were the Quintette and the Trio of course, and so were all their relatives and friends.