Books: Keineth

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"Here is the little stranger I have brought with me."

"Hello," said Peggy, smiling. Alice smiled, too, but hung back a
little, and Billy swept a critical glance over Keineth's city-clad
little figure. Mr. Lee, holding Alice's hand in his, was walking toward
an automobile in which sat the eldest daughter.

"I'm awfully glad you came," began Peggy as the children followed.
"It'll be such fun!"

"Is this Keineth?" cried the girl in the automobile, jumping out to
greet her father. Keineth had pictured Barbara as quite a young
lady--she had always thought seventeen very old--but Barbara was
dressed in a blue skirt and a middy blouse like Peggy's and wore her
hair in a long, thick braid. She had her father's kind eyes and the
friendliness of their glance warmed poor little Keineth's homesick
soul. She gave the child a little pat on the shoulder.

"We're just awfully glad you're here," she said, taking Keineth's bag.
Then, to her father: "We didn't think Genevieve would run! She's been
acting awful--but we just made her crawl up here to meet you."

"Genevieve's the name of the automobile," giggled Peggy as the smaller
girls cuddled into the back seat. Billy rode on the running board and
Barbara took the steering wheel.

"Mother's fine," Barbara was saying while, at the same time, Billy was
pouring into his father's ear a great deal of information concerning
his wireless. Peggy in breathless, excited words was pointing out to
the bewildered Keineth the sights of Fairview.

Genevieve, with many puffs and snorts and queer noises from under her
bonnet, crawled gallantly along the smooth road, up a hill, turned in
between two stone posts and stopped. Down the steps ran a woman who
seemed to Keineth only a little older than Barbara, She kissed Mr. Lee,
then, pushing the eager children aside, turned to Keineth.

"Here she is, mother," called out Peggy, drawing Keineth forward.

Mrs. Lee took Keineth in her arms and held her very close for a moment.
When she released her she put her hand under Keineth's chin to lift her
face.

"It's like seeing your mother again," she laughed, although there was a
queer little catch in her voice.

"You'll be Peggy's twin," she added, starting up the steps. "Bring in
their bags, Billy. Barb--let's give Dad a nice hot cup of coffee!
Peggy, you make Keineth perfectly at home."

Keineth took off her hat and coat. Very willingly Peggy took her in
charge.

"I'll show you the garden," she said.

"Let's go down to the beach!" cried Alice, following.

"Do you want to see my wireless set?" invited Billy.

"Billy thinks that's the only interesting thing about Overlook!"

"Wait a moment, children," suggested Mrs. Lee to them, "one thing at a
time! Keineth is tired, perhaps. Take her upstairs, Peggy, and let her
slip on a blouse and your old serge bloomers--then go outside and
play!"

Overlook really wasn't like a house at all--Keineth had never seen
anything quite like it. There was one big living-room with a veranda
running around it and with big doors opening from three sides upon the
veranda so that the room itself was just like out-of-doors. One end of
the veranda was enclosed in glass and used as a dining-room. Flowers in
boxes were on the sills of the windows and over them the sun streamed
through chintz-curtained windows. Upstairs were two rooms over the
living-rooms, and opening from these were screened sleeping porches,
with rows of little cots. Peggy explained that the rooms were used as
dressing-rooms and that each one of the family had a little chest of
drawers for their own clothes and that mother had brought the oak one
in the corner out from town for Keineth's use.

"But where do you sleep when it rains?" cried Keineth.

"Oh, out there," laughed Peggy; "you see, the roof slants down so far
that it keeps out the rain. That's your cot--between Barb's and mine."

Keineth caught a glimpse of a great blue stretch of water glistening in
the bright sunlight a quarter of a mile away.

"Oh--is that the lake?" she exclaimed, eagerly.

"Yes--we'll go down to the beach in a little while. Can you swim?
Mother will teach you--she taught each one of us. I'm going to try for
the life-saving medal this year! We have sport contests at the club in
August. Can you play tennis?" Keineth said no. Peggy's manner became
just a little patronizing. "Oh, it's easy to learn, though it'll take
you quite awhile to serve a good ball, but you can practice with Alice.
Can you play golf?"

"My Daddy can."

"Well, you can walk around the links with Billy and me. Barbara plays a
dandy game--she can beat Dad all to pieces. Let's go down now and see
the garden."

Beyond the neatly-kept lawn with its bricked walks bordered with
nasturtium beds was the stretch of garden in which the children had
their individual beds. Peggy explained to Keineth that Billy this year
had planted his bed to radishes and onions; that she had put in her
seed in a pattern of her own designing which, when she separated the
weeds from the flowers would look like a splendid combination of a new
moon and the Big Dipper. Barbara and Alice had planted asters and
snapdragon because mother liked them for the house. Back of the flower
beds was a patch of young corn, and behind that the vegetable garden
which supplied the table. At one side of the garden was the barn where
poor Genevieve was now resting her rickety bones, and next to that was
a shed.

Billy was busy at work repairing the door of the shed. As the girls
came in sight he waved to them. They started on a run.

"Let's give Ken a ride on Gypsy," he called out. He dropped his hammer,
disappeared in the barn and came out leading a shaggy pony.

At the sound of the nickname carelessly bestowed upon her Keineth drew
in her breath quickly. Right at that moment she wanted more than
anything else in the world that these children should not think she was
a bit different from them! Already her plain serge dress had been hung
away and she was in a blouse and bloomers like Peggy's!

"I don't know," began Peggy doubtfully.

"Oh, please, let me have a ride," broke in Keineth in a voice she tried
to make as careless as Billy's own.

"We always ride Gypsy bareback--climb up here on these boxes!"

Keineth stepped upon the boxes, Billy wheeled the pony around and
Keineth bravely swung one leg over the pony's back, taking the halter
in her hand as she did so. Billy gave the pony a sound slap on the
shoulder and off they flew!

Never in her life had Keineth been on a horse's back, but she had
caught the challenge in Billy's laughing eyes and her soul flamed with
daring. She clenched her teeth tightly and, because she was in mortal
terror of slipping off from the pony, she gripped her knees with all
her might against his shaggy sides. In a funny little gallop--very like
a rocking horse--he circled the house, while from the shed Billy and
Peggy shouted to her encouragingly.

Keineth's first ride would have ended triumphantly if she had not laid
her hand ever so lightly on a certain spot in Gypsy's neck! For Gypsy,
having reached an age when he was of no further use in their business,
had been bought a year before from a circus company by Mr. Lee and
taken to Overlook, and at the time of the purchase no one had explained
to Mr. Lee that Gypsy's training had included quietly throwing the
clown from her back in a way which had always won screams of laughter
from the spectators and that the little act came at the moment when the
clown touched a certain spot on her neck! All the young Lees had ridden
Gypsy but had not happened to discover this little trick. But Keineth,
just as she had safely passed the kitchen door and was galloping toward
the shed, suddenly felt herself flying over Gypsy's head! Her fall was
broken by a pile of sand which had been hauled up from the beach for
the garden. Keineth was more startled than hurt, though she felt a
little stunned and lay for a moment very still.

"Oh, are you hurt?" cried Peggy, running quickly to her with Billy at
her heels.

"Oh, I s'pose she'll cry and bring mother out!" Keineth heard Billy say
behind Peggy's back.

Keineth's cheeks were very red. She stood up quickly and, though for a
moment everything danced before her eyes, she managed to laugh and
speak in a queer voice she scarcely recognized as her own.

"'Course I'm not hurt! A little fall like that!" she brushed the sand
from her blouse.

"Peggy," cried Billy, joyfully, "she's a real scout!" and Keineth knew
then that she was one of them.

Even Peggy's tone was different. "Let's ask mother if we can't go down
to the beach before lunch!" she called out over her shoulder, starting
houseward on a run.

That night a very tired little girl crept into her cot between
Barbara's and Peggy's. Alice was already asleep on the other side of
Peggy. Barbara was still on the veranda talking with her mother and
father. A soft land breeze, all sweet with garden smells, fanned their
faces as the girls lay there. What a day it had been to Keineth--she
had played in the sand, waded in the warm shallows of the lake, raced
with Peggy and Alice through the fields all white with daisies and had
gathered great bunches of the pretty flowers! She thought, as she lay
there watching the little stars peeping under the edge of the roof,
that she had never been so happy in her life! She loved Overlook and
all the Lees--and Peggy, best of all.

In whispers, reaching out from their cots to clasp hands, she and Peggy
opened their hearts to one another. She told Peggy all about poor, nice
Tante and about the old house and Francesca Ferocci and Aunt Josephine
and Fido and the French maid, and the tenants on the third floor and
her Daddy--who'd gone away on a secret. Peggy, very sleepily pictured
what they'd do on the morrow and the day after and the day after that.
Later, when Mrs. Lee went her rounds, as she always did, tucking a
cover under each loved chin, she found Keineth's fair curls very close
to Peggy's round bobbed head and their hands still clasping.

CHAPTER IV

KEINETH WRITES TO HER FATHER

My dear, dear, dearest Daddy,

I have decided to write down all my thoughts and send them to you just
like the diry Tante used to keep in her brown book that had the lock on
it, then she would lose the key and ring her hands and think Dinah had
taken it, then she would find it under her burow cover where she had
hidden it all the time. I am trying to be a good soldier. It was very
hard at first, I could not keep myself from thinking all the time of
you and Tante and our happy home where it must be all dark and dusty
now like it was after we had been in the mountains with Aunt Josephine,
only worse. I do love it here, but it is not a bit like anything I have
ever seen at home or riding with Aunt Josephine. It is like a house and
like we were living right out doors, for there are so many windows and
we sleep in a big room just with a roof. I sleep right next to Peggy;
we always talk before we go to sleep, which is lots of fun, only Peggy
never listens until I finish. I say good-night to a big bright star
becose I pretend that star is shining down where you are writing
somewhere and maybe will tell you that your little girl is saying
goodnight. Way off toward the end of the sky there is a funny little
star that is very hard to see, and I say goodnight to that for Tante
becose she is so far away, too, Barbara helped me find on the map where
she had gone and Mr. Lee said poor thing. I do wish I knew if she was
unhappy.

We live downstairs in a great big room and eat there and everything, it
seems just as if flowers grew right in it, for there are boxes of them
at the windows and on the veranda, and Aunt Nellie puts big bunches of
them all around the room and Peggy has a bird that lives in a white
cage in the window and sings all the time, I guess becose the sun
shines on him. The furniture is not gold at all like Aunt Josephine's
and it is not big like we have at home and there are only one or two
rugs and the floor shines; Aunt Nellie does not fuss when we children
move things around and we have lots of fun. There is a big fireplace
made of rocks Billy says they pulled up from the beach. One time Mr.
Lee lighted some big logs in it and we all sat round and told terrible
storys of pirates and things we made up most, but Billy could think of
the worst and Mr. Lee and Aunt Nellie sat with us and told some just
like they were children, too. Sometimes Aunt Nellie seems just like a
girl, she is so jolly, she is not a bit like Aunt Josephine, though I
am sure Aunt Josephine is a very nice lady and I don't mean that I
don't love her, only Aunt Nellie kisses me as if she liked too and does
not just peck my cheek. Last week she brought me home some lovly middy
bloses like Peggy wears, and I play in bloomers all day and put on a
white skirt for supper; Mr. Lee says Peggy and I look like twins.
Auntie brought me a bathing suit, too, and a tennis raket Peggy says is
better than hers. She folded away all my hair ribbons, she said we
would not bother with them in the country. Barbara wears middy bloses,
too, but she cannot wear bloomers becose she is too old though she does
not look old or grownup. She is going away to school in the fall and
Auntie and she are getting her close ready. Alice is just a little girl
and is some fun, although she crys real often Peggy says she is
spoiled. Auntie says she will outgrow that and that Peggy cryed just as
much when she was like Alice is. I wish I could see you becose I would
like to ask you many questions about when I was a little girl. I am
sure if I had a little sister like Alice I would try and be more polite
than Peggy is, but Peggy says that families are all like that. Billy is
awful. I do not think I like him very much. He says the queerest words
and acts rude and rough. Tante would not like his manners at all. I am
ashamed becose I do not like him becose Auntie loves him dearly and she
only laughs when I think she will punish him; he does not read books
and his English is bad like Dinah's and he teses Peggy and Alice and
eats very fast and talks with food in his mouth. I shall try to like
him.

There are no sidewalks at Mr. Lee's house; they have pebble paths with
flowers here instead of sidewalks and a dirt road; it is just like the
real country and there are daisies in the fields, Peggy says they do
not call them lots. The grass is greener than in the Square at home.
All the children have gardens. Peggy says I may have half of her's and
I have a hoe and rake all my own. Billy Is going to sell his
vegertables becose he wants to buy a new sending set for his wireless.
I like the pony, though I do not like to ride it after the first time
when I fell off, though it did not hurt me at all and I was not even
frightened.

To-morrow we are going into the lake for a swim, although I will have
to learn, but Peggy says that it is easy only I must stay away from
Billy or he will duck me. I shall try and not be afraid becose I am
sure you would be ashamed of me if I acted frightened. It will be fun
to put on my new bathing suit. Auntie taught Barbara and Peggy to swim.
Peggy is going to try and win the medal this year, and Barbara says she
will becose she swims so well.

I will try and remember to write to Aunt Josephine like I promised I
would becose she is my aunt, but I will not know what to tell her
becose there is not anything in Overlook that is like what she has and
she might not like what I tell her and scold us. I am sure she would be
angry if I told her that once a week Auntie lets us girls cook the
supper and we cook just what we please and surprise them, and Barbara
puts down on a paper everything we use and how much it costs, and after
supper she gives it to Mr. Lee and we talk about it. Tomorrow is our
night. Oh I wish you were here, Daddy, it is such fun only it is very
lonely without a father. I try to do all the things that Peggy does,
though I can't do them as well, but I will tell you in this diry how I
improve as I intend to do. I have not any book to keep my thoughts in,
but I will send them to you whenever I write them. Please excuse my
spelling for I am sure no one should have to look in a dickshunary when
they are writing thoughts. Tante never did. I love you and I am sending
a million kisses with this letter.

Your little soldier daugghter, Keineth Randolph.

* * * * *

Dear Mr. President of the United States:

Please send the letter I put in the envelope to my father. He is
working for the Stars and Stripes somewhere, he said he could not tell
me where becose it was a secret. He is a soldier, but he is one of
those that do not wear any uniform. I am sure you will know where he is
becose you are the President of our Country. I would like to know, too,
very much where he is becose it is lonesome without him, for my father
is the only family I have. But my father said I must be a little
soldier. You know he just means me to do my duty and to like Overlook
and everybody and to do what they do, but it makes me feel better to
pretend that I am a soldier like he is and like all your soldiers.
Thank you if you send my letter to my father and much love.

Yours truly, Keineth Randolph.

P. S.--Aunt Josephine says postscripts are not good form, but I forgot
to say that my father's name is John Randolph, of Washington Square,
New York. This was the letter over which Keineth, curled in a chair at
the writing-desk, had labored for a long time, finishing it at last to
her satisfaction. Slipping it into an envelope with the letter she had
written to her father she sealed it hastily, anxious to have it
addressed and mailed before Peggy and Billy returned from the golf
club.

Over on the window seat Barbara sat sewing, watching Keineth with
amused eyes; for Keineth had been writing with the dictionary open at
her elbow and had stopped very often to consult it as to the spelling
of a word.

"Very different from Peggy," thought Barbara.

Aware after a little that Keineth's face wore a perplexed frown, she
said to her:

"Can I help you, Ken?"

"If you'll just tell me how to address a letter to the President,
please."

"The President! What President?"

"The President of the United States."

"Good gracious--" Barbara, dropping her sewing, stared at Keineth in
amazement. "I thought--no wonder you're using a dictionary! I am sure I
would, too! But--" Keineth broke in hastily. "You see I have been
writing a sort of diary, about everything I think and do, to send to my
father, but I don't know where he is because he has gone away on a
mission for our country and it has to be kept a secret, but I
thought--" Her voice broke a little and she held the letter tightly in
her hands.

Barbara, feeling how close the tears were to Keineth's bright eyes,
crossed quickly to her side.

"Oh, I see!" she said briskly. "What a splendid idea! Of course the
President will know where he is and will send it to him. Let me
think--we learned all that in school and had to address make-believe
letters to him--" Taking a sheet of paper she wrote in large letters:

Honorable Woodrow Wilson,
White House,
Washington, D. C.

"It looks too simple for the President--it ought to have more
flourishes to it and titles and things, shouldn't it, Ken? You copy it
and we'll walk straight down to the post office and mail it so that it
will go on to-night's train." Tears were far from Keineth's eyes as she
walked by Barbara's side down the white road between the fields of
daisies and buttercups. The little cloud of loneliness that had for a
brief time threatened her sky had disappeared and she was again a
light-hearted little girl, eagerly awaiting the happy things that each
new day at Overlook seemed to bring to her.

CHAPTER V

PILOT COMES TO OVERLOOK

"This is the third time in a week that Billy's been late for dinner,"
said Mrs. Lee, looking from Billy's empty place at the table to his
father's face.

Mr. Lee was serving the steaming chicken and biscuits that Nora had
placed on the table.

"He asked me if he could go to the fair at Middletown! He wanted his
next week's allowance."

"William," and Mrs. Lee's gentle voice was stern, "you do spoil that
boy dreadfully!"

"He's with Jim Archer!" Peggy put in. She knew that her mother did not
like Jim Archer.

"Billy's with him a lot," added Barbara.

"He teases us girls all the time, too, Mother! He put June bugs in my
bed last night!" cried Alice.

"Billy is certainly in all wrong just now," answered Mr. Lee with a
twinkle in his eyes.

"But _do_ you think these fairs are quite the places for boys like
Billy and Jim Archer--alone?" asked Mrs. Lee with a troubled look. "He
should have been home long ago! They must have ridden their wheels!"

"Don't worry, little mother! Billy will come home tired and hungry and
none the worse for the fair! Why, when I was a boy I never missed a
fair anywhere around and always walked, too! _They_ used to be real
fairs--nothing like them these days!"

The children knew that when their father began his "when I was a boy,"
it could mean a story if there was a little coaxing!

"Oh, tell us a story!" Alice cried.

"Please do!" added Keineth. It would make them all forget to feel cross
toward Billy!

So, chuckling a little under his breath, Mr. Lee began:

"Down in our village old Cy Addington had a calf he'd entered in the
County Fair. He'd set his heart on that calf's winning a prize--all the
other farmers had told him it would. It was black as jet with just a
little white mark on its fore quarter. He tended that calf like a baby
and spent hours at a time getting it all in shape for the Fair. Well,
the night before the Fair opened two boys--bad boys they were--stole
that calf out of its shed, took it off in some woods where they had a
lantern and a can of paint hidden under a log. What do you think they
did? Painted the animal white--snow white--every bit of him! Then they
took him to the graveyard and tied him to a tombstone!"

"Oh, Daddy, how dreadful!" cried Alice.

"Then what happened?" demanded Keineth and Peggy in one voice.

"Well, a lot of things happened, and they happened fast! Miss Cymantha
Jones, a nervous spinster, was walking home from Widow Markham's
house--rather late, but she'd been caring for the widow through a sick
spell. And Miss Cymantha saw that calf jumping around among the
tombstones and thought it was a ghost! She let out such screams that it
brought Charley, the old sexton, running to the door in his night
shirt, and he saw the calf, and Miss Cymantha scuttling down the road
screaming and holding her skirts high so's she could run faster, and I
guess he thought it was the resurrection itself, for what did he do but
ring the bell and the folks all thought it was a fire and came rushing
out in all kinds of clothes! Then Cy Addington found his precious calf
and the neighbors had an indignation meeting right then and there and
the ones who had the most clothes on started out to find the offenders
and some of the others went in to quiet Miss Cymantha, and a few others
put the sexton to bed and locked him in so that he couldn't give any
more alarms!"

"But what happened to the boys?"

"Oh, when the crowd was the most excited they just climbed over a
woodshed into the house and by the time the volunteers were lined up to
go to find them they were sound asleep!"

"Who were they, Father? Were they boys you knew?" asked Peggy.

Mr. Lee laughed down the length of the table and Peggy caught the
answering smile in her mother's eyes.

"Oh, I know--I know! It was you, Daddy," she cried, running from her
chair to kiss the back of his head.

"Come, dear, sit down! William, if you were that sort of a boy what can
we expect of Billy? Hark--isn't that his whistle?" She stepped eagerly
to the door, the girls close behind her.

"He's all right--he always whistles when he's happy!"

"It is he!" cried Mrs. Lee, going down the steps. "And what in the
world is he bringing with him!"

For Billy, covered with dust, guiding his bicycle with one hand, was
walking leisurely up the road leading with an air of pride edged
slightly by a disturbing doubt, a dirty, weary-eyed dog!

"A dog--of all things!" cried Barbara,

"_Where'd_ you get it?" demanded Peggy eagerly.

The family stood on the bottom step and eyed Billy's treasure. The dog
seemed to have no doubt as to his welcome, for in his desire to greet
his adopted family he strained at the slender leash with which Billy
held him.

"Whose dog is it, Billy," asked Mrs. Lee.

"I bought him for a dollar!" Billy glanced questioningly at his mother.
He had heard her declare ever so often that she would not allow a
long-haired dog in the house! And this new pet had a very long, shaggy,
dirty hide! Peggy was on her knees with both arms around the dog's
neck.

"Just see him shake hands!" Alice was crying.

But the quiet of Mrs. Lee's manner disturbed Billy. "I think you'd
better come into the house and see if Nora has saved you any supper.
After you have finished we will hear about the dog."

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