Author: Maud Howard Peterson

Publisher: LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13:

Example in this ebook PROLOGUE The Lieutenant's small daughter was swinging on the railing of the drawbridge that spanned the moat. Her companions, two boys, questioned each other with their eyes. "She says she won't come," said the elder in what he fondly believed to be an undertone. "She says she won't play—" "I never did! So there!" The small girl wheeled about suddenly and descended from her perch and stamped her foot; her long, straight hair of an indefinite brown, shaken by the tempest the boy's words had awakened. "No; but you won't," said Rob, promptly. There was an ominous silence; but instead of the tirade the anxious watchers expected, a tear appeared on Cary's little nose and quietly dropped into the waters of the moat. Cary was nothing if she was not a bundle of contradictions. Johnny shuffled nervously from one foot to the other, but Rob grew impatient. "Well, are you coming?" he asked after the pause in which he had vainly waited for Cary to smile again. "No, I'm tired. I hate walking, too," said Cary peevishly. "'Course not—to walk," said Rob, scornfully. "We can steal Lieutenant Burden's boat." "You wouldn't dare," said Cary, but her voice was tremulous with eagerness, and the tears she had forgotten to wipe away were still shining on her cheeks. "Wouldn't I, though! Come along and see!" Cary balanced herself carefully on one foot and considered. It wasn't well to let Rob think she didn't have to be persuaded. He had been so cross too. "I haven't got my sunbonnet," she began. "And I've forgotten the gun I put it in." "I'd just as lieve hunt for it," said Johnny, politely. "That's just like a girl! You don't need the old thing—anyway I thought you hated it," retorted Rob, who did not fill the role of pleader. "'Course Mammy Amy is 'way—gone for a week to see her grandbaby. I don't s'pose I really need my pinafore either—if I go!" The Lieutenant's small daughter hesitated to watch the effect of the words. Rob apparently was not to be moved, so she buried her pride and backed up to Johnny. "Please undo me," she said, calmly, and the older boy struggled manfully with the holes and buttons. "I'll be right back—quick as a wink," and she flew over the drawbridge back to the fort, her long hair and short dress blowing in the wind. She hid the pinafore under her arm, and when she reached the circle of the parade ground, she sidled up to one of the great guns captured in the war, and surreptitiously poked the gingham roll down its mouth. Clothes were a necessary evil, but sunbonnets and pinafores were the worst and most evil things of all—and not to be endured when Mammy Amy was not around, and the big show guns offered such a safe and charming hiding place. It only needed coolness and care to accomplish the feat without detection. Of course, a thing once buried in the heart of one of the big guns was lost forever—which was just as well, thought Cary, being one less to bother her—since it was one thing to force the articles down into the big black mouths and another to extract the sunbonnets and pinafores, even if she could have remembered which particular gun held which particular thing—which she could never do. She hurried back to the drawbridge, and the sentry, who adored every inch of the "Post Baby," stood at "attention" and saluted her with a twinkle in his eye as she passed him. Cary slowed her walk and inclined her head graciously in greeting. "Good evenin', Jones," she said, innocently. Then she rejoined the boys. To be continue in this ebook