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[Illustration: ROBIN]
"_Cosy Corner Series_"
BIG BROTHER
BY
ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON
[Illustration]
BOSTON
JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY
1894
COPYRIGHT, 1893
BY
JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS]
PAGE
ROBIN _Frontispiece_
"A BAREFOOT GIRL WEARING A SUNBONNET" 1
"MRS. ESTEL WAS LISTENING TO LITTLE SCRAPS OF HISTORY," ETC. 9
"THE LITTLE WHITE COTTAGE IN NEW JERSEY," 19
"ROBIN FOLLOWED HIM EVERYWHERE" 21
"STEVEN WOULD COAX HIM OVER IN A CORNER TO LOOK AT THE BOOK" 23
"THE BLACK DANCING BEAR HAD ALWAYS TO BE PUT TO BED" 26
"ONCE HE TOOK A BALL OF YARN TO ROLL AFTER THE WHITE KITTEN" 29
"HE WANTED TO GET AWAY FROM THE HOUSE," ETC. 43
"THEY COMMENCED TO BUILD A SNOW MAN" 54
BIG BROTHER.
Every coach on the long western-bound train was crowded with
passengers. Dust and smoke poured in at the windows and even the
breeze seemed hot as it blew across the prairie cornfields burning in
the July sun.
[Illustration]
It was a relief when the engine stopped at last in front of a small
village depot. There was a rush for the lunch counter and the
restaurant door, where a noisy gong announced dinner.
"Blackberries! blackberries!" called a shrill little voice on the
platform. A barefoot girl, wearing a sunbonnet, passed under the car
windows, holding up a basket full, that shone like great black beads.
A gentleman who had just helped two ladies to alight from the steps
of a parlor car called to her and began to fumble in his pockets for
the right change.
"Blackberries! blackberries!" sang another voice mockingly. This time
it came from a roguish-looking child, hanging half-way out of a window
in the next car. He was a little fellow, not more than three years
old. His hat had fallen off, and his sunny tangle of curls shone
around a face so unusually beautiful that both ladies uttered an
exclamation of surprise.
"Look, papa! Look, Mrs. Estel!" exclaimed the younger of the two. "Oh,
isn't he a perfect picture! I never saw such eyes, or such delicate
coloring. It is an ideal head."
"Here, Grace," exclaimed her father, laughingly. "Don't forget your
berries in your enthusiasm. It hasn't been many seconds since you were
going into raptures over them. They certainly are the finest I ever
saw."
The girl took several boxes from her basket, and held them up for the
ladies to choose. Grace took one mechanically, her eyes still fixed on
the child in the window.
"I'm going to make friends with him!" she exclaimed impulsively.
"Let's walk down that way. I want to speak to him."
"Blackberries!" sang the child again, merrily echoing the cry that
came from the depths of the big sunbonnet as it passed on.
Grace picked out the largest, juiciest berry in the box, and held it
up to him with a smile. His face dimpled mischievously, as he leaned
forward and took it between his little white teeth.
"Do you want some more?" she asked.
His eyes shone, and every little curl bobbed an eager assent.
"What's your name, dear," she ventured, as she popped another one into
his mouth.
"Robin," he answered, and leaned farther out to look into her box. "Be
careful," she cautioned; "you might fall out."
He looked at her gravely an instant, and then said in a slow, quaint
fashion: "Why, no; I can't fall out, 'cause big brother's a holdin' on
to my feet."
She drew back a little, startled. It had not occurred to her that any
one else might be interested in watching this little episode. She gave
a quick glance at the other windows of the car, and then exclaimed:
"What is it, papa,--a picnic or a travelling orphan asylum? It looks
like a whole carload of children."
Yes, there they were, dozens of them, it seemed; fair faces and
freckled ones, some dimpled and some thin; all bearing the marks of a
long journey on soot-streaked features and grimy hands, but all
wonderfully merry and good-natured.
Just then a tired-looking man swung himself down the steps, and stood
looking around him, knitting his brows nervously. He heard the girl's
question, and then her father's reply: "I don't know, my dear, I am
sure; but I'll inquire if you wish."
The man's brows relaxed a little and he answered them without waiting
to be addressed. "They are children sent out by an aid society in the
East. I am taking them to homes in Kansas, mostly in the country."
"You don't mean to tell me," the old gentleman exclaimed in surprise,
"that you have the care of that entire car full of children! How do
you ever manage them all?"
The man grinned. "It does look like a case of the old woman that lived
in a shoe, but there are not as many as it would seem. They can spread
themselves over a good deal of territory, and I'm blessed if some of
'em can't be in half a dozen places at once. There's a little English
girl in the lot--fourteen years or thereabouts--that keeps a pretty
sharp eye on them. Then they're mostly raised to taking care of
themselves." Some one accosted him, and he turned away. Grace looked
up at the bewitching little face, still watching her with eager
interest.
"Poor baby!" she said to herself. "Poor little homeless curly head! If
I could only do something for you!" Then she realized that even the
opportunity she had was slipping away, and held up the box. "Here,
Robin," she called, "take it inside so that you can eat them without
spilling them."
"All of 'em?" he asked with a radiant smile. He stretched out his
dirty, dimpled fingers. "_All_ of 'em," he repeated with satisfaction
as he balanced the box on the sill. "All for Big Brother and me!"
Another face appeared at the window beside Robin's, one very much like
it; grave and sweet, with the same delicate moulding of features.
There was no halo of sunny curls on the finely shaped head, but the
persistent wave of the darker, closely cut hair showed what it had
been at Robin's age. There was no color in the face either. The lines
of the sensitive mouth had a pathetic suggestion of suppressed
trouble. He was a manly-looking boy, but his face was far too sad for
a child of ten.
"Gracie," said Mrs. Estel, "your father said the train will not start
for fifteen minutes. He has gone back to stay with your mother. Would
you like to go through the car with me, and take a look at the little
waifs?"
"Yes, indeed," was the answer. "Think how far they have come. I wish
we had found them sooner."
A lively game of tag was going on in the aisle. Children swarmed over
the seats and under them. One boy was spinning a top. Two or three
were walking around on their hands, with their feet in the air. The
gayest group seemed to be in the far end of the car, where two seats
full of children were amusing themselves by making faces at each
other. The uglier the contortion and more frightful the grimace, the
louder they laughed.
In one corner the English girl whom the man had mentioned sat mending
a little crocheted jacket, belonging to one of the children. She was
indeed keeping a sharp eye on them.
"'Enry," she called authoritatively, "stop teasing those girls, Hi
say. Pull the 'airs from your hown 'ead, and see 'ow you like that
naow! Sally, you shall not drink the 'ole enjuring time. Leave the cup
be! No, Maggie, Hi can tell no story naow. Don't you see Hi must be
plying my needle? Go play, whilst the car stops."
Robin smiled on Grace like an old friend when she appeared at the
door, and moved over to make room for her on the seat beside him. He
had no fear of strangers, so he chattered away in confiding baby
fashion, but the older boy said nothing. Sometimes he smiled when she
told some story that made Robin laugh out heartily, but it seemed to
her that it was because the little brother was pleased that he
laughed, not because he listened.
Presently Mrs. Estel touched her on the shoulder. "The time is almost
up. I am going to ask your father to bring my things in here. As you
leave at the next station, I could not have your company much longer,
anyhow. I have all the afternoon ahead of me, and I want something to
amuse me."
"I wish I could stay with you," answered Grace, "but mamma is such an
invalid I cannot leave her that long. She would be worrying about me
all the time."
She bade Robin an affectionate good-by, telling him that he was the
dearest little fellow in the world, and that she could never forget
him. He followed her with big, wistful eyes as she passed out, but
smiled happily when she turned at the door to look back and kiss her
hand to him.
At the next station, where they stopped for a few minutes, he watched
for her anxiously. Just as the train began to pull out he caught a
glimpse of her. There was a flutter of a white handkerchief and a
bundle came flying in through the window.
He looked out quickly, just in time to see her stepping into a
carriage. Then a long line of freight cars obstructed the view. By the
time they had passed them they were beyond even the straggling
outskirts of the village, with wide cornfields stretching in every
direction, and it was of no use to look for her any longer.
Mrs. Estel lost no time in making the young English girl's
acquaintance. She was scarcely settled in her seat before she found an
opportunity. Her umbrella slipped from the rack, and the girl sprang
forward to replace it.
"You have had a tiresome journey," Mrs. Estel remarked pleasantly
after thanking her.
"Yes, indeed, ma'am!" answered the girl, glad of some one to talk to
instead of the children, whose remarks were strictly of an
interrogative nature. It was an easy matter to draw her into
conversation, and in a short time Mrs. Estel was listening to little
scraps of history that made her eyes dim and her heart ache.
[Illustration]
"Do you mind telling me your name?" she asked at length.
"Ellen, ma'am."
"But the other," continued Mrs. Estel.
"We're not to tell, ma'am." Then seeing the look of inquiry on her
face, explained, "Sometimes strangers make trouble, hasking the
little ones hall sorts hof questions; so we've been told not to say
where we're going, nor hany think helse."
"I understand," answered Mrs. Estel quickly. "I ask only because I am
so much interested. I have a little girl at home that I have been away
from for a week, but she has a father and a grandmother and a nurse to
take care of her while I am gone. It makes me feel so sorry for these
poor little things turned out in the world alone."
"Bless you, ma'am!" exclaimed Ellen cheerfully. "The 'omes they're
going to be a sight better than the 'omes they've left behind. Naow
there's 'Enery; 'is mother died hin a drunken fit. 'E never knew
nothink hall 'is life but beating and starving, till the Haid Society
took 'im hin 'and.
"Then there's Sally. Why, Sally's living 'igh naow--hoff the fat hof
the land, has you might say. Heverybody knows 'ow 'er hold huncle
treated 'er!"
Mrs. Estel smiled as she glanced at Sally, to whom the faucet of the
water-cooler seemed a never-failing source of amusement. Ellen had put
a stop to her drinking, which she had been doing at intervals all the
morning, solely for the pleasure of seeing the water stream out when
she turned the stop-cock. Now she had taken a tidy spell. Holding her
bit of a handkerchief under the faucet long enough to get it dripping
wet, she scrubbed herself with the ice-water, until her cheeks shone
like rosy winter apples.
Then she smoothed the wet, elfish-looking hair out of her black eyes,
and proceeded to scrub such of the smaller children as could not
escape from her relentless grasp. Some submitted dumbly, and others
struggled under her vigorous application of the icy rag, but all she
attacked came out clean and shining.
Her dress was wringing wet in front, and the water was standing in
puddles around her feet, when the man who had them in charge came
through the car again. He whisked her impatiently into a seat, setting
her down hard. She made a saucy face behind his back, and began to
sing at the top of her voice.
One little tot had fallen and bumped its head as the train gave a
sudden lurch. It was crying pitifully, but in a subdued sort of
whimper, as if it felt that crying was of no use when nobody listened
and nobody cared. He picked it up, made a clumsy effort to comfort
it, and, not knowing what else to do, sat down beside it. Then for the
first time he noticed Mrs. Estel.
She had taken a pair of scissors from her travelling-bag, and had cut
several newspapers up into soldiers and dolls and all kinds of animals
for the crowd that clamored around her.
They were such restless little bodies, imprisoned so long on this
tedious journey, that anything with a suggestion of novelty was
welcome.
When she had supplied them with a whole regiment of soldiers and
enough animals to equip a menagerie, she took another paper and began
teaching them to fold it in curious ways to make boxes, and boats, and
baskets.
One by one they crowded up closer to her, watching her as if she were
some wonderful magician. They leaned their dusty heads against her
fresh gray travelling-dress. They touched her dainty gloves with
dirty, admiring fingers. They did not know that this was the first
time that she had ever come in close contact with such lives as
theirs.
They did not know that it was the remembrance of another child,--one
who awaited her home-coming,--a petted little princess born to purple
and fine linen, that made her so tender towards them. Remembering what
hers had, and all these lacked, she felt that she must crowd all the
brightness possible into the short afternoon they were together.
Every one of them, at some time in their poor bare lives, had known
what it was to be kindly spoken to by elegant ladies, to be
patronizingly smiled upon, to be graciously presented with gifts.
But this was different. This one took the little Hodge girl right up
in her lap while she was telling them stories. This one did not pick
out the pretty ones to talk to, as strangers generally did. It really
seemed that the most neglected and unattractive of them received the
most of her attention.
From time to time she glanced across at Robin's lovely face, and
contrasted it with the others. The older boy attracted her still more.
He seemed to be the only thoughtful one among them all. The others
remembered no past, looked forward to no future. When they were hungry
there was something to eat. When they were tired they could sleep, and
all the rest of the time there was somebody to play with. What more
could one want?
The child never stirred from his place, but she noticed that he made a
constant effort to entertain Robin. He told him stories and invented
little games. When the bundle came flying in through the window he
opened it with eager curiosity.
Grace had hurried into the village store as soon as the train stopped
and had bought the first toy she happened to see. It was a black
dancing bear, worked by a tiny crank hidden under the bar on which it
stood. Robin's pleasure was unbounded, and his shrieks of delight
brought all the children flocking around him.
"More dancin', Big Brother," he would insist, when the animal paused.
"Robin wants to see more dancin'."
So patient little "Big Brother" kept on turning the crank, long after
every one save Robin was tired of the black bear's antics.
Once she saw the restless 'Enry trying to entice him into a game of
tag in the aisle. Big Brother shook his head, and the fat little legs
clambered up on the seat again. Robin watched Mrs. Estel with such
longing eyes as she entertained the others that she beckoned to him
several times to join them, but he only bobbed his curls gravely and
leaned farther back in his seat.
Presently the man strolled down the aisle again to close a window, out
of which one fidgety boy kept leaning to spit at the flying telegraph
poles. On his way back Mrs. Estel stopped him.
"Will you please tell me about those two children?" she asked,
glancing towards Robin and his brother. "I am very much interested in
them, and would gladly do something for them, if I could."
"Certainly, madam," he replied deferentially. He felt a personal sense
of gratitude towards her for having kept three of his most unruly
charges quiet so long. He felt, too, that she did not ask merely from
idle curiosity, as so many strangers had done.
"Yes, everybody asks about them, for they _are_ uncommon
bright-looking, but it's very little anybody knows to tell."
Then he gave her their history in a few short sentences. Their father
had been killed in a railroad accident early in the spring. Their
mother had not survived the terrible shock more than a week. No trace
could be found of any relatives, and there was no property left to
support them. Several good homes had been offered to the children
singly in different towns, but no one was willing to take both. They
clung together in such an agony of grief, when an attempt was made at
separation, that no one had the heart to part them.
Then some one connected with the management of the Aid Society opened
a correspondence with an old farmer of his acquaintance out West. It
ended in his offering to take them both for a while. His married
daughter, who had no children of her own, was so charmed with Robin's
picture that she wanted to adopt him. She could not be ready to take
him, though, before they moved into their new house, which they were
building several miles away. The old farmer wanted the older boy to
help him with his market gardening, and was willing to keep the little
one until his daughter was ready to take him. So they could be
together for a while, and virtually they would always remain in the
same family.
Mr. Dearborn was known to be such an upright, reliable man, so
generous and kind-hearted in all his dealings, that it was decided to
accept his offer.
"Do they go much farther?" asked the interested listener, when he had
told her all he knew of the desolate little pilgrims.
"Only a few miles the other side of Kenton," he answered.
"Why, Kenton is where I live," she exclaimed. "I am glad it will be so
near." Then as he passed on she thought to herself, "It would be cruel
to separate them. I never saw such devotion as that of the older boy."
His feet could not reach the floor, but he sat up uncomfortably on the
high seat, holding Robin in his lap. The curly head rested heavily on
his shoulder, and his arms ached with their burden, but he never moved
except to brush away the flies, or fan the flushed face of the little
sleeper with his hat.
Something in the tired face, the large appealing eyes, and the droop
of the sensitive mouth, touched her deeply. She crossed the aisle and
sat down by him.
"Here, lay him on the seat," she said, bending forward to arrange her
shawl for a pillow.
He shook his head. "Robin likes best for me to hold him."
"But he will be cooler and so much more comfortable," she urged.
Taking the child from his unwilling arms, she stretched him full
length on the improvised bed.
Involuntarily the boy drew a deep sigh of relief, and leaned back in
the corner.
"Are you very tired?" she asked. "I have not seen you playing with the
other children."
"Yes'm," he answered. "We've come such a long way. I have to amuse
Robin all the time he's awake, or he'll cry to go back home."
"Where was your home?" she asked kindly. "Tell me about it."
He glanced up at her, and with a child's quick instinct knew that he
had found a friend. The tears that he had been bravely holding back
all the afternoon for Robin's sake could no longer be restrained. He
sat for a minute trying to wink them away. Then he laid his head
wearily down on the window sill and gave way to his grief with great
choking sobs.
She put her arm around him and drew his head down on her shoulder. At
first the caressing touch of her fingers, as they gently stroked his
hair, made the tears flow faster. Then he grew quieter after a while,
and only sobbed at long intervals as he answered her questions.
His name was Steven, he said. He knew nothing of the home to which he
was being taken, nor did he care, if he could only be allowed to stay
with Robin. He told her of the little white cottage in New Jersey,
where they had lived, of the peach-trees that bloomed around the
house, of the beehive in the garden.
He had brooded over the recollection of his lost home so long in
silence that now it somehow comforted him to talk about it to this
sympathetic listener.
[Illustration]
Soothed by her soft hand smoothing his hair, and exhausted by the heat
and his violent grief, he fell asleep at last. It was almost dark when
he awoke and sat up.
"I must leave you at the next station," Mrs. Estel said, "but you are
going only a few miles farther. Maybe I shall see you again some day."
She left him to fasten her shawl-strap, but presently came back,
bringing a beautifully illustrated story-book that she had bought for
the little daughter at home.
"Here, Steven," she said, handing it to him. "I have written my name
and address on the fly-leaf. If you ever need a friend, dear, or are
in trouble of any kind, let me know and I will help you."
He had known her only a few hours, yet, when she kissed him good-by
and the train went whirling on again, he felt that he had left his
last friend behind him.
When one is a child a month is a long time. Grandfathers say, "That
happened over seventy years ago, but it seems just like yesterday."
Grandchildren say, "Why, it was only yesterday we did that, but so
much has happened since that it seems such a great while!"
One summer day can stretch out like a lifetime at life's beginning. It
is only at threescore and ten that we liken it to a weaver's shuttle.
It was in July when old John Dearborn drove to the station to meet the
children. Now the white August lilies were standing up sweet and tall
by the garden fence.
"Seems like we've been here 'most always," said Steven as they rustled
around in the hay hunting eggs. His face had lost its expression of
sadness, so pathetic in a child, as day after day Robin's little feet
pattered through the old homestead, and no one came to take him away.
Active outdoor life had put color in his face and energy into his
movements. Mr. Dearborn and his wife were not exacting in their
demands, although they found plenty for him to do. The work was all
new and pleasant, and Robin was with him everywhere. When he fed the
turkeys, when he picked up chips, when he drove the cows to pasture,
or gathered the vegetables for market, Robin followed him everywhere,
like a happy, dancing shadow.
[Illustration]
Then when the work was done there were the kittens in the barn and the
swing in the apple-tree. A pond in the pasture sailed their shingle
boats. A pile of sand, left from building the new ice-house,
furnished material for innumerable forts and castles. There was a
sunny field and a green, leafy orchard. How could they _help but be
happy?_ It was summer time and they were together.
Steven's was more than a brotherly devotion. It was with almost the
tenderness of mother-love that he watched the shining curls dancing
down the walk as Robin chased the toads through the garden or played
hide-and-seek with the butterflies.
"No, the little fellow's scarcely a mite of trouble," Mrs. Dearborn
would say to the neighbors sometimes when they inquired. "Steven is
real handy about dressing him and taking care of him, so I just leave
it mostly to him."
Mrs. Dearborn was not a very observing woman or she would have seen
why he "was scarcely a mite of trouble." If there was never a crumb
left on the doorstep where Robin sat to eat his lunch, it was because
Big Brother's careful fingers had picked up every one. If she never
found any tracks of little bare feet on the freshly scrubbed kitchen
floor, it was because his watchful eyes had spied them first, and he
had wiped away every trace.
He had an instinctive feeling that if he would keep Robin with him he
must not let any one feel that he was a care or annoyance. So he never
relaxed his watchfulness in the daytime, and slept with one arm thrown
across him at night.
Sometimes, after supper, when it was too late to go outdoors again,
the restless little feet kicked thoughtlessly against the furniture,
or the meddlesome fingers made Mrs. Dearborn look at him warningly
over her spectacles and shake her head.
[Illustration]
Sometimes the shrill little voice, with its unceasing questions,
seemed to annoy the old farmer as he dozed over his weekly newspaper
beside the lamp. Then, if it was too early to go to bed, Steven would
coax him over in a corner to look at the book that Mrs. Estel had
given him, explaining each picture in a low voice that could not
disturb the deaf old couple.
It was at these times that the old feeling of loneliness came back so
overwhelmingly. Grandpa and Grandma, as they called them, were kind in
their way, but even to their own children they had been
undemonstrative and cold. Often in the evenings they seemed to draw so
entirely within themselves, she with her knitting and he with his
paper or accounts, that Steven felt shut out, and apart. "Just the
strangers within thy gates," he sometimes thought to himself. He had
heard that expression a long time ago, and it often came back to him.
Then he would put his arm around Robin and hug him up close, feeling
that the world was so big and lonesome, and that he had no one else to
care for but him.