<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>The Turn of the Tide</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Story of How Margaret Solved Her Problem</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>By ELEANOR H. PORTER</span></p>
<p> </p>
<h1><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_9'></SPAN>9</span>The Turn of the Tide</h1>
<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
<p>Margaret had been home two hours—two
hours of breathless questions, answers,
tears, and laughter—two hours
of delighted wandering about the house and
grounds.</p>
<p>In the nursery she had seen the little woolly
dog that lay on the floor just as she had left it
five years before; and out on the veranda steps
she had seen the great stone lions that had never
quite faded from her memory. And always at
her side had walked the sweet-faced lady of her
dreams, only now the lady was very real, with
eyes that smiled on one so lovingly, and lips and
hands that kissed and caressed one so tenderly.</p>
<p>“And this is home—my home?” Margaret
asked in unbelieving wonder.</p>
<p>“Yes, dear,” answered Mrs. Kendall.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_10'></SPAN>10</span></p>
<p>“And you are my mother, and I am Margaret
Kendall, your little girl?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“And the little dog on the floor—that was
mine, and—and it’s been there ever since?”</p>
<p>“Yes, ever since you left it there long ago. I—I
could not bear to have any one move it, or
touch it.”</p>
<p>“And I was lost then—right then?”</p>
<p>“No, dear. We traveled about for almost a
year. You were five when I lost you.” Mrs.
Kendall’s voice shook. Unconsciously she drew
Margaret into a closer embrace. Even now she
was scarcely sure that it was Margaret—this little
maid who had stepped so suddenly out of the
great silence that had closed about her four long
years before.</p>
<p>Margaret laughed softly, and nestled in the
encircling arms.</p>
<p>“I like it—this,” she confided shyly. “You
see, I—I hain’t had it before. Even the dream-lady
didn’t do—this.”</p>
<p>“The dream-lady?”</p>
<p>Margaret hesitated. Her grave eyes were on
her mother’s face.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_11'></SPAN>11</span></p>
<p>“I suppose she was—you,” she said then slowly.
“I saw her nights, mostly; but she never stayed,
and when I tried to catch her, she—she was just
air—and wasn’t there at all. And I did want her
so bad!”</p>
<p>“Of course you did, sweetheart,” choked Mrs.
Kendall, tremulously. “And didn’t she ever stay?
When was it you saw her—first?”</p>
<p>Margaret frowned.</p>
<p>“I—don’t—seem—to know,” she answered.
She was thinking of what Dr. Spencer had told
her, and of what she herself remembered of those
four years of her life. “You see first I was lost,
and Bobby McGinnis found me. Anyhow, Dr.
Spencer says he did, but I don’t seem to remember.
Things was all mixed up. There didn’t
seem to be anybody that wanted me, but there
wouldn’t anybody let me go. And they made
me sew all the time on things that was big and
homely, and then another man took me and made
me paste up bags. Say, did you ever paste bags?”</p>
<p>“No, dear.” Mrs. Kendall shivered.</p>
<p>“Well, you don’t want to,” volunteered Margaret;
and to her thin little face came the look that
her mother had already seen on it once or twice
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_12'></SPAN>12</span>
that afternoon—the look of a child who knows
what it means to fight for life itself in the slums of
a great city. “They ain’t a mite nice—bags ain’t;
and the paste sticks horrid, and smells.”</p>
<p>“Margaret, dearest!—how could you bear it?”
shuddered Mrs. Kendall, her eyes brimming with
tears.</p>
<p>Margaret saw the tears, and understood—this
tender, new-found mother of hers was grieved;
she must be comforted. To the best of her ability,
therefore, Margaret promptly proceeded to administer
that comfort.</p>
<p>“Pooh! ‘twa’n’t nothin’,” she asserted stoutly;
“besides, I runned away, and then I had a tiptop
place—a whole corner of Mis’ Whalen’s kitchen,
and jest me and Patty and the twins to stay in it.
We divvied up everythin’, and some days we had
heaps to eat—truly we did—heaps! And I went
to Mont-Lawn two times, and of course there I
had everythin’, even beds with sheets, you know;
and——”</p>
<p>“Margaret, Margaret, don’t, dear!” interrupted
her mother. “I can’t bear even to think of it.”</p>
<p>Margaret’s eyes grew puzzled.</p>
<p>“But that was bang-up—all of it,” she protested earnestly.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_13'></SPAN>13</span>
“Why, I didn’t paste bags nor
sew buttons, and nobody didn’t strike me for not
doin’ ’em, neither; and Mis’ Whalen was good
and showed me how to make flowers—for pay,
too! And——”</p>
<p>“Yes, dear, I know,” interposed Mrs. Kendall
again; “but suppose we don’t think any more of
all that, sweetheart. You are home now, darling,
right here with mother. Come, we will go out
into the garden.” To Mrs. Kendall it seemed at
the moment that only God’s blessed out-of-doors
was wide enough and beautiful enough to clear
from her eyes the pictures Margaret’s words had
painted.</p>
<p>Out in the garden Margaret drew a long breath.</p>
<p>“Oh!” she cooed softly, caressing with her
cheek a great red rose. “I knew flowers smelled
good, but I didn’t find it out for sure till I went to
Mont-Lawn that first time. You see the kind we
made was cloth and stiff, and they didn’t smell
good a mite—oh, you’ve picked it!” she broke
off, half-rapturously, half-regretfully, as Mrs. Kendall
placed in her hands the great red rose.</p>
<p>“Yes, pick all you like, dear,” smiled Mrs.
Kendall, reaching for another flower.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_14'></SPAN>14</span></p>
<p>“But they’ll die,” stammered Margaret, “and
then the others won’t see them.”</p>
<p>“The—‘others’? What others, dear?”</p>
<p>“Why, the other folks that live here, you know,
and walk out here, too.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Kendall laughed merrily.</p>
<p>“But there aren’t any others, dear. The flowers
are all ours. No one else lives here.”</p>
<p>Margaret stopped short in the garden path and
faced her mother.</p>
<p>“What, not any one? in all that big house?”</p>
<p>“Why, no, dear, of course not. There is no
one except old Mr. and Mrs. Barrett who keep the
house and grounds in order. We have it all to
ourselves.”</p>
<p>Margaret was silent. She turned and walked
slowly along the path at her mother’s side. On
her face was a puzzled questioning. To her eyes
was gradually coming a frightened doubt.</p>
<p>Alone?—just they two, with the little old man
and the little old woman in the kitchen who did
not take up any room at all? Why, back in the
Alley there were Patty, the twins, and all the
Whalens—and they had only one room! It was
like that, too, everywhere, all through the Alley—so
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_15'></SPAN>15</span>
many, many people, so little room for them.
Yet here—here was this great house all windows
and doors and soft carpets and pretty pictures,
and only two, three, four people to enjoy it all.
Why had not her mother asked——</p>
<p>Even to herself Margaret could not say the
words. She shut her lips tight and threw a
hurried look into the face of the woman at her
side. This dear dream-lady, this beautiful new
mother—as if there could be any question of her
goodness and kindness! Very likely, anyway,
there were not any poor——</p>
<p>Margaret’s eyes cleared suddenly. She turned
a radiant face on her mother.</p>
<p>“Oh, I know,” she cried in triumph. “There
ain’t any poor folks here, and so you couldn’t do
it!”</p>
<p>Mrs. Kendall looked puzzled.</p>
<p>“‘Poor folks’? ‘Couldn’t do it’?” she questioned.</p>
<p>“Yes; poor folks like Patty and the Whalens,
and so you couldn’t ask ’em to live with you.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Kendall sat down abruptly. Near her was
a garden settee. She felt particularly glad of its
support just then.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_16'></SPAN>16</span></p>
<p>“And of course you didn’t know about the
Whalens and Patty,” went on Margaret, eagerly,
“and so you couldn’t ask them, neither. But you
do now, and they’d just love to come, I know!”</p>
<p>“Love to—to come?” stammered Mrs. Kendall,
gazing blankly into the glowing young face
before her.</p>
<p>“Of course they would!” nodded Margaret,
dancing up and down and clapping her hands.
“Wouldn’t you if you didn’t have nothin’ but a
room right down under the sidewalk, and there
was such a heap of folks in it? Why, here there’s
everythin’—<em>everythin’</em> for ’em, and oh, I’m so
glad, ’cause they <em>was</em> good to me—so good!
First Mis’ Whalen took in Patty and the twins
when the rent man dumped ’em out on the sidewalk,
and she gave ’em a whole corner of her
kitchen. And then when I runned away from the
bag-pasting, Patty and the twins took me in.
And now I can pay ’em back for it all—I can pay
’em back. I’m so glad!”</p>
<p>Mrs. Kendall fell back limply against the garden
seat. Twice she opened her lips—and closed
them again. Her face flushed, then paled, and her
hands grew cold in her lap.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_17'></SPAN>17</span></p>
<p>This dancing little maid with the sunlit hair
and the astounding proposition to adopt into their
home two whole families from the slums of New
York, was Margaret, her own little Margaret, lost
so long ago, and now so miraculously restored to
her. As if she could refuse any request, however
wild, from Margaret! But this—!</p>
<p>“But, sweetheart, perhaps they—they wouldn’t
want to go away forever and leave their home,”
she remonstrated at last, feebly.</p>
<p>The child frowned, her finger to her lips.</p>
<p>“Well, anyhow, we can ask them,” she declared,
after a minute, her face clearing.</p>
<p>“Suppose we—we make it a visit, first,” suggested
Mrs. Kendall, feverishly. “By and by,
after I’ve had you all to myself for a little while,
you shall ask them to—to visit you.”</p>
<p>“O bully!” agreed Margaret in swift delight.
“That will be nicest; won’t it? Then they can
see how they like it—but there! they’ll like it all
right. They couldn’t help it.”</p>
<p>“And how—how many are there?” questioned
Mrs. Kendall, moistening her dry lips, and feeling
profoundly thankful for even this respite from the
proposed wholesale adoption.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_18'></SPAN>18</span></p>
<p>“Why, let’s see.” Margaret held up her fingers
and checked off her prospective guests. “There’s
Patty, she’s the oldest, and Arabella and Clarabella—they’re
the twins an’ they’re my age, you
know—that’s the Murphys. And then there’s all
the Whalens: Tom, Peter, Mary, Jamie, and—oh,
I dunno, six or eight, maybe, with Mis’ Whalen
and her husband. But, after all, it don’t make so
very much diff’rence just how many there are;
does it?” she added, with a happy little skip and
jump, “’cause there’s heaps of room here for any
‘mount of ’em. And I never can remember just
how many there are without forgettin’ some of
’em. You—you don’t mind if I don’t name ’em
all—now?” And she gazed earnestly into her
mother’s face.</p>
<p>“No, dear, no,” assured Mrs. Kendall, hurriedly.
“You—you have named quite enough.
And now we’ll go down to the brook. We haven’t
seen half of Five Oaks yet.” And once more she
tried to make the joyous present drive from her
daughter’s thoughts the grievous past.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />