<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_58'></SPAN>58</span>CHAPTER VII</h2>
<p>Five oaks awoke to a new existence on
the first morning after the arrival of its
guests from New York—an existence of
wild shouts, gleeful laughter, scampering feet
and confusion. In the kitchen and the garden
old Mr. and Mrs. Barrett no longer held full sway.
For some time there had been a cook, a waitress,
a laundress, and an experienced gardener as well.
In the barn, too, there was now a stalwart fellow
who was coachman and chauffeur by turns, according
to whether the old family carriage or the new
four-cylinder touring car was wanted.</p>
<p>Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, and the twins had not
been at Five Oaks twenty-four hours before they
were fitted to new clothing throughout. Mrs.
Kendall had not slept until she had interviewed
the town clothier as to ways and means of immediately
providing two boys and four girls with
shoes, stockings, hats, coats, trousers, dresses, and
undergarments.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_59'></SPAN>59</span></p>
<p>“‘Course ’tain’t ‘zactly necessary,” Patty had
said, upon being presented with her share of the
new garments, “but it’s awful nice, ’cause now
we don’t have ter go ter bed when ours is washed—an’
they be awful nice! Just bang-up!”</p>
<p>No wonder Five Oaks awoke to a new existence!
The wide-spreading lawns knew now what
it was to be pressed by a dozen little scampering
feet at once: and the great stone lions knew what
it was to have two yelling boys mount their carven
backs, and try to dig sharp little heels into
their stone sides. Within the house, the attic,
sacred for years to cobwebs and musty memories,
knew what it was to yield its treasured bonnets,
shawls, and quilted skirts to a swarm of noisy
children who demanded them for charades.</p>
<p>Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, Arabella, and Clarabella
had been at Five Oaks two weeks when one
day Bobby McGinnis found Margaret crying all
alone in the old summerhouse down in the
garden.</p>
<p>“Gorry, what’s up?” he questioned; adding
cheerily: “‘Soldiers’ daughters don’t cry’!”—it
was a quotation from Margaret’s own childhood’s
creed, and one which in the old days seldom failed
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_60'></SPAN>60</span>
to dry her tears. Even now it was
not without its effect, for her head came up with a
jerk.</p>
<p>“I—I know it,” she sobbed; “and I ain’t—I
mean, I <em>are</em> not going to. There, you see,” she
broke off miserably, falling back into her old despondent
attitude. “‘Ain’t’ should be ‘are not’
always, and I never can remember.”</p>
<p>“Pooh! Is that all?” laughed Bobby.
“‘Twould take more’n a ‘are not’ ter make me
cry.”</p>
<p>“But that ain’t all,” wailed Margaret, and she
did not notice that at one of her words Bobby
chuckled and parted his lips only to close them
again with a snap. “There’s heaps more of ’em;
‘bully’ and ‘bang-up’ and ‘gee’ and ‘drownded’
and ‘g’ on the ends of things, and—well, almost
everything I say, seems so.”</p>
<p>“Well, what of it? You’ll get over it. You’re
a-learnin’ all the time; ain’t ye?”</p>
<p>“‘Are not you,’ Bobby,” sighed Margaret.</p>
<p>“Well, ‘are not you,’ then,” snapped Bobby.</p>
<p>Margaret shook her head. A look that was
almost terror came to her eyes. She leaned forward
and clutched the boy’s arm.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_61'></SPAN>61</span></p>
<p>“Bobby, that’s just it,” she whispered, looking
fearfully over her shoulder to make sure that no
one heard. “That’s just it—I’m not a-learnin’!”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>“Because of them—Tom, and Patty, and the
rest”</p>
<p>Bobby looked dazed, and Margaret plunged
headlong into her explanation.</p>
<p>“It’s them. They do ’em—all of ’em. Don’t
you see? They say ‘ain’t’ and ‘gee’ and ‘bully’
all the time, and I see now how bad ’tis, and I
want to stop. But I can’t stop, Bobby. I just
can’t. I try to, but it just comes before I know
it. I tried to stop them sayin’ ’em, first,” went on
Margaret, feverishly, “just as I tried to make ’em
act ladylike with their feet and their knives and
forks; but it didn’t do a mite o’ good. First they
laughed at me, then they got mad. You know
how ’twas, Bobby. You saw ’em.”</p>
<p>Bobby whistled.</p>
<p>“Yes, I know,” he said soberly. “But when
they go away——”</p>
<p>“That’s just it,” cut in Margaret, tragically.
“I wa’n’t goin’ to have them go away. I was
goin’ to keep ’em always; and now I—Bobby, I
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_62'></SPAN>62</span>
<em>want</em> them to go!” she paused and let the full
enormity of her confession sink into her hearer’s
comprehension. Then she repeated: “I want
them to go!”</p>
<p>“Well, what of it?” retorted Bobby, with airy
unconcern.</p>
<p>“What of it!” wept Margaret. “Why, Bobby,
don’t you see? I was goin’ to divvy up, and I
ought to divvy up, too. I’ve got trees and grass
and flowers and beds with sheets on ’em and
enough to eat, and they hain’t got anything—not
anything. And now I don’t want to divvy up, I
don’t want to divvy up, because I don’t want them—here!”</p>
<p>Margaret covered her face with her hands and
rocked herself to and fro. Bobby was silent.
His hands were in his pocket, and his eyes were
on an ant struggling with a burden almost as
large as itself.</p>
<p>“Don’t you see, Bobby, it’s wicked that I am—awful
wicked,” resumed Margaret, after a
minute. “I want to be nice and gentle like
mother wants me to be. I don’t want to be Mag
of the Alley. I—I hate Mag of the Alley. But
if Tom and Patty and the rest stays I shall be
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_63'></SPAN>63</span>
just like them, Bobby, I know I shall; and—and
so I don’t want ’em to stay.”</p>
<p>Bobby stirred uneasily, changing his position.</p>
<p>“Well, you—you hain’t asked ’em to, yet; have
ye?” he questioned.</p>
<p>“No. Mother ‘spressly stip’lated that I
shouldn’t say anything about their stayin’ always
till their visit was over and they saw how they
liked things.”</p>
<p>“Shucks!” rejoined Bobby, his face clearing.
“Then what ye cryin’ ‘bout? You ain’t bound
by no contract. You don’t have ter divvy up.”</p>
<p>“But I ought to divvy up.”</p>
<p>“Pooh! ‘Course ye hadn’t,” scoffed Bobby.
“Hain’t folks got a right ter have their own things?”</p>
<p>Margaret frowned doubtfully.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” she began with some hesitation.
“If I’ve got nice things and more of ’em
than Patty has, why shouldn’t she have some of
mine? ’Tain’t fair, somehow. Somebody ain’t
playin’ straight. I—I’m goin’ to ask mother.”
And she turned slowly away and began to walk
toward the house.</p>
<p>Not once, but many times during the next few
days, did Margaret talk with her mother on this
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_64'></SPAN>64</span>
subject that so troubled her. The result of these
conferences Bobby learned not five days later
when Margaret ran down to meet him at the great
driveway gate. Back on the veranda Patty and
the others were playing “housekeeping,” and
Margaret spoke low so that they might not hear.</p>
<p>“I <em>am</em> goin’ to divvy up,” she announced in
triumph, “but not here.”</p>
<p>“Huh?” frowned Bobby.</p>
<p>“I <em>am</em> goin’ to divvy up—give ’em some of my
things, you know,” explained Margaret; “then
when they go back, mother’s goin’ with ’em and
find a better place for ’em to live in.”</p>
<p>“Oh, then they are <em>goin’</em> back—eh?”</p>
<p>Margaret flushed a little and threw a questioning
look into Bobby’s face. There seemed to be
a laugh in Bobby’s voice, though there was none
on his lips.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she nodded hurriedly. “You see, mother
thinks it’s best. She says that they hadn’t ought
to be here now—with me; that it’s my form’tive
period, and that everything about me ought to be
just right so as to form me right. See?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I see,” said Bobby, so crossly that Margaret
opened her eyes in wonder.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_65'></SPAN>65</span></p>
<p>“Why, Bobby, you don’t care ’cause they’re
goin’ away; do you?”</p>
<p>“Don’t I?” he growled. “Humph! I s’pose
’twill be me next that’ll be sent flyin’.”</p>
<p>“You? Why, you live here!”</p>
<p>“Well, I say ‘ain’t’ an’ ‘bully’; don’t I?” he
retorted aggressively.</p>
<p>Margaret stepped back. Her face changed.</p>
<p>“Why—so—you—do!” she breathed. “And
I never once thought of it.”</p>
<p>Bobby said nothing. He was standing on one
foot, digging the toe of the other into the graveled
driveway. For a time Margaret regarded him
with troubled eyes; then she sighed:</p>
<p>“Well, anyhow, you don’t live here all the time,
right in the house, same’s Patty and the rest
would if they stayed. I—I don’t want to give <em>you</em>
up, Bobby.”</p>
<p>Bobby flushed red under the tan. His eyes
sparkled with pleasure—but his chin went up, and
his hands executed the careless flourish that a boy
of fourteen is apt to use when he wishes to hide
the fact that his heart is touched.</p>
<div><SPAN name='fig2' id='fig2'></SPAN></div>
<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
<SPAN name='i002' id='i002'></SPAN>
<ANTIMG src="images/illus-066.jpg" alt="“FOR A TIME MARGARET REGARDED HIM WITH TROUBLED EYES.”" width-obs="60%" title=""/><br/>
<span class='caption'>“FOR A TIME MARGARET REGARDED HIM WITH TROUBLED EYES.”</span></div>
<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_66'></SPAN>66</span></div>
<p>“Don’t trouble yerself,” he shrugged airily.
“It don’t make a mite o’ diff’rence ter me, ye
know. There’s plenty I <em>can</em> be with.“ And he
turned and hurried up the road with long strides,
sending back over his shoulder a particularly joyous
whistle—a whistle that broke and wheezed
into silence, however, the minute that the woods
at the turn of the road were reached.</p>
<p>“I don’t care,” he blustered, glaring at the chipmunk
that eyed him from the top rail of the fence.
“Bully—gee—ain’t—hain’t—bang-up! There!”
Then, having demonstrated his right to whatever
vocabulary he chose to employ, he went home to
the little red farmhouse on the hill and spent an
hour hunting for a certain book of his mother’s in
the attic. When he had found it he spent another
hour poring over its contents. The book
was old and yellow and dog-eared, and bore on
the faded pasteboard cover the words: “A work
on English Grammar and Composition.”</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />