to Halifax, we’ll pick huckleberries to fill some of them, and wild flowers for the rest—”
“And we’ll sell ’em and make heaps of money,” finished the practical Priscilla.
“We’ll get bunches of cat tails, too,” continued Desiré.
“And later in the season, pretty berries,” said Priscilla.
“And wintergreen—”
“And nuts—”
“And soon you won’t need my poor efforts at all,” concluded Jack, with a half smile.
“Oh, don’t, please, Jack, even in fun,” begged Desiré.
“We’d need you even if you never earned a cent!” cried Priscilla, throwing her arms around Jack’s neck.
René, attempting to imitate her, due to the wagon’s passing over a rut, succeeded only in falling violently on his brother’s shoulder. The combined assault nearly forced Jack forward out of the seat.
“I’ll take your word for it, hereafter,” he gasped, when order was once more restored. “Don’t illustrate again, I beg of you!”
A week later the Wistmore family drove into Halifax.
“I shall have to spend most of the day buying supplies,” said Jack, as they passed the citadel. “I’ll put the wagon up somewhere, and you and the children can look about while I’m busy.”
“But—” protested Desiré, “the boxes of berries, and flowers—”
She had carried out the plan formulated at Wolfville, and had a number of really artistic boxes of choice fruit, partly covered with tiny ferns, and several odd baskets in which dainty wild flowers were set in moss.
“I hate to have you hanging around offering things for sale,” objected Jack.
“But we can’t afford to be proud that way, dear. It is a perfectly respectable thing to do, and I do so want to be a help—”
“As if you weren’t always,” ejaculated the boy.
“I should think the station might be the best place to start; so drive us over there like a good boy,” urged Desiré.
So Jack kept René with him, and, with many misgivings, left the girls standing near the steps which lead down from the station to the cab platform. The taxi drivers were too busy trying to outdo one another in securing fares to pay much attention to the girls; for a train had just come in. The first few travelers who hurried through the station to secure a taxi did not even see the little saleswomen. When another group appeared, Desiré stepped forward just as they were getting into a cab.
“Wouldn’t you like—” she began timidly.
A haughty-looking elderly woman, who seemed to be the leader of the party, brushed her aside with a curt “No!”
Scarlet with embarrassment, Desiré shrank back.
“Don’t mind her, Dissy,” said Priscilla, hugging her sister’s arm. “She’s ugly mean.”
“Hush!” was the only word Desiré could utter just then. It took all the courage she was able to muster to approach the next travelers, a fat man and two women.
“Would you care to buy a souvenir?” asked Desiré, her heart beating very fast.
“Bless my soul, no!” replied the man, not unkindly but very definitely. “Too much luggage now.”
Only the thoughts of helping Jack urged the girl to persevere. Trembling, dripping with perspiration, she stopped a couple of women who shook their heads before she could get a word out. Seeing the look of disappointment on her face, the younger of the two held out a coin, saying—“I don’t want your wares, but take this.”
Stung to the quick, but realizing that no injury was intended, Desiré refused and walked away, ready to cry.
“I’d have taken it if I’d been you,” commented Priscilla.
“Of course you wouldn’t, Prissy. We do not beg. But I guess nobody wants our souvenirs—and I thought them so pretty. We’d better try to find the Public Gardens, where Jack told us to meet him.”
“I think the station is a bad place, anyway,” said Priscilla. “The people are in too much of a hurry, and they did all have a lot of baggage. Maybe we can find somewhere else.”
By asking directions a number of times, they arrived at the Public Gardens—the big iron gates opening into acres of gay flower beds, rare and valuable trees, winding streams, artistic bridges. They were about to enter, when a man who, at a safe distance, had been watching them in the station, and who had followed them to the Gardens, now hurried forward.
CHAPTER XVII
AN OLD ENEMY
Pushing rudely between the two girls, the stranger succeeded, by means of a skillful bit of elbow play, in knocking the souvenirs out of their hands. As if to avoid stepping on the scattered berries and flowers, he took a couple of quick side steps, planting his huge feet directly upon them, and thereby ruining them completely. It was all done so quickly that the girls hardly realized what had happened until they stood looking down at the remains of many days of labor.
Desiré was quite speechless, and seemed momentarily paralyzed. Not so Priscilla, whose quick eyes followed the stranger, striding away over one of the bridges in the Garden.
“Dissy,” she whispered, “it’s that same man.”
“What same man?”
“The one who fought Jack.”
“It does look a lot like him, but—”
“It’s him all right! The mean old pig!”
“Why, Prissy! It was an accident.”
“Wasn’t either, and now we can’t make any money to take to Jack.” Excitedly she burst into tears.
“Don’t, dear,” begged Desiré. “We mustn’t act like babies every time something goes wrong. We’ll just start over again. These didn’t cost anything, and it will be easy to make new ones.”
“What’s the trouble?” asked Jack, who had come up behind them.
Both girls explained at once.
“Where’s the fellow now?” demanded the boy, his jaw set, his eyes flashing.
“He went over that bridge,” pointed Priscilla.
“Don’t bother about him,” urged Desiré. “You might get arrested. Let’s go back to the wagon.”
Struggling between the wish to avenge the wrong to his little sisters, and the conviction that it was perhaps wiser to avoid conflict in a strange city, he turned abruptly away from the big iron gates.
“Where
