path. Maria Bent was hanging on his arm, in bright blue silk with a white lace bonnet, white kid gloves and a lace parasol. She was smirking and smiling to this side and that, and bestowing unwontedly loving greetings on the festive row of school-girls lined up on either side of the path, stiff and straight all in their best dresses. "Walking pride," Miranda called it, and secretly exulted that she might have been there if she would; yet did not regret her choice.
Miranda had taken up her position where she could stand Rose on a desk to get a good view of the ceremony, and from her point of vantage she also got a vision of handsome little Nathan Whitney, his well-brushed Sunday suit squeezed between the stove and the wall, his soapy curls rumpled by the golden rod, his stiff collar holding up a very trembling chin surmounted by hard little lips and an angry frown. It was plain that young Nathan was by no means happy at his father's wedding. Something in the whole slouch of his sturdy little figure touched Miranda and she watched him with a hitherto unsuspected sympathy. It was not to be expected of course that a bad boy like Nate Whitney would like to have a stern school-teacher for his new mother. A gleam of something like pity shone in her eyes as she reflected how often Maria Bent would probably get her "comeuppance" for marrying Nathan Whitney; and how often little Nate Whitney would probably get his "comeuppance" for his pranks. Of the two Miranda was just the least bit inclined to side with the boy for the sake of his half-brother Allan with whom she had gone to school.
Miranda looked up to find him again after the prayer was over, but though her eyes searched quite carefully behind the stove, and under the bowers of golden-rod, he was gone. High in the branches of the friendly hickory, his Sunday clothes bearing a jagged tear in the seat of the trousers, his collar awry, and the shine of his Sunday shoes hopelessly marred and scratched, Nathan Whitney the second surveyed the scene. The prayer had been long enough for him to reach his old shelter in safety, and only the Whitney twins, Julia and Julius, and the five-year-old brother Samuel had seen his escape; and they were too frightened to tell. Miranda's searching gaze finally caught the uplifted look of the twins and Sammy, and following it presently saw the tremble of old hickory. She quickly lowered her eyes, knowing instinctively what had happened, but before she lowered them she caught the gleam of a pair of sorrowful brown eyes so like another pair of brown eyes she knew, looking between the leaves, and they haunted her all through the day.
The ceremony was long over and all the guests had gone home to discuss at length how "he looked," and how "she looked," and the prospect of happiness for the two who had been united in marriage.
Miranda had changed her green and brown plaid silk for a brown calico and a white apron, and was stirring up muffins for tea when she thought she saw a stealthy little figure stealing through the yard close by the hedge, but the early dusk was coming down and it was quite easy to fancy it had been only the shadows on the grass. Miranda was just about to light a candle and begin to set the table, but it was early yet for Mr. David would be late coming home from the office to-day on account of the time be had taken off for the wedding; and instead she took a bowl and went out to see if she could find some late yellow raspberries on the vines, though she knew quite well there were not likely to be any.
Humming a lively little tune she approached the berry vines, her sharp eyes studying the while the great leaves of pieplant growing next the hedge. They were moving now, stirring gently, almost imperceptibly, one minute, the next bobbing vigorously back and forth as if they had suddenly become animate. Miranda watched them stealthily, the while walking deliberately past them and humming her tune. The leaves became absolutely still as she passed them, though she did not turn her eyes down to them noticeably, but went on a little further and knelt down by the berry bushes voicing her tune in words now :
"Thur wuz a man in our town,
An' he wuz wondrus wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush
An' scratched out both his ey-i-es;
An' when he saw his eyes were out
'ith all his might an' main,
He jumped into another bush
An' scratched 'em in again."
"Land sakes!" she ejaculated suddenly. "Wisht I hed a boy t'hep hunt berries. Guess I'm gettin' near-sighted in the dark. Here's three whole ras’berries right clost together an' I come real nigh missin’ ’em."
She cast an eye toward the pieplant leaves, but they remained motionless. Perhaps she had made a mistake after all. Perhaps there had been no dark little figure stealing along by the hedge. Perhaps her imagination had played her false.
She kept on feeling after berries that were not there, and finally after having secured not more than a handful, she crept softly back by the pieplant bed, for she thought she had heard a soft gasp like the catching of breath, and something stirred within her. She must find out what was moving the leaves.
Suddenly she set her bowl down on the grass and made a soft dive with her hands, lifting up two or three broad leaves and peering under.
It was almost dark now and the forlorn little figure close under the hedge could scarcely be seen, but Miranda's eyes were keen and kind, and she made out the outline of Nate Whitney's curly head, so sleek in the morning, now tousled and rough. He shrank back with his face in the grass, as she lifted the leaves, hoping to escape her notice, but she reached out her two strong hands and drew him forth resisting furiously.
"Lemme alone. I ain't doin' you any harm!" he declared sulkily as she drew his head and shoulders out from the entangling stalks.
There was light enough in the garden to see his face, tear-stained and smeared with mud streaks. His collar was crushed and twisted awry, and his jacket had a great jagged tear in one elbow.
"You poor little motherless sinner! " ejaculated Miranda in a tone she had never used in her life before except for little Rose.
Suddenly she sat down plump on the garden walk and took the forlorn little fellow into her arms, at least as much as she could get hold of, for he was still wriggling and twisting away from her strong hand with all his discomfited young might.
She stooped over his dirty fierce young face and laid her lips on his forehead.
"You poor little soul, I know how you feel and don't blame you one mite," she whispered, her strong young arms enwrapping him gently.
Then quite suddenly the struggling ceased, the fierce wiry body relaxed, the dirty face and curly head buried themselves quite childishly in her arms, the boy sobbed as if his heart would break, and clung to her as if his life depended on it.
Something wonderfully sweet and new sprang up in Miranda's breast, motherhood stirring in her soul. The clinging hands, the warm wet face, the pitiful sight of this sorrowful child in place of the saucy, impudent, self-possessed boy who dared any mischief that his bright restless mind suggested, touched her heart in a new way. A fierce desire seized her to protect and love him, this boy who needed some one sorely, and for the first time a regret stole into her heart that she was not his new mother. What a thing it would be to have those clinging arms belong to her! Then a wicked exultant thrill passed through her. She had not "walked pride" with Nathan Whitney, but his son had turned to her for comfort, and she loved the boy for it with all her heart. Maria Bent might hold her head high and reign severely in his home, but she, Miranda Griscom, would love the little son and help him out of his scrapes from this time forth.
"There, there," she soothed, passing her rough, work-worn hand over the tumbled curls and exulting in their tendency to wrap about her fingers. How soft they were, like a baby's, and yet they belonged to that hard, bad little boy she had always called a "brat!"
“There,
