Chapter 7

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.

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.

"�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!"

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.

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.

"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 to dry her tears. Even now it was not without its effect, for her head came up with a jerk.

"I�I know it," she sobbed; "and I ain't�I mean, I are 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."

"Pooh! Is that all?" laughed Bobby. "�Twould take more'n a �are not' ter make me cry."

"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."

"Well, what of it? You'll get over it. You're a-learnin' all the time; ain't ye?"

"�Are not you,' Bobby," sighed Margaret.

"Well, �are not you,' then," snapped Bobby.

Margaret shook her head. A look that was almost terror came to her eyes. She leaned forward and clutched the boy's arm.

"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'!"

"Why not?"

"Because of them�Tom, and Patty, and the rest"

Bobby looked dazed, and Margaret plunged headlong into her explanation.

"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."

Bobby whistled.

"Yes, I know," he said soberly. "But when they go away��"

"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 want 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!"

"Well, what of it?" retorted Bobby, with airy unconcern.

"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!"

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.

"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 just like them, Bobby, I know I shall; and�and so I don't want 'em to stay."

Bobby stirred uneasily, changing his position.

"Well, you�you hain't asked 'em to, yet; have ye?" he questioned.

"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."

"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."

"But I ought to divvy up."

"Pooh! �Course ye hadn't," scoffed Bobby. "Hain't folks got a right ter have their own things?"

Margaret frowned doubtfully.

"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.

Not once, but many times during the next few days, did Margaret talk with her mother on this 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.

"I am goin' to divvy up," she announced in triumph, "but not here."

"Huh?" frowned Bobby.

"I am 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."

"Oh, then they are goin' back�eh?"

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.

"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?"

"Yes, I see," said Bobby, so crossly that Margaret opened her eyes in wonder.

"Why, Bobby, you don't care 'cause they're goin' away; do you?"

"Don't I?" he growled. "Humph! I s'pose 'twill be me next that'll be sent flyin'."

"You? Why, you live here!"

"Well, I say �ain't' an' �bully'; don't I?" he retorted aggressively.

Margaret stepped back. Her face changed.

"Why�so�you�do!" she breathed. "And I never once thought of it."

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:

"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 you up, Bobby."

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.

"Don't trouble yerself," he shrugged airily. "It don't make a mite o' diff'rence ter me, ye know. There's plenty I can 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.

"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."