The Little Colonels Hero | Page 2

as they had done the spring before, when it was her eleventh
birthday, and she had ridden along that same way singing, the happiest
hearted child in the Valley. But she was not singing to-day. Another
sob came up in her throat as she thought of the difference.
"Now I'm a whole yeah oldah," she sighed. "Oh, deah! I don't want to
grow up, one bit, and I'll be suah 'nuff old on my next birthday, for I'll
be in my teens then. I wondah how that will feel. This last yeah was
such a lovely one, for it brought the house pahty and so many holidays.
But this yeah has begun all wrong. I can't help feelin' that it's goin' to
bring me lots of trouble."
Half-way down the avenue she thought she heard some one calling her,
and stopped to look back. But no one was in sight. The shutters were
closed in her mother's room.
"Last yeah she stood at the window and waved to me when I rode
away," sighed the child, her eyes filling with tears again. "Now she's so
white and ill it makes me cry to look at her. Maybe that is the trouble
this yeah is goin' to bring me. Betty's mothah died, and Eugenia's, and
maybe"--but the thought was too dreadful to put into words, and she
stopped abruptly.
"Mom Beck was right," she whispered with a nod of her head. "She
said that sad thoughts are like crows. They come in flocks. I wish I
could stop thinkin' about such mou'nful things."
A train passed as she cantered through the gate and started down the
road beside the railroad track. She drew rein to watch it thunder by.
Some child at the window pointed a finger at her, and then two smiling
little faces were pressed against the pane for an eager glimpse. It was

the prettiest wayside picture the passengers had seen in all that
morning's travel--the Little Colonel on her pony, with the spray of
locust bloom in the cockade of the Napoleon cap she wore, and a plume
of the same graceful blossoms nodding jauntily over each of Tarbaby's
black ears.
As the admiring faces whirled past her, Lloyd drew a long breath of
relief. "I'm glad that I don't have to do my riding in a smoky old car this
May mawnin'," she thought. "It is wicked for me to be so unhappy
when I have Tarbaby and all the othah things that mothah and Papa
Jack have given me. I know perfectly well that they love me just the
same even if they have forgotten my birthday, and I won't let such old
black crow thoughts flock down on me. I'll ride fast and get away from
them."
That was harder to do than she had imagined, for as she passed Judge
Moore's place the deserted house added to her feeling of loneliness.
Andy, the old gardener, was cutting the grass on the front lawn. She
called to him.
"When is the family coming out from town, Andy?"
"Not this summer, Miss Lloyd," he answered. "It'll be the first summer
in twenty years that the Judge has missed. He has taken a cottage at the
seaside, and they're all going there. The house will stay closed, just as
you see it now, I reckon, for another year."
"At the seashore!" she echoed. "Not coming out!" She almost gasped,
the news was so unexpected. Here was another disappointment, and a
very sore one. Every summer, as far back as she could remember, Rob
Moore had been her favourite playfellow. Now there would be no more
mad Tam O'Shanter races, with Rob clattering along beside her on his
big iron-gray horse. No more good times with the best and jolliest of
little neighbours. A summer without Rob's cheery whistle and
good-natured laugh would seem as empty and queer as the woods
without the bird voices, or the meadows without the whirr of humming
things. She rode slowly on.

There was no letter for her when she stopped at the post-office to
inquire for the mail. The girls on whom she called afterward were not
at home, so she rode aimlessly around the Valley until nearly
lunch-time, wishing for once that it were a school-day. It was the
longest Saturday morning she had ever known. She could not practise
her music lesson for fear of making her mother's headache worse. She
could not go near the kitchen, where she might have found
entertainment, for Aunt Cindy was in one of her black tempers, and
scolded shrilly as she moved around among her shining tins.
There was no one to show her how to begin her new piece of
embroidery; Papa Jack had forgotten to bring out the magazines she
wanted