"Two years makes a great difference in children," said Mrs. Ashford.

"That's so," Hiram a.s.sented. "Well, I reckon we'd better be moving."

"How I dread the steep hills," said Mrs. Ashford as they were being helped into the wagon after the baggage had been stowed away. "I do hope your horses are safe, Hiram. Now, Marty, be sure to hold on with both hands when we come to the worst places."

"Don't you be 'fraid, Mrs. Ashford; there isn't a mite of danger," said Hiram, gathering up the reins. "Get up!"

"Get up!" cried Freddie, who had watched the process of getting started with the greatest interest, and who was now holding a pair of imaginary reins in one tiny fist and flourishing an imaginary whip with the other.

Hiram laughed aloud. That Freddie could walk was funny enough, but that he could talk and make believe drive was too much for Hiram. It was some time before he got over it.

"How's Evaline?" asked Marty. "Why didn't she come to meet us?"

"She's spry. She wanted to come along down, but her ma was afraid 'twould crowd you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: They approached an open, level place from which there was a magnificent view. Page 113]

After a drive of about three miles among the mountains, the winding road gradually ascending, with here and there a somewhat steep incline, they approached an open, level place from which there was a magnificent view of what Marty called the "real mountains." For these wooded or cultivated hills they were driving among were only the beginnings of the range. Here was a cl.u.s.ter of houses and a white frame "hotel" with green blinds.

"They've been doing right smart of building in Riseborough since you were up," said Hiram to Mrs. Ashford. "You see the hotel's done, and Sims has built him a new store, and Mrs. Clarkson's been building on to her cottage."

"Is the hotel a success?" asked Mrs. Ashford.

"First-rate. Full all last summer, and Dutton expects a lot of folks this season. A big party came up t'other day."

They had a chance to see the guests at the hotel, ladies on the piazzas and children playing in the green yard, while Hiram stopped to do an errand at the store, which was also the postoffice.

Nearly another mile of up-hill brought them to their destination--a brown farmhouse with its red barns and granaries standing in the midst of smiling fields and patches of cool, dark woods, while in the distance rose grand, solemn mountains.

There was Evaline, seated on the low gatepost, and Mrs. Stokes and her grownup daughter, Almira, in the doorway, all on the lookout and ready to wave their handkerchiefs the moment the wagon appeared.

"It's more like going to see some cousins or something than being summer-boarders, isn't it, mamma?" said Marty.

"Here we all are, Mrs. Stokes!" cried Mrs. Ashford from the wagon.

"Quite an addition to your family."

"The more the merrier! I'm right down glad to see you," said good-natured Mrs. Stokes, coming to lift the children down and kissing them heartily.

The travellers were very tired after their long day's journey. Mrs.

Ashford and Marty were ready to do justice to the good supper provided, but Freddie was only able to keep his eyes open long enough to eat a little bread and milk. The next morning, however, he was as bright as a b.u.t.ton, and took to country life so naturally that he was out in the yard feeding the chickens before his mother knew what he was about.

CHAPTER XIV.

A PLAN AND A TALK.

Marty so enjoyed being back at the farm, and there was so much to see and to do, that for four or five days she could think of nothing else.

She and Evaline raced all over the place, climbing trees and fences, playing in the barn or down in the wood, paddling in the little brook, riding on the hay-wagon, and going with the boy to bring home the cows.

In short, the delights of farm life for the time being drove everything else out of Marty's head, and it was not until Sunday morning that she gave a thought to missions. Perhaps she would not have remembered even then had not her mother said,

"Marty, here are your ten pennies. I forgot to give them to you yesterday."

"There!" thought Marty. "In spite of what Miss Agnes said the very last thing, I've forgotten all about missions. I've never told Evaline a breath about them, and I haven't prayed or done anything."

She got out her box and put in it her tenth, and four pennies for a thank-offering for the happy time she had been having. She also got the list of subjects Miss Walsh had furnished her with, and some of her books; but there was no time to read then, for her mother had said she might go to church with Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, and she must get ready.

Evaline was not at home, her uncle having called the previous evening and taken her to spend a couple of days at his house.

There was preaching that Sunday in the schoolhouse at Black's Mills, a village between four and five miles distant in the opposite direction from Riseborough. It was quite a novelty to Marty to go so far to church, but it was a lovely drive and she enjoyed it extremely. It certainly seemed strange to attend service in the battered little frame schoolhouse, without any organ or choir, and to eat crackers and cheese in the wagon on the way home, as Mrs Stokes was afraid she would be hungry before their unusually late dinner. But Marty was so charmed with country life and all belonging to it that she considered the whole thing an improvement upon city churchgoing.

In the afternoon she took her Bible and some missionary leaflets, and going into a retired place in the garden read and studied for more than an hour. The missionary spirit within her was fully awake that day. She longed to talk with Evaline and could hardly wait until it was time for her to come home. But by Tuesday, when she did come, Marty's head was full of other matters, such as a discovery she had made in the wood of a hollow in an old tree which would be a lovely playhouse, and an expedition to Sunset Hill that was being talked of. So in one way or another nearly two weeks of vacation had pa.s.sed before this Missionary Twig, who had been so ardent to begin with, had redeemed her promise of trying to interest somebody in the work.

But in the meantime she had thought of Jimmy Torrence. The way he was brought to her mind was this. She was with her mother on the side porch, Monday morning, when Mrs. Stokes, coming out of the kitchen with floury hands, inquired,

"Mrs. Ashford, did you see the little boy in the carriage that just pa.s.sed 'long?"

"Yes," replied Mrs. Ashford.

"Well, you just ought to have seen him when they brought him up here three weeks ago--his folks are boarding over at Capt. Smith's; such a pale, peaked child _I_ never saw! Had been awful sick, they said, and now you see he looks right down well."

"Why, yes, he does," said Mrs. Ashford. "I should never imagine he had been ill very recently. The country has certainly done him good."

"That's just it!" said Mrs. Stokes. "There's nothing like taking children to the country a spell after they've been sick. Makes 'em fat and rosy in less than no time."

"Oh! mamma," exclaimed Marty. "That makes me think of poor little Jimmy.

I wish we could do something to get him sent to the country."

"I wish we could, but I don't see any way to do it. I have given all I can afford this summer to the different Fresh-Air Funds."

"Can't you think of anything, clothes or such things, that you were going to get me, and that I _could_ do without, and send the money to Mrs. Watson?" pleaded Marty.

"I can't think of anything just this minute," answered her mother with a gentle smile, "but if you will bring Freddie in out of the hot sun, and get something to amuse him near here, I'll try to think."

"Oh! do, please. And mind, mamma, it must be something for me to do without--not you."

Marty ran down the yard to where Freddie, with red face and without his hat, was rushing up and down playing he was a "little engine."

"Freddie," she called, "don't you want to come and make mud pies?"

This was a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt of the small boy, and instantly the little engine subsided into a baker. Marty led him up near the porch, where there was a nice bed of mould--"clean dirt," Mrs. Stokes called it--and they were soon hard at work on the pies.

Marty enjoyed this play as much as Freddie, and it was some time before she thought of asking,

"Mamma, have you thought of anything yet?"