Part 26 (1/2)

But he would not hear of this. ”No,” he said, ”put it in the bank, Prudence, for there will come a time when you will want money very badly. Then you will have it.”

”Let's divide it then,--a hundred for each of us,” she urged.

Neither the younger girls nor their father would consent to this. But when Prudence stood very firm, and pleaded with them earnestly, they decided to divide it.

”I will deposit two hundred and fifty dollars for the four younger ones,” he said, ”and that will leave you as much.”

So it was settled, and Prudence was a happy girl when she saw it safely put away in the bank.

”We can get it whenever we really need it, you know,” she told her father joyfully. ”It's such a comfort to know it's there! I feel just like a millionaire, I am sure. Do you think it would be all right to send Limber-Limb Grant a letter of thanks for it? We were horribly scared, but--well, I for one am willing to be horribly scared for such a lot of money as that!”

CHAPTER XI

ROMANCE COMES

Sometimes, Methodists, or Presbyterians or heretics, whatever we may be, we are irresistibly impelled to the conclusion that things were simply bound to happen! However slight the cause,--still that cause was predestined from the beginning of time. A girl may by the sheerest accident, step from the street-car a block ahead of her destination,--an irritating incident. But as she walks that block she may meet an old-time friend, and a stranger. And that stranger,--ah, you can never convince the girl that her stepping from the car too soon was not ordered when the foundations of the world were laid.

Even so with Prudence, good Methodist daughter that she was. We ask her, ”What if you had not gone out for a ride that morning?” And Prudence, laughing, answers, ”Oh, but I had to go, you see.” ”Well,” we continue, ”if you had not met him that way, you could have met him some other way, I suppose.” ”Oh, no,” declares Prudence decidedly, ”it had to happen just that way.”

After all, down in plain ink on plain paper, it was very simple. Across the street from the parsonage was a little white cottage set back among tall cedars. In this cottage lived a girl named Mattie Moore,--a common, unlovely, unexciting girl, with whom Romance could not apparently be intimately concerned. Mattie Moore taught a country school five miles out from town, and she rode to and from her school, morning and evening, on a bicycle.

Years before, when Prudence was young and bicycles were fas.h.i.+onable, she had been intensely fond of riding. But as she gained in age, and bicycles lost in popularity, she discarded the amus.e.m.e.nt as unworthy a parsonage damsel.

One evening, early in June, when the world was fair to look upon, it was foreordained that Prudence should be turning in at the parsonage gate just as Mattie Moore whirled up, opposite, on her dusty wheel. Prudence stopped to interchange polite inanities with her neighbor, and Mattie, wheeling the bicycle lightly beside her, came across the street and stood beneath the parsonage maples with Prudence. They talked of the weather, of the coming summer, of Mattie's school, rejoicing that one more week would bring freedom from books for Mattie and the younger parsonage girls.

Then said Prudence, seemingly of her own free will, but really directed by an all-controlling Providence, ”Isn't it great fun to ride a bicycle?

I love it. Sometime will you let me ride your wheel?”

”Why, certainly. You may ride now if you like.”

”No,” said Prudence slowly, ”I am afraid it would not do for me to ride now. Some of the members might see me, and--well, I am very grown up, you know.--Of course,” she added hastily, ”it is different with you. You ride for business, but it would be nothing but a frolic with me. I want to get up at six o'clock and go early in the morning when the world is fast asleep. Let me take it to-morrow morning, will you? It is Sat.u.r.day, and you won't be going to school.”

”Yes, of course you may,” was the hearty answer. ”You may stay out as long as you like. I'm going to sew to-morrow. You make take it in the parsonage now and keep it until morning. I always sleep late on Sat.u.r.days.”

So Prudence delightedly tripped up the parsonage board walk, wheeling the bicycle by her side. She hid it carefully in the woodshed, for the twins were rash and venturesome. But after she had gone to bed, she confided her plan to Fairy.

”I'm going at six o'clock, and I'll be back in time to get breakfast.

But as you know, Fairy, my plans do not always work out as I intend, so if I am a little late, you'll get breakfast for papa and the girls, like a dear, won't you?”

Fairy promised. And early the next morning, Prudence, in a plain gingham house dress, with the addition of a red sweater jacket and cap for warmth, set out upon her secret ride. It was a magnificent morning, and Prudence sang for pure delight as she rode swiftly along the country roads. The country was simply irresistible. It was almost intoxicating.

And Prudence rode farther than she had intended. East and west, north and south, she went, apparently guided only by her own caprice. She knew it was growing late, ”but Fairy'll get breakfast,” she thought comfortably.

Finally she turned in a by-road, leading between two rich hickory groves.

Dismounting at the top of a long hill, she gazed anxiously around her.

No one was in sight. The nearest house was two miles behind, and the road was long, and smooth, and inviting, and the hill was steep.

Prudence yearned for a good, soul-stirring coast, with her feet high up on the framework of the wheel, and the pedals flying around beneath her skirts. This was not the new and modern model of bicycle. The pedals on Mattie Moore's wheel revolved, whether one worked them or not.