Part 1 (1/2)
Letty and the Twins.
by Helen Sherman Griffith.
INTRODUCTION
Those who have read ”Letty of the Circus” will remember that Letty Grey was a little city girl whose brother was a member of a troupe of acrobats. When it became necessary to help her mother who was ill Letty herself became a member of the troupe and joined them in their performances at a summer resort. One day she bravely saved the lives of two little children, Jane and Christopher, who were threatened by an angry bear. This was the beginning of a warm friends.h.i.+p which is seen ripening in the present book. Letty leaves the circus and finds a new mother, and her sunny nature wins for her many friends. Something more about her will be found in ”Letty's New Home,” ”Letty's Sister,”
”Letty's Treasure,” ”Letty's Good Luck,” ”Letty at the Conservatory,”
”Letty's Springtime” and ”Letty and Miss Grey.”
LETTY AND THE TWINS
CHAPTER I
ARRIVING AT THE FARM
”Oh, Kit, isn't it just fun!” cried Jane, her rosy, chubby face beaming.
”How fast we are going!”
”Ho,” exclaimed Christopher, ”it's not so fast. Not so awfully fast, is it, grandfather? I'd like to go about sixty miles an hour. That would be going for you.”
”Oh, Kit!” breathed Jane in mingled awe and admiration.
Jane and Christopher-or Kit as he was generally called to distinguish him from his father, whose name also was Christopher-were twins, and so far along the course of their short lives had shared everything, from peppermint drops to ideas. The stern fact that Christopher was a boy and Jane a girl was just beginning faintly to dawn upon them-a state demonstrated by Jane's unqualified admiration of everything her brother said and did, and by his occasional condescension of manner toward her.
Jane leaned back in her parlor car seat hugging her doll-a wonderful new one with flaxen hair turned up with a comb and dressed ”like a lady”-quite content with the rate at which the train was speeding through the green fields and villages; while Christopher bobbed about from seat to seat, trying the view from each side of the train in turn and wis.h.i.+ng he could look out on both sides at once.
There were very few pa.s.sengers in the parlor car, for it was early in the season for summer visitors to go to the country. Besides the twins and their grandparents there were only three other pa.s.sengers: two gentlemen who were very busy talking and paid no attention to any one else, and a sweet-faced lady with gray hair who sat at the other end of the car and who watched the children with great interest. She looked as if she would like to make friends with them.
After a while she took a candy box out of her satchel and catching the twins' eyes, beckoned to them, holding out the open box. Christopher was for bolting down the car aisle at once, but Jane caught him back and whispered something to her grandmother, who looked up from her book, exchanged smiles with the sweet-faced stranger, bowed and said ”yes” to Jane.
”I thought you might like some chocolates,” said the lady as the children approached. ”Won't you sit down there opposite me?”
”Thank you,” said Jane politely, and the twins tucked themselves side by side into the big chair. The lady's sweet, interested manner and the chocolates quickly put matters upon a friendly footing, and in two minutes the children were prattling away as if they had known Mrs.
Hartwell-Jones (for that, she told them, was her name, watching out of the corner of her eye as she p.r.o.nounced it to see if it sounded familiar to them) as if they had known her all their lives. Their own names, age and family history were soon told.
”Our mother and father have gone to Europe for four months,” announced Christopher importantly. ”Father had to go on business and mother wanted to go with him and so--”
”She did not want to go, Kit,” corrected Jane. ”The doctor thought she ought to.”
”Well, she did want to go. How could she help wanting to go to Europe?”
demanded Christopher triumphantly. ”So she and father went, and we are to spend the whole summer on the farm.”
”The whole summer,” repeated Jane, happily. But she swallowed hard as she thought of her father and mother off in the middle of the ocean on a big s.h.i.+p.
”It's a real farm,” went on Christopher, ”with cows and chickens and pigs.”