Children Wanted

THEY were sitting at the breakfast table when the morning mail came in. There was something for Mr. Henry Tarbell — there was always something for him; there was something for Mrs. Henry Tarbell — there was usually something for her. The only thing at all unusual was that there was something for Master Crosby Tarbell. It was rather a strange-looking document, too. Beside the address was a picture of a pony with a long, sweeping tail, and just under the pony were some words. Crosby was learning to read in a school which was proud of its ‘phonetic method,’ and he read the words slowly, with many little lip sounds to help him on.

‘Would you like a pony for your vacation? You can have her free.’

His father’s glance fell on the picture.

‘Hullo, where does all that come from?’

‘It says I can have her free,’ began Crosby, with a characteristic pause in the middle of his sentence which always gave the effect of steadying the inclination to a slight tremble in his small, earnest voice; ‘it says — I can have her free.’ His face flushed. ‘Can I — have her, father?’

‘Where would you keep her?’ inquired his father casually, opening a letter. ‘In the kitchen?’

‘No, in the — in the barn! They used to keep a horse there — before we lived here! I — I could keep her in the barn! ’

‘ M—m, barn ? I ’m afraid she would n’t recognize it.’

‘But there’s a stall there! A nice stall! Could n’t I have her?’

His father looked up again.

‘What’s this? A prize contest? Oh, I see.’ He smiled absently as he went on with his mail. ‘Yes, it’s safe to say you can have her—if you can get her.’

Crosby’s face flushed slowly again, and his eyes looked very bright.

‘If you can get her,’ repeated his father, pushing his chair back and looking at his watch, ‘but you can’t, Crosby. There is n’t a chance in a thousand that you could.’ He put his watch in his pocket and looked at his wife. ‘Well, I must go. Come on, old man. Better take your pony correspondence outside! Too good a day for the house.’

From the low porch-steps Crosby waved an absent good-bye, his eyes still on the pictured pony. As he tore away some yellow seals a letter fell out, and he creased the big folder again and cautiously sat down on it so that it would n’t blow away. Then he spread the letter across his knees.

It was more than half an hour later that he looked up and drew a long breath of relief. It was the first really full-sized breath that he had taken since he began the letter — and he had just finished it. His eyes dwelt on the last sentences again, and as he pulled the folder from under him, they traveled back to the beginning.

‘I have some good news for you! ’ It read more easily this time. ‘What would make you happier than anything else you can think of? To have me tell you that you can have a pony of your own?' The characteristic, slow flush came into his cheeks. ‘Well, that is just what I am going to tell you! Because on the twentieth of August we are going to give away to some boy or girl, one of the prettiest little Indian ponies you ever saw. Her name is “Lightfoot,” and you can have her if you get started right away. The thing is to start right out — 5 Oh, he understood the rest perfectly! He was simply to get subscriptions for the most delicious breakfast food that had ever been boxed for the public market! Its name? Buttercup Crisps! He was simply to get the names of people who were willing to put their names down for one order or more of Buttercup Crisps!

‘Buttercup Crisps!’ he whispered, and caught another deep breath at the mere sound of it, as he opened up the big folder. ‘A Prize for Every Contestant!' It stared at him in huge letters, and his eyes traveled swiftly from the shining bicycle to the little mahogany writing-desk, to the violin, to the beautiful gold watch — then rested again gently, lingeringly, on THE PONY. Just once again his glance shifted to the sentence which seemed to shine out from all the others. ‘Her name is “Lightfoot,” and you can have her if you get started right away.’

He gathered up all his papers and went in.

‘Mother —’ he began, but he found that he needed a steadying pause at the very beginning. ‘Mother — can I go out — for a little while? I want to — do something.’

She looked at the folded sheets in his hand.

‘Oh, Crosby, that’s so foolish!’ she protested. ‘You know you could n’t get that pony, no matter how hard you tried.’

‘Well, can I go?’ he repeated, sticking characteristically to the original question.

‘Oh, yes, I suppose so. But I would n’t waste my time over that, if I were you. It’s too warm a day.’

He was already storing all the papers and pictures inside his waist for safe keeping, and as he marched steadily down town toward ‘the centre,’ he kept one hand of protection upon them and made out a careful plan of campaign. He must go to every house in town, beginning with the one right there, next the post-office. But it was n’t a house. It was a store. Never mind, he would begin with the store. He felt very strange, though, as he stood before the counter, while the man behind it waited, flirting some string which hung down from a suspended ball, and evidently quite ready for business.

‘Would you like—’ began Crosby, his voice growing so faint that he had to swallow to get it back again; ‘would you like — some Buttercup Crisps?’

‘Like some what?' bawled the man.

Crosby had an idea that he might get arrested if he asked that again, at least if he did n’t make some variation, so he launched desperately into another construction.

‘It’s something — to eat! For breakfast ! Buttercup Crisps! It comes — in boxes.’

‘ Well, what about it?’ questioned the man behind the counter distractedly.

‘I — do you — do you want some?’ continued Crosby bravely.

‘No, I don’t,’ declared the man behind the counter with both strength and finality. ‘ ’T would n’t make any difference what it came in! I’m so overrun now with these breakfast concoctions that there ain’t room left for anything else!’

‘Yes, sir,’ returned Crosby politely, and walked out to the street again.

It was n’t a very promising beginning, to be sure, but it was a relief to have that first dreadful plunge over. Perhaps it would n’t be so bad after that. And he marched on to the next house, which was a house and not a store. A middle-aged colored woman, in an ample white apron, came to the door and stood smiling at him while he screwed his courage into words again.

‘Would you like — would you like — to try a few Buttercup Crisps?’ he asked, with a fleeting consciousness that he had made a really elegant effort.

‘W’at’s dat, chile?’ inquired the woman of color in kindly tones.

‘ Buttercup Crisps! ’ stammered Crosby. ‘ Crisps! A few — ’

‘One o’ dese yere breakfus’ fancies, I s’pose?’ came the kindly encouragement. ‘An’ it soun’ good, too, doan’t it? But ’ — she lowered her voice to a note of confidential intimacy — ‘ dey doan’t ’low me ter transac’ no business at de do’, chile, no matter w’at yer offers. Dey would n’ trus’ it!’

‘Yes ’m,’ returned Crosby faintly, and walked down the steps. It made him positively dizzy to think of asking that question again. But his hand rose mechanically to the folded papers under his waist, and once more a vision of a beautiful, long-tailed pony swept before his eyes.

‘It said I could have her if I got started right away,’ he reasoned steadily, ‘and I have got started right away, so I — I guess I better keep right on.’

He looked so hot and tired when he came in to dinner that his mother glanced at him questioningly.

‘ Why, Crosby, where have you been? You look perfectly roasted. Is it so hot in the sun? Well, don’t go out again this afternoon until it’s cooler.’

‘I’m not — so very hot,’ he assured her. But he thought, himself, that he would n’t go out again right away. He had been to a good many houses that morning, but for some reason he had not a real name to show for it. He had not seen the right people! Most of them had been servants, and of course they could n’t have bought Buttercup Crisps — if they had wanted to. No — he must begin asking for ‘ the lady of the house.’ And he must become more familiar with the literature of his folder. Its advertising value was his chief asset.

He set forth the next morning with new hope and confidence. And something very exhilarating soon happened. The very first ‘lady of the house’ who smiled down at him from her doorway, as he explained with conscientious, steadying pauses, the full meaning of his call, and then, pointing to the pictured pony, explained, with even longer steadying pauses, that he wanted to get her for a prize — why, that very first generous lady decided that she would give him her name for six boxes of Buttercup Crisps! Crosby fairly tottered with the monstrous significance of it. But as he drew more papers out from under his waist and found the page where subscribers’ names were to be written, she glanced it hastily over.

‘Yes, now I am to give you seventyfive cents,’ she explained kindly, as she wrote her name, ‘and it tells you in this little notice here that that counts you one point. It says, too, I see, that it takes six points to become a contestant.’

‘Everybody gets a prize,’ explained Crosby; and he unfolded the beautiful folder again with its large and frequent letters of assurance still staring joyously.

‘Yes, but—’ She looked down at his small, upturned face, and flushed with a kind of helpless shame, — ‘ but don’t you see, dear child — it tells you here, in fine print, that it takes six points to become a contestant?’

Crosby looked puzzled. ‘Every contestant gets—a prize,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Does that mean that if you work—and get names — that perhaps you won’t get a prize either?’

‘That’s just what it means, and I would n’t bother with it if I were you. You see it means so much work for you — and it’s so uncertain.’

’But the letter — was written to me,’ explained Crosby. ‘And the Pony Man says — I can’t lose!’

‘Well, then he’s saying what is n’t so. Because yon can lose very easily, and I’m very much afraid that you will. But if you want to keep trying,’ — she just touched his cheek with her hand, — ‘I — I hope that you will be successful! ’

He went down the steps with a troubled face, tying three silver quarters into the corner of his handkerchief. So he did not yet understand all those printed documents! He looked up and down the warm, tree-lined street, and sat down under the first tree, spreading them all carefully out upon the grass. When he got up and started on again, he still looked troubled, but there was, too, a look of patient determination about him — entirely characteristic. He understood it all now. He understood about the points.

At dinner-time his eyes looked very bright. He had six names on his list for varying and assorted orders of Buttercup Crisps! As he brought out all his money and showed it to his mother, she smiled at him and told him that he was wasting his time. But he looked back at her with bright, confident eyes, as he went out again, his precious papers still buttoned under his waist.

As his campaign went on with steadily growing success, he trudged off as regularly as possible every morning, back again at noon and again at night. His mother listened and smiled at explanations of wonderful progress, at the growing list of names, and occasionally his father half listened, and smiled too. After perhaps three weeks of it, there came a day when Crosby’s most confident hope, at all times unwavering, became a thing which seemed to soar away with him into a kind of pony heaven, where he heard only the word ’Lightfoot,’ and saw only one beautiful animal with a long, sweeping tail, because it kept flashing so continuously before his eyes. That was the day when he was obliged to send for a new subscription blank. That was the day when his hope, if it had ever in the past wavered even unconsciously, became a thing of absolute fixedness. And when there were seven new names on the new blank, and his little bag of money was so fat and heavy that he doubted whether it would hold any more, anyway, he had a conference with his mother about dates, and decided that it was time — it was the day to send everything — all the returns — to the Pony Man. She helped him, with the same smile of forbearance, about the money-order, made out with such dashing effect by the man at the post-office, and together they got off an impressive-looking envelope full of impressive-looking matter. It gave just the last touch of safety and surety to it all to have his mother helping, and Crosby looked up at her with shining eyes.

‘You can ride in the pony-cart — after the pony comes — can’t you?’

It took longer pauses than usual to keep things steady that time, and her glance wandered to his bright eyes.

‘Would you be very much disappointed if it did n’t come?’

A puzzled reproach crept over his face. She felt guilty of an unwarrantable suspiciousness of nature as he looked back at her — and then hurried off to the old stall in the barn. It seened so strange not to have to think about names any more. He could give all his time to the barn now. He wished that it was a nicer one, but with a little well-spent labor he thought he might make it very presentable, after all.

It was the next morning, after he had been working there with a fixed, concentrated pucker between his eyes for almost three hours, that a small boy from the next house appeared.

‘Say, Crosby,’ he began, ‘there’s a lady lives up there on the hill road — you know, after you ’ve crossed the long bridge and turned up on the hill road?’ Crosby nodded. ‘Well, there’s a lady lives up there says she’ll be glad to help you. You know, for the pony you’re trying to get. I was telling her about it yesterday, and she said she did n’t know anything about the breakfast food, but she’d be glad to help you just the same.’

‘But I’ve sent the names already,’ explained Crosby, looking perplexed with fortune’s almost immoderate favors.

‘Well, send hers alone. Can’t you do that?’

Crosby meditated. ‘What house did you say she lived in?’

‘It’s the only house up there on the hill road. You know! The big, white house. You could n’t miss it.’

‘I guess I better go up there then.’ He glanced out to the street, where the sun simmered on the white, hot road, and wiped some little beads of perspiration from his forehead. Then he walked slowly out through the yard.

When, what seemed a long time afterwards, he dragged himself in from the simmering, white street again, his legs pulling listlessly behind him, he even forgot, for the time being, what the walk had all been about, and sat down vacantly on the cool step in the shade, his cheeks burning a deep, dull red. Then he remembered and pulled himself up again. And that evening another letter started on its way to the Pony Man.

The next morning he waked up with a confused consciousness that something important was hanging over him. Gradually it came back quite clearly. It was the twentieth. And then, for the first time, he became aware of facing a quite unheralded question of challenge. Was there any doubt about the pony’s coming ? His long list of subscription names flashed before his eyes, his big, shining pile of money, his mother’s smile, the post-office man’s ‘whew!’ of admiration before he made out the money-order, the promises in the letter if he began ‘right away’ and worked — and he had worked all the time ever since! There was but one possible answer to that question. The pony would come — to-day — before night.

He stumbled gayly down the stairs as he thought of all that he was going to do that morning in the barn. It was such a strange, rickety little affair, that barn; it did seem to look so much more like a shed than anything else, that he was continually haunted by his father’s words: ‘Barn? I’m afraid she would n’t recognize it.’ But he could make it clean, anyway, if it was n’t new — He looked up at the battered manger, from his kneeling position on the floor, as he scrubbed with soap and water, and wondered what he could do about that. Something he was sure. Why, there were plenty of ways to do things if you only had sense. He thought he must be mistaken when he heard his mother calling him to dinner; but then, when he stopped and looked around, he felt a tired glow of satisfaction. The walls and floor of the old stall had not changed color, as he had hoped they would by washing, but they looked damp, and clean, too. Across the battered front of the manger was tacked a shining but crooked piece of clean, brown paper, and inside was a fresh little pile of grass and three large, round ginger-cakes beside it. But Crosby’s eyes traveled most lovingly to a small row of implements which hung down from the wall, at one side, from nails which he had pounded in. Of course ponies had to be groomed, and he looked up proudly at the small, clean brush, hanging by a string and suggestive no longer of the sink, at the worn whisk-broom next, at the broken comb, and finally at a little, shrunken last winter’s glove, with its fingers cut off evenly, which completed the line. He would wear that glove when he did his daily grooming.

‘I’ll finish everything after dinner,’ he meditated, and went in.

When he came back, a saucer of milk trembled dangerously in one hand, and with a faint, half-conscious smile flickering about his mouth, he put it down on the floor in the corner.

‘ She ’ll be thirsty when she gets here,’ he reasoned, and then, half apologetically, he glanced down at a big, loose bunch of summer goldenrod, supported by the other hand. Standing high on his toes, he propped it very jauntily over a time-worn beam just opposite the door. ‘To look nice when she comes in,’ he whispered; and then he cast round a final look, sighed a tired sigh of satisfaction — and went out and closed the door.

He wandered about restlessly that afternoon, and finally, with a queer, light feeling in his head, that he associated dimly with the long walk on the hill road the day before, he turned out of the yard and struck off across the street in the direction of the railroad station. He wanted to inquire about trains and the station was near. Besides, he knew the station-master, and he would tell him just what he wanted to know. To be sure! The station-master was both alert and intelligent.

‘A pony from New York?’ he echoed. ‘You’re expecting a pony from New York? Well, now I hope you are n’t going to be disappointed about it! You say it was to leave New York to-day? Well, there’s a New York-Boston train that gets in here at half-past six. That’s the last one there is. So if there’s any pony coming, she’ll be on that train, won’t she? Yes, if she’s coming at all, she ’ll be on that train.’

‘Half-past six? What time is it — now?’ questioned Crosby.

‘It’s just half-past four. Now, you don’t want to hang round here for two hours. No, you run home and make yourself easy. I pass your place on my way home to supper, and if you’re outside I’ll let you know whether there’s anything for you. But I would n’t get my hopes up too high.’

Crosby looked up gratefully. He had not even heard the last sentence. He was already making his way out of the station and back home again, wondering just how he could spend all that time.

Two hours later, his father came swinging up the walk. Crosby, sitting on the grass close to the sidewalk, hardly saw him. He thought he saw some one else — away down the walk, moving slowly towards him.

‘Hullo, Crosby,’ began his father cheerfully. ‘What you doing? Looking at the view?’

Crosby smiled faintly, but his eyes were straining away down the walk.

‘You look pale, son; what’s the matter? You’d better come in to supper.’

‘No, it is n’t going to be ready — quite yet, mother said.’

His father gave him another questioning look and went on into the house.

‘What’s the matter with Crosby?’ he asked inside. ‘He looks as if he’d been frightened half to death.’

’Oh, he’s worrying himself to pieces about that pony. He’s been fussing round in the barn all day long. He really thinks he’s going to get it, I suppose.’

‘Pony? What pony? Has he been working himself to death over that business? What’s he been doing in the barn?’ He walked through the house and down the back steps and crossed the yard. Then he opened the door which led directly into the old stall and stopped.

‘Oh, Lord above us!’ he whispered.

Never, since he was a child, a child like the one who had just looked up at him from the grass, had such an overmastering desire swept over him to sit down, right where he was, and drop his head down into his hands — and cry.

‘Oh, Lord above us!’ he whispered again faintly, pushing his hand up to his eyes.

It was all just as it had been left, the old walls and floor with great splinters scoured out of them everywhere, the manger with its shining, crooked front of clean, brown paper, the little hanging row of grooming implements, the small brush, the worn whisk-broom, the comb, the little old glove, the pile of grass in the manger, and the three ginger-cakes, the saucer of milk in the corner — and the jaunty bunch of goldenrod nodding down upon it all from the beam just opposite the door.

He pushed his hands blindly to his eyes again; then he went out, closed the door, and walked down the yard where Crosby was sitting — no, he was standing, standing and looking dumbly after a man who was walking away and blowing his nose.

‘Crosby,’ began his father huskily, ‘ Crosby — come into the house, come in to supper — I want to see you.’

Crosby looked up with dry, huntedlooking eyes, and his chin trembled just perceptibly.

‘ I’m coming — in just a minute,’ he began, with a quivering appeal in the dry, hunted eyes to be left — to be left alone — just for a minute!

His father turned and went up the steps, while Crosby’s gaze shifted mechanically back to the man who was going on up the street. But he turned, too, slowly, and crossed the yard to the barn and opened the door and went in. He hoped no one had seen it, and he pulled off the brown paper from the manger and wrapped it round the pile of ginger-cakes. Then he reached up for the little row of grooming implements and took them down one by one.

When Crosby was three, he had tumbled down on a brick walk one day, and had sat up winking vaguely while drops of blood ran down his face — and tried to smile at his mother. It had never been just natural for Crosby to cry when he was hurt, but as he came slowly back into the old stall and stooped down to take up the saucer of milk, something dropped with a splashing sound into the milk, making rings away out to the edge. He raised his arm and dragged his hand across his eyes, and then he reached up for the jaunty bunch of flowers on the beam. But that strange, light feeling in his head, dimly associated with the hill road, seemed to confuse him again — and he could n’t just remember what he was going to do next. As he pushed open the door, he tripped over some scattered goldenrod, and then went stumbling along to the house.

‘He said — I could have her — if I got started right off — he said — I could have her — if I got started right off — he said — he said — he said I could have her — if I got started —'

His mother met him at the door.

‘Come in — Crosby—’ she began brokenly, ‘ come in — ’

‘He said — I could have her — if I got started right off!’ he shrieked out in a high, quivering, babyish wail, ‘and — I did— get started — right—off—5

‘Hush-hush! You have worked — so hard! You are so tired! ’ She looked, with frightened eyes, at his dully burning cheeks.

‘Take him up to bed — let me take him up,’ came a husky voice behind them; and he was lifted in his father’s arms and carried upstairs.

As they undid the straining buttons of the well-filled little waist, some papers dropped down to the floor and the man stooped and picked them up. He looked at them and put them in his pocket.

‘I’m going to call up the doctor,’ he whispered.

But after the doctor had come and gone, he went upstairs again and sat down by the bed, while his shocked eyes sought the small, still upturned face. It was so characteristic of the boy that, in a high fever, he should not chatter in delirium, that he should not scream wild things about a pony, that he should only lie there quietly, with his eyes closed and his face turned upwards. For a long time the watcher by the bed looked down in the flickering half-light, and then he went downstairs to his study and shut the door. When he had read the papers, which he took from his pocket, from beginning to end, he placed a clean sheet sharply on the desk before him, and with his mouth closed into a taut, straight line which relaxed into no curve of compromise as his pen marched down the sheet, Mr. Henry Tarbell wrote a letter to the Pony Man.

He sealed and directed it — and walked out of the house, with long strides, to the post-box.

It was many days later that he hung over the bed where a child lay tired out with fever, and gently said something that he thought might bring a little light back into the white face.

‘They did send you a prize, Crosby, after all! A first-class little prize that has just come this morning! Look!’ And he held up a small but crisply ticking watch upon a cheaply shining chain.

Crosby reached up his hand. ‘I don’t believe — it would keep the — right time — would it?’ he asked slowly, with a suspiciousness quite new. And his unwavering eyes sought his father’s.

‘Why did they — write such a — lie to me — about the pony?’ he challenged faintly.

‘Forget it, boy!’ returned his father gayly. ‘We’ll have a pony yet! We’ll have to have one to get the color back into your face, I’m thinking! Say, sonny, I’m glad you got the old stall fixed up for it, are n’t you?’

The unwavering eyes were still upon his father, and the first entirely unresisted tears that any one had ever seen in them since he stepped out of his baby’s dresses and marched forth to life, with brave but unaccustomed feet, and steadying pauses, slipped quietly down the white cheeks.

‘You — you would n’t — talk that way — unless you meant it!’ whispered Crosby.