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[Illustration: "Good-bye, Baltie, dear"]


THREE LITTLE WOMEN, A STORY FOR GIRLS

by

GABRIELLE E. JACKSON

1913



CONTENTS
    CHAPTER I--The Carruths
    CHAPTER II--"Baltie"
    CHAPTER III--The Spirit of Mad Anthony
    CHAPTER IV--Baltie is Rescued
    CHAPTER V--A New Member of the Family
    CHAPTER VI--Blue Monday
    CHAPTER VII--Mammy Generalissimo
    CHAPTER VIII--Chemical Experiments
    CHAPTER IX--Spontaneous Combustion
    CHAPTER X--Readjustment
    CHAPTER XI--First Ventures
    CHAPTER XII--Another Shoulder is Added
    CHAPTER XIII--The Battle of Town and Gown
    CHAPTER XIV--The Candy Enterprise Grows
    CHAPTER XV--The Reckoning
    CHAPTER XVI--United We Stand, Divided We Fall
    CHAPTER XVII--A Family Council
    CHAPTER XVIII--"Save Me From My Friends"
    CHAPTER XIX--"An Auction Extraordinary"
    CHAPTER XX--Constance B.'s Venture
    CHAPTER XXI--Constance B.'s Candies
    CHAPTER XXII--First Steps
    CHAPTER XXIII--Opening Day
    CHAPTER XXIV--One Month Later




CHAPTER I

The Carruths


The afternoon was a wild one. All day driving sheets of rain had swept
along the streets of Riveredge, hurled against windowpanes by fierce
gusts of wind, or dashed in miniature rivers across piazzas. At noon
it seemed as though the wind meant to change to the westward and the
clouds break, but the promise of better weather had failed, and
although the rain now fell only fitfully in drenching showers, and one
could "run between the drops" the wind still blustered and fumed,
tossing the wayfarers about, and tearing from the trees what foliage
the rain had spared, to hurl it to the ground in sodden masses. It was
more like a late November than a late September day, and had a
depressing effect upon everybody.

"I want to go out; I want to go out; I want to go out, _out_, OUT!"
cried little Jean Carruth, pressing her face against the window-pane
until from the outside her nose appeared like a bit of white paper
stuck fast to the glass.

"If you do you'll get wet, _wet_, WET, as sop, _sop_, SOP, and then
mother'll ask what _we_ were about to let you," said a laughing voice
from the farther side of the room, where Constance, her sister, nearly
five years her senior, was busily engaged in trimming a hat, holding
it from her to get the effect of a fascinating bow she had just pinned
upon one side.

"But I haven't a single thing to do. All my lessons for Monday are
finished; I'm tired of stories; I'm tired of fancy work, and I'm tired
of--_everything_ and I want to go _out_," ended the woe-begone voice in
rapid crescendo.

"Do you think it would hurt her to go, Eleanor?" asked Constance,
turning toward a girl who sat at a pretty desk, her elbows resting
upon it and her hands propping her chin as she pored over a copy of
the French Revolution, but who failed to take the least notice of the
question.

Constance made a funny face and repeated it. She might as well have
kept silent for all the impression it made, and with a resigned nod
toward Jean she resumed her millinery work.

But too much depended upon the reply for Jean Carruth to accept the
situation so mildly. Murmuring softly, "You wait a minute," she
slipped noiselessly across the room and out into the broad hall
beyond. Upon a deep window-seat stood a papier-mache megaphone.
Placing it to her lips, her eyes dancing with mischief above its rim,
she bellowed:

"Eleanor Maxwell Carruth, do you think it would hurt me to go out
now?"

The effect was electrical. Bounding from her chair with sufficient
alacrity to send the French Revolution crashing upon the floor,
Eleanor Carruth clapped both hands over her ears, as she cried:

"Jean, you little imp of mischief!"

"Well, I wanted to make you hear me," answered that young lady
complacently. "Constance had spoken to you twice but you'd gone to
France and couldn't hear her, so I thought maybe the megaphone would
reach across the Atlantic Ocean, and it _did_. Now can I go out?"

"_Can_ you or may you? which do you mean," asked the eldest sister
somewhat sententiously.

Constance laughed softly in her corner.

"O, fiddlesticks on your old English! I get enough of it five days in
a week without having to take a dose of it Saturday afternoon too. I
know well enough that I _can_ go out, but whether you'll say yes is
another question, and I want to," and Jean puckered up her small
pug-nose at her sister.

"What a spunky little body it is," said the latter, laughing in spite
of herself, for Jean, the ten-year-old baby of the family was already
proving that she was likely to be a very lively offspring of the
Carruth stock.

"And where are you minded to stroll on this charming afternoon when
everybody else is glad to sit in a snug room and take a Saturday
rest?"

"Mother isn't taking hers," was the prompt retort. "She's down helping
pack the boxes that are to go to that girls' college out in Iowa. She
went in all the rain right after luncheon, and I guess if _she_ can go
out while it poured 'cats and dogs,' I can when--when--when--well it
doesn't even pour _cats_. It's almost stopped raining."

"Where _do_ you get hold of those awful expressions, Jean? Whoever
heard of 'cats and dogs' pouring down? What _am_ I to do with you? I
declare I feel responsible for your development and--"

"Then let me go _out_. I need some fresh air to develop in: my lungs
don't pump worth a cent in this stuffy place. It's hot enough to roast
a pig with those logs blazing in the fire-place. I don't see how you
stand it."

"Go get your rubber boots and rain coat," said Eleanor resignedly.
"You're half duck, I firmly believe, and never so happy as when you're
splashing through puddles. Thank goodness your skirts are still short,
and you can't very well get _them_ sloppy; and your boots will keep
your legs dry unless you try wading up to your hips. But where are you
going?"

"I'm going down to Amy Fletcher's to see how Bunny is. He got hurt
yesterday and it's made him dreadfully sick," answered Jean, as she
struggled with her rubber boots, growing red in the face as she tugged
at them. In five minutes she was equipped to do battle with almost any
storm, and with a "Good bye! I'll be back pretty soon, and then I'll
have enough fresh air to keep me in fine shape for the night," out she
flew, banging the front door behind her.

Eleanor watched the lively little figure as it went skipping down the
street, a street which was always called a beautiful one, although now
wet and sodden with the rain, for Mr. Carruth had built his home in a
most attractive part of the delightful town of Riveredge. Maybe you
won't find it on the map by that name, but it's _there_ just the same,
and quite as attractive to-day as it was several years ago.

Bernard Carruth had been a man of refined taste and possessed a keen
appreciation of all that was beautiful, so it was not surprising that
he should have chosen Riveredge when deciding upon a place for his
home. Situated as it was on the banks of the splendid stream which had
suggested its name, the town boasted unusual attractions, and drew to
it an element which soon assured its development in the most
satisfactory manner. It became noted for its beautiful homes, its
cultured people and its delightful social life.

Among the prettiest of its homes was Bernard Carruth's. It stood but a
short way from the river's bank, was built almost entirely of
cobble-stones, oiled shingles being used where the stones were not
practicable.

It was made up of quaint turns and unexpected corners, although not a
single inch of space, or the shape of a room was sacrificed to the
oddity of the architecture. It was not a very large house nor yet a
very small one, but as Mr. Carruth said when all was completed, the
house sensibly and artistically furnished, and his family comfortably
installed therein:

"It is big enough for the big girl, our three little girls and their
old daddy, and so what more can be asked? Only that the good Lord will
spare us to each other to enjoy it."

This was when Jean was but a little more than two years of age, and
for five years they _did_ enjoy it as only a closely united family can
enjoy a charming home. Then one of Mr. Carruth's college chums got
into serious financial difficulties and Bernard Carruth indorsed
heavily for him.

The sequel was the same wretched old story repeated: Ruin overtook the
friend, and Bernard Carruth's substance was swept into the maelstrom
which swallowed up everything. He never recovered from the blow, or
false representations which led to it, learning unhappily, when the
mischief was done, how sorely he had been betrayed, and within
eighteen months from the date of indorsing his friend's paper he was
laid away in pretty Brookside Cemetery, leaving his wife and three
daughters to face the world upon a very limited income. This was a
little more than two years before the opening of this story. Little
Jean was now ten and a half, Constance fifteen and Eleanor, the
eldest, nearly seventeen, although many judged her to be older, owing
to her quiet, reserved manner and studious habits, for Eleanor was,
undoubtedly, "the brainy member of the family," as Constance put it.

She was a pupil in the Riveredge Seminary, and would graduate the
following June; a privilege made possible by an aunt's generosity,
since Mrs. Carruth had been left with little more than her home, which
Mr. Carruth had given her as soon as it was completed, and the
interest upon his life insurance which amounted to less than fifteen
hundred a year; a small sum upon which to keep up the home, provide
for and educate three daughters.

Constance was now a pupil at the Riveredge High School and Jean at the
grammar school. Both had been seminary pupils prior to Mr. Carruth's
death, but expenses had to be curtailed at once.

Constance was the domestic body of the household; prettiest of the
three, sunshiny, happy, resourceful, she faced the family's altered
position bravely, giving up the advantages and delights of the
seminary without a murmur and contributing to her mother's peace of
mind to a degree she little guessed by taking the most optimistic view
of the situation and meeting altered conditions with a laugh and a
song, and the assurance that "_some_ day she was going to make her
fortune and set 'em all up in fine shape once more." She got her
sanguine disposition from her mother who never looked upon the dull
side of the clouds, although it was often a hard matter to win around
to their shiny side.

Eleanor was quite unlike her; indeed, Eleanor did not resemble either
her father or mother, for Mr. Carruth had been a most genial,
warm-hearted man, and unselfish to the last degree. Eleanor was very
reserved, inclined to keep her affairs to herself, and extremely
matured for her years, finding her relaxation and recreation in a
manner which the average girl of her age would have considered tasks.

Jean was a bunch of nervous impulses, and no one ever knew where the
madcap would bounce up next. She was a beautiful child with a mop of
wavy reddish-brown hair falling in the softest curls about face and
shoulders; eyes that shone lustrous and lambent as twin stars beneath
their delicately arched brows, and regarded you with a steadfast
interest as though they meant to look straight through you, and
separate truth from falsehood. A mouth that was a whimsical
combination of fun and resolution. A nose that could pucker
disdainfully on provocation, and it never needed a greater than its
owner's doubt of the sincerity of the person addressing her.

This is the small person skipping along the pretty Riveredge street
toward the more sparsely settled northern end of the town, hopping
_not from_ dry spot to dry spot _between_ the puddles, but _into_ and
_into_ the deepest to be found. Amy Fletcher's home was one of the
largest in the outskirts of Riveredge and its grounds the most
beautiful. Between it and Riveredge stood an old stone house owned and
occupied by a family named Raulsbury; a family noted for its parsimony
and narrow outlook upon life in general. Broad open fields lay between
this house and the Fletcher place which was some distance beyond. In
many places the fences were broken; at one point the field was a good
deal higher than the road it bordered and a deep gully lay between it
and the sidewalk.

When Jean reached that point of her moist, breezy walk she stopped
short. In the mud of the gully, drenched, cold and shivering lay an
old, blind bay horse. He had stumbled into it, and was too feeble to
get out.




CHAPTER II

"Baltie"


  "When he's forsaken
  Withered and shaken
  What can an old _horse_
  Do but die?"

  (With apologies to Tom Hood.)

For one moment Jean stood petrified, too overcome by the sight to stir
or speak, then with a low, pitying cry of:

"Oh, Baltie, Baltie! How came you there?" the child tossed her
umbrella aside and scrambled down into the ditch, the water which
stood in it splashing and flying all over her, as she hastened toward
the prone horse.

At the sound of her voice the poor creature raised his head which had
been drooping forward upon his bent-up knees, turned his sightless
eyes toward her and tried to nicker, but succeeded only in making a
quavering, shivering sound.

"Oh, Baltie, dear, dear Baltie, how did you get out of your stable and
come way off here?" cried the girl taking the pathetic old head into
her arms, and drawing it to her breast regardless of the mud with
which it was thickly plastered. "You got out of the field through that
broken place in the fence up there didn't you dear? And you must have
tumbled right straight down the bank into this ditch, 'cause you're
all splashed over with mud, poor, poor Baltie. And your legs are all
cut and bleeding too. Oh, how long have you been here? You couldn't
see where you were going, could you? You poor, dear thing. Oh, what
shall I do for you? What shall I? If I could only help you up," and
the dauntless little body tugged with all her might and main to raise
the fallen animal. She might as well have striven to raise Gibraltar,
for, even though the horse strove to get upon his feet, he was far too
weak and exhausted to do so, and again dropped heavily to the ground,
nearly over-setting his intrepid little friend as he sank down.

Jean was in despair. What _should_ she do? To go on to her friend
Amy's and leave the old horse to the chance of someone else's tender
mercies never entered her head, and had any one been near at hand to
suggest that solution of the problem he would have promptly found
himself in the midst of a small tornado of righteous wrath. No, here
lay misery incarnate right before her eyes and, of course, she must
instantly set about relieving it. But how?

"Baltie," or Old Baltimore, as the horse was called, belonged to the
Raulsbury's. Everybody within a radius of twenty miles knew him; knew
also that the family had brought him to the place when they came there
from the suburbs of Baltimore more than twenty years ago. Brought him
a high-stepping, fiery, thoroughbred colt which was the admiration and
envy of all Riveredge. John Raulsbury, the grandfather, was his owner
then, and drove him until his death, when "Baltimore" was seventeen
years old; even that was an advanced age for a horse. From the moment
of Grandfather Raulsbury's death Baltimore began to fail and lose his
high spirits. Some people insisted that he was grieving for the friend
of his colt-hood and the heyday of life, but Jabe Raulsbury, the son,
said "the horse was gettin' played out. What could ye expect when he
was more'n seventeen years old?"

So Baltimore became "Old Baltie," and his fate the plow, the dirt
cart, the farm wagon. His box-stall, fine grooming, and fine harness
were things of the past. "The barn shed's good 'nough fer such an old
skate's he's gettin' ter be," said Jabe, and Jabe's son, a shiftless
nonentity, agreed with him.

So that was blue-blooded Baltie's fate, but even such misfortune
failed to break his spirit, and now and again, while plodding
hopelessly along the road, dragging the heavy farm wagon, he would
raise his head, prick up his ears, and plunge ahead, forgetful of his
twenty years, when he heard a speedy step behind him. But, alas! his
sudden sprint always came to a most humiliating end, for his strength
had failed rapidly during the past few years, and the eyes, once so
alert and full of fire, were sadly clouded, making steps very
uncertain. An ugly stumble usually ended in a cruel jerk upon the
still sensitive mouth and poor old Baltie was reduced to the
humiliating plod once more.

Yet, through it all he retained his sweet, high-bred disposition,
accepting his altered circumstances like the gentleman he was, and
never retaliating upon those who so misused him. During his
twenty-third year he became totally blind, and when rheumatism, the
outcome of the lack of proper stabling and care, added to his
miseries, poor Baltie was almost turned adrift; the shed was there, to
be sure, and when he had time to think about it, Jabe dumped some feed
into the manger and threw a bundle of straw upon the floor. But for
the greater part of the time Baltie had to shift for himself as best
he could.

During the past summer he had been the talk of an indignant town, and
more than one threatening word had been spoken regarding the man's
treatment of the poor old horse.

For a moment the little girl stood in deep, perplexing thought, then
suddenly her face lighted up and her expressive eyes sparkled with the
thoughts which lay behind them.

"I know what I'll do, Baltie: I'll go straight up to Jabe Raulsbury's
and _make_ him come down and take care of you. Good-bye, dear; I won't
be any time at all 'cause I'll go right across the fields," and giving
the horse a final encouraging stroke, she caught up her umbrella which
had meantime been resting handle uppermost up in a mud-puddle, and
scrambling up the bank which had been poor Baltie's undoing,
disappeared beneath the tumble-down fence and was off across the
pasture heedless of all obstacles.

Jabe Raulsbury's farm had once been part of Riveredge, but one by one
his broad acres had been sold so that now only a small section of the
original farmstead remained to him, and this was a constant eyesore to
his neighbors, owing to its neglected condition, for beautiful homes
had been erected all about it upon the acres he had sold at such a
large profit. Several good offers had been made him for his property
by those who would gladly have bought the land simply to have improved
their own places and thus add to the attraction of that section of
Riveredge. But no; not another foot of his farm would Jabe Raulsbury
sell, and if ever dog-in-the-manger was fully demonstrated it was by
this parsimonious irascible man whom no one respected and many
heartily despised.

This wild, wet afternoon he was seated upon a stool just within the
shelter of his barn sorting over a pile of turnips which lay upon the
floor near him. He was not an attractive figure, to say the least, as
he bent over the work. Cadaverous, simply because he was too
parsimonious to provide sufficient nourishing food to meet the demands
of such a huge body. Unkempt, grizzled auburn hair and grizzled auburn
beard, the latter sparse enough to disclose the sinister mouth. Eyes
about the color of green gooseberries and with about as much
expression.

As he sat there tossing into the baskets before him the sorted-out
turnips, he became aware of rapidly approaching footsteps, and raised
his head just as a small figure came hurrying around the corner of the
barn, for the scramble up the steep bank, and rapid walk across the
wet pastures, had set Jean's heart a-beating, and that, coupled with
her indignation, caused her to pant. She had gone first to the house,
but had there learned from Mrs. Raulsbury, a timid, nervous,
woefully-dominated individual, who looked and acted as though she
scarcely dared call her soul her own, that "Jabe was down yonder in
the far-barn sortin' turnips." So down to the "far-barn" went Jean.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Raulsbury," she began, her heart, it must be
confessed, adding, rather than lessening its number of beats, at
confronting the forbidding expression of the individual with whom she
was passing the time of day.

"Huh!" grunted Jabe Raulsbury, giving her one searching look from
between his