Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Beth Baran, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE. BY MARION AMES TAGGART. [Illustration] NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO: BENZIGER BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE Copyright, 1897, by Benziger Brothers. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. How it Began, 5 II. The Honorary Member, 18 III. A Narrow Escape, 32 IV. The Mysterious Tenant, 46 V. The Invasion of the Amazons, 57 VI. Further Acquaintance, 69 VII. A New Member, 82 VIII. Margery's Plan, 96 IX. One Honorary Member to the Other Honorary Member, 104 X. A Picnic, 118 XI. A Wedding, 132 XII. The End of the Year and of the Post-Office,143 THE BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE. CHAPTER I. HOW IT BEGAN. IT was wonderful that any one could have a bright idea on such a dark day. It had rained in torrents all of the night before and throughout the forenoon, and now that the rain had ceased, the sodden earth sent up clouds of steaming dampness to mingle with the thick fog descending, and they blended together like two gray ghosts of pleasant weather. The lilacs drooped in discouragement, and a draggle-tailed robin sat with hanging wings on the fence, uttering an occasional chirp of protest in such vehement disgust that every time he made the remark it tilted him forward, and agitated him to the tip of his tail. A slender boy lay on the hearth-rug in the light of the fire kindled to dry the dampness, the warmth of which was grateful, although it was almost June. He was recklessly pulling a stitch that was broken in the knee of his stocking all the way down to the ankle, and the gloomy expression of his face indicated a melancholy pleasure in the knowledge that he had no business to do this. Tommy Traddles, the striped cat, sat before a plump little girl on the floor, whose sunny face no amount of bad weather could cloud, watching the hearth-brush in her hand, which she occasionally whisked to and fro for his amusement, and making uncatlike cooings in his throat if she forgot him for too long. Jack Hildreth, the boy on the rug, said he was a cat with a canary-bird attachment. On the edge of a chair opposite the cheery little girl on the floor sat a long-limbed, dark-eyed girl, holding her gypsy face in her hands, her elbows on her knees, listlessly watching Amy Tracy and the cat. They were spending the afternoon with Margaret Gresham, Jack's cousin, who was kept in the house by a cold, and whose tiny figure was curled up in a big leather chair near the fire, and her pale face and big, eager gray eyes looked out from its brown depths in sharp contrast. "I'm going to ask St. Anthony to find the sun," announced the gypsy-like girl suddenly. She spoke through her closed teeth, not taking the trouble to remove her hands from her face. "Not a bad idea, Trix," said Jack, laughing. But their hostess looked shocked. "Why, Beatrice Lane, you shouldn't say that, it isn't right," she protested. "Well, I'm sure it seems lost enough," retorted Trix. "Nothing's lost when you know where it is," said Jack. "I don't know where the sun is, except that it's somewhere in the sky," said Trix. "It's just about there," said Jack, sitting up to point out of the window, and becoming more cheerful in the chance to show off to the girls. "It's sliding right down to the zenith." "Horizon, Jack," interrupted Margery, laughing. "Well, horizon, then; it doesn't matter," Jack said, annoyed. "It's getting ready to slip down to China, and it's more than ninety-five millions of miles away." "Good boy!" said Trix mockingly. "How much he knows! I don't care about the sun anyway, it's too late for it to shine to-day; but if I don't find something to do I'll eat that cat up, Amy." Amy cried out in pretended fear, and gathered Tommy Traddles to her heart, but he remonstrated vigorously, and struggling free sat down in precisely the same spot, wrapping his tail around him, and looking as if he had never been disturbed. "I was thinking," began Margery slowly, "of something nice." "Charlotte Russe?" asked Jack, knowing Margery's weakness. "Cats?" suggested Amy, alluding to another. "Sister Aloysia?" inquired Beatrice, for Margery was devoted to her teacher, and, in school phrase, "had a favorite nun." "It's something nice for us to do," replied Margery, with much dignity, "and it would not be for a day, but for always, and if you make fun of me I'll not tell you." "All right, Margery, we won't, and do tell quick," said Trix. "I wasn't really making fun of you, and I'm dying to hear," said Amy. "Tell ahead, Margery; hurry up," added Jack. Thus urged, Margery sat up, putting down her feet, upon which she had been sitting, and smoothing her skirt to do honor to what she had to reveal. "I was thinking," she began, "that we might form a club, we four." "Like the A. G. L.?" asked Amy. They had banded themselves into an Anti-Gum League, and wore its badge, designed and made by Jack, which consisted of a piece of gum stuck on a bent pin on the centre of a wooden disk, and preceded by the word "No," in large red letters, which of course made the badge read: "No Gum." The only trouble was that the gum frequently fell off, and had to be renewed, and it required chewing in order to mould it soft enough for the pin to enter. The duty of preparing the gum for the badges was unanimously appointed to Jack, and honor forbade his chewing longer than the flavor lasted, which was an agreeable circumstance, and one that made him entertain secret doubts as to his being a worthy member of the league. "No, not like the A. G. L.," said Margery, replying to Amy's question. "The A. G. L. has a noble end, for chewing gum is a bad habit; but this would be more of a club, and only be for fun, though I think it would improve us." "Oh, what is it anyway?" cried Trix impatiently. "There's a big tree down in the orchard," said Margery, "and it's hollow. I thought we might each take a character, and use that name for our letters, and Jack could fix up a box with partitions in it, and we could put it in the hollow tree, and we'd have----" "A post-office!" cried Trix, jumping up in great excitement, her dark eyes snapping. "Margery, it's a great idea." "Hurrah for Margery!" cried Jack. "It's splendid. Oh, Margery, you are so clever!" cried Amy, scrambling up rapidly, to Tommy Traddles' great disgust. "When you do think, Margery, you think," said Trix, pulling Margery out of her chair. "Come on," and holding Margery's slender little hands in her strong brown ones, she pranced around the room in a triumphal dance, followed by both the others, while Tommy Traddles retreated under the sofa, whence he peered out at the performance with dilated eyes. He withdrew his head quickly as the four children fell breathless and laughing on the sofa to discuss and mature Margery's brilliant plan. "What did you mean about names?" asked Jack. "You may write poetry, Margery, but you sometimes get mixed in talking prose." "I mean this," began Margery. "Let's each take some character or name, and let's write to each other by these names instead of our own; it would be more fun. I'd like to be Mary Queen of Scots." "Oh, I'll be Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert!" cried Jack, who in his twelfth year was beginning to taste the joy Sir Walter has to give an imaginative child, and revelled in constantly repeated reading of "Ivanhoe." "I'll be Anthony Wayne, because I'd love to ride down the steps," said Trix enthusiastically; "or Lafayette, or Light Horse Harry, or Napoleon." "O Trix, you can't be a man," expostulated Margery. "Yes, I can. I'd like to know why you can't make believe the whole thing just as well as part of it. I'm as much like a man as you're like Mary Queen of Scots, or Jack is like Sir Whatever-his-name." "Oh, but----" began Margery, with the anxious line appearing between her eyes that always came there when she was worried. "Now I think that it would be a bother to take any of these characters," said Amy, the peacemaker. "You know, all the letters would have to fit the parts, or they'd be silly, and I never could keep up writing _thee_ and _thou_, and _wot ye_, instead of do you know, and all that kind of words. You'd have to write the way Shakespeare did, and I can't." "Can't you? That's queer," remarked Margery, and the rest shouted. "No, I can't," Amy continued, quite unconscious of a joke. "I'd like to be the good Lady Godiva myself, who saved her people from starving, but I couldn't keep it up." "Couldn't you?" asked the others, and laughed again. "No, I couldn't," reiterated Amy, who was the practical little woman of the party. "I say we just take names, and not characters." "Well," assented Margery reluctantly, "I'll be the Lady Griselda of the Castle of the Lonely Lake." "My goodness, Margery; no wonder you write poetry!" exclaimed Beatrice. "I'll be----" but she got no farther. "Now, Trix, please, _please_ don't be a boy," cried Margery. "Well, I think it's mean; I've wanted to be a boy all my life, and you won't even let me play one," grumbled Trix. "But I'll be a daring, splendid girl, then. Couldn't we take a name out of a book?" "Yes; don't you think so, Amy?" "I don't see why not," said Amy. "Then I'll be Catharine Seyton, who barred the door with her arm when the mean Lady of Lochleven tried to break through into the queen's chamber. I heard my brothers reading about it," cried Trix. "It's in 'The Abbot,' by Scott," said Jack, glad to show his acquaintance with literature, which Trix evidently considered grown up. "I'll take Sir Harry Hotspur," he added. "Isn't that history?" asked Margery doubtfully. "No, not exactly," replied Jack. "It's Shakespeare, too; I'll take only his part." Which, though not very clear, was satisfactory. "I'm going to be Mrs. Peace Plenty, a philanthropist," announced Amy, convulsing the rest. "P. P. P.," gasped Margery, emerging from a sofa pillow with her usually pale face crimson. "O Amy, you _are_ so funny, and you never just seem to mean to be." "Well, it's not so funny as that," said Amy, laughing good-naturedly. "What is a philanthropist, Jack?" asked Trix. "How did you know, Amy?" "It's a charitable person," said Jack. "It's a person who loves human beings," said Amy at the same time. "I know, because papa said if I didn't mind my p's and q's I'd grow up to be one, and get on committees; so I asked him what it was, and when he told me I didn't think it would be so bad to be one." "Well, now we have settled the names. Do you think you could make the box, Jack?" asked Margery. "Of course I can," said Jack, looking with loving condescension at the anxiously puckered brow of his little cousin, who, though a year younger than he, was cleverer, yet made such mistakes as this question implied; probably because she was only a girl. "I'll make four divisions in it, and maybe I'll paint it." "And make a drop-box, and nail it outside the tree for us to drop letters in with a slit in the top," said Trix. "Just as you like, Trix," remarked Jack solemnly. "I for one don't mean to write letters with slits in the top. I'll make a slit in the top of the box, though, if you like." "Don't be a goose, Jack," replied Trix, with dignity. "You know I meant that." "We ought to have a name for our club," said Amy. "Yes; I've been thinking of that underneath all the time we were talking," said Margery. Jack stooped down and peeped under the sofa. "I don't see how you could have thought _underneath_, Margery," he said; "I see only Tommy Traddles there." "Now, Jack, don't be funny," said Margery, "and look out for smartness. You know aunty says you are troubled with smartness sometimes. I meant that underneath all we were saying I kept thinking of our name." "Would Post-Office Club do?" asked Amy. "I know; call it the Happy Thought Club," cried Trix, "because it was a lovely thing for Margery to think of, and when we were half dead for something to do, too. And we can have it a secret from all the other girls and boys, and if we had the letters P. O. on our badge they'd know right off what they stood for. We'll have a badge, won't we?" she added. "Let's vote on the name," said Margery. "All in favor of calling it the Happy Thought Club please signify it by saying aye." Four voices instantly chorused "Aye." "Contrary, no," said Margery, and paused. Deep silence reigned, and the clock on the mantelpiece struck once. "I propose we have for a badge a blue ribbon, and get mamma to paint an envelope on it, with the initials of the club over it. Would that be nice?" asked Margery. "Lovely; and now I must go, because that was half-past five that struck," said Trix, jumping up. "So must I," echoed Amy. They hastily bundled themselves into their waterproofs, and Amy was stamping her foot into her right rubber, when she paused with the other rubber suspended in the air, on the way to her left foot. "Why, there's Miss Isabel; we never thought of her!" she cried. "Sure enough." "That's so." "Oh, our dear Miss Isabel," cried Trix and Jack and Margery together. "You'll have to make five divisions in the box, Jack," said Margery decidedly, "for she's got to be an honorary member." CHAPTER II. THE HONORARY MEMBER. THE Miss Isabel for whom a fifth box in the post-office would be necessary lived in a charming old house, which had been built when Washington was a little boy. It had a large, old-time garden, deliciously fragrant of box, syringas, and spicy border pinks, which the children thought the utmost perfection of all that a garden should be, and wherein it was their delight to wander. Miss Isabel was the youngest and only surviving member of a merry band of brothers and sisters, and she seemed too small to live alone in the great house, with its big, empty rooms filled with the saddest and only real ghosts--the memory of those who had occupied them, the echo of feet which had ceased to walk the earth, and voices silenced by the green grass pressing on the lips that death had sealed; and had she been other than Miss Isabel she would have been melancholy; but being Miss Isabel she was as sunny as the day was long. Her gentle life was too full of care for others' sorrows to find time to think of her own, and she was too loving a little soul to ever lack love. The children worshipped her; she was their playmate, counsellor, and ideal. They had the vaguest ideas as to her age, supposing that she must be pretty old, in spite of the fact of her playing with them almost like one of themselves, for they could not remember her other than she was then; but one does not have to live long in order to be always grown up in the memory of little persons of eleven years and less, and in truth Miss Isabel was still young. The children understood that at some time in her life Miss Isabel had not expected to live alone in the big homestead, but had looked forward to a newer home of her own, and that at the last moment something had happened to prevent her marriage. Their elders said Miss Isabel had had "a disappointment," and the children, especially Margery, looked at her with pitying wonder, speculating on how it felt to have such a disappointment that it was spoken of as if written with a big D, and feeling, judging from their own sensations when something failed to which they were looking forward, that it must be very dreadful. It cleared off warm and beautiful after the rain, and in the afternoon the flowers and grass looked a week farther advanced than before the storm, and the discouraged robin darted at the worms in the soft earth with jubilant chirps, and retired to the elm to sing and swing in ecstasy. As soon as school was over the children started for Miss Isabel's. She met them on the broad door-stone, looking, in her soft pink muslin, like an apple-blossom that had drifted there. "Oh, how pretty you are!" cried Trix, giving her an enthusiastic and damaging hug, to Margery's mute amazement. It was a perpetual wonder to her how the others could fondle Miss Isabel so recklessly. If Margery threw her arms around her or kissed her, it was when she had her all to herself, and though she laid deep schemes to walk near her, and sit where she could see her, and often stroked her gown softly on the sly, she never flew to her as Trix and Amy did. She was sometimes afraid that Miss Isabel would think that the others loved her more than she, but she need not have feared; Miss Isabel understood Margery. "We've come to tell you the nicest thing." "We've made you an honorary member." "Margery's thought of something fine." "We're going to have a club," began all four at once. "Dear me!" cried Miss Isabel, laughing; "I shall never be able to listen to four at one time. Even a quadruped couldn't do that, you know, because he has four legs, but not four ears." "Jack, you tell," said Trix generously, feeling it proper to resign the glory to the man of the party. "Well, you know, Miss Isabel," Jack said willingly, "it's Margery's scheme, and we thought it so good we're going to call it the Happy Thought Club. We're going to have a post-office in Uncle Gresham's orchard." "With five boxes, one for you," put in Amy, who had been hopping about wildly, first on one foot and then on the other, longing to speak. "Yes, and we're each going to take a name and write letters to one another, and have a badge, and--and--oh, everything," concluded Jack, waving his hands, as if to include the universe. "And you're to be in it, you're to be in it!" cried Trix and Amy, hugging Miss Isabel at the same time. "Of course she's in it; it wouldn't be much if she weren't," said Jack. "What do you think of it; you haven't said a word?" asked Margery anxiously. "But that was owing to circumstances over which I have no control," laughed Miss Isabel. "Here are you chattering like four of the blackbirds baked in the pie, with the other twenty flown away, and how could I say anything? I think it is a splendumphant plan, and that is a portmanteau word, such as Humpty Dumpty taught Alice in Looking-Glass Land, and it means splendid and triumphant. I am deeply sensible of the honor you do me, ladies and gentleman, in inviting me to join the club, and I accept with joy and gratitude." And Miss Isabel took her pink skirts in each hand, and dropped them a real dancing-school courtesy. "Might one ask what names you have chosen?" she said. "We were going to be people in history," said Margery. "I was going to be Mary Queen of Scots, and Trix wanted to be Anthony Wayne, or Lafayette, or Napoleon, or something else." "Light Horse Harry," said Trix. "Yes; but Amy thought it would be a bother to keep up historical ways of talking--I mean old-fashioned ways--so we decided to take a name, and not a character; so now Jack is Sir Harry Hotspur, and Trix is Catharine Seyton, and I am the Lady Griselda of the Castle of the Lonely Lake, and Amy is Mrs. Peace Plenty, a philanthropist." "Well done, Amy!" cried Miss Isabel, laughing heartily. "All but yours are just the names that I might have guessed they would have taken, and yet yours is, perhaps, the most suitable of all." "What will you take, Miss Isabel?" asked Jack. "Why, I can't answer such an important question without thought," said Miss Isabel. "Can you suggest a name?" "I never could think of a name nice enough for you," said Amy lovingly. "I think it ought to be something like Good Fairy," said Trix, "only that sounds silly." The color had been mounting to Margery's dark hair, and Jack said: "Margery's thought of something. Let's have it, Peggy." "I was thinking of Miss Isabel's name after I went to bed last night," the little girl said slowly. "I knew what it ought to mean, but you couldn't make it sound like a name in English, so I asked papa this morning if you could have any words for it in any other language that would sound like a name, and he told me some. And I think," she said, very low, "if Miss Isabel will, it would be nice for her to be Lady Alma Cara." Miss Isabel gave Margery such a look that her eyes filled with happy tears. "I would never have dared take such a lovely name," Miss Isabel said, "but if my dear little Margery will give me it, I shall be proud to have it." "What does it mean?" asked Trix. "I think Dearest Darling is about what it would be in English," said Miss Isabel. "That's you." "That's just the name." "Indeed, you are our dearest darling," said Jack and Trix and Amy. But Margery said nothing, feeling all warm and cosey inside, for she had named Miss Isabel, and her loving look had thanked her better than words. "Now, how about a postmark?" asked Miss Isabel. "We never thought of that," said the children. "Well, it seems to me that since we have all taken names, it would be nice to play that our post-office was in some town with a pretty title, and not postmark our letters with the real name of the town like ordinary letters," said Miss Isabel. "But how can we postmark at all?" asked Jack. "If you don't mind, I will have a stamp made," said Miss Isabel, "and the postmaster or postmistress can have an ink pad, and stamp each envelope, like the real office." "Oh, isn't that fine," "Oh, you blessed, little Miss Isabel!" "Didn't I say she ought to be called the good fairy?" "You always think of _such_ things," chorused her visitors. "Then that's settled," continued Miss Isabel. "Now, what shall we call our town? If this is the Happy Thought Club, wouldn't it be a good idea to call the place also something that meant happiness?" "Joyberg," remarked Margery thoughtfully. "That wouldn't do; sounds like June bug," said Jack decidedly. "Happiness Centre," suggested Amy. "That is good, but a trifle long, Amy," said Miss Isabel. "How would Bliss-sylvania do?" asked Jack. "It's like Pennsylvania, you know, and would mean _bliss_ and _woods_, and that would be saying that we had fun in the tree in the orchard." "I don't know," began Miss Isabel doubtfully, but was overwhelmed by a chorus of applause from the three little girls, whom the name struck favorably. "But how could we get on with so many s's in the middle?" asked Amy; "there are three right together." "We could easily drop one, if that is the only drawback," said Miss Isabel, "and write it B-l-i-s-s-y-l-v-a-n-i-a. That is often done in spelling, and is called elision of a letter." "It is lovely," cried all the little girls. "Jack, how did you come to think of it?" Jack tried to look modest. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "It just popped into my head." "Like all great thoughts," added Miss Isabel. "We will make you mayor of Blissylvania, Jack. How about postage-stamps, girls and boy?" "Oh, must we have stamps?" they asked. "Why, certainly not, if you would rather not; but I thought it would be more fun," said Miss Isabel. "I could paint some--say, a dozen for each of us, and then they need not be cancelled, except with a pencil-mark that would easily rub off, so they would last a long time." "It would be much nicer, but you ought not to bother, Miss Isabel," said Amy. "It is no trouble; I'll do them in the evening, and if Jack makes the box, and you all do lots of things, I ought to do something. An honorary member must be an honorable member," said Miss Isabel, smiling. "May I ask you to go into the arbor in the garden while I ask Mary to make some lemonade and bring it to us with cake, that we may eat and drink to the health of the Happy Thought Club of Blissylvania?" The children passed through the great hall, and out the door opposite the front one, which admitted them to the beloved garden. On the way they decided for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, at least, that their Miss Isabel was the _dearest thing_, and that there was no one on earth quite like her. This decision had hardly been arrived at when she rejoined them. "When shall we begin?" she asked, bending her head under the wistaria vine drooping above the entrance to the arbor. "I'm going to make the box to-night, and we thought we'd get the thing up and everything ready to-morrow," answered Jack. "Yes, and begin Monday," added Margery. "You see this is Friday, and we shall have all day Saturday to get ready, and Sunday is a nice day to write letters, for we all go to children's Mass at nine, you know, and can write all day." "Stopping to eat, I hope," laughed Miss Isabel. "We are going to give you box number one, because--oh, because you are _you_, and an honorary member," said Jack. "And Margery's to have two, because she thought of the plan----" "And you'll have to have three, because you named the town, Jack," interrupted Margery. "And Trix and Amy will have four and five," resumed Jack. But Miss Isabel, foreseeing possible danger, interposed. "I wouldn't have any rewards of that kind," she said. "I'd have Blissylvania a real republic, with every one equal, and draw lots for numbers." "So would I," echoed Margery heartily. "I don't want to be first because I thought of the plan." "I'd like to do something to celebrate the club," cried Trix, balancing on one foot on the seat of the arbor. "I'd like to do something queer." As she spoke the board, which was loose at one end, flew up and sent Trix flying first upward, and then into a collapsed heap under the seat. "You've done it!" shouted Jack, in ecstasy--"you've done the queer thing!" "O Trix, are you hurt?" cried the other two girls anxiously. Trix's eyes were on a level with her knees, for she had fallen through, doubled up like a jack-knife. "I fell down," she remarked, vainly trying to extricate herself. "I thought I heard something drop!" cried Jack, rolling over in spasms of laughter, while Miss Isabel, laughing, too, at Beatrice's funny appearance and remark, helped get her up. "I think we'd better go home," said Amy. "When Trix gets crazy there's no telling what will happen." "It has happened," remarked Jack, looking down whence Trix had emerged. "O jolly me!"--Jack's favorite and appropriate exclamation--"O jolly me, Trix, you killed a mud worm. I knew you didn't like them, but you needn't have sat on him so hard." "O Jack, I didn't! O Jack, where?" cried Trix, running to look. "Oh, yes, I did! Oh, please look and see if there's any of him on me!" she cried, spinning round and round wildly, in a vain effort to see the back of her own dress. "Oh, the dreadful thing!" "See here, Trix," said Jack, "I thought you wanted to be a boy. No boy would make a row about such a little thing as sitting on a mud worm." Trix disdained to answer. "We ought to go, it's getting late," she said instead. "Good-night, Miss Isabel." "Good-night, dears; good-night all of you," said Miss Isabel, kissing each happy face twice over, except Jack's, who stood for the dignity of his sex, and was not kissed, even by Miss Isabel--that is, unless no one were looking. "You shall have the post-mark and ink-pad to-morrow afternoon, and I am very grateful to you for letting me join you." "Grateful! Pooh!" cried Jack, voicing the sentiments of them all. "We couldn't get on without you." CHAPTER III. A NARROW ESCAPE. SATURDAY morning Jack appeared whistling energetically as he triumphantly balanced a box on his left hand, and swung another in his right. He was early, but the three girls were earlier, and had swept the dead leaves from under the apple-tree destined for the office, and had cleared out the hollow which was to hold the box, to the noisy indignation of a woodpecker and his dame who had chosen the tree for a summer residence. Jack was hailed with a cry of rapture. "Here's the office!" he shouted, breaking into a run as he saw the little girls; "and this is the drop-box." So saying he stubbed his toe on one of the many rough places in the orchard, and boy and boxes went headlong in three directions. "I see it is a drop-box," remarked Trix dryly, getting square on the account of the previous night. "O Jack, have you broken them?" cried Amy, while Margery stood still in mute anguish. "Guess not; no, they're all right," replied Jack, gathering up his burdens. "Aren't they just James dandies?" The girls, who had renounced slang with gum, pronounced them "lovely" and "beautiful." One was a starch-box, divided through the middle into an upper and lower section, the upper partitioned into three pigeon-holes, each numbered, and the lower half made into two divisions, likewise numbered. The box was painted a wood brown, with the words "Post-Office" in white over the top, and the numbers were also white. Jack had wanted to paint the box red, but Amy had convinced him that it would be in greater danger of discovery in such a bright color, and he had yielded to prudence. The second box was red, however, for Jack had literally stood to his colors in this case, maintaining that all Uncle Sam's drop-boxes were red, and Blissylvania's must be no exception to the rule. This had a slit cut in the top large enough for letters to pass through, and was not less admired than the post-office. "But how shall we get parcels in?" asked Margery, and Jack explained that for this it was only necessary to lift the lid, which would not be fastened. Every one found this arrangement perfectly satisfactory, and the office was nailed into the tree by Jack at the cost of only one bruised finger, while the girls executed a sort of war-dance around him in irrepressible satisfaction. The drop-box was fastened on a stump ten or twelve feet from the office, which made it still more like a real post-office, for, as Margery explained, the postmistress could play she was a postman collecting and bringing in the mail when she took the things out of the drop-box, and needn't pretend she was postmaster till she began sorting them at the apple-tree. Nothing could have been more encouraging than the morning operations, but in the afternoon the H. T. C. and the town of Blissylvania narrowly escaped a catastrophe that would have been like an earthquake, sweeping the fair city from the earth. It all came from the honorary member's generosity. True to her promise, Miss Isabel hastened down to town in the morning early, and ordered the stamp made for the postmark. It was to be of leaden type, that allowed the changing of date each day, and as the type was already in stock the shopkeeper promised to deliver it that afternoon. Margery's mamma had painted the badges according to the design selected at the first meeting, only substituting a white carrier-pigeon as the device instead of an envelope, because, as Margery explained to the others, "it was more poetical than an envelope and prettier." The badge was of beautiful blue ribbon, the pigeon painted in white, surmounted by the initials of the club--H. T. C. And it may be stated here that unsatisfied curiosity as to the secret moved the other school-children to derision, and Jack, Margaret, Beatrice, and Amy were called the "Highty Tighty Cooing Pigeons," shortened for convenience to "The Doves." The four were wrapped in admiration over their beautiful badges, when the postmark arrived. Each one tried it in turn, and at every impression the magic circle enclosing the words, "Blissylvania, June 8th, 1896"--for the date was set ready for the first use on Monday--seemed more entrancing. They all repaired to the orchard to see if it worked equally well on the big stone which they had selected for its table, and here the little cloud appeared that rolled up into a storm. It was such unutterable bliss to press the stamp on the ink-pad, and then make the impression on the white paper, that the office of postmaster suddenly seemed to each one the honor most to be coveted in all the world. "I wonder how we shall decide who is to be postmaster," remarked Trix casually, as she reluctantly gave Amy the stamp to try. Each face reddened slightly; evidently they had all been thinking of the same thing. "I don't see how a girl can be postmaster," said Jack. "Pshaw! We can be postmistress, and it's all the same," said Amy, speaking sharply for her. "I should think it was more a man's place," continued Jack. "It's a place for a girl that is strong and quick, and like a boy," said Trix hastily. "I live right here, where I could look after it," said Margery, bringing the discussion from abstract views on suitability to the personal application they were all secretly making. "That's the very reason why you shouldn't be postmistress!" cried peace-loving Amy, ruffling her feathers. "You shouldn't have everything." "Oh, you're no good for it, Peggy!" said Jack, with easy scorn. "It needs a boy, and I'm the only boy; so of course I've got to be postmaster." "Well, I like that," cried Trix, with eyes flashing like a whole woman's-rights convention in one small body. "Every one knows girls are heaps quicker and smarter than boys. I'd be a better postmaster than any of you, if I do say so." "You! You're too harum-scarum; you'd lose half the mail!" cried Amy. "I'd be a much better one, and you know it." "Well, I'd not lose the mail!" said Trix, trembling and stammering in indignation. "You think I'm harum-scarum because you're such a poke." "Well, there's no good you girls fighting about it, because I'm the boy, and I'm going to be postmaster!" remarked Jack, with such maddening certainty that the girls turned on him in a body. "You'll be nothing of the sort!" screamed Trix, stamping her foot. "You won't touch my letters!" cried Amy. "If you were a gentleman you'd not want to take a lady's place!" said Margery, with withering scorn. "No gentleman ever sits down when a lady hasn't a seat." "I'd like to know who wants to sit down?" demanded Jack. "If you felt as you ought, you'd want your cousin to be postmaster," said Margery. "Well, I don't; so there!" said Jack. "Who does?" asked Trix, deserting her ally and turning on Margery. "You've got the office in your orchard, and that's enough." "If I'd known that you'd all have been so selfish I'd never have said have a post-office," said Margery, turning away to hide the tears which always would come when she was angry, spoiling the effect of her most telling remarks. "You're selfish yourself, because you want it as much as we do, and that is why you think we're selfish," said Amy, with so much truth that Margery could not retort. "You're the meanest three in the world!" cried Trix. "That counts me out, for you girls are the three, and Trix is the worst!" shouted Jack. "If I was half as mean as the rest of you I'd go to some old-clothes man, and try to sell myself," said Amy, the mild. "You wouldn't get much," said Trix, not realizing her retort was rather against herself. "I think I don't care about a post-office," remarked Margery, with quivering lips. "I think I'll not be in it, and if you want one you can have it some other place than my orchard." "I don't want one," said Trix. "It's a stupid thing anyhow," said Amy. "No one with any sense would ever have proposed it," said Jack. "Then we'll give it all up," said Margery, in a low voice. A quarrel was not a little thing to her, as it was to the others, but an awful tragedy. And at this terrible moment Miss Isabel came down the orchard, looking as fresh and calm as if there were no such thing as anger in all the world. It did not require her keen eyes to see the flushed faces and trembling lips, and feel the electricity in the air, but she discreetly pretended to observe nothing. "Good-morrow, brave Sir Hotspur, noble Lady Catharine Seyton, kind Mrs. Plenty, fair Lady Griselda," she said. "Good-afternoon, Miss Isabel," responded four melancholy voices, from which joy seemed forever fled. "I see the postmark came. I was uneasy lest it fail to arrive, and came over to ask about it," continued Miss Isabel cheerfully. "Is it good? Oh, yes; those are very clear impressions you made. Do you know, I like the name Blissylvania much better than I thought I should?" No answer; the children were beginning to feel dreadfully ashamed, for though they were perfectly at ease with Miss Isabel, they cared too much for her good opinion to be anything but their best before her. "I brought the stamps," continued Miss Isabel, with persistent, cheerful blindness. "Here they are." Jack had been digging a hole with his heel ever since Miss Isabel had arrived, and it required his entire attention. Giving an extra deep backward thrust, he said without looking up: "It's a pity you took that trouble, Miss Isabel, for we're not going to have a post-office after all." A sob from Margery followed this remark. "Why, what is the matter?" asked Miss Isabel, looking from one gloomy face to another, and drawing Margery's, which was hidden from her, on her knee. "Well," said Trix desperately, "we're all mad. We got into a fuss about who would be postmaster, and we decided to give the thing up." "What do you mean; you couldn't decide who should be postmaster first?" asked Miss Isabel. "Of course you intend to take turns in office?" Jack, Trix, and Amy glanced at each other, and Margery stopped sobbing to listen. Simple as this solution of the difficulty was, no one had thought of it. "We didn't mean that; we thought some one would be postmaster all the time," said Jack. "Oh, dear me, I should think you would get into a fuss if you tried to decide who was to have the fun all alone," laughed Miss Isabel. "And so you were going to give up the whole thing, and cheat me of all the pleasure you promised me because you did not hit on such a simple plan! And last night we decided that Blissylvania was to be a real republic, with every one equal! Look up, little Marguerite; you are a daisy too wet with rain just now. Don't make mountains of molehills, children; it is much wiser to make molehills of the mountains we have to climb in life. Now, I think each would better be postmaster a week at a time, and draw lots for the order of serving. Or, perhaps, it would be better still to have the term of office last but three days, for then the terms will come around quicker." She did not add that this would give each a second chance to serve in case they tired quickly of the new play, but she thought it. "Shall we draw lots for turns now?" she asked, reaching for the white paper on which they had been making impressions before the storm broke. "Yes, Miss Isabel," said Jack and Amy and Trix meekly, while Margery sat up pale and trembling, and began to dry her eyes. The others glanced at her wonderingly; they never could understand why Margery seemed half sick if she had been angry or had cried. Miss Isabel wrote the numbers, and they drew, Amy number one, Trix two, Margery three, and Jack four. "Now please show me the boxes. Why, they are very nicely made, Jack; did you do it alone?" "Yes, Miss Isabel," said Jack, beaming, all trace of anger melted in the sunshine of her presence. "And look, Miss Isabel, here's the drop-box," cried Amy. "You put letters through the slit in the top, and when you have a parcel you lift the cover and put it inside." Miss Isabel laughed. "That is a wee bit like the story of the man who made a large hole for his cat to go in and out, and a small one alongside for the kitten. But it is certainly the nicest kind of a post-office, and I think, perhaps, that I shall get more pleasure out of it than any of you." Which was a much truer prophecy than Miss Isabel herself dreamed. "We are to write letters to-morrow, and begin Monday, are we not?" "Yes; oh, what fun!" cried Trix, catching Amy around the waist, and waltzing her about the old apple-tree and back again. No one but Margery seemed to remember "the late unpleasantness;" she stood a little apart, very pale, but trying to smile. "Do you know, I think it is unusually warm for the sixth of June?" remarked Miss Isabel. "I wonder if I could get any one to walk down to Bent's to eat ice-cream with me?" Jack turned a somersault at once. "Don't try if you don't want to succeed, Miss Isabel," he said. "Come, then, every one of you," she cried merrily, "for I do want to succeed. And I propose that we wear our beautiful new badges, for we are to go in a body as a club." "Let me pin them on, please," said Margery. She had been longing for a chance to beg pardon, and saw it here. "I'm dreadfully sorry I was so cross, Jack," she whispered, pinning the badge, and at the same time rubbing her cheek on his gray jacket. "Oh, that's all right, Megsy. You're never much cross," he whispered back, and would have liked to have kissed her little white face, for he dearly loved his cousin. "Please forgive me, Trix, for being so mean," she whispered, as she reached her, and Trix stared at her for a moment in amazement. "Why, I forgot all about it," she said. "I was meaner than you anyhow." And she kissed her. Amy put her arms around Margery before she could speak. "It's all right, Margery; forgive me, too," she whispered. And so, at peace with all the world and each other, the Happy Thought Club, that had so narrowly escaped destruction, sallied forth to eat ice-cream. CHAPTER IV. THE MYSTERIOUS TENANT. THE opening of the post-office was a great success. Amy, who was the first to go into office as postmistress, had a busy time for the three days of her term. Every member of the H. T. C. wrote the other four one letter a day with praiseworthy regularity, so there were twenty letters daily for the postmistress of Blissylvania to handle, not to mention packages and papers, and the invisible city of Blissylvania did more mail business than many of Uncle Sam's offices in far-off country places. There was a slight falling off in mail on the second day of Trix's term, which followed Amy's, for Jack found so much and such regular correspondence exhausting to mind and body, and was first to complain that he had nothing to say. It was even found, when the ladies compared notes on the fifth day after the office opened, that he had basely written one letter, and copied it three times--Miss Isabel requiring a different style of composition--but they had agreed to feign ignorance of this action, charitably excusing it on the ground of boys' well-known deficiencies. There was difficulty about Margery's address. She insisted that the whole title and address must be used, but Jack declared it was expecting too much of any one to write on the small space of the back of their letters, which for economy's sake were so folded as to serve instead of envelopes: "Lady Griselda, At the Castle of the Lonely Lake, Blissylvania, New York," which was what Margery desired. They compromised, following Miss Isabel's suggestion, on "Lady Griselda of the Castle, Blissylvania, New York," because, as Miss Isabel pointed out, there could be no mistake, there being but one Lady Griselda and one castle. Taken altogether, the post-office could hardly have succeeded better, and if there were any danger of its losing charm, it was saved by a new interest arising, which gave a novel topic for conversation and supplied Jack with the needed subject for correspondence. It was a little after eight o'clock on the sixth morning after the post-office opened, and Margery was practising. She was as faithful in this as in everything else, and to the inexpressible wonder of her playmates no strategy or coaxing could get her to leave the piano before her time was up. This seemed to Trix, who seized any excuse to shorten the hated task, little short of insanity, and a new proof of the queerness that they all recognized in dreamy, sensitive Margery. They did not understand that Margery was an unconscious philosopher, and since the thought of an unfulfilled duty would spoil her pleasure, preferred to secure a thorough good time by clearing away any possible hindrances to one. Trix came into the room, and finding Margery at the piano, sighed. "I suppose there's no use talking to you until you're done," she said, throwing herself in a big chair. "And I've the most interesting thing to tell you." Margery shook her head. "How long must you practise; till half after?" Margery nodded, the nod coming in well on an accented note. Up and down went the nimble fingers, playing an exercise, with the metronome ticking on the piano. Trix fidgeted and wriggled down in the chair, and pulled herself up, watching the clock the while. "Margery, it's _such_ an interesting thing," she said plaintively at last. "In ten minutes," sang Margery to the accompaniment of the scale. "Play with Tommy Traddles while you wait." "Oh, Margery, _won't_ you stop?" cried Trix, after three minutes had passed. No answer but _arpeggios_. "Margaret Gresham, you're chewing gum," cried Trix, resorting to strategy. "I am not," said Margery, coming down in flat contradiction and a false chord at one and the same time. "I'm chewing the side of my tongue." "Why don't you have a cud?" asked Trix, delighted at having trapped Margery into speech. But she was not to be caught again. Shaking her head she began playing her new piece, which, true to her principles, she had left till the last. Finally the tiresome clock struck once. Trix sprang up. "You shall not finish that page," she cried, catching Margery around the waist and pulling her off the stool. "You said half-past, and it is half-past; so stop." "But I _must_ finish that page, Trix," she protested. "Unfinished tunes I can't stand." "Well, you'll have to," declared Trix. "Listen to me. The Dismals is rented!" "The Dismals" was the children's name for a very large, untenanted place called the Evergreens. "Why, the Dismals is never rented!" cried Margery. "It hasn't had any one in it since we were born." "Yes; but it has now," replied Trix. "There is a man there, and he lives all alone. Our waitress, Katie, told me about it last night. I thought I'd never go to sleep for thinking about him. Katie knows
{'title': 'The Blissylvania Post-Office by Marion Ames Taggart', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}