HE warm and hazy September days were over. The first of October had come in by the calendar, but although its sun had not yet peeped over the horizon, there were unmistakable signs in the east which heralded its coming. As for Hazel, she was up “with the lark,” as the saying goes, and with good reason, too, for never did any mere little feathered songstress have as much in hand as had she for that first day of October, and it all depended upon the weather.
What wonder, then, with so much on her mind, that the first ray of daylight succeeded in shimmering in beneath the long lashes of her eyes, first setting their lid a-tremble and then prying them open, so that their little owner soon found herself wide awake, and that the eventful day had dawned. But what sort of a day was it going to be, that was the all-important question. Hazel threw open the shutters of her window. The vine that crept along its sill was dripping wet—could it be raining? She stretched out a little brown hand that was all of a tremble with excitement, to test if rain were really falling. No, not a drop. It was dew on the vines, of course; how foolish not to have thought of that! But what made the sky so gray? Was it cloudy? Then she tripped over to the clock. Why, so early as that! Then perhaps the sun was not up yet. No, come to look again, of course it wasn’t, it was just daylight.
Having reached this conclusion, Hazel, wisely slipping into a flannel wrapper and a pair of bedroom slippers, sat down to wait the rising of that very lazy sun, and soon he came. She watched till he was full above the horizon, then assuring herself that there were no threatening clouds anywhere, crept back into bed, wrapper, slippers, and all, with a mind quite at ease, and in just the sort of a mood for the most refreshing of little morning naps.
One, two, one, two, Company F was marking time preparatory to marching on again, and Sergeant Bellows was in command.
It was two o’clock now, and the sun, for whose dawning Hazel had watched so eagerly, was well on his journey, and shining down on the burnished flint-locks and scarlet coats of Company F, coats which looked bravely in the morning sunlight, notwithstanding many a stain and mark of active service. But not for any skirmishing with their enemies were those English soldiers under marching orders, for never again were they to wage battle with the colonists on American soil. It was now nearly two years since the great battle of Yorktown, when the British soldiers had laid down their arms, and Lord Cornwallis’s sword had been surrendered to General Washington, and it would not be long before the whole army, under command of Sir Guy Carleton, would go sailing homeward down the harbor, and not a British roll-call, nor a soldier answering to it, would be heard anywhere in the land. But, somehow or other, notwithstanding all this, Company F, of His Majesty’s service, did not look very crestfallen, as they stood there marking time, until a great overhanging load of hay should leave the road clear ahead of them. They had had plenty of time to get used to the thought of not having beaten the Yankees; in fact, some of them went so far as to openly express their honest admiration for the plucky, desperate fashion in which those some poorly equipped Yankees had fought, and did not begrudge them their hard-earned victory. Then in seven weeks more they were to turn their faces toward home and England; toward England, which some of them had not seen for eight long years; toward home, where little children had outgrown their childhood, where dear wife faces had grown worn with waiting, and where white-haired mothers, wearied with watching, had perhaps been laid at rest in the little village churchyards. But, come weal or woe, they were soon going home; you could see their faces daily grow brighter with the thought, and happening this morning to have a most novel entertainment in prospect, what wonder that almost every one wore an amused smile, and that every eye twinkled merrily. The clumsy hay-load slowly moved out of the way, and then came the order, “For’ard, march!” from Sergeant Bellows, and off they went, with even swing up Broadway, turning off at the Albany coach road, and then on out into the country. “Halt!” called Sergeant Bellows at last, and Company F halted right in front of Captain Boniface’s cottage. It could not have been that they were not expected, for Hazel, with beaming smile, stood holding the gate wide open, and the men filed in and took their seats in chairs which had evidently been placed in rows in the garden for them. The chairs fronted the porch, and were grouped in semicircular shape about the wide steps leading up to it, at the top of which a curtain (for which two blanket shawls had been made to do duty) hung suspended, the cord that held it being fastened to the fluted column at either end. That the shawls were of widely differing plaids, and at great variance in the matter of color, only added to the generally fantastic effect. Without doubt there was going to be some sort of a performance, and it was easy now to guess that Hazel’s “‘rangements” had been in the line of preparation for it, and easy now to understand why her little ladyship had been up with the lark, to ascertain, if possible, what sort of a day it was going to be. Somehow or other I should not in the least wonder if the “Old Man of the Weather” loves to have a little child place implicit trust in him now and then’; surely he does, if he is at all like some of the rest of us whom you little folks call old. At any rate the weather not only favored Hazel’s project, but seemed just to give itself up to making everything comfortable for everybody. The sun saw to it that the old house cast a broad square shadow in front of it that was more than large enough to cover the space where the men were seated, and the wind saw to it that a sufficiently strong little breeze was blowing to temper the early afternoon sunshine, and everything conspired to make it a perfect October day, a sort of good example, as it were, for the thirty other October days that were to follow it.
At last it was time for that mysterious many-colored curtain to be drawn aside, and certain vigorous jerkings of the shawls showed that an attempt was being made in that direction. What did it matter to Company F if it did not work with all the smoothness to be desired, since it finally disclosed to them as fair a little specimen of humanity as the eyes of most of them had ever rested upon. In the centre of the stage, or rather of that portion of the porch which had been divided off for it, sat Hazel’s little sister in an old-fashioned high-back chair, her pretty slippered feet reaching but a little way over its edge, and her little dimpled hands folded in her lap in most complacent fashion. She wore a short-waisted, quaint little white dress, barely short enough to show the prettily slippered feet.
Not at all dismayed was little Kate at the sight of so many soldiers seated there in such formal array before her. What was every beautiful Red Coat but another embodiment of her own dear papa; and not in the least alarmed was she by the loud applause which the mere sight of her elicited from admiring Company F. She turned her pretty head on one side and then on the other, her little face wreathed in smiles, and seeming to say in silent baby-fashion, “Thank you, gentlemen.” Not that she could not talk. No, indeed, do not think that for a moment; her baby tongue could move with all the insistent chatter of a little English sparrow; but the right time had not come yet. As soon as the applause had somewhat abated, Hazel herself appeared on the scene, arrayed in a jaunty little riding-habit, and with cheeks aglow with excitement, looking prettier, perhaps, than ever before in her life. As was to be expected, her appearance was the cause for renewed applause; but finally all was quiet, and she stepped forward to deliver a little speech which had been carefully thought over. She had insisted upon wearing her riding-habit, because, as she had told her mother, she was to be a sort of showman. Of course she did not want to wear boys’ clothes, but the riding-habit seemed sort of a go-between, “and more like the thing a lady who managed a private circus would wear.” So Mrs. Boniface consented, and Josephine, in helping Hazel to dress, had added an extra touch or two. Her habit was made of gray cloth, with a long, full skirt that came within a foot of the ground when Hazel was on her pony; but in order that she should be able to move about the platform as freely as was necessary, Josephine had caught the skirt up on one side, fastening it with two or three brilliant red chrysanthemums, and pinning a bunch of the same bright flowers against her waist. On her head she wore a black velvet jockey cap which had been sent her by her grandpa from England, and which completed the jauntiness of her costume.
0090
“Members of Company F,” Hazel began, holding her riding-whip in both hands before her, “I wish to thank you for coming here this afternoon, and to tell you that I hope you will feel repaid for your long march out from the city.”
“No doubt about that, Miss Hazel,” Sergeant Bellows called out, heartily..
“Thank you, Sergeant;” but Hazel’s manner was somewhat stiff, as though she preferred that more formality should be observed. “But before commencing our performance,” she continued, “I must ask you to bear in mind that it is not an easy thing to get up a regular circus in a private family, ‘specially at such very short notice. There was no time to teach anything new, even to the baby, who learns very easily, and it was just by good luck that Prince and Kate and Delta knew some little tricks already. As for Flutters, it will not take you long to discover that his part of the performance needs no apology.”
Hazel concluded her little speech with a graceful bow, and, turning toward Kate, who still sat smiling, announced: “I have now the pleasure, gentlemen, of introducing to you Miss Kate Boniface, as fine a little three-year-old as ever was reared in Westchester County. Miss Kate is quite a favorite with the management, being, what we consider, a most gifted little lady. She has an original little dance of her own, one little song, and one little piece, which she speaks with dramatic effect.”
“Which s’all I do first, Hazel?” asked Kate, in a most audible whisper, when she saw that it was time for her to commence.
“Why, the dance of course, child,” Hazel answered, forgetting their relations of manager and artiste.
“But where’s de music?”
Sure enough, where was the music? “Job,” called Hazel, blushing up to the roots of her hair with embarrassment, “we are waiting for you.”
“Coming, Mrs. Manager,” came the answer, and a moment later Starlight bounded through the green boughs, which had been arranged at the back of the scene, violin in hand, and in a costume befitting the clown of the performance. His resemblance to the real article was truly quite remarkable, for Cousin Harry had taken a great deal of interest in his “make-up,” and the result was a face as white, with cheeks as red and eyebrows as high, black, and arching, as were ever attained by Mr. John Dreyfus, the English clown of world-renowned reputation. Starlight was able to play half-a-dozen tunes on an old violin which had belonged to his grandfather, and this formed a most attractive and most important feature of the Boniface circus. Otherwise Company F would have been obliged to forego little Kate’s dancing, than which nothing was ever daintier or prettier. But not an inch would her little ladyship move from her chair till Starlight had gone through a series of scrapings called “tuning up,” and a merry little dancing tune was well under way. Then she jumped down, and running to the front of the platform made the most bewitching of conventional little bows, pressing the fingers of both hands to her lips, as if generously to throw the sweetest of kisses broadcast. It was very evident, then, to the Red Coats—Miss Hazel to the contrary that t............