Between one happy time and another the summer passed on at Little Homespun. Not that there was not occasionally an unhappy time—if everything had moved perfectly smoothly for three whole months together, in a house where there were four irrepressible children, with many of the faults common to the average child the world over, it simply would have been a miracle outright. No, indeed; there were times now and then when Courage quite lost her patience and would have liked to box and ship those four little Bennetts straight back to their mother, and there were days when even good-natured Mary Duff lost her patience completely, and declared she would chastise the first one of them that dared to cross the threshold of the kitchen; but then, to be quite fair, I have more than a glimmering notion that Courage and Mary Duff had their naughty moods too, as well as the children. You can’t feel perfectly right, you know, and always behave just as 078you should every minute simply because you happen to be grown up. It would be very fine if you could, and there is no doubt that with both grown-ups and children, trying hard to get the best of the naughty moods will in time accomplish wonders.

But taken as a whole the unhappy times at Homespun were nothing more than motes in the Homespun sunshine. Most of the time merry, happy voices rang through and about the house from dawn till sunset. Peals of happy laughter, that made any one laugh who heard them, echoed everywhere. Bits of childish song floated down stairs and up stairs or came in at the open windows—“I’se a little Alabama Coon” always the burden of the refrain when Brevet was down for the day. Then, toward twilight, or more often a little later, when it had really grown quite dark, the same dear childish voices blended in a sweet evening hymn would float out at the open windows, and the little people whose whole minds had been given to play the long summer day through, would quiet down and then go contentedly off to bed, their childish hearts full of a sweet peace that they hardly understood, and which was not strange at all, for it was simply the peace that “passeth all understanding.” 079But not all the days by any manner of means were spent in or about Little Homespun. Joe’s Fourth of July dinner had been a great success, and there had followed several all-day excursions carefully planned in all their details by Uncle Harry, and every one of them voted a great success. The fall that had broken Uncle Harry’s arm had proved a veritable “windfall” for the children, if a windfall means something very pleasant that comes in your way quite by accident, like apples strewn by the wind unexpectedly at your feet. It had not been altogether an unpleasant experience for Uncle Harry either, notwithstanding, though it was now late in August, the arm was still in a sling. Twice it had had to be reset, and that had of course been very trying; and yet but for that arm he would have been delving away the whole summer through in a hot office up at Washington, and the children, without knowing of course what they were missing, would in fact have foregone half the delight of the summer. In Uncle Harry’s profession, no right arm to use meant nothing to do whatever, and so he was thankful enough that Courage and the Bennetts had found their way down to old Virginia, and that he had been able to plan and carry out so many delightful excursions 080for their enjoyment. But the summer’s crown of pleasure, as far as the Bennetts were concerned, had been the days spent at Ellismere with Brevet on his island.

I half believe I have not mentioned this island before, for which omission I am perfectly confident Brevet would never forgive me. The idea of trying to write anything whatever about him and not tell about that island the very first thing! It was altogether a wonderful place, I assure you. It lay about a hundred feet out from the shore, just in front of the Ellismere homestead; and as there was not another island within sight of it, Brevet always gratefully cherished the belief that it had been placed there just for him. It was about seventy feet long, and almost as wide, and it boasted a steep little ledge of rock on the side near the shore and two very respectable little pine trees. But it was what the hand of man had achieved upon this little island that made it the wonderful place it was, and that hand none other than old black Joe’s. It was he who had said one sunshiny May morning: “Brevet, I’ll build a camp for you over on that island,” and true to his word Joe had driven up to Ellismere every day that summer that he could spare from his not very arduous duties at Arlington, and he had worked 081away as zealously as though he had assumed the work under contract.

As a result it had been finished the October previous, and Brevet had had several weeks to enjoy it before the cold weather obliged him to break camp for the winter. Grandma Ellis’s contribution to the scheme had been a cedar row-boat and a pair of spoon oars, by which to have communication with the island, but for everything else Joe was to be thanked. He had cut and sewed the tent, to say nothing of a canvas cot. He had manufactured tables and chairs, and best of all a soldier’s chest, with


HOWARD STANHOPE ELLIS
BREVET-CAPTAIN

burned in clear-cut letters upon the lid. There was even a little desk of rude contrivance upon which Brevet, after the successful conclusion of most exciting battles, would write cheering letters home to his grandmother. Outside of the tent hung a good-sized kettle over a bed of ashes, that bore witness to many a good meal cooked within it, while on the rocky ledge above, a toy brass cannon commanded the harbour, making the island quite invulnerable from any assault that might be attempted from the side near the shore. 082Was it strange then that to the Bennetts, and especially to the boys Teddy and Allan, this unique little spot, with its perfect equipment, offered more possibilities of good times than anything they themselves could in any way concoct or invent?—and they had lived up to their possibilities, though that had involved living at Ellismere most of the time. However, Grandma Ellis assured Courage they were not a bit of trouble, and Courage took her at her word, for the sake of what it meant to the children.

But, of all the wildly-exciting and happy days, none had seemed quite so exciting and happy as the day to which we have now come in this story. Perhaps the fact that there could not by any chance be many more of these times, lent its own specially brightening charm to the blessings that must soon take their flight; for it was the 27th of August by the calendar, and by the middle of September Little Homespun would be closed, and Courage and the Bennetts have taken their departure. Joe had been with the children all day, and he was the one to be thanked for most of its wildly exciting features. Single-handed, but supposed to represent a whole regiment, he had tried in a score of ways to effect a landing on the island; but by dint of unceasing vigi083lance the children had succeeded in keeping him at bay, until at last, despairing and exhausted, he had beaten a retreat to the main land. Indeed, so hard and unremitting had been the labours of the children, that about the middle of the afternoon Courage, who had been having an all-day chat with Grandma Ellis and was afraid the children would quite wear themselves out, succeeded in coaxing them to the shore, under promise of a story, and it was not to be any ordinary, made-up story either. Naturally in her daily contact with the children, Courage had alluded now and then to her own childhood, and with the result that they had extracted from her the pledge that she would tell them all about it some day. But as yet Courage’s “some day” never had dawned, although they had repeatedly begged for the story—now they concluded the time had come to take a stand.

“Will you tell us the story about yourself if we come over?” Teddy called from the island. “We are all agreed we cannot think of laying down our arms unless you will.”

“Agreed,” Courage called back, glad to commit them to an hour of quiet at any cost; and so the children embarked and rowed over, and Grandma entreated so hard that she might be allowed to listen too, that Courage 084yielded, and the little group gathered itself about her big rocking-chair on the gallery. Joe was also permitted to form one of the party; but there was another listener, who would not have been tolerated for a moment if his whereabouts had been known. He was stretched full length on the hair-cloth sofa just between the windows in the living-room, and, knowing it would be quite impossible for him to gain permission to be a hearer, he was just sufficiently unprincipled to listen without so much as saying “by your leave.”

You know the story that Courage told—if not you may read it if you have a mind, in the little book to which this is a sequel. At the outset, of course, she told how she had come by her unusual name, which was the greatest relief to Joe and Brevet. They had wanted so much to have that explained the whole summer through and yet had not quite liked to ask. The remainder of the story was new to all save Grandma Ellis, and Courage, now that she had really started, tried to be faithful to every detail that could possibly have any interest, from the day of her christening to the night when the draw was open and she took her wild leap in the darkness. When she had finished every one sat perfectly still for a minute. Courage told her own story much better 085than any one else has told or could tell it, and her great absorbing love for Miss Julia shone out like a golden thread all through the telling. Grandma Ellis was the first to draw a long breath and break the silence.

“Oh, but I wish I might have known your Miss Julia,” she said.

“You know somebody who is just exactly like her,” said Mary Bennett, putting her arm about Courage; “just exactly!” and this she said very slowly and firmly, as though she thought Courage might be inclined to differ with her, but Courage only said, “Dear child,” in a low whisper, so grateful was she for the most blessed praise that could possibly come to her.

“Let us see Miss Julia’s picture now, please,” urged the children, and Courage drew from her dress an exquisite miniature, set in pearls, and attached to a violet ribbon worn about her neck. They had all seen it many a time before, but it seemed to take on a new beauty in the light of all they had been hearing. It was when the picture had been passed slowly from hand to hand, and the natural thing seemed to be for the little party to break up, that Allan was the first to discover that one of the party had disappeared.

“Why, where is Brevet?” he exclaimed, as 086though part of his personal belongings had given him the slip.

“Why, sure ‘nuff, where is dat chile?” queried Joe, getting up from his chair a little stiffly and peering up to the gallery roof and to the branches of the trees, as though the most unlikely spot imaginable was precisely the spot in which to expect to find his little Captain. “Seems to me it looks a little ugly over there toward Fort Meyer,” he added, stepping to the end of the porch and shading his eyes with his hand.

At these words Harry, who had been thinking over all he had heard, rose noiselessly from the lounge and slipped away to the rear of the house. There he saw at a glance that it did indeed look more than “a little ugly” over toward Fort Meyer. A large, funnel-shaped cloud of a dark brown color loomed high on the horizon and Harry’s heart sank within him. He had seen and known during a summer’s surveying in the West, the wreck and ruin that may follow in the train of such a cloud, and he knew that everything should be gotten into shape as quickly as possible. Hurrying quickly to the front porch he said, with as much composure as he could muster:

“You would better go directly into the house, Grandma, we may be going............