It was a sad group that sat in the pleasant kitchen that bright September morning. The good farmer sat before his empty desk, seeming half stupefied by the blow which had fallen so suddenly upon him, while his wife hung about him, reproaching herself bitterly for not having put him on his guard the night before. Hildegarde moved restlessly about the kitchen, setting things to rights, as she thought, though in reality she hardly knew what she was doing, and had already carefully deposited the teapot in the coal-hod, and laid the broom on the top shelf of the dresser. Her heart was full of wrath² and sorrow,—fierce anger against the miserable³ wretch⁴ who had robbed his benefactor⁵; sympathy for her kind friends, brought thus suddenly from comfort to distress⁶. For she knew now that the money which Simon had stolen had been drawn⁷ from the bank only two days before to pay off the mortgage on the farm.  
"I shouldn't ha' minded the money," Farmer Hartley was saying, even now, "if I'd ha' been savin' it jest to spend or lay by. I shouldn't ha' minded, though 'twould ha' hurt jest the same to hev Simon's son take it,—my brother Simon's son, as I allus stood by. But it's hard to let the farm go. I tell ye, Marm Lucy, it's terrible hard!" and he bowed his head upon his hands in a dejection which made his wife weep anew and wring⁸ her hands.
 
"But they will not take the farm from you, Farmer Hartley!" cried Hilda, aghast. "They cannot do that, can they? Why, it was your father's, and your grandfather's before him."
 
"And his father's afore him!" said the farmer, looking up with a sad smile on his kindly⁹ face. "But that don't make no difference, ye see, Hildy. Lawyer Clinch¹⁰ is a hard man, a terrible hard man; and he's always wanted this farm. It's the best piece o' land in the hull¹¹ township, an' he wants it for a market farm."
 
"But why did you mortgage it to him?" cried Hilda.
 
"I didn't, my gal¹²; I didn't!" said the farmer, sadly. "He'd kep' watch over it ever sence Simon began to get into trouble,—reckon he knew pooty well how things would come out; an' bimeby Jason Doble, as held the mortgage, he up an' died, an' then Lawyer Clinch stepped in an' told the 'xecutors how Jason owed him a big debt, but he didn't want to do nothin' onfriendly, so he'd take the mortgage on Hartley's Glen and call it square. Th' executors was kind o' fool people, both on 'em—I d'no' what possessed¹³ Jason Doble to choose them for 'xecutors, when he might ha' hed the pick o' the State lunatic asylum¹⁴ an' got some fools as knew something; but so 'twas, an' I s'pose so 'twas meant to be. They giv' it to him, an' thanked him for takin' it; and he's waited an' waited, hopin' to ketch me in a tight place,—an' now he's done it. An' that's about all there is to it!" added Farmer Hartley, rising and pushing back his massive gray hair. "An' I sha'n't mend it by sittin' an' mowlin' over it. Thar's all Simon's work to be done, an' my own too. Huldy, my gal!" he held out his honest brown hand to Hildegarde, who clasped it affectionately in both of hers, "ye'll stay by Marm Lucy and chirk her up a bit. 'T'll be a hard day for her, an' she hasn't no gal of her own now to do for her. But ye've grown to be almost a daughter to us, Huldy. God bless ye, child!"
 
His voice faltered¹⁵ as he laid his other hand for a moment on the girl's fair head; then, turning hastily away, he took up his battered¹⁶ straw hat and went slowly out of the house, an older man, it might have been by ten years, than he had been the night before.
 
Right daughterly did Hilda show herself that day, and Faith herself could hardly have been more tender and helpful. Feeling intuitively that work was the best balm for a sore heart, she begged for Nurse Lucy's help and advice in one and another item of household routine. Then she bethought her of the churning, and felt that if this thing was to befall, it could not have better befallen than on a Tuesday, when the great blue churn stood ready in the dairy, and the cream lay thick and yellow in the shining pans.
 
"Well, that's a fact!" sighed Nurse Lucy. "If I hadn't forgotten my butter in all this trouble! And it must be made, sorrow or smiles, as the old saying is. Come with me, Hilda dear, if you will. Your face is the only bright thing I can see this sad day."
 
"EACH TOOK A SKIMMER AND SET EARNESTLY TO WORK."
"EACH TOOK A SKIMMER AND SET EARNESTLY TO WORK."
So they went together into the cool dairy, where the light came in dimly through the screen of clematis that covered the window; Hilda bared her round white arms, and Nurse Lucy pinned back her calico sleeves from a pair that were still shapely, though brown, and each took a skimmer and set earnestly to work. The process of skimming cream is in itself a soothing¹⁷, not to say an absorbing one. To push the thick, yellow ripples¹⁸, piling themselves upon the skimmer, across the pan; to see it drop, like melted ivory, into the cream-bowl; to pursue floating cream islands round and round the pale and mimic¹⁹ sea,—who can do this long, and not be comforted in some small degree, even in the midst of heavy sorrow? Also there is joy and a never-failing sense of achievement when the butter first splashes in the churn. So Nurse Lucy took heart, and churned and pressed and moulded her butter; and though some tears fell into it, it was none the worse for that.
 
But as she stamped each ball with the familiar stamp, showing an impossible cow with four lame²⁰ legs—"How many more times," said the good woman, "shall I use this stamp; and what kind of butter will they make who come after me?" and her tears flowed again. "Lawyer Clinch keeps a hired girl, and I never saw real good butter made by a hired girl. They haven't the feeling for it; and there's feeling in butter-making as much as in anything else."
 
But here Hilda interposed, and gently hinted that there ought now to be "feeling" about getting the farmer's dinner. "We must have the things he likes best," she said; "for it will be hard enough to make him eat anything. I will make that apple-pudding that he likes so much; and there is the fowl²¹ for the pie, you know, Nurse Lucy."
 
The little maid was away on a vacation, so there was plenty of work to be done. Dinner-time came and went; and it was not till she had seen Dame²² Hartley safe established on her bed (for tears and trouble had brought on a sick headache), and tucked her up under the red quilt, with a bottle of hot water at her and a bowl of cracked ice by her side,—it was not till she had done this, and sung one or two of the soothing songs that the good woman loved, that Hilda had a moment to herself. She ran out to say a parting word to the farmer, who was just starting for the village in the forlorn hope, which in his heart he knew to be vain, of getting an extension of time from Lawyer Clinch while search was being made for the wretched Simon.
 
When old Nancy had trotted²³ away down the lane, Hilda went back and sat down in the porch, very tired and sad at heart. It seemed so hard, so hard that she could do nothing to save her friends from the threatening ruin. She thought of her father, with a momentary²⁴ flash of hope that made her spring from her seat with a half articulate cry of joy; but the hope faded as she remembered that he had probably just started for the Yosemite Valley, and that there was no knowing when or where a despatch²⁵ would reach him. She sighed, and sank back on the bench with a hopeless feeling. Presently she bethought her of her little dog, whom she had not seen all day. Jock had grown very dear to her heart, and was usually her inseparable companion, except when she was busy with household tasks, to which he had an extreme aversion. A mistress, in Jock's opinion, was a person who fed one, and took one to walk, and patted one, and who was in return to be loved desperately²⁶, and obeyed in reason. But sweeping²⁷, and knocking brooms against one's legs, and paying no attention to one's invitations to play or go for a walk, were manifest derelictions from a mistress's duty; accordingly, when Hilda was occupied in the house, Jock always sat in the back porch, with his back turned to the kitchen door, and his tail cocked very high, while one ear listened eagerly for the sound of Hilda's footsteps, and the other was thrown negligently²⁸ forward, to convey the impression that he did not really care, but only waited to oblige her. And the moment the door opened, and she appeared with her hat on, oh, the rapture²⁹! the shrieks³⁰ and squeaks³² and leaps of joy, the wrigglings of body and frantic³³ waggings of tail that ensued!
 
So this morning, what with all the trouble, and with her knowledge of his views, Hildegarde had not thought to wonder where Jock was. But now it struck her that she had exchanged no greeting with him since last night; that she had heard no little impatient barks, no flapping of tail against the door by way of reminder³⁴. Where could the little fellow be? She walked round the house, calling and whistling softly. She visited the barn and the cow-shed and all the haunts where her favorite was wont³⁵ to linger; but no Jock was to be seen. "Perhaps he has gone over to see Will," she thought, with a feeling of relief. Indeed, this was very possible, as the two dogs were very brotherly, and frequently exchanged visits, sometimes acting³⁶ as letter-carriers for their two mistresses, Pink and Hilda. If Jock was at Pink's house, he would be well cared for, and Bubble would—but here Hildegarde started, as a new perplexity arose. Where was Bubble? They had actually forgotten the boy in the confusion and trouble of the day. He had not certainly come to the house, as he invariably did; and the farmer had not spoken of him when he came in at noon. Perhaps Pink was ill, Hilda thought, with fresh alarm. If it should be so, Bubble could not leave her, for Mrs. Chirk was nursing a sick woman two or three miles away, and there were no other neighbors nearer than the farm. "Oh, my Pink!" cried Hilda; "and I cannot go to you at once, for Nurse Lucy must not be left alone in her trouble. I must wait, wait patiently till Farmer Hartley comes back."
 
Patiently she tried to wait. She stole up to her room, and taking up one of her best-beloved books, "The Household of Sir Thomas More," lost herself for a while in the noble sorrows of Margaret Roper. But even this could not hold her long in her restless frame of mind, so she went downstairs again, and out into the soft, golden September air, and fell to pacing up and down the gravel³⁸ walk before the house like a slender, white-robed sentinel. Presently there was a rustling³⁹ in the bushes, then a hasty, joyful⁴⁰ bark, and a little dog sprang forward and greeted Hildegarde with every demonstration⁴¹ of affection. "Jock! my own dear little Jock!" she cried, stooping down to caress⁴² her favorite. But as she did so she saw that it was not Jock, but Will, Pink's dog, which was bounding and leaping about her. Much puzzled, she nevertheless patted the little fellow and shook paws with him, and told him she was glad to see him. "But where is your brother?" she cried. "Oh! Willy dog, where is Jock, and where is Bubble? Bubble, Will! speak!" Will "spoke³⁷" as well as he could, giving a short bark at each repetition of the well-known name. Then he jumped up on Hilda, and threw back his head with a peculiar⁴³ action which at once attracted her attention. She took him up in her arms, and lo! there was a piece of paper, folded and pinned securely to his collar. Hastily setting the dog down, she opened the note and read as follows:—
 
Miss Hildy,
Simon Hartley he come here early this mornin and he says to me I was diggin potaters for dinner and he come and leaned on the fence and says he I've fixed⁴⁴ your city gal up fine he says and I says what yer mean I mean what I says he says I've fixed her up fine. She thinks a heap of that dorg I know that ain't spelled right but it's the way he said it don't she says he I reckon says I Well says he you tell her to look for him in the pit of the old mill says he. And then he larf LAUGHED I was bound I'd get it Miss Hildy I don't see why they spell a thing g and say it f and went away. And I run after him to make him tell me what he d been up to and climbin over the wall I ketched my foot on a stone and the stone come down on my foot and me with it and I didn't know anything till Simon had gone and my foot swoll up so s I couldn't walk and I wouldnt a minded its hurtin Miss Hildy but it s like there wornt no bones in it Pink says I sprante it bad and I started to go over to the Farm on all fours to tell ye but I didn't know anythin g agin and Pink made me come back. We couldnt nether⁴⁵ on us get hold of Will but now we got him I hope he l go straite, Miss Hildy Pink wanted to write this for me but I druther write myself you aint punk tuated it she says. She can punk tuate it herself better n I can I an ti cip ate I says. From
 
Zerubbabel Chirk
P.S. I wisht I could get him out for ye Miss Hildy.
 
If Bubble's letter was funny, Hilda had no heart to see the fun. Her tears flowed fast as she realized the fate of her pretty little pet and playfellow. The vindictive⁴⁶ wretch, too cowardly to face her again, had taken his revenge upon the harmless little dog. All day long poor Jock had been in that fearful place! He was still only a puppy, and she knew he could not possibly get out if he had really been thrown into the pit of the great wheel. But—and she gave a cry of pain as the thought struck her—perhaps it was only his lifeless body that was lying there. Perhaps the ruffian had killed him, and thrown him down there afterwards. She started up and paced the walk hurriedly, trying to think what she had best do. Her first impulse was to fly at once to the glen; but that was impossible, as she must not, she felt, leave Dame Hartley. No one was near: they were quite alone. Again she said, "I must wait; I must wait till Farmer Hartley comes home." But the waiting was harder now than it had been before. She could do nothing but pace up and down, up and down, like a caged panther, stopping every few minutes to throw back her head and listen for the longed-for sound,—the sound of approaching wheels.
 
Softly the shadows fell as the sun went down. The purple twilight⁴⁷ deepened, and the stars lighted their silver lamps, while all the soft night noises began to make themselves heard as the voices of day died away. But Hilda had ears for only one sound. At length, out of the silence (or was it out of her own fancy?) she seemed to hear a faint, clicking noise. She listened intently: yes, there it was again. There was no mistaking the click of old Nancy's hoofs⁴⁸, and with it was a dim suggestion of a rattle⁴⁹, a jingle⁵⁰. Yes, beyond a doubt, the farmer was coming. Hildegarde flew into the house, and met Dame Hartley just coming down the stairs. "The farmer is coming," she said, hastily; "he is almost here. I am going to find Jock. I shall be back—" and she was gone before the astonished Dame could ask her a question.
 
Through the kitchen and out of the back porch sped the girl, only stopping to catch up a small lantern which hung on a nail, and to put some matches in her pocket. Little Will followed her, barking hopefully, and together the two ran swiftly through the barn-yard and past the cow-shed, and took the path which led to the old mill. The way was so familiar now to Hilda that she could have traversed it blindfold⁵¹; and this was well for her, for in the dense⁵² shade of the beech-plantation it was now pitch dark. The feathery branches brushed her face and caught the tendrils of her hair with their slender fingers. There was something ghostly in their touch. Hilda was not generally timid, but her nerves had been strung to a high pitch all day, and she had no longer full control of them. She shivered, and bending her head low, called to the dog and hurried on.
 
Out from among the trees now, into the dim starlit glade⁵³; down............