The Little Colonel's Holidays

  CHAPTER I.

  THE MAGIC KETTLE.

  ONCE upon a time, so the story goes (you may read it for yourself in thedear old tales of Hans Christian Andersen), there was a prince whodisguised himself as a swineherd. It was to gain admittance to abeautiful princess that he thus came in disguise to her father's palace,and to attract her attention he made a magic caldron, hung around withstrings of silver bells. Whenever the water in the caldron boiled andbubbled, the bells rang a little tune to remind her of him.

  "Oh, thou dear Augustine, All is lost and gone,"

  they sang. Such was the power of the magic kettle, that when the waterbubbled hard enough to set the bells a-tinkling, any one holding hishand in the steam could smell what was cooking in every kitchen in thekingdom.

  It has been many a year since the swineherd's kettle was set a-boilingand its string of bells a-jingling to satisfy the curiosity of aprincess, but a time has come for it to be used again. Not that anybodynowadays cares to know what his neighbour is going to have for dinner,but all the little princes and princesses in the kingdom want to knowwhat happened next.

  "What happened after the Little Colonel's house party?" they demand, andthey send letters to the Valley by the score, asking "Did Betty goblind?" "Did the two little Knights of Kentucky ever meet Joyce again orfind the Gate of the Giant Scissors?" Did the Little Colonel ever haveany more good times at Locust, or did Eugenia ever forget that she toohad started out to build a Road of the Loving Heart?

  It would be impossible to answer all these questions through thepost-office, so that is why the magic kettle has been dragged from itshiding-place after all these years, and set a-boiling once more. Gatherin a ring around it, all you who want to know, and pass your curiousfingers through its wreaths of rising steam. Now you shall see theLittle Colonel and her guests of the house party in turn, and the bellsshall ring for each a different song.

  But before they begin, for the sake of some who may happen to be in yourmidst for the first time, and do not know what it is all about, let thekettle give them a glimpse into the past, that they may be able tounderstand all that is about to be shown to you. Those who already knowthe story need not put their fingers into the steam, until the bellshave rung this explanation in parenthesis.

  (In Lloydsboro Valley stands an old Southern mansion, known as "Locust."The place is named for a long avenue of giant locust-trees stretching aquarter of a mile from house to entrance gate, in a great arch of green.Here for years an old Confederate colonel lived all alone save for thenegro servants. His only child, Elizabeth, had married a Northern managainst his wishes, and gone away. From that day he would not allow hername to be spoken in his presence. But she came back to the Valley whenher little daughter Lloyd was five years old. People began calling thechild the Little Colonel because she seemed to have inherited so many ofher grandfather's lordly ways as well as a goodly share of his hightemper. The military title seemed to suit her better than her own name,for in her fearless baby fashion she won her way into the old man'sheart, and he made a complete surrender.

  Afterward when she and her mother and "Papa Jack" went to live with himat Locust, one of her favourite games was playing soldier. The old mannever tired of watching her march through the wide halls with his spursstrapped to her tiny slipper heels, and her dark eyes flashing outfearlessly from under the little Napoleon cap she wore.

  She was eleven when she gave her house party. One of the guests wasJoyce Ware, whom some of you have met, perhaps, in "The Gate of theGiant Scissors," a bright thirteen-year-old girl from the West. EugeniaForbes was another. She was a distant cousin of Lloyd's, who had nohome-life like the other girls. Her winters were spent in a fashionableNew York boarding-school, and her summers at the Waldorf-Astoria, exceptthe few weeks when her busy father could find time to take her to someseaside resort.

  The third guest, Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis, or Betty, as every one lovinglycalled her, was Mrs. Sherman's little god-daughter. She was an orphan,boarding on a backwoods farm on Green River. She had never been on thecars until Lloyd's invitation found its way to the Cuckoo's Nest. Onlythese three came to stay in the house, but Malcolm and Keith MacIntyre(the two little Knights of Kentucky) were there nearly every day. So wasRob Moore, one of the Little Colonel's summer neighbours.

  The four Bobs were four little fox terrier puppies named for Rob, whohad given one to each of the girls. They were so much alike they couldonly be distinguished by the colour of the ribbons tied around theirnecks. Tarbaby was the Little Colonel's pony, and Lad the one that Bettyrode during her visit.

  After six weeks of picnics and parties, and all sorts of surprises andgood times, the house party came to a close with a grand feast oflanterns. Joyce regretfully went home to the little brown house inPlainsville, Kansas, taking her Bob with her. Eugenia and her fatherwent to New York, but not until they had promised to come back for Bettyin the fall, and take her abroad with them. It was on account ofsomething that had happened at the house party, but which is too long atale to repeat here.

  Betty stayed on at Locust until the end of the summer in the HouseBeautiful, as she called her godmother's home, and here on the longvine-covered porch, with its stately white pillars, you shall see themfirst through the steam of the magic caldron.)

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  Listen! Now the kettle boils and the bells begin the story!