Our Boys and Girls.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 606, 15 September 1883, Page 3

Our Boys and Girls.

• By Sarah J. Prichard.

THE BAPTIST SISTER.

( Continued.) “ Wiiat’s come ? ” questioned Alta. ‘‘Gh, my boat, my boat! And, Alta v\ nittlesey, I say you are to come this minute and see it! Here ! Grandpa gave me this, and you are going to have it to help make out. See. Catch it ! ” and a big silver dollar jingled among the buttons. I never even stopped to take one look at the boat; didn’t want to see it till you did. Come, Come ! Ora was dancing up and down, and just bubbling over with the joy of anticipation. Ora ! cried Alta, “I shan’t take your money—your birthday gift.” “Yes, you will,” affirmed Ora ; and the controversy went on until it was finally decided by Ora, who inmetuously flun" the silver dollar into the well, saying,' “Now, it may stay there until somebody needs it enough to go down and get it.” Ten minutes later the Baptist sisters were hurrying up the height, hand in hand, to see the new boat. It had arrived during the time of Ora’s first visit to Alta, and the child’s unexpected return for n thimble (which was utterly forgotten) disappointed Mr Morehouse, who wished Ora to have her first sight of the boat after it had been launched. It had been brought in an . oxcart up the hills from the railroad station in the valley. When the two girls readied the farmhouse, ox-cart, boat, and all had gone on to the lake. It was but two minutes’ run down the hill to the lake’s edge, and so on to the place where the boat lay. It was ready for the final shove that sent it into the water, and they were in time to see it go, and to behold, in golden letters on its stern, the words, “ The Baptist Sisters —a name that had puzzled the boatmakers greatly. Ora was so pleased and glad that she seized her grandfather’s hand and kissed it. Mr Morehouse remarked that, if Ora and Alta were sisters, why, then, they must both be his grandchildren, whereupon Alta seized his other hand and kissed that. Then jt was suddenly discovered that the bonny bine boat, with the golden-bladed oars, could not be used that afternoon, because it leaked a little, and must stay in the water a day or two until the seams closed. After that, Alta and Ora decided to spend the afternoon in the boat-house sewing on buttons. The afternoon was warm and bright and lovely; the lake was lightly stirred by the breeze that came over it, and busy young hands made haste to earn the pennies, until, suddenly, from the depths of the village below, came up to them the screech of the great brass-mill whistle, followed by the sound of the clock-shop gong ; and then all the lesser steam-tongues and bell-tongues of the town were set agoing to tell that six o'clock had come. Alta and Ora went home to tea, and, after that, they met once more just as the sjm was sinking and the shadows had settled down on the lake. They had come to say good-night, and to take one more look at the „ graceful blue boat rocking itself to sleep—homesick, perhaps, but still rocking itself into the shadows of night. “It’s too bad, Ora, and I feel very sorry about it,” said Alta, at the farmhouse gate, “that I haven’t done one single thing to make it pleasant for you to-day.” “Oh, yes, you have,” said Ora. “You have given me the pleasure of planting a silver mine in a well, as well as of earning a few pennies for you. Wasn’t it fourteen cents I earned to-day ? You wait till I am of age, and then see what I will do.” “ Just ten years ! ” laughed Alta. “ Why, you may be married before then. I don’t think I had better wait, do you ? Goodnight. It looks as though we were going to have a thunder shower. I must hurry home. And the Baptist sisters kissed each other good night, Alta passing under the creaking blades of the windmill, and Ora entering the old farmhouse door, with a vague, hungry feeling in her heart for a real sister, who could stay all night and every night with her. Grandmother Morehouse and aunt Matilda had been making butter that afternoon. They were sitting in the gloaming on the verandah overlooking the lake, and watching the gathering clouds in the west, when Ora went in search of them. “It will be a dark night,” said Mrs Morehouse. “ It looks ugly,” said Miss Matilda. “ We will go in.” They went in and closed the doors. Meanwhile, up from the great trass-mill had come Mr Whittlesey and his sons. This was Friday niglit, and on the morrow the’payment was to be made. After supper was over, Mrs Whittlesey and Alta sat down to count over their week’s work, and Mr Whittlesey read the morning paper. The bays went upstairs, having said good night, and the house was very still. There were ten houses on that 15th of July on one of the streets leading down from the farmhouse to the village. Eight of the houses had barns belonging to them, i lie Whittleseys lived in the third house. In the ten houses were 46 persons, at the very moment that Ora and her aunt Matilda, standing by a window looking down upon the lake, saw it become, as it were, a sea of fire. Suddenly it was “ lifted up and opened out in mountain waves of flame,” that rolled into sound—an awful sound—ten thousand sounds ; and then the house seemed caught ap—ivas caught up into flame and wind and wave, and dashed into fragments. Old, old elm trees had their hearts torn into shreds as fine as air, and their branches braided together like the strands of a cable. Farmer Morehouse came to himself in the midst of his nig pen ; Mrs Morehouse was found under a feather bed, unarmed ; Miss Matilda returned to consciousness across the field, in the midst of upturned trees ; while Ora Arabella and the windmill were found together—Ora all in one piece, the windmill in fragments. All were drenched. It was as though .the lake had passed over them and gone on down the hill. (To be Continued.)