The Turn of the Tide
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 11
Christmas was a wonderful day at Five Oaks, certainly to Margaret. First there was the joy of skipping, bare-toed, across the room to where the long black stockings hung from the mantel. In the gray dawn of the early morning its bulging knobbiness looked delightfully mysterious; and never were presents half so entrancing as those drawn from its black depths by Margaret’s small eager fingers.
Later in the morning came the sleigh-ride behind the doctor’s span of bays, and then there was the delicious dinner followed by the games and the frolics and the quiet hour with mother. Still later the house began to fill with guests and then came the wedding, with Mrs. Kendall all in soft gray and looking radiantly happy on the doctor’s arm.
It was a simple ceremony and soon over, and then came the long line of beaming friends and neighbors to wish the bride and groom joy and God-speed. Margaret, standing a little apart by the dining-room door, felt a sudden pull at her sleeve. She turned quickly and looked straight into Bobby McGinnis’s eyes.
“Bobby, why, Bobby!” she welcomed joyously; but Bobby put his finger to his lips.
“Sh-h!” he cautioned; then, peremptorily, “Come.” And he led the way through the deserted dining-room to a little room off the sidehall where the gloom made his presence almost indiscernible. “There!” he sighed in relief. “I fetched ye, didn’t I?”
Margaret frowned.
“But, Bobby,” she remonstrated, “why—what are you doing out here, all in the dark?”
“Seein’ you.”
“Seeing me! But I was in there, where ‘twas all light and pretty, and you could see me lots better there!”
“Yes, but I wa’n’t there,” retorted Bobby, grimly; then he added: “‘Twa’n’t my party, ye see, an’ I wa’n’t invited. But I wanted ter see ye—an’ I did, too.”
Margaret was silent.
“Mebbe ye want ter go back now yerself,” observed Bobby, gloomily, after a time. “‘Tain’t so pretty here, I’ll own.”
Margaret did want to go back, and she almost said so, but something in the boy’s voice silenced the words on her lips.
“Oh, I’ll stay, ‘course,” she murmured, shifting about uneasily on her little white-slippered feet.
Bobby roused himself.
“Here, take a chair,” he proposed, pushing toward her a low stool; “an’ I’ll set here on the winder sill. Nice night; ain’t it?”
“Yes, ‘tis.” Margaret sat down, carefully spreading her skirts.
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