The Crafters Book Two by Christopher Stasheff, Bill Fawcett

matters so very much to you now, doesn’t it, my little one?” he asked softly. His voice was tender, yet it cut me to the heart and I began to cry. “There, child,” he said, running those spindly, brittle fingers through my tangled hair. “When you are older, you will understand. For now let it suffice to know that I will be your friend, too.”
    I was sniveling terribly, I fear, for the stranger gave me his pocket kerchief and bade me blow my nose. I did so, but when I would return him his own he directed me, “Keep it. If you are a true sprig of old Thomas’ tree, you’ll be glad to own such a useful souvenir some day.”
    I gazed in wonderment at the kerchief, which he bestowed with as much ceremony as though it were a bolt of best Cathay silk. In truth it was plain black cotton, the hem poorly stitched and the comer embroidered with a tipsy “D”. All six-year-olds are natural skeptics with the manners of untrained foxhounds. Small marvel that I dried my tears and asserted, “This isn’t useful; it’s dirty.” I blew my nose into the black folds again to ratify my statement.
    The stranger lifted one thin, white finger. “I said if,” he replied. “And I am famous for seldom speaking in the conditional tense, believe me.” With that, he vanished. Oh, I do not—I can not mean he played the ghost. Most likely he excused himself in the ordinary way and departed by the front door. The footman returned just then with Dr. Greeley in tow, and Nurse flew down the stairs to greet them. She caught sight of me in the parlor and whisked me up to the nursery forthwith. The strange gentleman probably made his exit in the teeth of all that confusion.
    That is the only logical explanation, is it not?
    None of which, I know, enlightens you any further in regard to the hideous fate which has befallen me, à la mode de Culpepper. Pray forgive my digressions, precious friend. In your absence, these letters are the only solace I may find beneath this roof. I must not abuse your patience. Eh bien, continuons!
    My extended divergence from the topic to hand is, I see, assignable to my earlier mention of Great-grandpapa and his aversion to Americans. (Mamma once told me the old fellow claimed he could smell them out in a crowd!) This, in turn brings me back to Mr. Horatio Culpepper’s American companion, Pericles Factor. O, do not the very syllables of that name jar upon the ear, sweet Caroline? No less did the man himself jar upon my sight.
    I was in our smallest garden when they arrived, the one which in happier times was Mamma’s private herbary. It has mostly run wild since her death, yet Papa is indifferent to all of Cook’s suggestions that he tear down the brick walls separating it from the kitchen garden, to enlarge the latter. Some pretty yellow flowers of cinquefoil held my attention—I thought I recognized them from a sketch in Mamma’s notebook, although her comments thereunder were all written in Greek. Some quality of the plant must have fascinated her, for the alien characters were heavily underlined and decorated with a plethora of exclamation marks uncommon to the tongue of Homer.
    “Well, if that ain’t the purtiest thing!” a deep voice boomed, and a huge paw swept in under my nose to uproot the dainty flowers root and all. Oh yes, Caroline, I have transcribed the “gentleman’s” speech exactly as I heard it. Yet my meager powers of description fall short of conveying the full impact of his raw, uncultured voice and its monstrous accent.
    The Americans may have defeated our bold English troops a time or two, but they are condemned to be ever vanquished by our sweet English language.
    My unwelcome caller bowed low, doffing his hat with so extravagant a flourish that the brim dug a channel in the garden dust. “You must be Miss Delilah,” he said, white teeth flashing from a face sunbrowned as a bargeman’s. “Pericles Factor, at your service.”
    I confess, Caroline, his person was not without