Chapter 3

Miss Roxy went speeding back to the school-house with her aromatic bundle. Her face was fairly radiant. She had no idea five pounds of cinnamon were so much. O, _such a lot_! She had made up her mind what to do with it. She couldn't, of course, carry it home. She had no trunk that would lock, or any place safe from her mother's eyes. But in the grove, back of the school-house, there was a tree with a hollow in it. By hard running she got there before any of the scholars came. She put her fragrant packages in, first filling her pocket, and then stopped the remaining space with a couple of innocent-looking stones.

Such a happy day as it was! She found herself a perfect princess among her mates. She "treated" them royally, I assure you. Everybody was so obliging to her all day, and it was so nice to be able to make everybody pleased and grateful! Both the day of judgment and the dying day were put afar off--at least six months off.

Meantime, during the forenoon, Mr. Hampshire kept referring to the idea that any one could want _five pounds of cinnamon_ at one time. Still, little Roxy was Mrs. Reub Markham's next neighbor, and it was perfectly probable that she should send by her.

Some time in the afternoon Mr. Reuben Markham came down to the store. He was a wealthy man, jolly, but quick-tempered. Mr. Hampshire and he were on excellent terms. "How are you, Markham? and what's your wife baking to-day?"

"My wife baking?"

"Yes. I concluded you were going to have something extra spicy. Five pounds of cinnamon look rather suspicious. Miss Janet's not going to step off--is she."

"I'm not in that young person's confidence. I should say not, however. But what do you mean by your five pounds of cinnamon?"

"Why, Mrs. Gildersleeve's little girl was in here this morning, and said Mrs. Markham sent for five pounds of cinnamon and two of raisins."

"Mrs. Gildersleeve's girl? I know Mrs. Markham never sent for no such things. She knew I was coming down myself this afternoon."

He followed Mr. Hampshire down the store to the desk. There it was in the day-book:--

"Reub Markham, Dr., per Roxy Gildersleeve. To 5 pounds cinnamon, 40c., $2 00 " 2 " raisins (layer), 20c., 40

That Mr. Reub Markham swore, must also be set down against him. He drove home in a red rage. Through the open school-house door, little Roxy Gildersleeve saw him pass; but her merry young heart boded no ill. Her mouth was tingling pungently with the fine cinnamon, and in her pocket yet were eight moist, fat, sugary raisins, to be slipped in her mouth one by one, four during the geography lesson, four during the spelling lesson.

As it happened, Mr. Gildersleeve was cultivating corn in a field that fronted the highway. He and his wealthier neighbor were not on the best of terms. A line fence and an unruly ox had made trouble. Mr. Gildersleeve had sued Mr. Markham, and beat him; and Mr. Gildersleeve didn't take any pains now to look up as he saw who was coming.

But Mr. Markham drew up his horses.

"Hello, Gildersleeve!"

"Hello yourself, Mr. Markham!"

"I say, what you sending your young uns down to the store after things, and charging them to me for? Mighty creditable that, Tom Gildersleeve!"

"Getting things and charging them to you!" Gildersleeve stopped his horse. "What do you mean, Markham?"

"You better go down and ask Hampshire. If you don't, you may get it explained in a way you won't fancy!"

He whipped up his horses and drove off, leaving Mr. Gildersleeve standing there, gazing after him as if he had lost his senses. After a moment he unhitched his horse from the cultivator, mounted him, and rode off toward the village.

School was out. Roxy had reached home. She was setting the table, and whistling like a blackbird. Things had gone so happily at school! Everything was so neat, and pleasant, and cosy at home! She saw her father ride into the yard, and go to the barn. She whistled on.

She sat in the big rocking-chair, stoning cherries, and smelling the roses by the window, when he came into the kitchen.

"Where's Roxy?" she heard him ask.

"In the other room, I guess," said mother.

He came in where she was. She looked up; and her little stained hands fell back into the pan. She knew the day of judgment had come. O, she wished it was that other day, the day of death, instead! Her mouth dropped open, the room turned dark.

Mr. Gildersleeve sank down on a chair. His child's face was too much for him. He groaned aloud. "That one of _my_ children should ever be talked about as a thief! What possessed you, Roxy?"

Roxy sat before him, trembling. Not at the prospect of punishment. But she saw her father's eyes filling up with tears. "Don't, father," she said, hurriedly, trying not to cry. "I've only eaten a little, and I will carry it all back. If you will pay for what is gone, I'll sell berries or something, and pay you back the money. Mr. Hampshire is a good man; he won't tell, father, if you ask him not."

"You poor, ignorant child!"

He got up and went out, shutting the door after him. Not one word of punishment; but he left Roxy trembling with a strange terror. She shook with a presentiment of some unendurable public disgrace. Setting down the pan of cherries, she crept to the door. She heard her father's voice, her mother's sharp exclamations. Then her father said, "To think _our_ girl should sin in such a high-handed way! Mother, I'd rather laid her in her grave any day! That hot-headed Markham will not rest until he's published it from Dan to Beersheba. She's only a child, but this thing will stick to her as long as she lives."

Her mother sobbed. "Our poor Roxy! Tom, if the school children get hold of it, she will never go another day. The child is so sensitive! I don't know how to punish her as I ought. I can only think how to save her from what is before her."

O, how Roxy, standing at the key-hole, trembled to see her mother lean her head on her father's shoulder and sob, and to see tears on her father's cheeks! O, what a wicked, wicked girl! It _was_ thieving; in some way it was even worse than that; as if she had committed a--a forgery, maybe, Roxy thought. She was conscious she had done something unusually daring and dreadful.

She stole off up stairs, shut herself in, and cried as hard as she could cry. Afterward her little brain began to busy itself in many directions. She tried to fancy herself shamed and pointed at, afraid to go to school, afraid to go down to the store, ashamed to go to the table, with no right to laugh, and play, and stay around near her mother, never again to dare ask her father to ride when he was going off with the horses.

So lonely and gloomy, she tried to think what it was possible to do. At last, as in the morning, a daring thought occurred to her suddenly. She made up her mind in just one minute to do it.

When her mother called, she went down to supper at once. The boys were gone. Nobody but she and father and mother; and the three had very red eyes, and said nothing, but passed things to each other in a kind, quiet way, that seemed to Roxy like folks after a funeral--perhaps it did to the rest of them. Roxy was fanciful enough to think to herself, "Yes, it is _my_ funeral. We have just buried my good name."

Silently, one with a white face, the other with a red one, Roxy and her mother did up the work. Then Roxy went up to her room again. She took a sheet of foolscap, and made it into four sheets of note paper. She wrote and printed something on each sheet, and folded all the sheets into letters. Then she went down stairs. Two of the little letters she handed to her mother. Then, bonnet in hand, she stole out the front door. At the gate she looked down the road toward the village, up the road toward Mr. Markham's. She started toward Mr. Markham's. She got over the road marvelously; for the child was wild to get the thing over with. She was going up the path to the house when she saw Mr. Markham hoeing in the garden. She went to him, thrust a note into his hand, and was off like a dart.

It was a long, hard, lonely run down to the village. How lonely in the grove at the hollow tree! How like a thief, with the bundles openly on her arm! No little girl's pocket would hold them, nothing but a great Judas-bag. She went straight to the stone store. It was just sunset. How thankful she was to find nobody in the store but Mr. Hampshire himself, reading the evening paper. He looked up, and recognized the red little face. He glanced at the bundles as she threw them, with a letter, down on the counter, and whisked out through the door. He called after her, "Here, here, Roxy; here, my dear! Come back. I have some figs for you!"

But no Roxy came back. He heard her little heels clattering down the sidewalk fast as they could go. So he got up and read the letter, for it was directed to himself.

Here are the four notes Roxy wrote:--

"Dear Father: I Will paye you every Cent if I Live. I shall always be a Good Girl, and never hanker after Only what I have Got. Please forgive Me, and Not Talk It Over with Mother. It will make her Sick. Roxy."

"Dear Mother: Please love me until I am Bad once More. If I ever, Ever, should be Bad again, then you may give me Up. Don't get Sick. Roxy."

"Mr. MarkHam: I have been Very Wicked. I have made father and Mother wretched. I am sorry. Please don't be Hard on Me, and Set every body against me, because My Mother would settle right down and be very Sick. I am only a Little girl, and a Big Man might let me go. I have taken the Things back to the Store. Also father has Paid for them. _You_ may Want something some day, and do Wrong to get it, and Then you will know How good it is. R. Gildersleeve."

"Mr. HamPshire: Please Not tell the folks that come into the Store what I did. I want a Chance to be good. If you Ever hear of my stealing again, Then you can tell, of course. R. Gildersleeve."

And here is what they said:--

_Mr. Gildersleeve_ (crying). "Here, mother, put this away. Never speak of it to her. Poor child, I _did_ mean to whip her!"

_Mrs. Gildersleeve_ (crying). "Bless her heart, Tom, this is true repentance! Our child will not soon forget this lesson. Let us be very good to her."

_Mr. Markham_ (laughing). "Young saucebox! But there's true grit for you! Well, I don't think I shall stoop to injure a child. Let it go. I'm quits with Tom now, and we'll begin again even."

_Mr. Hampshire_ (laughing). "She's a nice little dot, after all. I don't see what possessed her. I'd like to show this to Maria; guess I won't, though, for it is partly _my_ business to keep the little name white."

And none of them ever told. When Roxy was an old woman, she related to me the story herself. The name was kept white through life. Such a scrupulous, kindly, charitable old lady! The only strange thing about her was, that she never could eat anything flavored with cinnamon, or which had raisins in it.

Transcriber's notes: Obvious spelling/typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

scan 014 line 4: corrected closing double quote to single scan 014 line 10: corrected "dooping" to "drooping" scan 024 line -4: corrected "after wards" to "afterwards" scan 032 Illustration caption: corrected closing single quote to double scan 047 line -6: "said," inferred scan 047 line -4: "untie" inferred scan 047 line -3: "honestly," inferred