Part 3

“And I would buy more than one,” Angelina would smile. “There is one of a pussy-cat like ours. I would give it to Marguerite Santos and I would give her many others beside.”

“The idea!” Maria interrupted. “Marguerite Santos! The unmannerly child! She is a class behind you in school and you do not know her. The Santos think themselves better than the Parillos and they will not let her play with you--all because their father has a fruit store with candy and peanuts and a telephone!”

“It is because Angelina has the cross teacher this year that she wants to give valentines to Marguerite,” suggested Louisa. “Her teacher is not nice and Marguerite has a beautiful red plush cloak--”

“She smiles at me,” defended Angelina. “I like her. I would like to know her and play with her. I do not think she is at all unmannerly, Maria.”

But Maria was fitting the key into the home lock and she took her time to reply. As she hung over the kitchen stove to poke the slumbering fire, she gave it more than one dig. “The Santos child is unmannerly and I have seen it,” she insisted. “She did a most unmannerly thing only the other day as she passed by on the road here going homeward after school--”

Angelina’s eyes flashed. “Tell me,” she broke in, “tell me what it was, for I do not believe it!”

“She did! She said _shoo_, it was just like that: she said it to our good gray cat who was peacefully sleeping in the sun at the doorstone. It was very unmannerly to shoo our cat!”

Angelina sniffed. “That was nothing,” she defended, “I shoo cats, too. Marguerite likes cats even as I do, but I often say shoo, shoo! I do it to see the cat blink its eyes and look at me. Some cats will jump and run. One does not know what they will do--and I have seen Louisa--”

But here Maria put a hand over Angelina’s mouth. “I do not care what Louisa has done,” she admonished. “Go get me the soap that is by the basin in the bedroom so that I may wash the dress. There is no use to start a quarrel. There is no money to buy valentines at all, either for Louisa’s teacher or for Marguerite Santos.”

But if the subject of valentines subsided once in a while, it was sure to start again on the next day when Maria, Louisa and Angelina passed homeward by the wonderful windows of the ten cent store. There was never time to stop. Only a hasty glimpse did Louisa and Angelina snatch. Oh, the joy of going into the store to see the piles of candy on the candy counter! Oh, the happiness of gazing at bright colored ribbons and wonderful toys! And the valentines that lay on the counter in hundreds, what fun to see them, even though one could not spend money to buy any! Alas!

But it happened that Angelina had received a good mark in spelling on the day before Valentine’s Day and Maria wished to reward it. “I promised,” she said. “It is true, Angelina--tomorrow, on Valentine’s Day, you and Louisa may stop at the store and go in while I go home. You may stay till the sun sets, but no longer. Today I must hurry home and I need you to help with the sweeping.”

The gray cat was on the doorstep in the sun as they reached the brown tenement by the roadside. Angelina lifted it in her arms and Maria turned the key in the lock. They were home again. Tomorrow would be the great day to visit the store and see all of its splendor. That night she dreamed of beautiful valentines and of Marguerite Santos’ red plush cloak.

The morning of Valentine’s Day dawned with pink and gold happiness of sunlight. On the way to school, Louisa and Angelina sang and when school was out they dashed into worn brown cloaks and caps to wait for Maria, who took her time gathering books and pencils for home-work at night. “Hurry, hurry!” they implored. “It is four o’clock. The sun will set by half past four and there will be no time to see the valentines!” And so Maria hurried. At the ten cent store they left her--joy!

Hand in hand they pressed into the crowd. “See, Louisa!” and “Look, Angelina!” they called to each other every minute. But it was Angelina who caught the first glimpse of the valentines. There at the counter was the beautiful red plush cloak of Marguerite Santos bending over the valentines!

Together they pressed past the other children who stood behind that beautiful red plush cloak and they craned their necks to see the valentines as Marguerite Santos, absorbed in the selection of the most beautiful one to be had, turned them over one by one. But there was no envy in the heart of Louisa and Angelina as they watched. It was happiness that was there--of course, if one had been rich like Marguerite Santos--but how nice it was to be where they were! How gay the music of the pianola sounded! Wasn’t it amusing to watch Marguerite Santos buy valentines! But right here she took up the one of the gray pussy-cat!

Angelina nudged Louisa. “See, see!” she whispered. “She likes the pussy-cat. It is not true what Maria said. She is not unmannerly at all. I would like to speak to her and ask her to come to play with me--she has smiled at me many times when I have met her--”

But Louisa shook her head hard. “You must not speak,” she insisted. “Maybe she would not like to have you see what it was that she bought.”

So, when Marguerite Santos wedged her way out of the crowd, she saw neither Angelina nor Louisa. She held her valentine of the pussy-cat tight in its big white envelope--tight upon the front of her red plush cloak. She was concerned with the care of it, lest some rude person bump into her and injure it.

Louisa and Angelina waited a moment and then drifted out of the door after her. The sky was all red and gold with the sunset. It was like some wonderfully bright valentine card, so beautiful! As they turned the corner in the dusky twilight and came upon the doorstone of the brown house that was home, there knelt the beautiful red plush cloak of Marguerite Santos! She was laying the valentine upon the step and was about to knock and run away!

It was Angelina who caught her as she turned. Louisa was lagging behind, with her eyes on the first evening star that flamed white in the sky.

“Is it really for me?” asked Angelina. With an arm around the beautiful red plush cloak of Marguerite Santos, she smiled at the big white envelope that lay unopened on the stone. “I guess that it is a picture of a pussy-cat like ours,” she beamed. “I have no valentine to give you but I have always liked you, Marguerite, and I have wanted you to like me. Could I not give you a share of our gray cat as a valentine, maybe? I know that you, too, like cats, though you have none.”

But here, Louisa caught up and the door opened.

“It was very mannerly of you to bring Angelina the valentine,” spoke Maria. “I thank you. Will you not come in and play for a while? It must be lonely to have no brothers and sisters. We would like you for our friend, even though we have no candy or peanuts or telephone. Angelina has for a long time wanted to know you, Marguerite Santos.”

_Buttinski, Peacemaker_

_THE MARCH SURPRISE_

_There was a St. Patrick’s Day shamrock favor in the pocket that was labelled:_

“_Open on the 17th of March at 6 A. M._”

_Marjorie was afraid she might oversleep and so miss opening that pocket entirely till the next March 17th should come around. But Dotty saw to that. She was always wide awake, bright and early. She woke Marjorie up even before 6 A. M._

_The story pocket that came next was marked:_

“_Open in March when the wind blows hard and you have to stay indoors._”

_As March came in like a lamb, Dotty kept putting off the reading of this story to tease Marjorie. When Marjorie begged to know if she might open it, Dot would chuckle. “The wind doesn’t blow hard enough yet,” she would say._

_But finally it did blow so hard that Marjorie insisted. Then, together, they read the story of “Buttinski, Peacemaker.”_

_V_

_Buttinski, Peacemaker_

Nobody would have expected it of them. They were the very best of friends, and Miss Allen, who was the grade teacher, used to call them David and Jonathan.

When mental arithmetic and English classes had head and foot, Laura and Mary made it a point not to know answers of questions that came to them. So they kept together at the foot of the class, side by side. Miss Allen never said a word to them or to anybody else, but she understood. Then the classes stopped having head and foot. But she let them sit side by side. Even their desks were together.

Mary was always ready to laugh at a joke. Laura couldn’t even see one a mile off. That was how the trouble started and how little Betty Peters started to play peacemaker. Everybody called Betty Peters “Buttinski” because she was always as interested in other people’s affairs as she was in her own--perhaps a little too much interested. She would interrupt conversations and ask “What’re you talking about?” Some of the girls resented it.

It was in beginning German that Betty Peters sat next to Mary. Laura took French and wasn’t in the class at all. She did not know one word of German from another. It used to be one of Mary’s jokes to pretend that she could speak fluently so she would rattle off a long string of vocabulary with conversational intonations to make Laura believe she knew a great deal. Of course, Laura only half believed, though she didn’t understand the joke. Sometimes she really thought that it was a German conversation and she didn’t like to have Mary talk German to her because she did not study it and couldn’t understand. Betty Peters always helped Mary. She used to enjoy the fun.

But one day, it ceased to be fun. Laura always was a little jealous of Betty Peters. She used to wait at the door of the German room with Mary’s lunch-box because she herself had a study-hour just before recess and she could be there as soon as Mary’s class was dismissed. Then Mary would always call out to Betty Peters a long list of German words that meant nothing and Betty Peters would reply. On the memorable Friday when this stopped being amusing, Laura was there waiting when the two came out. Mary had been full of mischief that day. “Promise not to tell--I’m going to have a joke,” she whispered as the class filed out into the hall, Betty behind her.

Laura caught the words and saw Betty’s nod of promise. Then Mary launched out, “_Die, der, der, die; das, des, dem, das_,” she jabbered to Betty. Of course, everybody knows that this is feminine and neuter declension of the definite article, but Laura thought it was something confidential and jumped to the conclusion that it was a personal remark about _her_.

She turned upon her heel and walked straight off downstairs. Mary simply hooted with laughter and ran after her, but the harder she and Betty Peters laughed, the more indignant Laura grew. She put Mary’s lunch-box down upon a bench and left it and pushed Mary’s hand off her shoulder. Mary fell back to get the box. “You’ve done it!” declared Betty Peters.

“Nonsense!” replied Mary. “She ought to know I was just joking. Maybe she’s merely pretending to be angry.” But she wasn’t at all sure.

“I think she is really angry,” insisted Betty Peters.

“Well, what could she _think_ I said?” inquired Mary. “I didn’t say anything at all.”

“Perhaps she thought you said something about her--”

“She ought to know me better,” declared Mary. Then she carried her lunch-box to the lunch-room with Betty Peters. There was a crowd there. At first they did not see Laura but when they did, there was no chance to reach her in the crowd. “She did that on purpose,” suggested Betty Peters. Mary called to her, but either Laura didn’t hear or pretended not to, even though some of the other girls spoke to her and Betty Peters was sure Laura _must_ have been aware of the calls. Such a thing as a quarrel between Mary and Laura had never before happened. Nobody knew what to make of it. Mary was mortified and determined to reach Laura so as to explain and make it all right, but when Betty Peters and Mary reached her, Laura walked right in the opposite direction. Mary called after her that it was only a joke, but Laura was icy. So at last, Mary decided that Laura would have to find out for herself what “_Die, der, der, die_ and _das, des, dem, das_” meant. “Two can play at that game,” she snapped, as Laura disappeared. “If she won’t speak to me, neither will I speak to her!” Betty Peters ate her lunch in the lunch-room but Mary took hers out into the garden. It was snowy there and she was all alone. It couldn’t have been a very nice place to eat lunch! Where Laura went, nobody knew. She was busy studying all the last part of the recreation period. When Mary came in as the bell rang, she never moved. Her back was twisted around toward Mary’s seat. Everybody in the class noticed it, but Miss Allen said nothing. Perhaps she thought that it would pass off by and by.

But the next week they did not speak either! It was worse. Mary had to rub the chalk off the blackboard with her handkerchief because Laura, who was next to her, had the blackboard eraser; and Laura kept it on her side and Mary wouldn’t ask her for it. Miss Allen took Mary’s book to give to a visitor who came into history class, but Laura wouldn’t pass half of hers over to Mary. When Miss Allen saw that she said, “Laura!” in a sharp voice. So Laura put the book upon the desk between them and it stayed there. Nobody turned its pages.

At lunch hour, Mary avoided Betty Peters. Laura disappeared and Sallie Overton found her eating her lunch off on the studio stairs--away from everything. Mary ate hers alone in the cold garden. It must have been that Miss Allen realized how silly they were behaving, for she tried to set matters right. She found out from Betty where Mary was and she put on her long blue cloak and went into the garden after her. What happened in the garden, nobody knew, though some of the girls watched out of the windows and saw Miss Allen talking and Mary using a handkerchief. They came in together. Sallie Overton told Miss Allen where Laura was and the class thought Miss Allen had talked to her, too. It was circulated that Miss Allen had asked them to meet each other and shake hands. But neither of them seemed to have done it, for in class things went on as on previous days. It seemed worse than a Chinese puzzle to solve the difficulty. Some of the girls talked to Mary and some talked to Laura and begged them to make it up. Both declared the other wrong and refused to take the first step. “Please,” begged Betty Peters, the Buttinski. “Please, Laura.” But still nothing happened. Both seemed to feel dreadfully. Both were about as blue as Blue Monday. Miss Allen took time from study hour and talked to the class about friendship and what it meant in terms of self-sacrifice, generosity and loyalty. Both Mary and Laura wept, but still, after dismission, they did not shake hands or speak. And both walked home alone every day.

Miss Allen was correcting papers at her desk as Betty Peters walked down the aisle to go home. Betty Peters seemed as depressed as Miss Allen. Indeed, she almost acted as if she had been to blame for the whole thing and she tried and tried to get Mary to let her tell Laura what “_Die, der, der, die_ and _das, des, dem, das_” meant. Mary wouldn’t let her tell. She said that Laura could find out herself.

“Well, Betty?” smiled Miss Allen, looking up from the papers she was correcting. It seemed to Betty almost as if Miss Allen were thinking of Laura and Mary. It sounded so.

“It seems a dreadfully hard problem to solve, if two halves are separated,” suggested Betty Peters, thoughtfully. She stopped beside Miss Allen’s desk and watched the blue pencil that was marking a cross upon Laura’s written work.

“Do you mean David and Jonathan?” inquired Miss Allen, with a twinkle in her eye as she looked at Betty.

Betty nodded.

“How did they go home?”

“On different sides of the street.”

“Oh.”

“It’s really dreadful, isn’t it--and they were such friends!”

“I asked them to overlook the mistake and make it up without explanations--and with them, if need be.”

“But they won’t do it. The girls have tried to help and I’m sure I have, too!”

“Well,” smiled Miss Allen. “What’s at the bottom of it, do you know, Betty?”

Betty nodded. Then Miss Allen pushed aside the papers, “Frankly,” she said, “I don’t know what to do. They’re both such splendid girls but neither one of them will be the first to make an apology. They’re very childish, aren’t they?”

“It’s just a misunderstanding,” explained Betty. “I can tell you. It was all because Mary made a joke and Laura thought it was a personal one. Mary said ‘_die, der, der, die_ and _das, des, dem, das_.’ Laura thought she said something about her to me. Mary wouldn’t let me explain. She said if Laura thought that, she’d have to find out what the words meant herself.”

“What sillies!” declared Miss Allen. “I suppose they’ll keep this up eternally. I’ve tried all manner of ways to stop it; have you anything to suggest, Betty?”

Betty pondered. “I was wondering,” she mused, “whether if you counted three and told them both to speak when you came to that, they’d speak?”

“I never thought of that,” laughed Miss Allen. “We’ll try it.”

Next day, she did. She made both of the girls stand and she told each one to say, “I’m sorry” when she counted three and came to the end. It really was a disgrace to the class to have the quarrel go on and on. The girls thought it horrid. But when Miss Allen said, “Three,” all was silence. The two stood up in the class and neither said a word! The plan did not work! “Speak!” ordered Miss Allen--but there was nothing but silence.

But Miss Allen was not going to give up, “Mary,” said she, “you may decline for me the feminine and neuter of the definite article in German.”

Mary looked surprised but she said it, “‘_die, der, der, die, das, des, dem, das_.’”

“Did you ever hear anything like that before?” asked Miss Allen of Betty Peters.

“Yes,” replied Betty.

“Did you?” asked Miss Allen of Laura.

Laura said she thought so.

“Was that what Mary said on the memorable day when she came out of German class?”

“I think so,” replied Laura, a little ashamed.

“Was it, Mary?”

“Yes,” said Mary, loudly. She was glad to say it, too. Some of the girls giggled.

“Take out your English books for grammar, oral,” commanded Miss Allen. “Betty Peters, you may conjugate the verb ‘to love.’”

So Betty began: “Present tense, indicative mood: I love; thou lovest; he loves; we love; you love,” and then with her eyes upon Mary and Laura she ended, “they love.”

Everybody in the class laughed for there was Laura with her arm around Mary and both of them were laughing and crying, too.

“Buttinski did it,” smiled Miss Allen. “I hope nobody else in this class will have a quarrel. Now, we’re going to forget that there ever was such a thing, aren’t we, Laura and Mary?”

Together they both said, “Yes, I’m sorry!”

_Angelina’s Bird-Flower_

THE APRIL SURPRISE

_Marjorie’s surprise for April was, first, a fluffy Easter chicken card. The Easter story pocket was another story about Angelina. The pocket said:_

“_Open on the afternoon of Easter Day at four o’clock._”

_The two little girls let Mother read it aloud to them. It was called “Angelina’s Bird-Flower.”_

_VI_

_Angelina’s Bird-Flower_

Where the little brown bird came from, neither Maria nor Louisa nor Angelina knew, but he doubtless lived near, for he came every day to the window of the old brown house where the little Italian girls lived, lonely without their mother. It was a year since she had died and the days were long for Maria, Louisa and Angelina after their father left for work at six in the morning.

Maria was always up at five. In the early winter, mornings are dark and it takes courage to get up in a cold room and light the lamp and make the fire and cook breakfast. Maria was but twelve. She took her mother’s place as best she could. She helped her father. She tended Louisa and Angelina and if it had not been that the aunts took the two babies, she would have cared for them gladly too.

Angelina and Louisa were, for the time, Maria’s “babies.” She let them play and she did the work herself. She had little time for amusement; it was always either school or housekeeping for her. There was breakfast and clearing up in the morning; washing and cleaning after school; dinner-getting and cleaning again at night, beside a hundred and one little things that a mother must see to, mending, tidying, straightening all things. At seven, the father came home tired. Then there was bed in the cold rooms and a new day of responsibility. Louisa and Angelina wore washed and ironed hair-ribbons and well done-up gingham dresses, mended as best Maria could. They took off their shoes and stockings when at home, to save the wear, and did in general as Maria told them except for the little brown bird. They would save their crusts for him in spite of Maria’s scoldings.

He came first on one of the lonely mornings before school time, when Maria was busy with housework and Louisa and Angelina were thawing the frosted window pane with their warm breath to look out at the chilly snow-bound road that led past the old brown house. Louisa had thrown out a crust because she had not wanted to eat it and there--why, there was a little brown bird tugging at it in the snow!

“What’re you two laughing at so?” demanded Maria, looking up from dishwashing. “Take a-hold somebody and help here! I can’t take time to stand by the window an’ laugh at nothing when there’s work to be done!” But, dish-rag in hand, curiosity got the better of scolding and she peeped over Louisa’s shoulder and saw the little brown bird and his breakfast.

At first she smiled, too, then she frowned. “Louisa,” said she, “you are bad. It is you who threw out the crust of bread!”

There was no denial.

“And when bread costs money--and we cannot get enough to buy Angelina new shoes!”

“I would rather the bird had the crust,” defended Angelina. “The holes are not yet very big.”

But even as mother would have done, Maria watched the family purse, and Louisa ate crusts under her elder sister’s vigilant eye each meal time. But there were always very big crumbs at Angelina’s plate and medium sized ones at Louisa’s. When it came time to clear the table, Louisa and Angelina, with a glance at each other, picked these up quickly and threw them out on the snow. It was exciting. Nobody knew when Maria would call either little sister to account: “Louisa, give me those crumbs. I will save them and make a pudding.” Always there seemed to be breakfast for the little brown bird in spite of this. He came regularly. Sometimes Louisa and Angelina had to pick the crumbs from the coal-hod where Maria’s over hasty housekeeping threw little ones; but always, always, always, they kept watch for the little brown bird. And the mornings before school time were less lonely because of his cheer. Indeed, as the days went by, he became very tame--tame enough to hop close to the pane as Louisa and Angelina breathlessly watched.

The mornings gradually grew lighter and the days passed on to the latter part of February. Louisa and Angelina talked much of their pet. Where did the little brown bird live? Could they make him so tame he would come upon their hands? Would he learn to eat from their fingers? Perhaps there might be a nest with little bits of brown birds somewhere near the house next spring! Then, Angelina and Louisa might tame these perhaps! Maria, busy with housework, had no time to answer such questions. She merely sniffed.

“You two are forever talking about that little brown bird,” she said, “I have to think of other things: I think whether there is wood for the fire and whether there is enough food in the house. You, too, Louisa and Angelina, you have mouths to feed!”