Chapter 11

"No, I haven't. You mustn't tease. I'm going down to the store in a day or two, and then you can have it."

So Nancy went home again without her forty-two cents. She wept a little on the way. Here it was Saturday, and Flora expecting her money on the noon mail. But it did not come on the noon mail. It did not come until six o'clock at night, and Flora did not think of buying the basket that day.

After tea that night, about half-past seven o'clock, Nancy did something that she had never done before in her life. She went over to her Aunt Lucretia's without permission. Her mother had gone to one of the neighbor's. Flora was in the sitting-room reading a story-book. Nancy stole out of the front door, and hurried down the road.

"What are you over here again for, child?" Aunt Lucretia cried when she went in.

Aunt Lucretia and Henrietta were in the kitchen, sticking papers over the jelly tumblers.

Nancy hesitated, and blushed.

"What is it?" asked Aunt Lucretia.

"I--didn't know but--what--you might have got--that bill changed."

"Why, I never saw such an acting child! Can't you wait a minute? Henrietta, have you got any change?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Henrietta. And she got her purse, and they counted out forty-two cents. Twenty-two of them were in pennies.

"Now I hope you're satisfied," said Aunt Lucretia, sharply. "Did your mother know you came over here?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, you're a naughty girl. I'm surprised at you. I sha'n't want to hire you to pick berries again if this is the way you do. Go right home, and mind you tell your mother you've been here."

The forty-two cents, twenty-two of which were pennies, jingled and weighed heavily in Nancy's pocket. She was not happy going home. She had meditated going to the Indian encampment that night to buy the basket, but it looked so dark over the fields that she was afraid to; so she went straight home. Her mother had returned from the neighbor's; there she stood in the front door, watching for her.

"Nancy Mann, I want to know where you've been," she cried out, as soon as Nancy opened the gate.

"Over to--Aunt Lucretia's."

"You went over there, after all the times I told you not to?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What for?"

"I wanted my--forty-two cents."

"Forty-two cents! What do you suppose your Aunt Lucretia thinks of you, dunning her up this way? Now you come in and light your candle, and go straight up-stairs to bed."

It was only half-past eight o'clock. Nancy went to bed. Flora sat up and read her story-book, and did not go up-stairs until after nine. Nancy pretended to be asleep when she came in, but she was not. She did not go to sleep for an hour after that. She lay there and cried softly, and planned.

The next morning was very pleasant. It was Sunday, and all the family went to church. After church, Nancy and Flora went to Sunday-school. Sunday-school was out about one o'clock; then they walked homeward together. Nancy lagged behind, and Flora kept waiting for her.

"Go along; do," said Nancy. "I want to pick these flowers."

Flora wondered innocently what Nancy wanted to pick so many flowers for. The flowers were mostly yarrow and arnica blossoms, and Flora had always regarded them as the very commonest kind of weeds.

They were quite near home, when Nancy climbed swiftly over the stone-wall and lay down behind it. Flora went on without turning her head. Nancy had spoken so shortly to her that her feelings were hurt. When she went into the house her aunt asked where Nancy was.

"She's coming," said Flora. "She stopped to pick flowers."

But it was a half-hour before Nancy came. Running as fast as she could over the meadows, it took some time to reach the Indian encampment and return. When she finally approached the house, her mother stood in the doorway, watching. She did not say a word until she came close to her.

"Where have you been?" she inquired.

Nancy hung her head, and was still. She kept one hand behind her.

"Answer me this minute."

"Down to--the Injuns."

"What for? What are you holding behind you?"

Nancy did not answer.

"Bring your hand round!" commanded her mother.

Nancy slowly swung around the hand holding the sweet-grass basket.

"Did you go down to the Injuns to-day, and spend that money you earned for that basket?" asked her mother.

"Yes, ma'am."

Her mother looked at her. The tears were streaming over her hot cheeks and her scratched nose; her best hat had slipped back, and the brim was bent; there was a great green stain on the front of her best dress, and a rent on the side.

"I can never get that green off your dress in the world," said her mother. "You'll have to wear it so. Going down to the Injuns to buy baskets on Sunday, in your best dress and hat! And you went so Flora shouldn't get it. I can see right through you. Now, Nancy Mann, you just march straight back with that basket. You ain't going to do any trading on the Sabbath day while you belong to me."

"Oh, mother!" sobbed Nancy; but she had to go. Her forlorn little figure disappeared lingeringly between the garden vines and bean poles.

"Hold your dress back," called her mother. "Don't you spoil it any more than you've done already."

To Nancy, looking through a mist of tears, the green-clad bean poles seemed dancing forward and the tomato vines creeping to meet her. Crossing the meadow she wet her feet in her best shoes. But all this was nothing. That stout Indian Princess displayed suddenly a sense of humor and a witty shrewdness which seemed abnormal. Her stolid eyes twinkled under their heavy brows when Nancy explained, tremblingly, how she had brought the basket back; her mother would not let her buy it on Sunday.

"Me no buy basket Sunday," said the Princess, and she looked loftily away from the sweet-grass basket shaking in Nancy's shaking hand. She was not in the least moved by Nancy's horrified, distressed face. Perhaps something of the ancient cruelty of her race possessed her; perhaps it was only the contagion of Yankee shrewdness. Nancy dared not go home with the basket; she went home without it or her fifty cents.

All that afternoon Nancy stayed up in her chamber and wept, while her best dress was soaking to remove the green stain, if it was Sunday. She felt as if her heart were broken. She had lost her self-respect, the sweet-grass basket, and her fifty cents, besides getting a great green stain on her best dress. Flora tried to comfort her.

"Don't cry," said she. "It's too bad! The Princess is real mean." And then Nancy sobbed harder.

When her mother was getting supper, her father followed into the pantry.

"I declare I feel sorry for the child," said he. "She's worked real hard to get that money, and she'ain't ever had so much as Flora. If it wasn't Sunday I'd go down there this minute, and get back the money or the basket from those Injuns."

"You'd look pretty going, and you a deacon of the church, after the way the Princess put it," returned Nancy's mother. "I'm sorry enough for Nancy, but she ought to have a little lesson. You can go over there to-morrow morning and get the basket back."

There was a beautiful custard pudding for supper, but Nancy did not want any.

"Sit up and eat your supper," said her mother. "Your father's going down to the Injuns in the morning, and see what he can do about it."

However, Nancy still did not care for the custard pudding; everything tasted of tears.

The next morning, before Nancy's father had a chance to go to the Indians, the Princess herself came to the back door. Whether she came from honesty or policy nobody could tell; but she came, and she brought the sweet-grass basket. She rapped on the door, and Nancy opened it. The Princess extended the basket without a word. Nancy wiped her hands, which were damp from washing the breakfast dishes, on her apron, then she took the basket. Then the Princess struck off across the garden.

Nancy carried the basket into the kitchen. She had a shamefaced and resolute expression. Flora was in there, and her father and mother.

She went straight to Flora, and held out the basket. Flora drew back, and looked at her.

"Take it," said Nancy. "It's for you."

Flora looked at her aunt.

"Take it, if she wants you to," said Mrs. Mann.

Flora took it. "Thank you," said she. She went soberly out of the room with the basket. Nancy returned to her dish-washing at the sink, her father stared out of the window, her mother came and shoved her aside, and took the dish-cloth out of her hands.

"There, I'll wash this heavy spider," said she. "You can go and put on your other dress. I want you to go down to the store for me, and I'm going to let you buy a couple of yards of that pretty pink calico for a new apron."

Nancy had admired that pink calico. As she went out of the kitchen her father caught her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake; then he patted her head.

"Don't run too fast, and get all tired out," said he.

Nancy put on her buff calico, and went to the store. It was an errand to take about an hour. She had been gone about a half-hour when the Indian Princess again came through the bean poles and tomato vines. This time she was all strung about with baskets. She stood at the kitchen door, and parleyed with Mrs. Mann and Flora. When she went away she had a fifty-cent piece in one brown fist, and she was eating a molasses cooky.

Nancy came home with the pink calico, and half a pound of cream of tartar; her mother and Flora were in the sitting-room, and they laughed when she entered.

Nancy looked soberly at them. "Here's the calico, and the cream tartar," said she.

"See what Flora has got for you," said her mother.

Nancy stared around. There on the table stood two sweet-grass baskets exactly alike.

"The Princess came again, and she had another basket. I got it for you," said Flora.

"Thank you," said Nancy, in a sober voice, but the dark depths of the Shaker bonnet seemed fairly illumined with smiles.

MEHITABLE LAMB

Hannah Maria Green sat on the north door-step, and sewed over and over a seam in a sheet. She had just gotten into her teens, and she was tall for her age, although very slim. She wore a low-necked, and short-sleeved, brown delaine dress. That style of dress was not becoming, but it was the fashion that summer. Her neck was very thin, and her collar-bones showed. Her arms were very long and small and knobby. Hannah Maria's brown hair was parted from her forehead to the back of her neck, braided in two tight braids, crossed in a flat mass at the back of her head, and surmounted by a large green-ribbon bow. Hannah Maria kept patting the bow to be sure it was on.

It was very cool there on the north door-step. Before it lay the wide north yard full of tall waving grass, with some little cinnamon rose-bushes sunken in it. Hardly anybody used the north door, so there was no path leading to it.

It was nearly four o'clock. Hannah Maria bent her sober freckled face over the sheet, and sewed and sewed. Her mother had gone to the next town to do some shopping, and bidden her to finish the seam before she returned. Hannah Maria was naturally obedient; moreover, her mother was a decided woman, so she had been very diligent; in fact the seam was nearly sewed.

It was very still--that is, there were only the sounds that seem to make a part of stillness. The birds twittered, the locusts shrilled, and the tall clock in the entry ticked. Hannah Maria was not afraid, but she was lonesome. Once in a while she looked around and sighed. She placed a pin a little way in advance on the seam, and made up her mind that when she had sewed to that place she would go into the house and get a slice of cake. Her mother had told her that she might cut a slice from the one-egg cake which had been made that morning. But before she had sewed to the pin, little Mehitable Lamb came down the road. She was in reality some years younger than Hannah Maria, but not so much younger as Hannah Maria considered her. The girl on the door-step surveyed the one approaching down the road with a friendly and patronizing air.

"Holloa!" she sang out, when Mehitable was within hailing distance.

"Holloa!" answered back Mehitable's little, sweet, deferential voice.

She came straight on, left the road, and struck across the grassy north yard to Hannah Maria's door-step. She was a round, fair little girl; her auburn hair was curled in a row of neat, smooth "water curls" around her head. She wore a straw hat with a blue ribbon, and a blue-and-white checked gingham dress; she also wore white stockings and patent leather "ankle-ties." Her dress was low-necked and short-sleeved, like Hannah Maria's, but her neck and arms were very fair and chubby.

Mehitable drew her big china doll in a doll's carriage. Hannah Maria eyed her with seeming disdain and secret longing. She herself had given up playing with dolls, her mother thought her too big; but they had still a fascination for her, and the old love had not quite died out of her breast.

"Mother said I might come over and stay an hour and a half," said Mehitable.

Hannah Maria smiled hospitably. "I'm keepin' house," said she. "Mother's gone to Lawrence."

Mehitable took her doll out of the carriage with a motherly air, and sat down on the door-step with it in her lap.

"How much longer you goin' to play with dolls?" inquired Hannah Maria.

"I don't know," replied Mehitable, with a little shamed droop of her eyelids.

"You can't when you get a little bigger, anyhow. Is that a new dress she's got on?"

"Yes; Aunt Susy made it out of a piece of her blue silk."

"It's handsome, isn't it? Let me take her a minute." Hannah Maria took the doll and cuddled it up against her shoulder as she had used to do with her own. She examined the blue silk dress. "My doll had a real handsome plaid silk one," said she, and she spoke as if the doll were dead. She sighed.

"Have you given her away?" inquired Mehitable, in a solemn tone.

"No; she's packed away. I'm too old to play with her, you know. Mother said I had other things to 'tend to. Dolls are well 'nough for little girls like you. Here, you'd better take her; I've got to finish my sewin'."

Hannah Maria handed back the doll with a resolute air, but she handed her back tenderly; then she sewed until she reached the pin. Mehitable rocked her doll, and watched.

When Hannah Maria reached the pin she jumped up. "I'm comin' back in a minute," said she, and disappeared in the house. Presently Mehitable heard the dishes rattle.

"She's gone after a cooky," she thought. Cookies were her usual luncheon.

But Hannah Maria came back with a long slice of one-egg cake with blueberries in it. She broke it into halves, and gave the larger one to Mehitable. "There," said she, "I'd give you more, but mother didn't tell me I could cut more'n one slice."

Mehitable ate her cake appreciatively; once in a while she slyly fed her doll with a bit.

Hannah Maria took bites of hers between the stitches; she had almost finished the over-and-over seams.

Presently she rose and shook out the sheet with a triumphant air. "There," said she, "it's done."

"Did you sew all that this afternoon?" asked Mehitable, in an awed tone.

"My! yes. It isn't so very much to do."

Hannah Maria laid the sheet down in a heap on the entry floor; then she looked at Mehitable. "Now, I've nothin' more to do," said she. "S'pose we go to walk a little ways?"

"I don't know as my mother'd like to have me do that."

"Oh yes, she would; she won't care. Come along! I'll get my hat."

Hannah Maria dashed over the sheet into the entry and got her hat off the peg; then she and Mehitable started. They strolled up the country road. Mehitable trundled her doll-carriage carefully; once in a while she looked in to see if the doll was all right.

"Isn't that carriage kind of heavy for you to drag all alone?" inquired Hannah Maria.

"No; it isn't very heavy."

"I had just as lief help you drag it as not."

Hannah Maria reached down and took hold by one side of the handle of the doll-carriage, and the two girls trundled it together.

There were no houses for a long way. The road stretched between pasture-lands and apple-orchards. There was one very fine orchard on both sides of the street a quarter of a mile below Hannah Maria's house. The trees were so heavily loaded with green apples that the branches hung low over the stone walls. Now and then there was among them a tree full of ripe yellow apples.

"Don't you like early apples?" asked Hannah Maria.

Mehitable nodded.

"Had any?"

"No."

"They don't grow in your field, do they?"

Mehitable shook her head. "Mother makes pies with our apples, but they're not mellow 'nough to eat now," she replied.

"Well," said Hannah Maria, "we haven't got any. All our apples are baldwins and greenin's. I havn't had an early apple this summer."

The two went on, trundling the doll-carriage. Suddenly Hannah Maria stopped.

"Look here," said she; "my aunt Jenny and my uncle Timothy have got lots of early apples. You just go along this road a little farther, and you get to the road that leads to their house. S'pose we go."

"How far is it?"

"Oh, not very far. Father walks over sometimes."

"I don't believe my mother would like it."

"Oh yes, she would! Come along."

But all Hannah Maria's entreaties could not stir Mehitable Lamb. When they reached the road that led to Uncle Timothy's house she stood still.

"My mother won't like it," said she.

"Yes, she will."

Mehitable stood as if she and the doll-carriage were anchored to the road.

"I think you're real mean, Mehitable Lamb," said Hannah Maria. "You're a terrible 'fraid cat. I'm goin', anyhow, and I won't bring you a single apple; so there!"

"Don't want any," returned Mehitable, with some spirit. She turned the doll-carriage around. Hannah Maria walked up the road a few steps. Suddenly she faced about. Mehitable had already started homeward.

"Mehitable Lamb!" said she.

Mehitable looked around.

"I s'pose you'll go right straight home and tell my mother just as quick as you can get there."

Mehitable said nothing.

"You'll be an awful telltale if you do."

"Sha'n't tell," said Mehitable, in a sulky voice.

"Will you promise--'Honest and true. Black and blue. Lay me down and cut me in two'--that you won't tell?"

Mehitable nodded.

"Say it over then."

Mehitable repeated the formula. It sounded like inaudible gibberish.

"I shall tell her myself when I get home," said Hannah Maria. "I shall be back pretty soon, anyway, but I don't want her sending father after me. You're sure you're not goin' to tell, now, Mehitable Lamb? Say it over again."

Mehitable said it again.

"Well, you'll be an awful telltale if you do tell after that!" said Hannah Maria.

She went on up one road towards her uncle Timothy Dunn's, and Mehitable trundled her doll-carriage homeward down the other. She went straight on past Hannah Maria's house. Hannah Maria's mother, Mrs. Green, had come home. She saw the white horse and buggy out in the south yard. She heard Mrs. Green's voice calling, "Hannah Maria, Hannah Maria!" and she scudded by like a rabbit.

Mehitable's own house was up the hill, not far beyond. She lived there with her mother and grandmother and her two aunts; her father was dead. The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney; her aunt Susy was getting supper. Aunt Susy was the younger and prettier of the aunts. Mehitable thought her perfection. She came to the kitchen door when Mehitable entered the yard, and stood there smiling at her.

"Well," said she, "did you have a nice time at Hannah Maria's?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What makes you look so sober?"

Mehitable said nothing.

"Did you play dolls?"

"Hannah Maria's too big."

"Stuff!" cried Aunt Susy. Then her shortcake was burning, and she had to run in to see to it.

Mehitable took her china doll out of the carriage, set her carefully on the step, and then lugged the carriage laboriously to a corner of the piazza, where she always kept it. It was a very nice large carriage, and rather awkward to be kept in the house. Then she took her doll and went in through the kitchen to the sitting-room. Her mother and grandmother and other aunt were in there, and they were all glad to see her, and inquired if she had had a nice time at Hannah Maria's. But Mehitable was very sober. She did not seem like herself. Her mother asked whether she did not feel well, and, in spite of her saying that she did, would not let her eat any of her aunt Susy's shortcake for supper. She had to eat some stale bread, and shortly after supper she had to go to bed. Her mother went up-stairs with her, and tucked her in.

"She's all tired out," she said to the others, "it's quite a little walk over to the Greens', and I s'pose she played hard. I don't really like to have her play with a girl so much older as Hannah Maria. She isn't big enough to run and race."

"She didn't seem like herself when she came into the yard," said Aunt Susy.

"I should have given her a good bowl of thoroughwort tea, when she went to bed," said her grandmother.

"The kitchen fire isn't out yet; I can steep some thoroughwort now," said Aunt Susy, and she forthwith started. She brewed a great bowl of thoroughwort tea and carried it up to Mehitable. Mehitable's wistful innocent blue eyes stared up out of the pillows at Aunt Susy and the bowl.

"What is it?" she inquired.

"A bowl of nice hot thoroughwort tea. You sit up and drink it right down, like a good little girl."

"I'm not sick, Aunt Susy," Mehitable pleaded, faintly. She hated thoroughwort tea.

"Well, never mind if you're not. Sit right up. It'll do you good."

Aunt Susy's face was full of loving determination. So Mehitable sat up. She drank the thoroughwort tea with convulsive gulps. Once in a while she paused and rolled her eyes piteously over the edge of the bowl.

"Drink it right down," said Aunt Susy.

And she drank it down. There never was a more obedient little girl than Mehitable Lamb. Then she lay back, and Aunt Susy tucked her up, and went down with the empty bowl.

"Did she drink it all?" inquired her grandmother.

"Every mite."

"Well, she'll be all right in the morning, I guess. There isn't anything better than a bowl of good, hot, thoroughwort tea."

The twilight was deepening. The Lamb family were all in the sitting-room. They had not lighted the lamp, the summer dusk was so pleasant. The windows were open. All at once a dark shadow appeared at one of them. The women started--all but Grandmother Lamb. She was asleep in her chair.

"Who's there?" Aunt Susy asked, in a grave tone.

"Have you seen anything of Hannah Maria?" said a hoarse voice. Then they knew it was Mr. Green.

Mrs. Lamb and the aunts pressed close to the window.

"No, we haven't," replied Mrs. Lamb. "Why, what's the matter?"

"We can't find her anywheres. Mother went over to Lawrence this afternoon, and I was down in the east field hayin'. Mother, she got home first, and Hannah Maria wasn't anywhere about the house, an' she'd kind of an idea she'd gone over to the Bennets'; she'd been talkin' about goin' there to get a tidy-pattern of the Bennet girl, so she waited till I got home. I jest put the horse in again, an' drove over there, but she's not been there. I don't know where she is. Mother's most crazy."

"Where is she?" they cried, all altogether.

"Sittin' out in the road, in the buggy."

Mrs. Lamb and the aunts hurried out. They and Mr. Green stood beside the buggy, and Mrs. Green thrust her anxious face out.

"Oh, where do you suppose she is?" she groaned.

"Now, do keep calm, Mrs. Green," said Mrs. Lamb, in an agitated voice. "We've got something to tell you. Mehitable was over there this afternoon."

"Oh, she wasn't, was she?"