Who Did It? — Part Second
“HESTER,” said Mrs. Denton, still in the “awful” tone, “you have been a very ungrateful little girl indeed; I could not have believed it! I don’t know but I ought to send you dinnerless and supperless to bed to spend the day; but I have concluded to give you a chance, even yet, to overcome your faults, great as they are. If you will confess the whole thing to me from beginning to end, and will go to Miss Cora and say that you are bitterly sorry for having been so wicked a girl, I will allow you to go to the New Year’s party, and say nothing about the matter to your teacher for the present, at least; perhaps never, if I find you are truly sorry and are trying hard to do right.”
Poor Hester! This seemed to hem her in more than ever. Confess what? That she had inked the beautiful dress in a fit of rage; and then had told falsehood after falsehood to cover the sin?
As she stood before her waiting mistress, thinking it all over, one minute her face was pale with fear, and the next it flushed with anger. She “wanted so” to go to that party! More, perhaps, than you who have been to many parties, can possibly imagine. The fear of giving it up made her face pale. Then the thought that her word was not believed, and that the only way to get to the party was actually to tell a lie, made her face grow red with anger.
“Well,” said Mrs. Denton at last, vexed more than ever at her hesitation, “it seems to take you a long time to decide. Are you going to confess the whole thing to me or not? I assure you I shall not stand here waiting very long.”
“Oh, ma’am!” burst forth Hester at last, the tears streaming from her eyes. “Indeed! Indeed, I have told you the truth. I don’t know one thing about the pretty dress.”
“Leave the room instantly!” was Mrs. Denton’s stern command.
And Hester flew sobbing up the stairs into her attic, and threw herself on the bed in a perfect passion of weeping.
Even then Mrs. Denton was sorry for her. “It is not so much the loss of the dress,” she said to her daughters, “though that is enough; but to think that the creature will persist in falsehood! And yet I cannot help being sorry for her. I suppose she is so frightened about it now, that she is actually afraid to confess.”
“Poor little wretch!” said Miss Cora, who by this time was dressed in her new bottle-green suit, and found that she looked very nice indeed, and so felt better. “Mamma, give her another trial. She has never been to a party in her life; and she has talked about this one incessantly all the week.”
So Mrs. Denton, believing herself to be the most patient and forgiving of women, sent up word that she would give Hester one hour, even now, in which to decide to do right.
Oh! Can I describe to you how awfully tempted poor Hester was then? What to do? Why, to say that she had inked the beautiful blue dress!
“Somebody must have done it,” sobbed the poor little girl to herself; “and they will always think I did it; and they will think I am awful, awful wicked; and they will send me to the house of correction, maybe, or somewhere, and she said she would forgive me if I would confess. She will tell Mrs. Neilson all about it, and she will think I forgot all she said to me, and didn’t try a bit to do right; and she said she would forgive me if I would confess it. Oh dear me! What ‘shall’ I do?”
Don’t you see how Satan came to torment this poor little friendless mouse? He actually made her think that it wouldn’t be such a dreadful thing just to say she was sorry for what she had never done. She told herself that she could think in her heart that she only meant she was sorry because the blue dress was spoiled, and she was sure that would be true. Besides, oh, what an important matter she made of that New Year’s party! What would all the other girls think was the reason she was not there? That fat Anna Parks, who didn’t like her a bit and was always saying ugly things about her, would be sure to find out why she was kept away, and would tell all the girls, and they would believe it, and it would do more harm than one poor little story possibly could.
“SOMEBODY MUST HAVE DONE IT,” SOBBED HESTER.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” she said, hopping up suddenly as she heard a clock down in the sitting-room strike the half hour. “The time is almost gone, and if I don’t do it, I shall have to stay here all day, and all night, and be sent away and never see Mrs. Neilson any more, and they will never forgive me. Oh, I must! I must!”
TO BE CONTINUED.
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SIDE BY SIDE
Side by Side
[PART II.]
YE HAVE NOT CHOSEN ME, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN YOU, AND ORDAINED YOU, THAT YE SHOULD GO AND BRING FORTH FRUIT, AND THAT YOUR FRUIT SHOULD REMAIN.
HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME.
HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE CHURCHES.
THERE SHALL BE A HANDFUL OF CORN IN THE EARTH UPON THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAINS; THE FRUIT THEREOF SHALL SHAKE LIKE LEBANON.
The girls gathered in little groups and talked over the matter. Something new to be done. Miss Mason was in charge of their room, and in the reading-class that morning had told them of the custom when she went to school of “choosing sides and spelling down.” These girls and boys knew nothing about it, but, most of them had agreed that it would be “fun,” and at recess they had crowded about Miss Mason, and coaxed her to let them have a spelling-match. So this very afternoon it was to be tried; and the leaders had already been chosen, one of them being Ethol Harrison.
“Our side will beat, you’ll see if it won’t,” she said, tossing back her pretty curls. “I know who all the best spellers are, and I’ll choose them as fast as I can, and the others may keep their seats for all I care.”
“But Johnnie Burns has every other turn,” objected one of the girls; “what if he chooses some of the best ones before you get a chance?”
“Oh, he won’t!” said Ethol. “Johnnie doesn’t think fast enough to know who the best spellers are.”
Just then Ethol caught sight of Sarah Lambert standing just outside the group, looking wistfully at them. Sarah was almost always just outside of things.
“Just see that girl stare at us!” Ethol said. “She always looks hungry out of her eyes. Did you ever notice? I wonder if she expects to get chosen? I shan’t choose her, I’m sure.”
“She’s a pretty good speller, though,” answered one of the girls, thoughtfully.
“I don’t care. I shan’t choose her; and I don’t believe Johnnie will; he won’t if I tell him not to. She doesn’t belong to us girls. It always makes me cross to see her standing around. Her faded old dress, and straight, yellow hair, and no ruffle, and worn-out shoes, don’t match in with the rest of us.” And Ethol tossed her curls again, and smoothed the overskirt of her handsome all-wool blue dress, and looked down at her trim, buttoned boots with an air that said as plainly as words: “Could you imagine two people who looked more unlike that Sarah Lambert and I?”
Presently the group around the register moved away in different directions, but Sarah Lambert’s eager eyes followed Ethol. She had caught stray words here and there from the girls, and she knew that a good deal of the talk had been going on about choosing; so she determined to do what took a good deal of courage.
“Did He choose you?” She asked the question eagerly, her great eyes looking hungrier than ever.
“Did who choose me?” Ethol’s voice was almost cross. “What ‘are’ you talking about? You always begin in the middle of things.”
“I want to know if He chose you, and if He has told you what to do, and if you know how to do it, and how He let you know that He wanted you?”
Then did Ethol look at her in utter amazement. “Sarah Lambert, I believe you are crazy!” she said slowly. “Nobody is to choose me; Johnnie Burns and I do the choosing of the others. Of course I know how to do it. And as to his wanting me, I don’t know what you mean.”
The eagerness went out of Sarah’s eyes a little.
“I didn’t mean about the spelling,” she said gravely, “it’s about the other choosing. Don’t you know?” And she took from her pocket a card, carefully wrapped in paper, and pointed to the verse at the head of this story. “I meant Him; the one Miss Mason talked about yesterday. She said He chose folks now, and gave them things to do for Him; and I thought you was one, because you are so pretty, you know, and dress so nice; and I wondered what He had given you to do; and I was thinking maybe there was something even for me to do in my old dress, and with my shoes all out at the toes; but I don’t suppose there is.”
“I MEANT HIM; THE ONE MISS MASON TALKED ABOUT
YESTERDAY.”
I wish I could give you a picture of Ethol as she stood looking at the ill-dressed girl at that moment. If I could show you a picture of both of them, you would see that though side by side there was a very great difference between them.
“You are the queerest girl that I ever heard of in my life!” Ethol said at last. It was all the answer that she seemed to know how to make.
When three o’clock came, and the two champions took their places on the floor of the schoolroom, ready to call their helpers, some of the girls were very much astonished to hear Ethol call “Sarah Lambert” for her first choice. It seems Ethol had made up her mind that at least the “queer girl” should be chosen for something. I don’t suppose she had the slightest idea what a surprise and delight this was to Sarah; she had never been chosen for anything before.
Part III
The Three Little M’s —
The two little girls stumbled along over the rough ground, crying so that they could scarcely see. Mr. Poser stalked on with never a word to say. Of course that left Mrs. Smith to do all the talking, which she did with a right good will.
At last Martha broke out:
“I know bears have eaten Mary all up, or else snakes, or else wild-cats, or—”
“Or she’s peeked into a cave, an’ the doors rolled to, an’ she can’t get out,” suggested Matilda.
At these horrible pictures, they wailed afresh.
“Mr. Poser, I can’t go another step,” cried Mrs. Smith. “I’m all beat out. These young ones have made me so nervous, seems ef I sh’d scream myself.” With that, she came to a dead stop.
“Set down there,” said Mr. Poser, who began to feel as if the rank and file of the procession was going to be of very little help to him after all.
Mrs. Smith looked around for a convenient resting place. The little girls wailed on.
“There’s the ‘Dungeon,’” she said, pointing to the old gloomy house. “They do say folks have moved in there, but it don’t look as if a livin’ soul had ever been nigh it. I remember there’s a bench round the corn-house. There, I shall rest my bones.”
So they all trailed dismally into the overgrown enclosure, and seeing nobody, they deposited themselves on a worm-eaten bench that ran around two sides of the corn-house. If they had only known what was on the other side of that wall!
“ANY OF YOU BEEN IN OUR BARN?”
A boy came slowly over the rough ground where a long time ago there had been a path. He was looking closely at something in his hand, turning it over and over in great curiosity. He stopped short in front of the bench and its occupants.
“Any of you been in our barn?” he asked abruptly.
“No,” said Mr. Poser, “we hain’t been in any one’s barn.”
“Oh well, then, you haven’t lost—”
“‘Lost?’” cried Mrs. Smith jumping up in great excitement to seize his arm. “Oh yes, we have too, every single one of us has lost. That’s what we’ve come for.”
At that, all four of them gathered around the boy, but he began again before they could any of them speak.
“Was the head all punched in?” he demanded, eying them sharply. “And were the figures all shaved off?”
“‘Head all punched in?’ and ‘figures all shaved off?’ Oh! My senses,” exclaimed Mrs. Smith, going back to sit down on her bench again.
“‘Cos then tain’t yours!” said the boy triumphantly, beginning to move off. “An’ you don’t git this quarter of a dollar away from me ’that’ way.”
“Boy!” commanded old Mr. Poser. His little eyes flashed their sternest, as he raised his stick. “Hand that quarter of a dollar to me!”
The boy took one look at the stick and silently put the silver bit into the old man’s hand.
“I sent that quarter of a dollar five hours ago to you, Mrs. Smith,” said Mr. Poser solemnly. “I could swear to it. You see the head o’ the Goddess of Liberty ‘is’ punched in, and the figures ‘are’ shaved off. ‘Now, where is my Mary?’”
It was now the boy’s turn to be questioned, as the old man turned around on him sternly.
“I haven’t seen any Mary,” he said, backing off, and wishing he hadn’t locked the dog in the house.
“Where did you find that quarter?” asked Mr. Poser.
“In the barn,” said the boy shortly. “I’d give ten cents to get hold of Bose,” he muttered under his breath.
“Then we go to the barn,” said the old man. “Where that quarter was, Mary has been. Lead on!”
The procession was now increased to five, the boy having the honor to be captain. The barn was searched in every nook and cranny, but no little girl in a red hood rejoiced their anxious, weary eyes.
“We will go all over this place,” said Mr. Poser with a very white face. “Begin and take us straight through!”
“There ain’t any other part of the place been open,” said the boy doggedly. “Father’s away, an’ the rest of the folks, an’ I’ve been round all day, so I know—’xcept about quarter of an hour,” he added honestly, “when I run home with Jim Saunders after he’d been here shellin’ corn with me. But the corn-house is locked. I locked it myself; so she ’couldn’t’ be in there.”
“Unlock that corn-house,” said Mr. Poser briefly.
And before any one could think twice, the procession stood in front of the old door.
The boy grunted something as he rattled the key in the rusty lock; the door flew open, to disclose little Mary, huddled up in fright on a big bag of potatoes.
“I’m never going to be naughty again.”
How often she has said that since. And then she looks and sighs at the dim old silver quarter that hangs by a ribbon from her neck.
“I’M NEVER GOING TO BE NAUGHTY AGAIN.”
It has never been off since that night when her father made a hole through it and put it in its place. “It’s to make you think,” he said.
For thoughts:—May none of those who join hands and hearts in the Pansy Society for brave battling against their faults, ever look on their lovely badges with the sadness with which little Mary sees her old silver quarter of a dollar!
PANSIES P. S. THOUGHT
Pansies P. S. Thought
Now, all you dear people who “belong,” listen to me. I’ve something to tell you about a book:
“Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.”
Ever hear of them? Don’t go to imagining they were little round black things growing in a pod (by the way, I’ve something funny to tell you about that very thing, some day). Never were any nicer and neater and better-behaved Peppers, so far as they knew how, than lived in that little old kitchen. Five little treasures of a dear mother. Pollie, and Ben, and Davie, and Joel, and Phronsie. Really, it is hard to decide which of the dear, bright, unselfish Peppers I like the best.
A big book that tells about them all. A book with four hundred and ten pages, and a beautiful cover, and ever so many pictures. A book that you older brothers and sisters will enjoy, with bits all through it that you will delight to read to the little ones. A book that costs a good deal of money, of course, for how could people get up a good and handsome book full of pictures, unless they spent a good deal of money on it?
Besides, it is written by a lady whose writings have to be paid for, because she knows how to write, and the publishers know it, and are glad to get her to write them a book. Her name, or at least the name which she puts on paper, is Margaret Sidney. I’m sure you are acquainted with her, for isn’t she giving us the account of that ridiculous little Mary Posey?
And, now for a secret! Bend your heads! The publishers told me to tell you that every boy and girl whose name is on our P. S. roll could have a copy of that book for seventy-five cents. Just half what other people have to pay.
Now I do hope you’ll all get it, and write and tell me what you think of Polly’s cake, and Phronsie’s gingerbread man, and ever so many other queer and quaint and sweet things in the story. Another thing: Tell me what it was in that family that made such a happy home. Yours lovingly, PANSY.