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diff --git a/23540-h/23540-h.htm b/23540-h/23540-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fc9248 --- /dev/null +++ b/23540-h/23540-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3921 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Twin Cousins, by Sophie May</title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + p {margin-top: 0.5em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + body {margin-left: 11%; margin-right: 10%;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + h1 {text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em; clear: both;} + h2 {text-align: center; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 2em; clear: both;} + h3 {text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; font-weight: normal; clear: both;} + h3.pg {text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; font-weight: bold; clear: both;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .blockquot {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} + table p {text-align: center; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;} + h2.toc {margin-top: 1em;} + td.tdright {vertical-align: top; text-align: right;} + td.tdleft {vertical-align: top; text-align: left;} + .caption {font-size: 80%;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .center {text-align:center;} + .pagenum {display: inline; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; + position: absolute; right: 2%; border:1px solid white; + padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration: none; + color: #444; background-color: #EEE;} + hr.full {width: 100%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.major {width: 65%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.minor {width: 45%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} + hr.dashed {width: 100%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; border:none; border-bottom:1px dashed;} + a.pagenum:after {border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 3px; content: attr(title);} + hr.pg { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Twin Cousins, by Sophie May</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Twin Cousins</p> +<p>Author: Sophie May</p> +<p>Release Date: November 18, 2007 [eBook #23540]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWIN COUSINS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:309px"> +<a name="illus-000" id="illus-000"></a> +<img src="images/illus-fpc1.jpg" alt="DISAGREEABLE PATTY FOLLOWS THE TWINS. Page 180." title="" width="309" /><br /> +<span class="caption">DISAGREEABLE PATTY FOLLOWS THE TWINS.<br />Page 180.</span> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:320px"> +<a name="illus-001" id="illus-001"></a> +<img src="images/illus-fpc2.jpg" alt="" title="" width="320" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<table style="margin: auto; width:25em" summary=""><tr><td> +<p style=" font-size:1em; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:3em;"><i>FLAXIE FRIZZLE STORIES</i></p> +<p style=" font-size:2.2em; margin-bottom:3em;">THE TWIN COUSINS</p> +<p style=" font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:3em;">BY</p> +<p style=" font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:1em;">SOPHIE MAY</p> +<p style=" font-size:0.8em;">AUTHOR OF LITTLE PRUDY STORIES, DOTTY DIMPLE STORIES</p> +<p style=" font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:6em;">LITTLE PRUDY’S FLYAWAY STORIES ETC.</p> +<p style=" font-size:1em; margin-bottom:3em;"><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p style=" font-size:1.2em;">BOSTON 1893</p> +<p style=" font-size:1.2em;">LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS</p> +<p style=" font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:3em;">10 MILK STREET NEXT “THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE”</p> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<p style="margin: 3em 3em; text-align: center;">COPYRIGHT,<br /> +1880<br /> +BY LEE AND SHEPARD.</p> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<h2 class="toc"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> +<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents" style="margin: 0 auto 2em auto; font-variant: small-caps;"> +<col style="width:15%;" /> +<col style="width:5%;" /> +<col style="width:70%;" /> +<col style="width:10%;" /> +<tr> +<td align="right"><span style="font-size:x-small">CHAPTER</span></td> +<td></td> +<td></td> +<td align="right"><span style="font-size:x-small">PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">I.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Flaxie Frizzle’s Party.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#CHAPTER_I_102">9</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">II.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Staying Out to Tea.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#STAYING_OUT_TO_TEA_402">25</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">III.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">The Lonesome Visit.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#THE_LONESOME_VISIT_676">40</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">IV.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Lucy’s Mittens.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#LUCYS_MITTENS_1017">59</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">V.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">That Homely Miss Pike.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#THAT_HOMELY_MISS_PIKE_1323">75</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">VI.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">The House That Jack Built.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#THE_HOUSE_THAT_JACK_BUILT_1614">91</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">VII.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Hilltop Again.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#HILLTOP_AGAIN_1914">109</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">VIII.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">A Crazy Christmas.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#A_CRAZY_CHRISTMAS_2165">124</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">IX.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Milly Visiting.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#MILLY_VISITING_2432">139</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">X.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Blackdrop.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#BLACKDROP_2720">155</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">XI.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Flaxie a Comfort.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#FLAXIE_A_COMFORT_2935">167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdright">XII.</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdleft">Brave Preston Gray.</td> + <td class="tdright"><a href="#BRAVE_PRESTON_GRAY_3133">178</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<h1>THE TWIN COUSINS.</h1> + +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_9" id="pg_9">9</a></span> +<a name="CHAPTER_I_102" id="CHAPTER_I_102"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<h3>FLAXIE FRIZZLE’S PARTY.</h3> +</div> + +<p>“O Auntie Prim, <i>may</i> I have a party? I’ll give you a <i>thou</i>-sand kisses +if you’ll lemme have a party!”</p> + +<p>Auntie Prim looked as if one kiss would be more than she could bear. She +was standing by the pantry window that opened upon the garden, rolling +out pie-crust, and didn’t like to be disturbed. She was a very good +woman, but she <i>never</i> liked to be disturbed.</p> + +<p>“Party?” said she, gazing sternly at Flaxie Frizzle and her little +cousin Milly. “Saturday<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_10" id="pg_10">10</a></span> morning, and your mother gone, too! I should +think this was a queer time for a party!”</p> + +<p>Flaxie rolled her apron over at the corners and chewed it.</p> + +<p>“Well, ’cause it’s my birthday, and my mamma said—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and her grammy said—” Little Milly got as far as this and then +stopped. Flaxie was her darling “twin cousin,” and she wanted to help +her; but that tall lady with the rolling-pin was just dreadful.</p> + +<p>“Oh, now I remember,” said Mrs. Prim, paring off the dough around the +edge of a pie. “Your mother did say, if you were a good girl all the +week, you might have a few children here to tea. But <i>have</i> you been a +good girl, Mary Gray?” added she, with a look through her spectacles +that pierced her little niece to the soul.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_11" id="pg_11">11</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yes um,” replied Flaxie, gazing down at her boots. “Only once, you +know, you had to set me on the shelf behind the stove.”</p> + +<p>“Very true. So you see you <i>were</i> naughty. What did you do?”</p> + +<p>“Meddled,” said Flaxie in a low voice, with another nibble at her apron.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Prim smiled a very small smile, but it was behind her lips, where +the children could not see it.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mary, perhaps you have been as good as could reasonably be +expected under the circumstances.”</p> + +<p>Poor little Milly couldn’t help feeling as if <i>she</i> were the +“circumstances,” or why did those spectacles shine straight upon her?</p> + +<p>“And I suppose you must have the party.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie gave a scream of delight, and caught Mrs. Prim round the waist.</p> + +<p>“O you darling, darling auntie!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_12" id="pg_12">12</a></span></p> + +<p>“There, there; don’t smother me, or I can’t cook your supper. What do +you want?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <i>may</i> I have what I want? <i>Pinnuts</i> and peaches, and candy and +preserves, and jelly and choclids, and oranges and <i>everything</i>?”</p> + +<p>“No, you absurd child, not everything; but whatever is most suitable and +proper,—if you will only run away out of my sight, you and Milly. But +go first and tell your grandmother to send Dora to me.”</p> + +<p>“Grammy’s quilting a quilt, and Dodo’s quilting a quilt; but I’ll tell +’em to come.”</p> + +<p>“No, no; I only want Dora.”</p> + +<p>“That child can’t be trusted to do the smallest errand correctly,” +thought Auntie Prim, taking down the cook-book, with a sigh, and looking +at the recipes for cake. Her husband was in Canada, and she had kindly +offered to spend a month or so at<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_13" id="pg_13">13</a></span> Dr. Gray’s while his wife went away +for her health. This would have been very pleasant, only Julia went with +her mother, and little Flaxie was always troublesome without Julia.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Prim had said that morning to Dora that she would go into the +pantry and make three apple-pies, for she knew how to make them better +than Dora; and then she must finish writing her lecture on Ancient +History. And now Flaxie Frizzle had come and asked for a party! Mrs. +Prim was called a “superior woman,” and knew more than almost anybody +else in town except the minister; but she did think children very +trying, and their parties “perfectly absurd.” Besides, Flaxie wasn’t her +own niece.</p> + +<p>“O auntie, auntie!” cried the little tease, coming back again, with +Milly at her heels, “we’ve got to go and invite ’em!”</p> + +<p>“Certainly; and why don’t you go, then?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_14" id="pg_14">14</a></span></p> + +<p>“Don’ know how; please tell us how,” said Flaxie, clutching Mrs. Prim by +the skirt, and wishing there was a hinge in that lady somewhere, so she +could bend.</p> + +<p>“Don’t know how? Just go to the houses, child, and ask the little girls’ +mothers.”</p> + +<p>“O auntie, we don’t want the little girls’ mothers!”</p> + +<p>“No, no; ask the mothers to let their little daughters come here to tea; +that’s what I mean.”</p> + +<p>Then Auntie Prim made out a list of ten little girls, for the table +would seat twelve, and she wanted the party large enough to please +Flaxie. She thought she would make some of her own delicious tarts and a +nice sponge roll, and Dora might mix White Mountain cake and boil a +tongue. Mrs. Prim meant to be very kind, though she was sure, if she had +had any little girls of<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_15" id="pg_15">15</a></span> her own, they would never have had any parties!</p> + +<p>“Now, be sure to say I want the children to come early—at half-past +two.”</p> + +<p>“Yes um!” And the little messengers danced out of the house.</p> + +<p>“Flaxie,” said Mrs. Prim, rapping on the pantry window with the +egg-beater, “are you sure you heard what I said?”</p> + +<p>“Yes um.”</p> + +<p>“What time did I set?”</p> + +<p>“Ha’ pas’ two.”</p> + +<p>“Very well.—And I shall be thankful when it is over,” sighed the poor +lady, taking down the spice-box.</p> + +<p>But wasn’t it gay times for the twin cousins, who had all the fun and +none of the worry! I wish I were a little girl, just going to have a +party, don’t you? They didn’t stop to look at the beautiful trees,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_16" id="pg_16">16</a></span> with +their bright October leaves, or at the sky, with its soft white clouds; +they hopped along, their arms around each other’s waist, keeping time to +the happy thoughts in their hearts.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Milly, aren’t you glad you came to my house visiting?”</p> + +<p>Milly was very glad to-day; she had not been glad yesterday, when they +had the trouble about their dolls.</p> + +<p>The first house was General Townsend’s; and when Mrs. Townsend came to +the door, Milly hid behind a lilac-bush; but Flaxie, who was never +afraid of anybody, looked up with her laughing blue eyes, and said, +without stopping for ‘How d’ye do?’—</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mrs. Townsend, I’m goin’ to have a party six years old, and mayn’t +Fanny come? Auntie Prim says for the children to come early,—at ha’ +pas’ two,—and she’ll be <i>thankful</i> when it’s over.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_17" id="pg_17">17</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Townsend could not possibly help smiling at this remarkable speech, +but she replied that Fanny might go.</p> + +<p>“Now, Flaxie Frizzle,” said Mabel, as the door closed, “you oughtn’t to +say your auntie’ll be ‘thankful’; it isn’t polite.”</p> + +<p>“Yes it is. I guess Auntie Prim knows; she knows everything. But ’fore +I’d run and hide!” retorted Flaxie.</p> + +<p>There wasn’t any lilac-bush at the next house, and Milly had to stand on +the door-stone and hide under her hat.</p> + +<p>It was surprising how fast Flaxie said it over: “I’m goin’ to have a +party six years old,” &c., without skipping a word; and though Milly had +her doubts about the politeness of Mrs. Prim’s being so “thankful,” she +did think Flaxie Frizzle was a wonderful girl; and indeed Flaxie thought +so too.</p> + +<p>“What, back so soon?” said Auntie Prim,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_18" id="pg_18">18</a></span> who had scarcely missed the +children before they appeared again at the pantry-door, rosy with +running.</p> + +<p>“Yes um; I’ve invited ’em all up.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie said “I” with quite an air.</p> + +<p>“Possible? I wonder if you did it correctly. What did you say?”</p> + +<p>“I said,” replied Miss Frizzle, proud to have made no mistakes this +time, “I said, ‘I’m goin’ to have a party six years old, and Auntie Prim +says for the children to come early,—at ha’ pas’ two,—and she’ll be +<i>thankful</i> when it’s over.’”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t!” cried auntie, the color flying into her pale face, and her +spectacles shining like diamonds.</p> + +<p>“Well, I never!” said Dora, and sat right down by the oven-door to +laugh. “But they do say, children and fools always speak the truth!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_19" id="pg_19">19</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Prim resolved to keep calm, but this was very trying.</p> + +<p>“Mary Gray,” said she, pressing her hands together quite sticky with +dough, “I didn’t mean you to repeat the last part of that speech; I +didn’t even know you had heard it. It does seem to me you are old enough +to have a <i>little</i> sense of propriety. What can those ladies think of +me? What can they think of <i>you</i>? I shouldn’t blame them if they didn’t +let their children come, after such an invitation as that!”</p> + +<p>Flaxie hung her head. What had <i>she</i> done so very wrong? She could never +bear to be blamed; and I must relate that she was rude enough to slip +out of the house while her aunt was still speaking, followed by Milly.</p> + +<p>“She thinks children are goosies, and hates to hear ’em talk,” said she, +the tears dripping over her apron.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_20" id="pg_20">20</a></span></p> + +<p>“I’m drefful ’shamed; aren’t you?” said little Milly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I ’spect we’ve done something <i>orful</i>,” returned Flaxie.</p> + +<p>You will observe that she said “we” this time, quite willing Milly +should have a full share of the blame.</p> + +<p>“I can’t stan’ it, Milly Allen, folks laughing at us so! Did you see +Dodo laughing and laughing and laughing?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did. She shook all over, and said children were fools.”</p> + +<p>“My mamma wouldn’t ’low her to say that,” sobbed Flaxie. “And nobody +comin’ to our party, either. Auntie Prim thinks they won’t any of ’em +come.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, they will! their mammas said they might.”</p> + +<p>“Hope they won’t!” said Flaxie, stamping her foot so hard that a +“hop-toad” thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_21" id="pg_21">21</a></span> there was an earthquake, and hurried out of the way. +“Hope they won’t, any of ’em! I’m not agoin’ to go to it myself,—so +there!”</p> + +<p>Milly peeped up in surprise.</p> + +<p>“I hate it, Milly Allen; let’s run away!”</p> + +<p>“Why, Flaxie Frizzle!” was all Mabel could say, for the idea of a little +girl’s running away from her own party was truly amazing.</p> + +<p>“You think I don’t dare,” said Flaxie; “but I do dare! I’m agoin’ right +off in the woods, and stay there! And I <i>thought</i> you’s agoin’ with me. +You’re my twin cousin, and it’s your party as much as ’tis mine.”</p> + +<p>Milly knew this was very wrong, and ought to have said so to Flaxie. If +they had already done one foolish thing, it would make it no better to +do another foolish thing, as <i>you</i> can see in a moment. But Milly wanted +to please Flaxie, so she said stoutly:<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_22" id="pg_22">22</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I’m going!”</p> + +<p>Silly children! Flaxie pretended she was running away from her party, +but she didn’t mean to <i>stay</i> away. Oh, no! She wouldn’t have missed the +party for anything. Even now she was beginning to wonder what Dora was +baking.</p> + +<p>The woods were deep and high and dark. Before they had gone quarter of a +mile Flaxie wanted to turn back, but waited for Milly to speak first.</p> + +<p>“Oh dear!” cried Milly, trembling, for she had never been in such a +place before. “You s’pose it’s night, Flaxie? Has the sun set?”</p> + +<p>“No, it hasn’t. But we ought to brought a imbreller; it’s goin’ to +rain,” replied Flaxie, holding out her hand to catch a drop. “I didn’t +spect you’d be so ’fraid, Milly Allen; but if you <i>are</i> afraid, we’ll go +right home this minute.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_23" id="pg_23">23</a></span></p> + +<p>They turned, but the wrong way, and instead of going home, only struck +deeper into the woods. They didn’t see the sky at all, and all the light +seemed to come from the gay leaves and the gold of Flaxie’s hair; for I +am sorry to say she had lost her hat.</p> + +<p>“Ha’ pas’ two; ha’ pas’ two,” said she dreamily. “Let’s go home to the +party.”</p> + +<p>“Thought you hated the old party,” said Milly, falling over a dead tree, +and crying.</p> + +<p>“Well, I was only in fun. Don’t you know when I’m in fun, you goosie?”</p> + +<p>You see they were both getting cross as well as hungry, for dinner-time +was past long ago. In another hour they were half-starved.</p> + +<p>“I spect we’re lost,” said Flaxie, calmly. “Going to rain, too; sun +setting. Pretty near midnight—”</p> + +<p>Upon this Milly began to scream.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_24" id="pg_24">24</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, then, what made you hide behind the lilac-bush, and not invite +the folks, Milly Allen?” exclaimed Flaxie, feeling obliged to scold +<i>somebody</i>; and then she too began to scream, though nobody heard, for +they were three or four miles from the village.</p> + +<p>They wound in and out, in and out, among the trees; but it was like a +little bird putting his head through the bars of his cage. It did no +good at all; they couldn’t get out.</p> + +<p>Thoroughly tired at last and discouraged, the poor babes in the wood lay +down and fell asleep in each other’s arms. I know it was a pretty +sight,—the black head and the golden head so close together, and the +beautiful bright trees bending over to say, “Good night.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_25" id="pg_25">25</a></span> +<a name="STAYING_OUT_TO_TEA_402" id="STAYING_OUT_TO_TEA_402"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<h3>STAYING OUT TO TEA.</h3> +</div> + +<p>But before the robins had had time to cover them with leaves, or even to +think of it, there was a shout from Preston Gray.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah, boys, I’ve found ’em!”</p> + +<p>He and half a dozen other lads had been out all the afternoon in search +of the little wanderers, and here it was five o’clock. They carried them +home on their backs, taking turns, and Flaxie looked up only once to ask +sleepily:</p> + +<p>“Is it ha’ pas’ two?”</p> + +<p>“Won’t she catch it, though?” said Bert Abbott, who was in great awe of +Mrs. Prim.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_26" id="pg_26">26</a></span></p> + +<p>But Mrs. Prim was a just woman, and she thought poor little Flaxie’s +punishment had been hard enough. Her party was over long ago; the guests +hadn’t stayed to supper, and had gone home saying they “didn’t think +Flaxie was very polite,” and they “wouldn’t go to her parties any more.” +And here she was, tired and wretched, and scratched all over by +blackberry bushes. No, Auntie Prim didn’t even scold. She merely looked +through her spectacles at grandma, and said, “Children are so absurd!”</p> + +<p>And grandma replied sorrowfully:</p> + +<p>“Well, they have to suffer for their own naughtiness, and that does +grieve me!”</p> + +<p>“They ought to suffer,” said Mrs. Prim; “it is the only way they can +learn not to behave so again.”</p> + +<p>Dear little Milly heard this, and remembered it, and repeated it to her +mother the<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_27" id="pg_27">27</a></span> next week when she went home to Hilltop. She thought <i>she</i> +had suffered so much that she should never be “absurd” again, even to +please her beloved Flaxie Frizzle.</p> + +<p>After she had gone away, Flaxie wandered drearily about the house, +saying, “Oh dear! what shall I do without my twin cousin?”</p> + +<p>You would have thought she had enough left to make her happy. Dr. Gray’s +house stood on a hill facing the river, with a green yard in front, and +a stable and two gardens behind it. It was all beautiful, and Flaxie +enjoyed the stable as well as the fruit and flower gardens, for she was +very fond of the horses, Whiz and Hiawatha, and the cows and the hens. +You needn’t tell anybody, but I do pity children who never hunted for +hens’ nests: it is such capital fun! And then there was the handsome +dog, Tantra-Bogus, one of Flaxie’s best friends.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_28" id="pg_28">28</a></span></p> + +<p>In the house she had her “splendid Dr. Papa;” her dear brother Preston, +who could whittle all sorts of things with a penknife; her darling +Grandma Gray, an old lady with white hair, white cap, and white ribbons; +and last, but not least, she had the “beautifullest baby” Philip, who +could stand on his head “just as cunning,” and “hug grizzly”—that is, +like a grizzly bear. Flaxie loved him with her whole heart, but there +were moments when she felt half ashamed of him, for he was eighteen +months old, and hadn’t a sign of a tooth; wasn’t it awful?</p> + +<p>“Perhaps he’ll cut one before your mother and Julia come home; I keep +hoping so,” said grandma, feeling in baby’s mouth with her finger, which +baby bit hard, like an old rogue as he was.</p> + +<p>“Will they give him some gold teeth, if his don’t ever cut?” asked +Flaxie anxiously. “Preston says they will.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_29" id="pg_29">29</a></span></p> + +<p>“No,” replied Mrs. Prim, who sat by the window, with her little ebony +work-box on a stand beside her. “Your brother Preston says very absurd +things merely in sport; but you must not be so foolish as to believe +them.”</p> + +<p>Down dropped Flaxie’s head in grandma’s lap, her hair falling over +grandma’s black silk apron in a golden shower.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Prim looked surprised. She did not know that Flaxie really <i>had</i> +believed in those gold teeth, and had been comforted by thinking how +Phil would outshine everybody by-and-by! And now the poor little girl +was crying because it was all a mistake, and because Mrs. Prim had said +she was “foolish.”</p> + +<p>“Run and let in the cat,” said grandma; “don’t you hear her mewing?”</p> + +<p>When Kitty Gray was let in, she came bringing a mouse, and Flaxie +laughed to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_30" id="pg_30">30</a></span> her run right up to grandma and rub against her dress.</p> + +<p>“Good pussy, pretty pussy,” said grandma, stroking the cat, who almost +purred her heart out for joy. Not a mouse did she ever catch but she +brought it to grandma or mamma to show it; but she never brought one to +Mrs. Prim. I wonder why not.</p> + +<p>“Now let her out, Mary,” said grandma to Flaxie. “And go ask Dora if it +isn’t almost time to make the gravy for dinner.”</p> + +<p>When Flaxie skipped away, grandma said to Mrs. Prim, “The poor child is +lonesome, with nothing to do.”</p> + +<p>“She ought to do something,” replied Mrs. Prim, making a knot in her +silk. “If she were my little girl, I should send her to school, to +occupy her mind.”</p> + +<p>“Should you?” said Grandma Gray, hesitating, and patting her white +curls. “Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_31" id="pg_31">31</a></span> mother said there were some naughty children about here, +and she might be led into mischief at school, while Julia is away.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure she is led into mischief at home,” said Mrs. Prim.</p> + +<p>“Very true. Perhaps she would be quite as safe at school. I will talk to +her father about it,” said Grandma Gray.</p> + +<p>And of course Dr. Papa said, “Just as you please;” and Flaxie was sent +to school with her satchel and books.</p> + +<p>She came home the first day very dirty, after the dinner was cold, and +Auntie Prim wondered if such a child ought to have any pudding.</p> + +<p>“Oh, auntie,” said Flaxie, shaking her flying hair, “I saw a little girl +down under the hill, and says I, ‘What’s your name?’ and says she, +‘Patty C. Proudfit.’ And I thought you’d want me to go down and play +with her, and I did.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_32" id="pg_32">32</a></span></p> + +<p>This was the first Mrs. Prim had ever heard of “Patty C. Proudfit,” and +grandma knew nothing about her either; but Preston said the Proudfit +family had just moved into town, “a whole army of ’em, and lived in that +black house under the hill.”</p> + +<p>Next day, as Mrs. Prim was looking out of the window, she saw Flaxie and +Miss Patty playing dolls under the trees. Patty was two years older than +Flaxie, but her red hair had not been combed lately, her dress was torn, +and her shoes were out at the toes.</p> + +<p>“She is not a nice child; I am sorry to see this,” sighed Mrs. Prim, +turning away from the window. “But as Mrs. Gray is coming home next +week, I shall do nothing about it.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie’s mind was “occupied” now, and she gave very little trouble in +the house. Patty was “a dear, sweet, good little girl,” she said, “and +she loved her next as much as her twin cousin.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_33" id="pg_33">33</a></span></p> + +<p>But you can’t be quite happy in this world; and Patty’s baby brother, +only nine months old, had cut four whole teeth, and I won’t say this +wasn’t a trial to Flaxie.</p> + +<p>“Poh, but they’re eeny-teeny things,” said she to grandma. “Phil’s will +be lots and lots bigger—when he gets ’em.”</p> + +<p>Patty came up to the fence one day, where Flaxie stood smelling a +geranium leaf.</p> + +<p>“How do you do?” said she.</p> + +<p>“I do as I please, ’cause Auntie Prim is gone,” replied little Flaxie, +with a saucy smile. She was really very bold and naughty sometimes, as +you have already found out, I suppose.</p> + +<p>“Gone home?”</p> + +<p>“No, she’s coming back to-night, I s’pect, and bring grammy a cap. No, I +don’t s’pect she’ll <i>ever</i> go home,” said Flaxie, shaking her little +head sadly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_34" id="pg_34">34</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, she’s gone now, ain’t she, this whole afternoon? And why can’t +you come up to my house and see me?”</p> + +<p>Flaxie knew why. It was because she ought to help amuse the baby. Dora +had been making peach preserves all day, and it was too hard for Grandma +Gray to take care of Phil alone. But Flaxie asked all the same, “May I +go?” and grandma never could say “no” when little folks teased, so she +answered, “Yes, and stay till half-past four; no longer.”</p> + +<p>Nothing was said about supper; but the children thought there would be +time enough for that, and breakfast too, almost—it seemed so very long +till half-past four.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Patty’s mother, when they went into the smoky kitchen, +where she was holding the baby that had four teeth. “Very well, you may +both run out to play,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_35" id="pg_35">35</a></span> and when it is time to call you in, I’ll ring the +bell.”</p> + +<p>There wasn’t much to play with, except sand right in the middle of the +road; but Flaxie had never been allowed as much dirt as she wanted, and +this seemed very pleasant for a change. It would have been pleasanter +still if her conscience had felt easy. She was only six years old, but +she knew perfectly well when her actions were right and when they were +wrong.</p> + +<p>“I never saw such a splendid visit,” said she, when Mr. Proudfit kindly +allowed her and Patty to feed the pigs. “But <i>don’t</i> they have the +awfullest-looking smell?” added she, gazing thoughtfully into the pen, +which was dirty, like everything else about the place. Her own nice +frock was already soiled, but she tried not to see it, and not to think +how Auntie Prim would stare at it through her spectacles.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_36" id="pg_36">36</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why, what’s that?” said she.</p> + +<p>It was, oh dear! it was the bell; and there was Mrs. Proudfit at the +back door ringing it. Grown people are always thinking what time it is; +they never forget.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry you can’t stay to tea, Miss Flaxie,” said Mrs. Proudfit, +politely.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I guess I can; I’ll go ask grammy,” replied the little girl, +dashing off up the hill, followed by Patty.</p> + +<p>“Oh, grammy, they want me to stay <i>orf’ly</i>,” she cried, out of breath, +before they got to the house.</p> + +<p>“Well, stay another hour, then,” said the dear grandma, though baby was +very cross and her arms ached, and Flaxie could have been <i>such</i> a help.</p> + +<p>So Flaxie went back and stayed another hour, and <i>then</i> it wasn’t +tea-time. She could see some blue and white dishes spread on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_37" id="pg_37">37</a></span> round +table covered with an oil-cloth, and she could smell gingerbread baking +in the oven, which made her very hungry; and just as Mrs. Proudfit was +opening a can of preserves, with at least six children clinging to her +skirts, who should come but Preston, to say it was half-past five and +Flaxie was wanted at home.</p> + +<p>“So you can’t stay to tea, after all,” said Mrs. Proudfit, putting a +small covered dish on the table. What in the world could be in it?</p> + +<p>Flaxie dropped her head and blushed. “Oh, yes’m, I can stay. I’ve sent +Preston home, and locked the door!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Proudfit smiled into the oven as she looked at her gingerbread, and +thought—of course she did—that Flaxie Frizzle was a very queer child.</p> + +<p>It did seem as if that gingerbread never<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_38" id="pg_38">38</a></span> would bake! A cloud came up, +the wind blew, the baby cried so Patty couldn’t play, the children +quarrelled, and the kitten ran round in a fit.</p> + +<p>Nothing seemed half as nice as it had seemed an hour ago; and when +supper was ready, that gingerbread was burnt, and, as true as you live, +the preserves were sour! There was nothing in the little covered dish +but cheese, which Flaxie “despised;” and she wished she hadn’t stayed to +tea, for it was a very poor tea indeed.</p> + +<p>It began to rain just as hard as it could pour, and Dr. Papa came for +her in the carriage, without a single smile on his face.</p> + +<p>When she got home there was mamma, looking grieved and surprised,—the +dear mamma she hadn’t seen for three weeks. And there was “Ninny,” her +sweet sister Julia, who had come and found out about her actions, and +brought her a new doll.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_39" id="pg_39">39</a></span></p> + +<p>“Baby has cut a tooth, too,” said Auntie Prim; “but he’s asleep now, and +you can’t see it to-night.”</p> + +<p>This was the last drop.</p> + +<p>“I feel as if my heart was breaking,” sobbed Flaxie, tottering up-stairs +behind her mother. “I don’t care if Baby Proudfit <i>has</i> got fo—ur +teeth; they’re <i>very</i> small!”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid you didn’t have a good time, dear?”</p> + +<p>“No’m, for Baby Proudfit’s <i>so</i> squirmy and wigglesome! But they wanted +me to stay <i>orf’ly</i>!”</p> + +<p>“And oh, mamma,” burst forth Flaxie, at last, “if you’ll forgive me, +I’ll never stay <i>anywhere</i> to tea any more, as long as I live!”</p> + +<p>“We’ll talk about it to-morrow,” said Mrs. Gray.</p> + +<p>And then she put poor little Flaxie to bed.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_40" id="pg_40">40</a></span> +<a name="THE_LONESOME_VISIT_676" id="THE_LONESOME_VISIT_676"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<h3>THE LONESOME VISIT.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Flaxie came down to breakfast next morning feeling rather humble, but +nobody noticed her, for they were all talking about the cat. The +cellar-door had been left unfastened, and Kitty Gray had come up about +midnight bringing a nice fat mouse. She mewed a long time, hoping her +mistress would get out of bed and stroke her, and say, “Good pussy, +pretty pussy!” But as Mrs. Gray would not rise, what do you think Kitty +Gray did, for this is a true story?</p> + +<p>She just walked into the dining-room where the table was always set +overnight,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_41" id="pg_41">41</a></span> jumped up to Mrs. Gray’s place by the waiter, and dropped +the mouse beside her plate!</p> + +<p>“There,” thought pussy, “she’ll see it now first thing in the morning, +before she turns the coffee; and if she doesn’t say ‘Good pussy, pretty +pussy,’ why—I’ll eat it!”</p> + +<p>Of course when Mrs. Gray saw such a droll morsel lying on her napkin she +laughed, sent for Kitty Gray, stroked her, and called her “Good pussy, +pretty pussy; and the brightest pussy too that I ever saw!”</p> + +<p>Even Mrs. Prim was laughing, and Flaxie began to hope her own behavior +of yesterday was forgotten. But no, her mother called her into the +nursery after breakfast, and said, as she took her in her lap:</p> + +<p>“I am sorry to hear that my little girl has done so many wrong things +since I have been gone.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_42" id="pg_42">42</a></span></p> + +<p>Flaxie dropped her head for shame, but raised it again indignantly.</p> + +<p>“How’d you know that, mamma? Auntie Prim must have gone and told.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, darling, I asked her to tell. Isn’t it right for mamma to know all +her child has been doing?”</p> + +<p>“Yes’m,” replied Flaxie, watching a fly walk on the ceiling.</p> + +<p>“And I thought perhaps you would like to talk with me about it, dear.”</p> + +<p>“One, two, three, four, five,” said Flaxie to herself, counting the +rosebuds in the carpet. Strange her mamma should suppose she wanted to +talk about it! Why, there wasn’t a subject in the world so disagreeable +as her own naughtiness!</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gray waited patiently till the rosebuds were counted, and then +Flaxie spoke.</p> + +<p>“O mamma, you think I was bad yesterday,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_43" id="pg_43">43</a></span> but do you <i>s’pose</i> I’d have +gone off if I’d known my little brother’s tooth was a-cutting?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gray smiled down at the innocent, upturned face.</p> + +<p>“Well, darling, whether he cut a tooth or not, had you any excuse for +staying to tea?”</p> + +<p>“No’m. They didn’t have a bit good supper at Patty’s house, and I +oughtn’t to have stayed.”</p> + +<p>“Mary,” said Mrs. Gray,—she thought her little daughter was old enough +now to be called by her true name, so she never used the baby name of +Flaxie Frizzle,—“Mary, I do not wish you to play any more with this +little girl till I have seen her.”</p> + +<p>“No’m.”</p> + +<p>“Have you anything else to tell me?”</p> + +<p>“I don’ know. Well, yes. Well, I—I—I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_44" id="pg_44">44</a></span> so sorry I ran away from my +party, mamma. Ever so long ago. I s’pect Auntie Prim told of that too?” +said Flaxie, twisting herself into odd shapes, for the thought of that +unfortunate affair filled her with shame.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mary, she did.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I felt so sorry, mamma. And Milly ‘n’ I, we didn’t get but one +tart and one piece o’ cake; for auntie had a party with ’em her own +self. Do you think ’twas right when she made ’em for Milly and me?”</p> + +<p>Here Flaxie’s eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>“My child, we are talking of you now, not Auntie Prim.”</p> + +<p>“Yes’m, I know it, and I’m real sorry I’m so naughty; but Auntie Prim +<i>makes</i> me naughty.”</p> + +<p>“Mary, Mary, you must not talk so about that good woman!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_45" id="pg_45">45</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, I know she’s good, mamma. Why, she is the best woman in this town; +she’s the best woman in the world! And she <i>knows</i> she’s good, and it +makes her just as proud!”</p> + +<p>Now Mrs. Prim really was a person who <i>seemed</i> to be proud of her +goodness, and Flaxie had described her very well; but Mrs. Gray said +again:</p> + +<p>“Mary, we are talking of you now, not of Auntie Prim.”</p> + +<p>“Oh dear, I don’t like to! I s’pect you think I don’t try to be good; +but, mamma, I do! I try real hard. But,” said the little girl, patting +her chest and her side, “there’s something in me that’s naughty clear +through.”</p> + +<p>The tears had come now and were dropping over the little fat hands, for +in spite of her queer way of talking, Flaxie<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_46" id="pg_46">46</a></span> felt really unhappy about +her bad conduct; though perhaps nobody but her mother would have +believed it.</p> + +<p>These two good friends had a long talk,—the kind mamma and her little +daughter who meant to do better,—and when Ninny came to call them to +dinner, Flaxie said, joyfully,</p> + +<p>“O Ninny, I’m going to begin new, and you mustn’t ’member I ever was +naughty.”</p> + +<p>That was the way Mrs. Gray forgave her children; she put their +naughtiness far off and never talked of it any more. Is that the way God +forgives <i>his</i> children?</p> + +<p>After this, Flaxie was one of the most charming little girls you ever +saw for two whole months. She said it was because Mrs. Prim was gone; +but of course it was simply because she tried harder to be good; that +was all. Toward the last of the winter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_47" id="pg_47">47</a></span> Uncle Ben Allen, Milly’s +father, passed through Laurel Grove on business, and spent the night at +Dr. Gray’s.</p> + +<p>“When I go home to-morrow,” said he, “I’d like to take one of these +little girls. Have you one to spare?”</p> + +<p>Now he knew very well which he wanted, but it wouldn’t have been polite +to say so; he wanted Julia. He had always admired her gentle ways, and +her sweet patience with her trying sister Flaxie, and had often told his +wife that he loved Julia because she was “like a little candle.” Perhaps +you will know what he meant, for I dare say you have learned these lines +at Sabbath school:</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em;"> +“Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light,<br /> +Like a little candle burning in the night;<br /> +In this world of darkness so we must shine,<br /> +You in your small corner, and I in mine.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_48" id="pg_48">48</a></span>But just because Julia <i>was</i> such a beautiful little candle, her mother +couldn’t spare her from home just now; it was much easier to spare +Flaxie.</p> + +<p>Uncle Ben tried to look delighted when he heard Flaxie was going; but it +was not till her valise had been packed and she stood by the window +prepared for the journey, that he happened to remember it wasn’t a good +time to take her to Hilltop, for Milly was gone!</p> + +<p>This was a blow! Flaxie winked hard, trying not to cry.</p> + +<p>“That is,” said Uncle Ben, “perhaps she is gone. When I left home, a +week ago, her mother was talking of sending her to Troy, to her Aunt +Sarah’s: but I declare I had forgotten all about it till this minute.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Allen was a man of business, and very forgetful, or he could not +have made such a blunder as this. And there was Flaxie’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_49" id="pg_49">49</a></span> new and +elegant doll, Christie Gretchen, all packed in cotton, in a box by +itself, on purpose to show Cousin Milly.</p> + +<p>“Well, my daughter, you can wait and go another time, that’s all,” said +Dr. Papa, oh, so cheerfully, as if it didn’t make a bit of difference.</p> + +<p>“Another time!” That was a little too dreadful. Flaxie felt as if it was +more than she could bear, when her bonnet was on and everything ready.</p> + +<p>“Oh no, papa, I don’t want to wait till another time. I want to go now.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, let her go,” said Uncle Ben.</p> + +<p>There wasn’t much time to discuss the matter, and Flaxie was so eager +that it seemed a pity to disappoint her; so she went.</p> + +<p>“Homesick?” Why, <i>she</i> shouldn’t be homesick! The truth was, she didn’t +know what the word meant.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_50" id="pg_50">50</a></span></p> + +<p>When they reached Hilltop, Milly <i>was</i> gone. Aunt Charlotte was looking +for Uncle Ben, but when he alighted from the carriage there was a +glimmer of blue and gold, and Flaxie Frizzle appeared, borne aloft in +his arms. Aunt Charlotte ran to the door very much surprised.</p> + +<p>“Why, you darling,” said she, greeting her with kisses, “we didn’t +expect you just now.”</p> + +<p>“I know it,” returned the little guest triumphantly; “we wanted to +surprise you. I knew Milly wasn’t here, but I thought I’d come to see +the rest of the folks.”</p> + +<p>Johnny and Freddy smiled at this very pleasantly; and little Ken, the +very small baby, cooed and sucked his thumb.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care a speck if Milly <i>is</i> gone. I’ve brought a new dolly to +show you,” cried Flaxie, whirling Aunt Charlotte’s head around<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_51" id="pg_51">51</a></span> as if it +had been a revolving globe, and kissing her under the left ear.</p> + +<p>“And oh, Uncle Ben and I had such a nice time on the cars! We had bread +with egg between, and bread with chicken between, and candy and pinnuts. +’Twas splendid!”</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ll have nice times here,” returned Aunt Charlotte; but her +tone was doubtful. She knew how suddenly Flaxie sometimes changed from +one mood to another; and what could she do with such a wayward little +guest, when Milly was gone?</p> + +<p>“I like Hilltop so much,” went on Flaxie, pouring out compliments. +“Uncle Ben’s so nice, you know; and Johnny, and Freddy, and the baby.”</p> + +<p>Freddy threw back his shoulders. He liked to be called “nice;” but +Johnny was older, and only laughed.</p> + +<p>“And I can go to the stores if it does rain<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_52" id="pg_52">52</a></span> and go up in the +<i>alleviator</i>, for I brought my little umbrella.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t need an umbrella in an elevator. And we don’t <i>have</i> +elevators,” said Johnny.</p> + +<p>Everybody was smiling, for it was plain that Flaxie’s head was a little +turned. She was thinking of New York city, and had forgotten that +Hilltop was only a small village.</p> + +<p>She had been here two or three times before, and knew her way all over +the house: it was a double-house, with another family in the other part. +She remembered Aunt Charlotte’s pictures, and vases, and +ship-thermometer, and the tidy with a donkey on it drinking from a +trough. She had spoiled two of the albums when she was a <i>little</i> girl, +and broken ever so much china; so you see she had reason to feel quite +at home at Aunt Charlotte’s. Ah, but she had never been there before +without her mother!<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_53" id="pg_53">53</a></span></p> + +<p>The afternoon did seem rather long, but Aunt Charlotte told funny +stories, and after a great while the boys came home from school, and +there was a jolly game of romps. Flaxie thought she was very happy.</p> + +<p>“We are doing better with her than I expected,” said Aunt Charlotte to +her husband next morning, when the bright face beamed on them at +breakfast. “I’m so glad you brought her, for I do miss my little Milly.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie, too, missed Milly, but was resolved to be a little woman, and +said to Christie Gretchen privately, “<i>We</i> won’t cry.” After breakfast +she spent two hours in the kitchen with patient Nancy, spatting out +little ginger cakes, and picking dirt from the cracks of the floor with +a pin. Then she danced off to the sitting-room to play with the baby, +telling him “if he’d be goody, he’d grow up a doctor, like my papa.” She +had promised the<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_54" id="pg_54">54</a></span> same thing to every boy baby at Laurel Grove, for +doctors were the best people in the world, she thought, and best of all +was Dr. Papa.</p> + +<p>She was as happy as ever, and singing merrily in the front yard, when +the boys came home at noon. The moment she saw them she felt perfectly +forlorn, and it suddenly seemed to her as if she couldn’t live any +longer without Milly. That wasn’t the worst of it; she <i>knew</i> she +couldn’t live any longer without her mother.</p> + +<p>It was a terrible feeling that swept all at once over little Flaxie. I +wonder if <i>you</i> ever had it? If not, you can’t understand it: it was +<i>homesickness</i>. There is no ache or pain like it in the whole world, and +it seemed to tingle all through Flaxie, from her head to her feet. She +ran into the sitting-room, ready to scream. “Oh, auntie, I feel so bad; +I feel bad all over!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_55" id="pg_55">55</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Allen did not know what she meant.</p> + +<p>“Not <i>all</i> over,” said she, looking up pleasantly. “Isn’t there a good +spot somewhere, dear? Perhaps there’s a wee spot on your little finger +that’s almost good.”</p> + +<p>But Flaxie could not smile.</p> + +<p>“It’s right in here, in my heart, that I feel the worst,” moaned she; +“’cause I can’t see my mamma, and haven’t anything to kiss but her +picture!”</p> + +<p>Then Aunt Charlotte was full of sympathy, for she knew the dreadful +suffering Flaxie spoke of was homesickness. It seemed strange that it +should have seized her so suddenly,—but Flaxie was sudden about +everything.</p> + +<p>“Why, my precious one,” said Mrs. Allen, taking the unhappy child in her +lap, “you know Milly is coming home next week, and in one week more Dr. +Papa will send for you to go home. Two weeks won’t be long.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_56" id="pg_56">56</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, yes’m, oh, very long! And they oughtn’t to have lemme come; I’m too +yo-u-ng!”</p> + +<p>“Hullo! Is she sick?” cried Freddy, bursting into the room with a great +clatter.</p> + +<p>His mother shook her head at him.</p> + +<p>“I think Flaxie and I will take a ride in the cars to-morrow,” said she. +“I think we’ll go to Chicopee to see Mrs. Adams, who has some +gold-fishes, and a parrot, and a canary. How would you like that, +Flaxie?”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t like it a tall, ’cause <i>she</i> isn’t my mamma,” sobbed the poor +little girl. “And we couldn’t go to-morrow, ’cause to-morrow is Sunday.”</p> + +<p>“Sunday? First <i>I</i> ever heard of it,” said Freddy. “To-day is Friday, I +suppose you know?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Freddy, Freddy, I can’t bear that. It’s Saturday,” said Flaxie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_57" id="pg_57">57</a></span></p> + +<p>As she spoke, the tears poured down her cheeks in little streams, and +she squeezed her eyelids together so tight that Freddy laughed, for he +thought the day of the week was a funny thing to cry about.</p> + +<p>“To-day isn’t Saturday,” said he. “If ’tis, what did I go to school for? +Tell me that.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it <i>is</i> Saturday, Freddy Allen! Don’t I know what day I came here? +I came Friday. Didn’t I hear Ninny and mamma talk about it, and don’t I +<i>know</i>?” screamed the wretched child, hopping up and down, then falling, +face downward, on the rug. “Oh, I can’t bear it; I <i>can’t</i> bear it! +There, don’t anybody in this town know what day it is! Nobody knows it +but me!”</p> + +<p>This was funny enough to Freddy, but very painful to his mother, who +knew the deep trouble at the little girl’s heart. Of course Flaxie +didn’t care a bit what day of<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_58" id="pg_58">58</a></span> the week it was; she only felt so very +unhappy that she could not endure the slightest contradiction.</p> + +<p>Before another word had been spoken, she sprang up and flew out of the +room. About two minutes afterward the front door slammed, and Freddy saw +her dashing down street with her hat and cloak on, swinging her valise +in one hand and her umbrella in the other.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:312px"> +<a name="illus-002" id="illus-002"></a> +<img src="images/illus-059.jpg" alt="FLAXIE LOOKED BEWILDERED. Page 60." title="" width="312" /><br /> +<span class="caption">FLAXIE LOOKED BEWILDERED. Page 60.</span> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_59" id="pg_59">59</a></span> +<a name="LUCYS_MITTENS_1017" id="LUCYS_MITTENS_1017"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<h3>LUCY’S MITTENS.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Aunt Charlotte ran to the door with the baby, calling out:</p> + +<p>“Flaxie, come back! come back!”</p> + +<p>But the little runaway would not even turn her head.</p> + +<p>“Crazy,” said Freddy, still laughing.</p> + +<p>“I do believe,” exclaimed his mother, “that child is going to the depot! +Run after her! You and Johnny both run!”</p> + +<p>The boys did their best, but Flaxie was already far ahead, and never +once paused till she reached the station, where she nearly ran the +baggage-master through the body with her little umbrella.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_60" id="pg_60">60</a></span></p> + +<p>“Now look here, my little lady,” said he, catching her in his arms, “I +ain’t used to being punched in this style, like a passenger-ticket; and +you’d better stop to explain.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t hold me, don’t hold me! I’m going on the cars to my mamma. +<i>Let</i> me go to my mamma!”</p> + +<p>“Why, certainly,” said the man, winking to Johnny and Freddy, who had +reached the platform and stood there panting. “<i>To</i> be sure! We let +little girls go to their mothers. But you didn’t think of starting on +ahead of the cars, did you?”</p> + +<p>Flaxie looked bewildered.</p> + +<p>“You see the cars haven’t come,” said Johnny, coaxingly. “You’d better +go back with Freddy and me, and wait awhile.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, no,” said Flaxie, brandishing her umbrella. The boys were too +anxious to get her away, and she wouldn’t trust them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_61" id="pg_61">61</a></span></p> + +<p>“The cars won’t be here till two o’clock,” said the baggage-man. “Now +I’d advise a nice little lady like you to eat your dinner before +starting on a journey. Or would you like it any better to have me lock +you up in the ladies’-room till two o’clock? But I should think you’d +get rather hungry.”</p> + +<p>He held up a big key as he spoke, and Flaxie gazed at it in dismay. Was +this the way they treated little girls that wanted to go to see their +mothers?</p> + +<p>“Come, Freddy,” said Johnny, “let’s hurry home, or there won’t be any +apple-dumpling left. If Flaxie doesn’t want to come she needn’t, you +know.”</p> + +<p>Johnny spoke with such a show of indifference that Flaxie was struck by +it. He was ten years old, just the age of her brother Preston, and had +had some experience in managing children younger than himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_62" id="pg_62">62</a></span> As he +was walking off with Freddy, she trudged after, exclaiming:</p> + +<p>“Well, will you lemme leave my umberella? Will you lemme come back +again? Will you, Johnny?”</p> + +<p>“We’ll see what mother says. What makes you come home with us? Why don’t +you stay with the man and be locked up?” replied Master Johnny. But he +had her fast by the hand, and led her home in triumph.</p> + +<p>“What did make you try to run away?” asked Freddy, when they were safely +in the house.</p> + +<p>Flaxie felt rather ashamed by that time, for Aunt Charlotte and Uncle +Ben were both looking at her.</p> + +<p>“I read about a little girl that did it,” said she, dropping her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll read to you about a little girl that didn’t do it.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_63" id="pg_63">63</a></span></p> + +<p>“Hush, Freddy,” said mamma, for Flaxie’s lips were quivering, “we’ll +have our dinner now, and then I am going to Chicopee to see Mrs. Adams, +who has the gold-fishes and parrot and canary. Flaxie may go with me if +she likes.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie brightened a little at this, and thought she wouldn’t go home to +see her mother to-day; she would wait till to-morrow. Still her heart +ached now and then just as hard as ever, and when she was riding in the +cars that afternoon to Chicopee with her aunt beside her and her +second-best dolly in her arms, she did look the picture of woe.</p> + +<p>“Toothache, perhaps,” thought a woman who entered the car with a baby +and two little girls. One of the girls limped along, scowling as if +every step hurt her.</p> + +<p>“How do you do, Mrs. Chase?” said Aunt<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_64" id="pg_64">64</a></span> Charlotte, making room for the +mother and baby by taking Flaxie in her lap; then turning over the seat +just in front of them for the two little girls. “I think it will be a +good thing for my niece, Flaxie Frizzle, to see your children, Mrs. +Chase.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie wondered why it should be a good thing; still she was glad the +little girls had come, for she liked to look at them.</p> + +<p>Hattie was a bright child of six, just her own age; but the lame girl of +ten, what a white face she had! What very light, straw-colored hair! Her +manners were odd, Flaxie thought, for as soon as she saw the doll +Peppermint Drop, she snatched at her and would have pulled off her blue +satin sash if Flaxie had not drawn it away.</p> + +<p>“Lucy, Lucy,” said Mrs. Chase, “don’t touch the little girl’s doll!”</p> + +<p>Then Lucy leaned forward again, and fingered<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_65" id="pg_65">65</a></span> the buttons on Aunt +Charlotte’s dress, and stroked her fur cloak, with a smile. That was a +queer thing for such a large girl to do, but Aunt Charlotte did not seem +to mind it, and only said, “I fancy Lucy wants a lozenge,” and popped +one into her mouth as if she had been a baby. Flaxie stared, and the +mother said, with a sad smile:</p> + +<p>“Poor Lucy knows but very little. Aren’t you sorry for her?”</p> + +<p>“Oh dear, why doesn’t she?” said Flaxie, forgetting her own trouble in +gazing at the strange little girl, who was now stroking Aunt Charlotte’s +cloak again, as if she did not hear a word that was said. “Why doesn’t +she know but little?”</p> + +<p>“Because she was very sick a great many years ago, and it hurt her +mind.”</p> + +<p>“Can she talk?”</p> + +<p>“She only says ‘Papa,’ ‘Mamma,’ ‘Hattie.’<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_66" id="pg_66">66</a></span> She talks just about as well +as the baby does, and they play together half the time.”</p> + +<p>“Does she go to school?” asked Flaxie, growing very much interested +indeed.</p> + +<p>“To school? Oh no! <i>she</i> couldn’t learn anything,” said Mrs. Chase, +sighing.</p> + +<p>But Hattie seemed rather proud of having such a strange sister.</p> + +<p>“See that?” said she, holding up Lucy’s right hand.</p> + +<p>“Why, it’s littler than mine, and all dried up,” exclaimed Flaxie +Frizzle.</p> + +<p>“Poor dear, she has lost her mittens again,” said Mrs. Chase, wiping +Lucy’s mouth. “I can’t afford to keep buying mittens for her, she loses +them so.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t it be well to fasten them to her cloak-sleeve by a string?” +asked Mrs. Allen.</p> + +<p>Flaxie gazed bewildered at this singular little girl, who could not wipe +her own mouth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_67" id="pg_67">67</a></span> or talk, or go to school. She had never known of such a +little girl before.</p> + +<p>“Too bad about Lucy!” said she, thoughtfully, to her aunt as they got +out at Chicopee, and left the whole Chase family looking after them from +the car-window. “Is Lucy poor?”</p> + +<p>“Very.”</p> + +<p>“Where does she live?”</p> + +<p>“In Hilltop.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! I didn’t s’pose she lived in Hilltop.”</p> + +<p>“There,” said Aunt Charlotte, “now this next house is Mrs. Adams’s, +where you will see the gold-fishes.”</p> + +<p>But Flaxie did not care just then for the gold-fishes.</p> + +<p>“Auntie, don’t you think Lucy ought to have some mittens?”</p> + +<p>She spoke cheerily, as if mittens were the very thing, and the only +thing Lucy needed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_68" id="pg_68">68</a></span></p> + +<p>“And, auntie, <i>I</i> can crochet!”</p> + +<p>“Is it possible?” said Aunt Charlotte, thinking how many things Flaxie +had learned that little Milly knew nothing about. “How much can you +crochet?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I made a scarf once for my dolly. I <i>wish</i> I could make some +mittens for Lucy!”</p> + +<p>“That’s the very thing! I’ll buy you some worsteds this afternoon,” said +Aunt Charlotte, as she rang Mrs. Adams’s door-bell; and Flaxie “smiled” +up her face in a minute, exclaiming:</p> + +<p>“Red, auntie, please get ’em red!”</p> + +<p>They had a lovely time with Mrs. Adams’s gold-fish, and parrot, and +canary; but after all it was the vision of those red mittens that eased +the ache at Flaxie’s poor little heart.</p> + +<p>Auntie was all patience next morning, and her young niece all smiles; +and between them<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_69" id="pg_69">69</a></span> the ivory hook and the red worsteds kept moving.</p> + +<p>“Lucy can’t say ‘thank you,’ but her mamma’ll be <i>so</i> pleased,” said +Flaxie, her face beaming. She really thought she was making the mittens +herself, because she took a stitch now and then.</p> + +<p>“What, working on Sunday?” said teasing Johnny.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it isn’t Sunday, and I <i>didn’t</i> come Friday, and I <i>can</i> wait two +weeks to see my mamma. You see I didn’t know there was a little girl I +could make mittens for, or I shouldn’t have cried,” said Flaxie, +stopping a moment to kiss the baby.</p> + +<p>The mittens were lovely. Aunt Charlotte finished them off at the wrists +with a tufted border. Lucy couldn’t say “thank you,” but her poor mother +was delighted, and fastened them to the child’s cloak by a string, so +they wouldn’t be lost.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_70" id="pg_70">70</a></span></p> + +<p>The moment Milly got home from Troy and had been kissed all around, +Flaxie said:</p> + +<p>“Oh, you don’t know how I did feel, staying here all alone, Milly. But I +made those mittens, and then I felt better.”</p> + +<p>“What mittens?” asked Milly, who hadn’t untied her bonnet yet, and +couldn’t know in a minute everything that had happened.</p> + +<p>“Why, Lucy’s red mittens; don’t you know? I tell you, Milly, what you +must do when you don’t feel happy: you must make somebody some mittens.”</p> + +<p>This was Flaxie’s way of saying “You must help other people.” But Milly +knew what she meant. Children understand one another when the talking is +ever so crooked.</p> + +<p>Flaxie had now been at Hilltop more than three weeks, and had become so +contented and happy that she was really sorry when Aunt Jane Abbott +appeared one morning to take her home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_71" id="pg_71">71</a></span></p> + +<p>“Thank you ever so much,” said Miss Frizzle, politely; “but I don’t care +’bout going home.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” said Aunt Jane, smiling. “And why not?”</p> + +<p>“’Cause she wants to stay here and go to school with me,” spoke up +Milly, with her cheek close to Flaxie’s.</p> + +<p>“But we thought she’d like to see her little brother Phil; he has eight +teeth,” said Aunt Jane.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes’m, I do, I do!”</p> + +<p>“Now, Flaxie,” pleaded Milly, looking grieved, “when you haven’t been to +my school, and haven’t seen my elegant teacher!”</p> + +<p>“Well, but isn’t Philip my brother? And so are Preston and Ninny. I +forgot about them.”</p> + +<p>“And don’t you want to see your mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_72" id="pg_72">72</a></span> too?” asked Aunt Jane, with +another smile. She had been smiling ever since she came.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, my mamma; I want to see her most of anybody in this +world—’cept my papa!”</p> + +<p>Milly’s head drooped.</p> + +<p>“Oh, but I’m coming back again,” said Flaxie, kissing her. “And then +I’ll go to school. Where’s my valise?”</p> + +<p>She was such a restless, impatient little girl that it wasn’t best to +let her know till the last minute what a beautiful thing had happened at +home. But the next morning, when her hat and cloak were on, Aunt Jane +told her she had a dear, new little baby sister, three days old!</p> + +<p>Flaxie did just what you might expect she would do: clapped her hands +and cried for joy.</p> + +<p>“What’s her name? Has she any teeth?<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_73" id="pg_73">73</a></span> Has she any curls? Where does she +sleep?”</p> + +<p>“Why, what’s the matter now?” said Uncle Ben, coming in as Flaxie and +Milly were whirling around the room in each other’s arms.</p> + +<p>“Oh, good-bye, Uncle Ben, good-bye! I don’t know what her name is, but +there’s a little sister at home, and I must go right off in the cars. I +<i>wish</i> I had some <i>seven-legged</i> boots! Good-bye, Uncle Ben.”</p> + +<p>She meant <i>seven-league</i> boots, for the cars did seem very slow. And +when she got home the baby was so small that she laughed and cried +again.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s the little <i>bit-of-est</i> baby ever I saw!”</p> + +<p>Phil had a grieved lip. He hardly liked the little pink morsel in the +nurse’s lap; but he was glad to see Flaxie, and stood on his head with +delight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_74" id="pg_74">74</a></span></p> + +<p>Mamma looked very happy, and so did Dr. Papa. Ninny went singing about +the house, and Preston whistled more than ever.</p> + +<p>It was all beautiful, only Flaxie wanted to have a “talk” with mamma, +but nurse said, “You’d better go down-stairs to play;” and then, not +long after supper, she said again, “And now you’d better go to bed!”</p> + +<p>“A queer woman, scolding so to other people’s little girls,” thought +Flaxie.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_75" id="pg_75">75</a></span> +<a name="THAT_HOMELY_MISS_PIKE_1323" id="THAT_HOMELY_MISS_PIKE_1323"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<h3>THAT HOMELY MISS PIKE.</h3> +</div> + +<p>The nurse did leave the room next day for a minute, and Flaxie ran up to +the bed and nestled close to her mother.</p> + +<p>“Now I’ll tell you all about it. I wanted to see you so, my heart ached +and ached, and once I ran away home.”</p> + +<p>“You did, darling? I’m glad I didn’t know it,” said mamma, kissing her.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t tell anybody—much,” returned Flaxie. “I thought ’twasn’t +polite. And then auntie bought me some red worsteds, and I made some +mittens for a sick girl named Lucy, that can’t wipe her mouth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_76" id="pg_76">76</a></span> or go to +school, or talk; and it made me just as happy!”</p> + +<p>“That was right. Of course it made you happy to forget yourself and help +somebody else.”</p> + +<p>“Yes’m, I know <i>all about</i> that!” replied Flaxie, with a wise look. She +had learned a deep lesson from those mittens.</p> + +<p>“But I don’t ever want to go away again,” said she, dropping a tear on +the pillow, “for there isn’t any <i>you</i> and Dr. Papa anywhere else.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, some time you’ll want to.”</p> + +<p>“No, mamma. When I said I’d go there to school with Milly I didn’t know +about my baby sister. I ought to stay and take care of her, and never go +away any more as long as I live,—not till I die, and go to heaven.”</p> + +<p>But three months passed, and Flaxie had forgotten all this. She was +always fond of<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_77" id="pg_77">77</a></span> the baby, whose name was Ethel Gray; but sometimes she +thought Ethel needn’t cry quite so much, and ought to cut a tooth, and +ought to have more hair.</p> + +<hr class="minor" /> + +<p>The world looked dark to Flaxie, for she was sick that spring, and a +long while getting well. It was a queer sort of illness too. First it +made her look yellow and then pea-green, and Julia had to sing and smile +a great deal in order to keep her at all comfortable.</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em;"> +“After dandelions, buttercups,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After buttercups, clover;</span><br /> +One blossom follows another one,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Over and over and over!”</span></p> + +<p>sang Julia one evening, when Flaxie was making ready to take her +medicine.</p> + +<p>“Now, Flaxie dear, swallow it like a lady.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Dr. Papa knows a great deal, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_78" id="pg_78">78</a></span> I shall do just as he says,” +replied the little girl, grasping her cup of rhubarb tightly in one +hand, and a glass of cold water in the other.</p> + +<p>It was a comfort to see her take her medicine for once without crying, +and Preston shouted “Hurrah!”</p> + +<p>She was pea-green at this time, and oh, so cross! For supper she had had +three slices of bread and butter, and cried because she couldn’t have +the fourth.</p> + +<p>“If the poor little thing wasn’t so cross we’d send her to Aunt +Charlotte’s for a change,” said Dr. Papa in a low voice to his wife; but +Flaxie heard it.</p> + +<p>“Oh, mamma, do lemme go to Aunt Charlotte’s, and go to school with +Milly; she has such a dear teacher! And Milly’s my twin cousin, born +just the same month. And I won’t be cross if they <i>don’t</i> give me enough +to eat; and I’ll take a whole bushel o’ pills!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_79" id="pg_79">79</a></span></p> + +<p>“Let her go,” laughed papa; “the bushel of pills settles it.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie was six and a half years old, and could have gone to Hilltop +alone—almost; but as Captain Jones happened to be travelling that way, +Dr. Papa thought he would pretend to put her in his charge.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever go in the cars alone, Ninny, with your own valise, and a +check in your pocket?” asked Flaxie in glee, as she rode up to the +station; “and oh, a umbrella, too!”</p> + +<p>“No, I never did—at your age,” replied Ninny, who was now a young lady +of twelve.</p> + +<p>“You see Uncle Ben will be there to meet me when we get to Hilltop,” +said Miss Frizzle, fluttering her darling umbrella against the captain’s +spectacles; “and won’t he laugh when he sees me coming all alone, with a +check in my pocket?”</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, curly-head; take care of that<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_80" id="pg_80">80</a></span> umbrella,” said her father, +kissing her pea-green cheek, and hurrying out of the car as the bell +rang.</p> + +<p>“Let’s see, where is Hilltop, and how will you know when you get there?” +asked the captain, before Flaxie had time to cry.</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s where Uncle Ben lives and Aunt Charlotte,” replied the little +traveller, who had a vague idea that the house was in the middle of a +snow-drift, with roses in the front yard and strawberries behind it. +“Their name is Allen.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m glad you’ve told me all the particulars,” said the captain +gravely. “And I shall be easy, for we can’t miss it.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie smiled and looked at her check. She felt the whole care of the +journey, but it didn’t trouble her at all, for the captain would tell +her when to stop. She “’membered” all about Hilltop just as well as +could be, but she didn’t <i>’xactly</i> know where it was!<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_81" id="pg_81">81</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a pleasant ride on that beautiful spring day, and the captain +would have been very agreeable, only he seemed to have a perfect horror +of “pinnuts,” the very things Flaxie had dreamed about and expected to +eat all the way. He shook his head at the peanut boys, and told her he +“wished they would keep away with their trash!” If he had only gone into +a smoking-car and left her, she might have bought some, for she had her +red portemonnaie with her; but then he never thought of leaving her, for +he really had no idea she was travelling alone.</p> + +<p>She had said Uncle Ben would laugh at meeting her; and so he did. He +threw up both hands and cried, “Bless me! what’s all this?” for it is +not every day one sees a little girl of just that color; but he looked +sober the next minute.</p> + +<p>“Poor little thing, you’ve had a hard time.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_82" id="pg_82">82</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh no, sir, not very,” said Flaxie, thinking he meant the journey. “I +like to travel alone.”</p> + +<p>Captain Jones, who was putting the little umbrella into the carriage, +laughed, and said he wished he had known that before.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” said he, kissing his hand to her. “I shall miss you very +much, for <i>I don’t</i> like to travel alone!”</p> + +<p>Then Flaxie drove off with her uncle in the nice easy carriage, and +found Aunt Charlotte and all her cousins delighted to see her, as she +had known they would be. She had told the captain they were “elegant +cousins;” but when Johnny exclaimed, “Hullo! Miss Frizzle, you look like +a pickled lime,” she blushed a sort of pinkish-green blush, and thought +he had grown very disagreeable.</p> + +<p>“Well, I didn’t mean anything. I’ve seen folks look worse’n you do—a +good deal,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_83" id="pg_83">83</a></span> added the little fellow, and thought it a handsome apology.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you who looks worse,” he broke in again, as they were all +seated at supper; “it’s our teacher, Miss Pike. She isn’t the same color +by a long shot, but she’s awful homely.”</p> + +<p>“Is she? Well, I guess I shan’t go to school.”</p> + +<p>“Johnny ought not to speak in that way of his dear teacher,” said Aunt +Charlotte gravely; “it is not her fault that she is not pretty; and +everybody loves her, for she has a beautiful soul.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, everybody loves her,” said Master Freddy; “but didn’t Jemmy +Glover send her a mean valentine last winter?</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em;"> +‘Old Miss Pike, she’s ninety-nine,<br /> +Her hair’s the color of a ball of twine.’“</p> + +<p>“If she looks so bad, why don’t she let<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_84" id="pg_84">84</a></span> the doctor take care of her?” +asked Flaxie, thoughtfully. “Dr. Papa gives me medicine three times a +day, and I’m going to be real white.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Miss Pike isn’t sick; she was born so, and medicine wouldn’t help +her any,” said Johnny, trying hard not to laugh at his simple little +cousin. “I’ll take you to see her to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie set her teeth firmly into a cookie, resolving that she would not +see such a monster of ugliness, much less go to school to her, not if +Johnny should drag her to the schoolhouse by a rope.</p> + +<p>After tea she sat on the front doorsteps awhile in Milly’s lap. The +little friends had a way of sitting in each other’s lap, and it was a +droll sight, as they were just of a size.</p> + +<p>“Where’s Lucy, that I made the mittens for?” asked Flaxie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_85" id="pg_85">85</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, she’s at home, but her sister Hatty goes to school.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I shan’t have to make mittens or anything this time, ’cause +you’re at home, Milly. I like to be with my twin cousin in a twin +house,” said Flaxie, twisting her neck to look at Mrs. Hunter’s +door-stone. It was just like Aunt Charlotte’s, only there were +flower-pots on it.</p> + +<p>“Guess what I dreamed last night,” returned Milly. “I dreamed you were +my sister; and then I woke up and thought how queer it is that God +always sends brothers to this house, and not any sisters.”</p> + +<p>“Why so he does; for Johnny and Freddy are <i>both</i> boys, and so is Ken,” +said Flaxie, struck with a new idea. “It’s real-too-bad!”</p> + +<p>“But now you’ve come, and we’ll go to school together, and it’s just as +well,” said Milly, kissing her pea-green friend in rapture.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_86" id="pg_86">86</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t say I’d go to school, Milly Allen.—Why, who’s that +coming?”</p> + +<p>“Hush! that’s my teacher and her sister.”</p> + +<p>“Which is the sister?”</p> + +<p>“The big one.”</p> + +<p>“Well, she’s got the dropsies.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, she hasn’t; she teaches the singing in our school.”</p> + +<p>“But she <i>has</i> got the dropsies, Milly Allen, for a fat woman has ’em +where I live, and my papa takes care of her; so don’t I know?”</p> + +<p>Milly said no more, for <i>her</i> papa was not a doctor; so what right had +she to give an opinion concerning diseases?</p> + +<p>The two ladies nodded and smiled in passing. “Oh, how homely!” whispered +Flaxie, in amazement; “I mean the other one, not the sister.”</p> + +<p>There was no doubt about it. I really suppose Miss Pike was one of the +ugliest women<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_87" id="pg_87">87</a></span> in the whole state. Her eyes were small and half shut; +her mouth was large and half open; her nose was enormous, and turned up +at the end,—and, to crown the whole, it was red!</p> + +<p>Milly, who had always known her, did not mind her looks. Indeed, so +little can children judge of the beauty of those they love, that I dare +say she might have thought her dear teacher quite handsome if she had +not heard everybody speak of her as “that homely Miss Pike.”</p> + +<p>“We don’t have such looking folks keep school where I live,” said +Flaxie, in scorn.</p> + +<p>“I can’t help it if you don’t,” returned Milly, slipping her cousin off +her lap with much indignation. “God made her so, and my mamma says you +mustn’t notice how anybody looks when they have a beautiful soul.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you won’t get <i>me</i> to go to school, not if you give me five +million thousand dollars,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_88" id="pg_88">88</a></span> Milly Allen!” said Flaxie; and their loving +chat on the doorstep was over for the evening.</p> + +<p>Flaxie kept her word, and Milly went off next morning half crying; but +little Freddy confided to his mother that <i>he</i> was “glad Flaxie wouldn’t +go to school, for the scholars would laugh at her, true as you live.”</p> + +<p>It was rather dull, all alone with Aunt Charlotte and little Ken, who +was cutting his teeth and cried a great deal; but Flaxie held out for a +whole week. This was fortunate, as it gave time for the greenish color +to fade out of her face, and her own natural pink and white to come back +again as beautiful as ever.</p> + +<p>“I guess I <i>will</i> go to school with you, Milly, if you want me to so +much,” said she at last one morning, when her cousins had all stopped +teasing her. “I just despise Miss Pike, but I like the one that has the +dropsies, and I want to hear her sing.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_89" id="pg_89">89</a></span></p> + +<p>Such a hugging and kissing followed this remark that Flaxie felt as if +she had said a very fine thing, and started off with Milly, carrying her +head very high.</p> + +<p>The schoolhouse was white, with green blinds, and stood on the bank of +the river, shaded by trees. Burdocks, milkweed, rushes, dandelions, and +buttercups, were sprinkled around, while close down by the river was a +narrow strip of clay bank, very nice to cut into with penknives,—as you +would think if you had seen the pretty images some of the children made +and spread out on boards in the sun.</p> + +<p>Inside the schoolhouse it was nice and cool, with a large entry and +recitation-room, and flowers on the desks and tables. The teacher, “that +homely Miss Pike,” moved about softly, and spoke in low, sweet tones, +smiling, and showing even white teeth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_90" id="pg_90">90</a></span></p> + +<p>“I s’pose her soul will fly right out of her when she dies,—and <i>that</i> +won’t have a red nose,” thought Flaxie, gazing at her with curiosity +mingled with awe.</p> + +<p>Somehow there was a happy feeling all over the schoolroom because Miss +Pike was in it, and Flaxie’s thoughts grew pleasant, she could not have +told why. But one thing she did know, she wanted to be a good girl,—not +pretty good, but the very best in the world,—that that sweet woman +might love her.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_91" id="pg_91">91</a></span> +<a name="THE_HOUSE_THAT_JACK_BUILT_1614" id="THE_HOUSE_THAT_JACK_BUILT_1614"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<h3>THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.</h3> +</div> + +<p>“Well, darling,” said Aunt Charlotte at noon, “you said you went to hear +the singing, and you look as if you had enjoyed it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the singing isn’t as good as Miss Pike; she’s just the best woman. +Only,” added Flaxie regretfully, “I <i>wish</i> I could see her soul, +auntie!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Allen smiled.</p> + +<p>“Wait till you know her better, and then you’ll see it shine through her +face. There’s a good look about her that is better than beauty.”</p> + +<p>After she had once begun, Flaxie would<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_92" id="pg_92">92</a></span> not have missed a day at school +for anything. She had never learned so fast before, for she had never +had a teacher she loved so well.</p> + +<p>“Oh, auntie,” said she one day, “I’ve seen her soul shine! It shines +when she smiles.”</p> + +<p>Milly and Flaxie were the best scholars, so Miss Pike told Aunt +Charlotte. But they did not study all the time. Oh, no. Miss Pike +understood children, and didn’t <i>expect</i> them to study all the time. She +often drew pictures on the blackboard for them to copy on the slate, and +if they wanted to bring their dinners and play at noon she was perfectly +willing; only they were not to scream too loud, or go near the desks, +for fear of spilling the ink. She noticed that the little girls were +more noisy after Flaxie Frizzle came; but this was not strange, for +Flaxie knew a great many games that the Hilltop children had never heard +of before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_93" id="pg_93">93</a></span></p> + +<p>“Lesson? Oh, yes. I’ve got that ole thing,” she would say sometimes, as +she rushed for her hat long before school-time.</p> + +<p>“Spell <i>ocean</i>, then,” said studious Milly, following her with the +spelling-book in her hand.</p> + +<p>“<i>O-s-h-u-n.</i> There! I’m in a hurry. I want to get to school to play +‘Bloody Murder.’”</p> + +<p>That sounded dreadful, but I dare say was not as bad as it seemed. And +one day after Flaxie had taught the little folks all the games she could +possibly remember, she thought of a new thing to do.</p> + +<p>“See there, Milly,” said she, pointing to a high pile of boards behind +the schoolhouse, under one of the windows. “A man has gone and put those +down there, and now let’s make a house of ’em, and live in it!”</p> + +<p>Milly hugged Flaxie, it was such a bright<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_94" id="pg_94">94</a></span> idea. Make a house? Of course +they would! They had made cupboards out of shingles and stones, and put +clay dishes on the shelves; they had dug ovens all along the bank like +swallows’ nests; but a real live house, what could be so charming as +that?</p> + +<p>But when you came to think of it, it wasn’t what you might call easy +work, for the boards were very heavy; and with all their tugging the +little girls could only drag them a little way across the ground.</p> + +<p>“Well, Johnny will help,” said Milly, puffing for breath. “And perhaps +Freddy will too.”</p> + +<p>She knew they couldn’t coax Freddy quite as well as they could Johnny. +The little girls never once thought of asking who owned the boards, but +I will tell you; it was Esquire Blake, and he was intending to use<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_95" id="pg_95">95</a></span> them +to repair his office, which stood not far from the schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>“’Twill be our ownty-doanty house, and nobody must come into it but us,” +said Flaxie, gazing with satisfaction at the clean boards.</p> + +<p>“The boys must come,” suggested Milly.</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, I s’pose they’ll have to, if they help make it.”</p> + +<p>“And Ada Blake.”</p> + +<p>“You always want Ada Blake to go everywhere,” pouted Flaxie. “We can +invite her for company, if you want to, but ’twill be <i>our</i> house.”</p> + +<p>Johnny thought it all nonsense, but consented to undertake the business. +He drove four stakes into the ground, near a beautiful maple-tree, and +then nailed boards on the stakes all around, making a pen about three +feet high. Everybody looked on deeply interested.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_96" id="pg_96">96</a></span> After that he and +Freddy went fishing. The little girls felt very impatient.</p> + +<p>“Oh dear,” said Milly, “it doesn’t look much like a house. You’d think +it was for pigs to live in.”</p> + +<p>Next day it rained; but the day after, as Johnny could get no peace of +his life, he nailed on more boards, till the pen was so high you +couldn’t see over it, unless you stood on tiptoe. That was high enough; +but where was the roof?</p> + +<p>“Oh, bother, what do you want of a roof? Hold up your umbrella.”</p> + +<p>“Next house I make I’ll make it myself!” cried Flaxie, stamping her +foot.</p> + +<p>That amused good-natured Johnny, and he called together some of the +boys, to help him put on a sloping roof. Then he sawed a door in the +side next the river; and when all was done the building looked so much +like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_97" id="pg_97">97</a></span> “truly house” that the little girls screamed for joy, and Johnny +felt rather proud of his work.</p> + +<p>“Tell you what,” said he, looking around at the boys, “this is the house +that Jack built. Now let’s saw a hole in the roof and put in a +stove-pipe.”</p> + +<p>Ah, Johnny! Johnny! it was thoughtless enough to use those boards +without leave; but to put in a stove-pipe was downright madness!</p> + +<p>The girls were charmed, and wanted a fireplace immediately. Why not? +That wasn’t much to make, and they made it themselves with the loose +pieces of brick they picked out of the old hearth in the +recitation-room.</p> + +<p>Squire Blake knew nothing of this; neither did the teacher. The new and +elegant building was located on the bank behind the schoolhouse, and as +the windows that way let<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_98" id="pg_98">98</a></span> in the sun, the blinds were kept closed, and +Miss Pike did not look out. If she had only looked out! But then perhaps +she wouldn’t have thought much about it; for who would dream of little +daughters of respectable parents bringing matches to school?</p> + +<p>It might be very funny to light a fire on one’s own little hearth, and +bake one’s own little biscuits for tea; but then it was certainly wrong. +If it hadn’t been wrong, why didn’t the little girls tell of it at home? +What made Flaxie seize a bunch of matches from the kitchen-shelf and +hide them in her pocket? What made Milly snatch that piece of dough when +Nancy’s back was turned, and run away with it so fast? Children are +never sly, you know, when they are doing right.</p> + +<p>If these biscuits turned out well, they were to bake some more +to-morrow, and have what Johnny called a “house-warming,” and<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_99" id="pg_99">99</a></span> Freddy +had partly promised some fish. But this was only the very first day of +housekeeping, and they had invited nobody but Ada Blake to tea,—Ada and +her dolls.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if recess would never come that afternoon, and when it came +it wasn’t “any longer than your little finger.” The fire was kindled the +very first minute, the thimble-biscuits rolled out, and then the three +children sat on the grass around their hearth to watch the baking. Seven +dolls sat there too, with their party-dresses on, waiting very politely. +There was a dictionary in the middle of the room for a table, with a +pocket-handkerchief spread on it for a table-cloth, and Milly had set +out all her best dishes there at noon, with a dot of butter, a pinch of +sugar, and some bits of cake.</p> + +<p>“I guess our oven is slow; they don’t bake much,” said Milly, peeping at +the biscuits,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_100" id="pg_100">100</a></span> which were placed in a row on a cabbage-leaf at a +respectful distance from the fire.</p> + +<p>“Let’s wish something while we’re waiting,” said hungry Flaxie, who had +only snatched a very hurried dinner. “I wish this world was one big +doughnut, with only us to eat it!”</p> + +<p>“Pshaw!” sniffed Milly, “why didn’t you wish something +good,—sponge-cake, with jelly between?”</p> + +<p>“Wish yourself, Milly Allen, if you can do it so much better’n I can,” +retorted Flaxie, putting another stick on the fire.</p> + +<p>“Well, lemme see; I wish you and I were sisters, Flaxie Frizzle, and Ada +was our aunt come from Boston.”</p> + +<p>“Well there, Milly Allen, that isn’t half as nice as my doughnut! What’s +the use to wish we were sisters, when we are twins now, and that’s +almost as good?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_101" id="pg_101">101</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, I never!” laughed Ada. “Such a <i>nidea</i> as <i>you</i> being twins! You +weren’t born the same day, either of you! Twins have to be born the same +day, now truly, or they can’t <i>be</i> twins!”</p> + +<p>There was wisdom in Ada’s voice, and wisdom in her superior smile. +Flaxie raised her eyes, but that smile was too much for her, and she +dropped them again. If there was one thing Flaxie could not bear, it was +to be laughed at by a girl of her own age, who knew more than she did.</p> + +<p>At that moment the school-bell rang, and, oh dear, those biscuits were +not half done! So very queer, too, for the stove-pipe was red-hot, and +roaring away beautifully!</p> + +<p>The three little cooks were the last to enter the schoolhouse, and Miss +Pike wondered what they were whispering about in the entry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_102" id="pg_102">102</a></span></p> + +<p>“Dear little creatures,” thought she, petting their heads, “I’m glad +they’ve had a good time, for they deserve it!”</p> + +<p>She called a class, and everything went on as usual, till suddenly she +thought she smelt smoke, and went to the window to look out.</p> + +<p>Miss Pike was a most sensible young lady, and knew better than to +scream; but I assure you she never felt more like screaming in her life. +The “house that Jack built” was all ablaze from top to bottom, and had +already set fire to the schoolhouse!</p> + +<p>She had to think fast. There were sixty children to be got out, and no +time to lose. If they should know the house was on fire they would be +crazed with fright and run hither and thither like wild creatures; it +would never do to let them know it.</p> + +<p>Miss Sarah was at the farther end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_103" id="pg_103">103</a></span> room setting copies slowly, +very slowly. She did not look up, and Miss Pike had no time to go and +speak to her; the only thing she could do was to walk quietly up to the +desk and ring the bell. That meant, “Put up your books.” A strange order +while a class was reciting; but it was obeyed instantly.</p> + +<p>“Star-spangled Banner,” said Miss Pike, calmly. She could see the little +tongues of flame running along the ceiling now, but she looked as if she +was thinking of nothing but music and waiting for Miss Sarah to pitch +the tune. Miss Sarah dropped her pen and did it of course, wondering +why; and all the sixty voices joined in it, clear and loud, as they had +often done before; while in time to the music the whole sixty children +marched in orderly file out of the room.</p> + +<p>“<i>Now, run!</i>” cried Miss Pike, the moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_104" id="pg_104">104</a></span> the last child was in the +entry, “run and tell everybody the schoolhouse is on fire!”</p> + +<p>She had a pail of water in her hand. The children rushed through the +streets screaming; the bells began to ring; the Hilltop fire-engine came +out; and all the people and horses and dogs in the village. But Miss +Pike was the first to pour water on the flames, and everybody said it +was she who saved the schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>There was a black hole in the wall, and another in the roof; the books +were, many of them, soaked and ruined; the floor an inch deep with +water, and it would take a whole week to set things to rights. But the +schoolhouse was saved.</p> + +<p>“Why, how did it take fire?” asked Uncle Ben, who had been out of town +and did not come back till all was over.</p> + +<p>The boys looked another way, the twin<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_105" id="pg_105">105</a></span> cousins hung their heads. Aunt +Charlotte did not answer. She was wondering which child would speak +first.</p> + +<p>It was Flaxie Frizzle. Her face was very pale, and her eyes were fixed +on the carpet.</p> + +<p>“We’ve got something <i>orful</i> to tell you,” said she, her voice +trembling; “we baked our biscuits, and Johnny built a house out there +with a stove-pipe in, and we oughtn’t to taken any matches. You better +believe we cried!”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, you young rogues; so <i>you</i> set the schoolhouse afire? And +who saved it?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Pike!” broke forth all the children in chorus.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Johnny; “but she marched us all out first, so the little +ones wouldn’t get burnt. Never said a word about the fire till we got +out!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_106" id="pg_106">106</a></span></p> + +<p>“She always does things just right. She’s one of God’s girls,” cried +Freddy.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” broke in Flaxie, strongly excited; “I don’t care if I can’t see +her soul. I’ve seen it shine! Oh, it’s beautiful to be homely!”</p> + +<p>Nobody smiled—they all thought Flaxie was right.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is beautiful to be homely in just Miss Pike’s way,” said Aunt +Charlotte.</p> + +<p>And then they went out to supper, and, as the twin cousins looked +broken-hearted, nothing more was said about the house that Jack built.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Flaxie, <i>do</i> you s’pose we’ve suffered enough?” asked little Milly +that night after they had said their prayers and were lying in bed +looking at the pure soft moonlight which shone on the far-away hills.</p> + +<p>“I don’ know. I feel as if I had a pain, don’t you? Oh dear!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_107" id="pg_107">107</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s just the way I feel; a pain way in deep,” replied Milly, +heaving a sorrowful sigh. “And I ought to, I’m glad of it.”</p> + +<p>“Glad, Milly Allen? How queer! Why, <i>I</i> don’t like to feel bad!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t either,” said Milly, sitting up in bed and speaking very +earnestly. “But don’t you ’member what Auntie Prim said that time we ran +away from the party? She said children ought to suffer for their +naughtiness; it’s the only way they can learn to behave better.”</p> + +<p>“Well, any way,” said Flaxie, rolling her eyes uneasily, “’twas Johnny +that put in the stove-pipe, and he ought to feel the worst. I’m going to +ask Preston about that, see ’f I don’t.”</p> + +<p>Two days after this Flaxie went home, and her little frizzled head was +not seen at Hilltop<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_108" id="pg_108">108</a></span> any more till the next December. Then her dear +Grandma Gray had rheumatic fever, and though Flaxie pitied her all she +could, she made too much noise in the house, and had to be sent away. +But I will tell you about that in the next chapter.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_109" id="pg_109">109</a></span> +<a name="HILLTOP_AGAIN_1914" id="HILLTOP_AGAIN_1914"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<h3>HILLTOP AGAIN.</h3> +</div> + +<p>“Little red riding hood, where are you going?”</p> + +<p>“Going to see my grandmother,” replied Flaxie Frizzle, peeping out from +under her scarlet hood. “And here’s a pat of butter for her in this wee, +wee basket.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Red Riding Hood, your grandmother is too sick to eat butter. +Shut the door, walk very softly, and bring me my writing-desk. I’m going +to write Aunt Charlotte, and ask her if she wants you at Hilltop.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, mamma, how elegant! Is it ’cause<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_110" id="pg_110">110</a></span> grandma’s sick?” cried Flaxie, +dropping her wee, wee basket, butter and all. She ought to have been +ashamed to find she was so noisy that she had to be sent away from home; +but she never thought about that. She did try to keep still, but as she +had said to Julia that very morning, “there wasn’t any still in her!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, let me write it myself to Milly; please let me write it myself.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie was seven years old now, and had actually learned how to scribble +pretty fast. She was very proud of this, for Milly could do nothing but +print.</p> + +<p>She seized a postal card, ruled it downhill with a pencil, and wrote on +it a few cramped-up words, huddled close together like dried apples on a +string:</p> + +<p class="blockquot"> +“<span class="smcap">Dear Twin Little Cousin</span>: My Mamma is going to let me go to your +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_111" id="pg_111">111</a></span> +House and go to school to your Dear teacher, becaus I make too +much noise, and Grammy is sick with Something in her back and Ime +glad but not unless your Mamma is willing. Wont you please to write +and say so. My lines are unstraight, and its real too bad Good by +<span class="smcap">Flaxie Frizzle</span>.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gray smiled when her little daughter asked how to spell +<i>unstraight</i>, and smiled again when she saw the card and read, “Dear +twin little cousin.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know better than that,” explained Flaxie, blushing: “we’re not +twins a bit, and couldn’t be if we should try, and we’ve known it for +quite a long time; but you see, mamma, we’re <i>make-believing</i>, just for +fun.”</p> + +<p>“I never saw such a child for ‘make-believing,’” said Mrs. Gray, kissing +Flaxie, who skipped gayly out of the room to pack her valise.</p> + +<p>She always packed it, if there was the least thing said about going +away. She didn’t mind the trouble, it was such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_112" id="pg_112">112</a></span> pretty valise,—made +of brown canvas, with leather straps like a trunk. And she knew Aunt +Charlotte would want her at Hilltop,—people always do want little +girls, and can’t have too many of them,—and it was best to be ready in +season.</p> + +<p>So she looked up her little umbrella, with F. F. painted on it in white +letters, her school-books that she had been playing school with all over +the house, and a half bushel or so of her best dolls. But as she did not +go for a week, she had time to lose these things over and over, and some +of them were never found any more.</p> + +<p>“Now, darling,” said mamma, when Flaxie had bidden good-bye to papa and +Preston, and Ninny and the baby, and was just entering the car behind +her friend Mrs. Prim. “Now, darling, don’t be troublesome to dear Aunt +Charlotte, and if you’ll learn to be good<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_113" id="pg_113">113</a></span> and orderly and sweet like +your Cousin Milly, I shall be so glad.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie pondered upon this speech as she sat rattling along in the cars, +munching peanuts, while Mrs. Prim took care of the shells.</p> + +<p>“Troublesome. Oh, my! ’s if <i>I</i> ever troubled anybody! ’Cept Grandma +Gray; and that’s ’cause she’s got something in her back. But mamma +<i>always</i> thinks Milly is nicer than me! Queer what makes mammas <i>never</i> +like their own little girls!—I mean, not much. Now Aunt Charlotte +thinks I’m the nicest. She scolds to Milly sometimes, but she don’t +scold to <span class="smcap">ME</span>!”</p> + +<p>Hilltop had been green when Flaxie left it, but now it was white, and +seemed lovelier than ever, for Johnny had a new sled, and was “<i>such</i> a +kind-hearted boy!” That is, he was always ready to draw the twin cousins +on the ice till they were half frozen and<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_114" id="pg_114">114</a></span> begged him to stop, and I +hardly see how he <i>could</i> have been kinder than that!</p> + +<p>Then the school was “perfickly elegant,” taught by that same dear +teacher, Miss Pike. What if her nose <i>was</i> red, and her mouth so large +that little Betty Chase called her “the lady that can’t shut her face”? +She was just lovely for all that, and Flaxie and Milly couldn’t forget +that she had saved the schoolhouse when it was set on fire by mistake. +After that she hadn’t looked homely a minute,—only “a beautiful +homely,” that is ever and ever so much better than handsome;—and the +little girls fairly adored her.</p> + +<p>Now Flaxie was quick to learn, but as a general thing she didn’t study +very hard, I am obliged to confess. When she couldn’t spell her lessons +she said to Milly, “It’s ’cause you don’t have the same kind of books we +have where I live. The words look so queer in your books!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_115" id="pg_115">115</a></span></p> + +<p>If Flaxie was noisy at Laurel Grove, what was she at Hilltop? Sometimes +in the evening, when she played the piano and sang, Aunt Charlotte was +really afraid she would disturb Mrs. Hunter, who lived in the other half +of the house.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I like it,” said Mrs. Hunter, pleasantly; “but don’t you think, +Mrs. Allen, there is danger of her pounding your piano in pieces?”</p> + +<p>But by and by there wasn’t so much time for music and play. The busy +season had begun, when everybody was making ready for Christmas; and the +twin cousins had as much as they could do in talking over what they were +<i>going</i> to do, as they sat in each other’s lap and looked at their +work-baskets.</p> + +<p>Flaxie wanted to make a marvellous silk bedquilt for her dear mamma out +of pieces as big as a dollar; but, finding there wouldn’t be<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_116" id="pg_116">116</a></span> time for +that, concluded to buy her a paper of needles, “if it didn’t cost too +much.”</p> + +<p>Probably there wouldn’t have been anything done but talking if Aunt +Charlotte hadn’t brought out some worsteds and canvas and set the +helpless little ones at work upon a holder called the “Country Cousin.” +They had a hard time over this young lady, and almost wished sometimes +that she had never been born; but she turned out very brilliant at last, +in a yellow skirt, red waist, and blue bonnet, with a green parasol over +her head. After this they had courage to make some worsted balls for the +babies, some cologne mats for their brothers who never used cologne, and +some court-plaster cases for somebody else, with the motto, “I stick to +you when others cut you.”</p> + +<p>Both the children were tired with all this labor, and Flaxie discovered, +after her presents<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_117" id="pg_117">117</a></span> were packed and ready to send off by express, that +she didn’t feel very well.</p> + +<p>“My throat is so sore I can’t <i>swoler</i>,”—so she wrote on a postal to +her mother; for when she was sick she wanted everybody to know it.</p> + +<p>Before Aunt Charlotte heard of the sad condition of her throat, she had +said she might go with Milly and Johnny and some of the older children +in the village, to see the ladies trim the church. But when Flaxie came +into the parlor with her teeth chattering, Aunt Charlotte began to fear +she ought not to go out.</p> + +<p>“Are you so very chilly, my dear?”</p> + +<p>“Yes ’m, I am,” replied Flaxie, with a doleful look around the corners +of her mouth. “This house isn’t heated by steam like my house where I +live, and I’m drefful easy to freeze!” And her teeth chattered again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_118" id="pg_118">118</a></span></p> + +<p>Aunt Charlotte looked anxious, as she drew on her gloves.</p> + +<p>“My child, you’d better not go to the church, for it’s rather cold +there.”</p> + +<p>“Cold as a barn,” put in Johnny.</p> + +<p>“Oh, auntie, do please, lemme go! I’m cold, but it’s a <i>warm</i> cold +though,” said Flaxie, eagerly; and her teeth stopped chattering.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, Flaxie, but there’s a chill in the air like snow, and if +your throat is sore it is much wiser for you to stay at home,” said Aunt +Charlotte, gently but firmly, like a good mother who is accustomed to be +obeyed by her children.</p> + +<p>And poor Flaxie was obliged to submit, though it cut her to the heart +when Milly gave her a light kiss and skipped away; and she did think it +was cruel in Aunt Charlotte to advise her to go into the nursery and +stay with Nancy and the baby. She wished she had never said a word about +her throat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_119" id="pg_119">119</a></span></p> + +<p>“It don’t feel any worse’n a mosquito-bite,” thought she, watching the +gay party from the window,—half a dozen ladies and as many children; +“it don’t hurt me to swallow either,”—swallowing her tears.</p> + +<p>“Hilltop’s such a queer place! Not the least speck of steam in the +houses! If they had steam, you could go anywhere, if your throat <i>was</i> +sore! And I never saw anybody trim a church; and oh, Milly says they’ll +have <i>beau</i>-tiful flowers, and crosses, and things! <i>I</i> never saw +anybody trim <i>anything</i>—’cept a loaf of cake and flowers on a bonnet.”</p> + +<p>Foolish Flaxie, to stand there winking tears into her eyes! <i>You</i> would +have known better; you would have gone into the nursery to play with +that lovely baby; but there were times, I am sorry to say, when Flaxie +really enjoyed being unhappy. So now she<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_120" id="pg_120">120</a></span> stood still, rolling her +little trouble over and over, as boys roll a snowball, making it larger +and larger, till presently it was as big as a mountain.</p> + +<p>“Auntie <i>said</i> I might go, and then she wouldn’t lemme! Made me stay at +home to play with that ole baby! He’s squirmy and wigglesome; what do I +want to play with <i>him</i> for, when she <i>said</i> I might go? I like good +aunties; I don’t like the kind that tell lies.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my throat <i>is</i> growing sore, and I’m going off up-stairs to stay in +the cold, and get sick, ’cause they ought to keep steam; and <i>then</i> I +guess auntie’ll be sorry!”</p> + +<p>I grieve to tell you this about Flaxie, for I fear you will not like a +little girl who could be so very naughty.</p> + +<p>When the happy party of church-trimmers came home at tea-time, there she +was up-stairs<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_121" id="pg_121">121</a></span> in the “doleful dumps;” and it was a long while before +Milly could coax her down.</p> + +<p>When she came at last, her face was a sight to behold—all purple, and +spotted, and striped; for a fit of crying always gave her the appearance +of measles. She consented to take a seat at table, but ate little, said +nothing, and gazed mournfully at her plate.</p> + +<p>This distressed Aunt Charlotte, but she asked no questions, and tried to +keep Johnny talking, so he would not notice his afflicted little cousin.</p> + +<p>“Now what <i>does</i> make you act so?” asked Milly, as soon as tea was over.</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 2em"> +“‘Got a <i>cricket</i> in my neck;<br /> +Can’t move it a single speck,’”</p> + +<p>replied Flaxie, not knowing she had made poetry, till Johnny, who was +supposed to be ever so far off, began to laugh; and then she<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_122" id="pg_122">122</a></span> moved her +neck fast enough, and shook her head, and stamped her foot.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go in the nursery, so Johnny can’t plague you,” said the +peace-loving Milly. “I’m so sorry you’re sick.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie had not meant to speak, but she could not help talking to Milly.</p> + +<p>“Wish I’se at home,” said she, reproachfully, “’cause my mamma keeps +pepmint.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Flaxie, my mamma keeps it too. We’ve got lots and lots of it in +the cupboard.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t care if you have,” snapped Flaxie. “I just despise pepmint. It’s +something else I want, and can’t think of the name of; but I know you +don’t keep it, for your papa isn’t a doctor!”</p> + +<p>It was not the first time Flaxie had wounded her sweet cousin’s feelings +by this same cutting remark.</p> + +<p>“Dr. Papa keeps <i>tittlish</i> powders in blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_123" id="pg_123">123</a></span> and white papers, and one of +the papers <i>buzzes</i>. I guess he’d give me that, but I don’t know,” added +Flaxie, crying again harder than ever, though the tears fell like fire +on her poor, sore cheeks.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_124" id="pg_124">124</a></span> +<a name="A_CRAZY_CHRISTMAS_2165" id="A_CRAZY_CHRISTMAS_2165"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<h3>A CRAZY CHRISTMAS.</h3> +</div> + +<p>“You dear little thing,” said Aunt Charlotte, coming into the room with +Ken in her arms, but putting him down and taking up her naughty niece. +“You’ve been getting homesick all by yourself this long afternoon. Where +did you stay?”</p> + +<p>“Stayed up-sta—irs,” sobbed Flaxie.</p> + +<p>“In the cold? Why, darling, what made you?”</p> + +<p>“You all went off and left me,” replied Flaxie, with a little tempest of +tears.</p> + +<p>Then auntie understood it all,—how this child, who was old enough to +know better,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_125" id="pg_125">125</a></span> had been rolling a little bit of a trouble over and over, +till it had grown into a mountain and almost crushed her. And the +mother-heart in Aunt Charlotte’s bosom ached for poor foolish Flaxie.</p> + +<p>“She has added to her cold, and is feverish,” thought the good lady, +sending for Nancy to bring some hot water in the tin bath-tub that was +used for washing the children.</p> + +<p>“I shall have you sleep with me to-night, in the down-stairs room,” said +Aunt Charlotte; “and I’ll put a flannel round your neck, dear, and some +poultices on your feet.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie smiled faintly as she saw the dried burdock-leaves soaking in +vinegar, for she liked to have a suitable parade made over her when she +was sick. Besides, she had often thought she should enjoy sleeping in +the “down-stairs room,” and was glad now that<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_126" id="pg_126">126</a></span> Uncle Ben happened to be +gone; that is, as glad as she could be of anything. It was a miserable, +forlorn world all of a sudden to Flaxie, and she had never known such “a +mean old night,” even if it was “the night before Christmas.”</p> + +<p>The lamp burning dimly in the corner of the room, on the floor, cast +shadows that frightened her; her head ached; she woke the baby in the +crib by crying, and then he woke everybody else.</p> + +<p>It was a “mean old night” to the whole house; and when I say the <i>whole</i> +house, I mean both halves of it. About midnight, as Mrs. Hunter was +sleeping sweetly, her door-bell rang a furious peal. Nobody likes to hear +such a sound at dead of night, and Mrs. Hunter trembled a little, for +she was all alone with her children; but she rose and dressed as fast as +possible, and went down-stairs with a lamp.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_127" id="pg_127">127</a></span></p> + +<p>“Who is it?” she asked, through the keyhole.</p> + +<p>“It’s <span class="smcap">ME</span>!” said a childish voice that she thought sounded like one of +the Allen children.</p> + +<p>She ventured to open the door, and there on the steps in the darkness +stood Flaxie Frizzle, bareheaded, shivering, and looking terribly +frightened.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mrs. Hunter, something <i>orful</i> has happened at our house. Oh, come +quick, Mrs. Hunter!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, dear, I’ll go this minute; but what is it?” said the lady, +hurrying to the entry closet for her shawl.</p> + +<p>“Auntie is crazy! She is running round and round with the tea-kettle.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hunter stood still with amazement.</p> + +<p>“Who sent <i>you</i> here?” said she. “Why don’t they call the doctor?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_128" id="pg_128">128</a></span></p> + +<p>“I don’t know. She’s going to scald me to death, and I s’pose you know +I’m sick,” whined Flaxie, sinking down on the doormat, where the light +of the lamp shone full upon her, and Mrs. Hunter saw—what she might +have seen before, if she had not been so nervous—that the little girl +wore a checked flannel nightie, and her feet were done up in poultices.</p> + +<p>Of course she must have come away without any one’s knowing it, that +cold night, with the snow falling too! It was she that was crazy, +instead of Aunt Charlotte.</p> + +<p>“How could the child have got out of the house?” thought Mrs. Hunter.</p> + +<p>But the question was now, how to get her back again?</p> + +<p>“Come, Flaxie,” said she, in a soothing tone, “let me wrap you up in a +shawl and take you home pickaback,—there’s a good girl!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_129" id="pg_129">129</a></span></p> + +<p>“But I don’t want auntie to scald me.”</p> + +<p>“She shan’t, dear. If she has got the tea-kettle, I’ll take it away from +her.”</p> + +<p>“Honest?” asked Flaxie, piteously.</p> + +<p>But she forgot her terror as soon as she was mounted pickaback, and +thought herself the “country cousin” taking a ride on a holder.</p> + +<p>All this while everybody in the Allen half of the house was up and +hunting for the lost child. Milly was crying bitterly; Johnny had come +in from the barn, where he had pulled the hay all over; and Uncle Ben, +who had just returned from his journey, was starting out on the street +with a lantern.</p> + +<p>Just then Mrs. Hunter walked in, and dropped Flaxie into Aunt +Charlotte’s arms, saying:</p> + +<p>“Here, I’ve brought you a poor sick child.”</p> + +<p>Then there was such a commotion that<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_130" id="pg_130">130</a></span> Flaxie was more bewildered than +ever, and at sight of Uncle Ben she screamed wildly. It was his coming +home about ten minutes before that had frightened her, in the first +place, by waking her from a bad dream; and she had slipped out of bed, +and out of the open front door, before any one missed her.</p> + +<p>“There! there! darling, don’t cry,” said Aunt Charlotte, hushing her in +her arms, while Mrs. Hunter heated a blanket.</p> + +<p>“I’ve done something <i>orful</i>,” said Flaxie in her auntie’s ear. “I’m so +sorry; but I stole a horse and sleigh! <i>Don’t</i> tell, auntie! I put ’em +behind that door.”</p> + +<p>“Well, never mind it, dear; you didn’t mean to,” said Aunt Charlotte, +smiling in spite of her heavy heart. Then she turned to Uncle Ben, who +stood by, looking puzzled, and asked him in a whisper if he “didn’t +think he ought to go for the doctor”?<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_131" id="pg_131">131</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, by all means,” said Mrs. Hunter, beginning to help him on with his +overcoat.</p> + +<p>He had hurried home in the night train, on purpose to spend Christmas +day with his family, and was really too tired to take a ride of two +miles in a snow-storm. But he was not thinking of that; he was thinking +how dreadful it was to have his dear little niece sick away from home; +and how her papa didn’t like the Hilltop doctor,—and perhaps it was +best to go three miles farther to the next town after Dr. Pulsifer.</p> + +<p>“Yes, go for Dr. Pulsifer,” said Aunt Charlotte, when he asked her about +it; “and be as quick as you can.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie knew nothing of all this. Her cheeks burned, her eyes shone, and +she kept saying there were a million lions and tigers in the bed; and +where was the rat-trap?</p> + +<p>“Do bring the rat-trap!” said she, plunging<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_132" id="pg_132">132</a></span> about in a fright. “Oh, you +don’t hear, do you? There’s a woman out in the other room eating +peas,—eating, and eating, and eating. Why don’t you stop her? Oh, you +don’t hear! Johnny Allen, run for a sponge and vinegar, and put it in +auntie’s ears, so she can hear!”</p> + +<p>Milly laughed at these strange speeches till she heard Nancy say to Mrs. +Hunter, “Crazy as a loon, ain’t she? I’m afraid it’s water on the +brain.”</p> + +<p>Then Milly, who did not understand Nancy’s meaning, but was appalled by +the tone, ran into the pantry, and cried behind the flour-barrel.</p> + +<p>“If Flaxie Frizzle dies, I want to die too! She’s the only twin cousin +I’ve got in the world.”</p> + +<p>In a short time, considering how far he had ridden, Uncle Ben came home, +but without<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_133" id="pg_133">133</a></span> Dr. Pulsifer, who had gone away, and could not be there +before to-morrow noon.</p> + +<p>“I’m so disappointed,” said Aunt Charlotte, looking pale and ill enough +herself to be in bed. “But the poor little thing is asleep now, and +perhaps she isn’t so very sick after all. Do tell me if you think +there’s any danger of brain-fever?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I think this,” replied Uncle Ben, leaning over the bed and taking +a long look at the little patient; “<i>I</i> don’t know what ails her! It may +be diphtheria, and then again it may be common sore throat; but if she +isn’t better in the morning, we’ll telegraph to her father, for a child +that can turn yellow and pea-green, as she did last spring, is capable +of almost anything.”</p> + +<p>“That is true,” said Aunt Charlotte; “one never knows what she is going +to do next.” And then she looked at Flaxie, and sighed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_134" id="pg_134">134</a></span> It was +wonderful what a power she had of keeping her friends in a worry, this +little pink and white slip of a girl! Once she had fallen into a brook, +and once into a well, beside falling sick times without number. Uncle +Ben and Aunt Charlotte knew all this, but they did not happen to know +that it was a very common thing for Flaxie to be crazy! It was just so +with her brother Preston and her sister Ninny; they seldom had any +little ailment like a bad cold without “going out of their heads,” and +nobody in the family minded it at all.</p> + +<p>If Flaxie’s mother had been at Hilltop, she would have sent Uncle Ben +and Aunt Charlotte to bed; but as she was not there, and they didn’t +know any better, they sat up all night watching their queer little +niece.</p> + +<p>Rather a sorry “Christmas eve” all around the house,—but a beautiful +Christmas morning,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_135" id="pg_135">135</a></span> and not a cloud in the sky. Flaxie woke as gay as a +bird, without the least recollection of the horrors she had suffered in +the night from tigers and tea-kettles.</p> + +<p>“Wish you merry Christmas!” cried she to pale Aunt Charlotte, and sprang +out of bed with poultices on her feet to go after her Christmas +stocking.</p> + +<p>“Well, is this the little girl they thought was so sick,” said Dr. +Pulsifer, when he arrived at noon, and found her and Milly lying on the +rug, with a pair of twin dolls between them dressed just alike, and each +with a fur cap on its head.</p> + +<p>He felt Flaxie’s pulse and looked at her tongue, and said he “shouldn’t +waste any of his nice medicine on <i>her</i>.”</p> + +<p>“But my cold isn’t good at all, now honest; and my throat’s a little +sore—I guess,” said Flaxie, drawing a long face, and feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_136" id="pg_136">136</a></span> rather +ashamed not to be sick now, when the doctor had been sent for on +purpose!</p> + +<p>“Never mind! If you don’t need me, your aunt does. What do you think of +yourself, you little piece of mischief, running away in the night, and +frightening people so that they are sick abed Christmas day?”</p> + +<p>All Flaxie’s good time was over in a minute. <i>Was</i> auntie sick abed +up-stairs? Was that why Flaxie hadn’t seen her since morning?</p> + +<p>“Oh, mayn’t I go look at her?” said she, after the doctor had left. And +Uncle Ben consented, thinking she wouldn’t stay a minute.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so sorry! I do love you dearly,” cried penitent Flaxie, +climbing upon the bed and cuddling close to the white auntie. “<i>Did</i> I +make you sick? I didn’t mean to; and I don’t ’member anything about the +tea-kettle.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_137" id="pg_137">137</a></span></p> + +<p>“There, there, dear, don’t cry.”</p> + +<p>“I oughtn’t to stayed up-stairs yesterday in the cold,” went on Flaxie, +determined to free her mind. “That was the wickedest thing! But you were +just as good as you could be, if you <i>did</i> trim the church; and I’ll +never do so again!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, hush, dear; you shake the bed.”</p> + +<p>“I’m real bad in here, in my s-o-ul!” wailed Flaxie, squeezing her +eyelids together tight, and laying her hand on her stomach. “Why don’t +God make me beautiful inside o’ my soul?”</p> + +<p>“Ask Him, dear child!”</p> + +<p>“Will He?” said Flaxie, earnestly. “Oh, yes, I know;” and her eager face +fell. “But He’ll have to make me homely to do it, just like Miss Pike.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, my darling.”</p> + +<p>“Won’t He? See what a orful cole-sore<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_138" id="pg_138">138</a></span> I’ve got on my mouth. If it would +stay there, and stick on always, do you s’pose I’d grow good?” asked +Flaxie, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>Aunt Charlotte almost smiled.</p> + +<p>“’Cause I’m willing to be a little homely,—now truly—if I can have a +nice so-o-ul,” added the child, with a true and deep feeling of her own +naughtiness that I am sure the angels must have been glad to see.</p> + +<p>But she was shaking the bed again, and Uncle Ben drew her gently away, +and took her down stairs in his arms to finish the rest of her “crazy +Christmas.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_139" id="pg_139">139</a></span> +<a name="MILLY_VISITING_2432" id="MILLY_VISITING_2432"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<h3>MILLY VISITING.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Winter passed, spring came, and April was half over before the twin +cousins met again. Then it was Milly’s turn to go to Laurel Grove to see +Flaxie. She had written a postal-card slowly, and with great pains, to +say “she should be there to-morrow if it was pleasant.”</p> + +<p>But how it did rain! It had rained for two days as if the sky meant to +pour itself away in tears; but on Wednesday the sun came rushing through +the clouds, his face all aglow with smiles, and put an end to such +dismal business. The rain ceased, the clouds<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_140" id="pg_140">140</a></span> scampered away and hid +themselves, and the sky cleared up as bright as if nothing had ever been +the matter.</p> + +<p>Sweet little Milly looked out of the window, heard the birds sing, and +whispered in her heart:</p> + +<p>“Oh, how kind God is to give me a good day to go to Laurel Grove!”</p> + +<p>She didn’t own a pretty valise of brown canvas with leather straps like +Flaxie’s. All in the world she had was an old bandbox trunk that +belonged to her mother, and she took no care of that, for Milly never +“travelled alone.”</p> + +<p>“Well, little sobersides,” said her father, putting the check in his +pocket, the ticket in his hat, and opening a car-window before he sat +down beside Milly. “Well, little sobersides, are you glad you’re going +visiting?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said she, her eyes shining.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_141" id="pg_141">141</a></span> She didn’t laugh and clap her +hands quite as much as Flaxie did, but you always knew when she was +happy by the glad look in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“I hope you two little folks won’t get into too much mischief at Laurel +Grove. Are you going to school?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; and oh, it’s such an elegant schoolhouse!”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t set it on fire.”</p> + +<p>Milly blushed.</p> + +<p>“But the teacher isn’t half so nice as Miss Pike.”</p> + +<p>The dear little girl had not been at Laurel Grove for a long while, but +all the people in town seemed to remember her,—Mr. Lane the minister, +Mr. Snow the postmaster, and everybody they met in the street. Her +father noticed how they smiled upon her, as if they loved her, and it +made his heart glad.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_142" id="pg_142">142</a></span></p> + +<p>Preston drove his uncle and cousin home from the depot, but he almost +ran into a lumber-wagon, and Mr. Allen thought he was too young a boy to +be trusted with such a fiery horse as Whiz. Flaxie sat with him on the +front seat of the carriage, dancing up and down, and turning around to +say to Milly:</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so happy I can’t keep still.” She looked like a bluebird, in +her blue dress and sash, with a white chip bonnet, blue ribbon and blue +feather, and Milly thought there was not another such girl in the world.</p> + +<p>It was a charming place at Dr. Gray’s, and the house was full of +beautiful things, such as Milly did not see at her own home; but that +never made her discontented or unhappy. If God gave Flaxie prettier +things than He gave her, it was because He thought best to do so, and +that was enough for Milly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_143" id="pg_143">143</a></span></p> + +<p>“O Aunt Emily, <i>are</i> you glad to see me?” said she, as Mrs. Gray kissed +her over and over again.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’m just as glad as I can be, and I wish you were my own little +girl,” said Mrs. Gray, who had five children already.</p> + +<p>The “little bit-of-est” one was a year old now, and didn’t know Milly at +all, but Phil know her and prattled away to her so fast that nobody else +could be heard.</p> + +<p>That afternoon she and Flaxie were in the stable, feeding Whiz with +lumps of sugar, while the dog, Tantra Bogus, capered about them, giving +their cheeks a “thou-sand” kisses with his long, loving tongue.</p> + +<p>“Stop, Tantra Bogus; now we’ll have to go and wash our faces,” said +Flaxie.</p> + +<p>As they entered the kitchen by the outside door they met Mrs. Gray +standing there talking to Preston.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_144" id="pg_144">144</a></span></p> + +<p>“Here is a cup of jelly,” said she, “and I’d like to have you take it to +Sammy Proudfit.”</p> + +<p>This was Wednesday afternoon, and Preston was starting to go about half +a mile up town to recite an extra lesson to his teacher, Mr. Garland.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’re coming too, are you?” said he, looking around at Flaxie and +Milly, who were skipping along behind him, drawing a handsome doll’s +carriage.</p> + +<p>“Yes, we are going up on the bank to play with Blanche Jones and Fanny +Townsend: mamma said we might,” replied Flaxie, dancing.</p> + +<p>Preston was very glad of the company of two such happy little girls, +only he forgot to say so.</p> + +<p>“And we’ve built a house of birch bark under the trees. But it hasn’t +any stove-pipe!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_145" id="pg_145">145</a></span> said Flaxie, who had never forgotten that unfortunate +house that Jack built.</p> + +<p>“And we’re going to have a doll’s party in it,” remarked Milly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, not a party, it’s a <i>reception</i>,” corrected Flaxie; “that’s +what Fanny Townsend says they call ’em in Washington. My biggest dolly, +Christie Gretchen, is going to receive. Oh, you don’t know how +beautifully she’s dressed! And all the other dollies are coming to call +on her, with the cunningest little cards in their pockets.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do your dollies play cards?”</p> + +<p>“No, indeed; it’s <i>visiting</i> cards,—don’t you know?—with their names +printed on them, just like ladies. Ninny did that.”</p> + +<p>As they chattered in this way they were drawing near the Proudfit house, +which stood at the foot of the hill, and little Milly sang,</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +“There was an old woman lived under the hill;”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_146" id="pg_146">146</a></span>Preston sang to the same tune:</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +“And she had a little boy who was not very ill,<br /> +And he went to bed, and he lies there still.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Preston Gray, did you make that all up yourself?” cried Flaxie, +amazed at his genius.</p> + +<p>But there was no time for more poetry, even if Preston had been able to +make it, for they were standing now at the door. It was an old, +tumble-down house. The children called it black, and in fact it was a +sort of slate-color, though it had never been painted at all, except by +the sun, wind, and rain. In the road before it three dirty children were +poking sand, and they looked so shabby that Milly whispered:</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t think they’d be called <i>Proudfits</i>: they don’t look very +proud!”</p> + +<p>“No,” replied Preston, trying to be witty, “the name doesn’t <i>fit</i>.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_147" id="pg_147">147</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Proudfit was changing Sammy’s pillow-cases when she heard the +children knock, and came to the door with a pillow between her teeth. +She was “proper glad of the jelly,” as Preston thought she ought to be.</p> + +<p>There was a smell of hot gingerbread in the air, which reminded Flaxie +of the time ever so long ago, when she had taken supper in that house +without leave; and there was Patty at the window this minute making +faces. It is strange how things change to you as you grow older! Flaxie +never cared to visit at that house now, for Patty wasn’t a nice little +girl at all; she not only teased away your playthings, but told wrong +stories.</p> + +<p>“Our baby’s two months old, and he’s got two teeth!” cried she, as +Flaxie turned away; but nobody believed her.</p> + +<p>The twin cousins and their little friends<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_148" id="pg_148">148</a></span> had a gay time that afternoon +on the bank, and Christie Gretchen “received” with great dignity; but I +have no time to talk of that now, I want to tell you something about +Preston.</p> + +<p>When they reached Mr. Garland’s house, the little girls left him, and he +walked up the gravel path to Mr. Garland’s front door and rang the bell +with a sober face.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe I can say my lesson, and Mr. Garland will think I’m a +dunce,” said he to himself, with a quivering lip.</p> + +<p>Now Preston Gray was remarkably handsome, and one of the dearest boys +that ever lived, but not a great scholar. He could whittle chairs and +sofas and churns for Flaxie with a jackknife, and I don’t know how many +ships and steam-engines he had made; but he did not learn his lessons +very well.</p> + +<p>To-day, after the recitation was over, Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_149" id="pg_149">149</a></span> Garland walked with him +along the bank of the river.</p> + +<p>“Preston, my fine little fellow,” said he, kindly, “I can’t bear to +scold a boy I love so dearly; but I’ve been afraid for some time that +you don’t study this term as hard as usual; what’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>Tears sprang to Preston’s eyes, but he brushed them off and pretended to +be looking the other way.</p> + +<p>“Now, seriously, what <i>do</i> you suppose boys were made for?” went on Mr. +Garland, without the least idea Preston was crying; “you don’t suppose +they were made on purpose to play and have a good time?”</p> + +<p>“I don’ know, sir,” replied Preston, clearing his throat, and trying to +laugh; “perhaps they were made to play a good deal, you know, because +they can’t play when they grow to be men.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_150" id="pg_150">150</a></span></p> + +<p>“Ah, Preston, Preston, I am not joking with you at all. If you were a +small child like your sister Flaxie it would not matter so much whether +you studied or not, but your father expects a great deal of his oldest +son, and it grieves me to have to say to him—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t, don’t,” wailed poor little Preston, “I’ll do anything in the +world if you won’t talk to my father; I’ll take my books home, +I’ll—I’ll—”</p> + +<p>“There, there, never mind it,” said soft-hearted Mr. Garland, moved by +the boy’s distress, “if you really mean to do better—Why, look out, +child, you’d have fallen over that stump if I hadn’t pulled you back. +Where in the world were your eyes?”</p> + +<p>“I was looking at that big woman across the street,” stammered Preston; +“how funny she walks!”</p> + +<p>“Woman? What woman? Why, that’s a<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_151" id="pg_151">151</a></span> boy with a wheelbarrow,” exclaimed +Mr. Garland, in great surprise.</p> + +<p>Preston blushed with all his might and dropped his chin.</p> + +<p>“Please, don’t tell anybody I took a wheelbarrow for a woman! They’d +laugh at me. Of course I knew better as soon as I came to think.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Garland stopped suddenly and stared at Preston.</p> + +<p>“Look up here into my face, my boy.”</p> + +<p>Preston raised his beautiful brown eyes,—those <i>good</i> eyes, which won +everybody’s love and trust; and his teacher gazed at them earnestly.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Garland was not admiring their beauty or their gentle +expression. He saw something else in Preston’s eyes which startled him +and gave him a pang. Not tears, for those had been dashed away, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_152" id="pg_152">152</a></span> a +sort of thin mist lay over them, like that which veils the sun in cloudy +weather.</p> + +<p>“Can it be possible? Why, Preston, why, Preston, my boy,” said Mr. +Garland, taking the young face gently between his hands, “when did +things begin to blur so and look dim to you?”</p> + +<p>Preston did not answer.</p> + +<p>“Tell me; don’t be afraid.”</p> + +<p>“It’s been,” replied Preston, choking, “it’s been a long while. The sun +isn’t so bright somehow as it was; and oh, Mr. Garland, the print in my +books isn’t so black as it used to be! But I didn’t want to make a fuss +about it, and have father know it.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’d give me medicine, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“My boy, my poor boy, you ought to have told him.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think so? Well, I hoped I’d get better, you know.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_153" id="pg_153">153</a></span></p> + +<p>“Preston, is this the reason you don’t learn your lessons any better?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Yes, sir, I think so. I can’t read the words in my books +very well.”</p> + +<p>“You poor, blessed child! Growing blind,” thought Mr. Garland; but did +not say the words aloud.</p> + +<p>“And I have to sit in the sun to see.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I had known this before, and I wouldn’t have complained when you +had bad lessons. Why didn’t you tell me, you patient soul!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know, sir; you didn’t ask me.”</p> + +<p>“Good night,” said Mr. Garland, in an unsteady voice. “And don’t you +study to-morrow one word. You may sit and draw pictures all day long if +you like.”</p> + +<p>Preston smiled. He did not know what<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_154" id="pg_154">154</a></span> made his dear teacher say this, +and place his hand on his shoulder so tenderly; but he was glad of it, +very glad; for now it was certain that Mr. Garland would not blame him +any more; and he ran home with a light heart.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_155" id="pg_155">155</a></span> +<a name="BLACKDROP_2720" id="BLACKDROP_2720"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<h3>BLACKDROP.</h3> +</div> + +<p>“Oh, we had such an elegant time up there on the bank! only the boys +came and plagued us,” cried Flaxie, bursting into the house, followed by +Milly.</p> + +<p>She said it to her papa, but he did not appear to listen. He sat holding +Preston on his knee, and looking at him sadly.</p> + +<p>Then Flaxie turned to her mother.</p> + +<p>“Why, mamma, Willy Patten threw kisses to me when he was a boy, and +wasn’t my cousin!”</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Gray did not listen either. She too was looking at Preston. Mr. +Garland<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_156" id="pg_156">156</a></span> had just been at the house talking with them about the dear +child’s eyes, and she and Dr. Papa were heavy at heart. Flaxie did not +know of this, but she felt vaguely that something was wrong.</p> + +<p>Milly felt it too, and almost wished she had gone home with her father +in the afternoon train.</p> + +<p>“What has mamma been crying about?” thought Julia. “I’m afraid Preston +has been a naughty boy, for she and papa have looked very sober ever +since Mr. Garland was here.”</p> + +<p>Preston himself understood the case a little better, and was saying to +himself: “I guess there’s something awful the matter with my eyes, or +father wouldn’t have told Mr. Garland he should take me to New York.”</p> + +<p>There were cold turkey, and pop-overs, and honey for supper, but it +wasn’t a pleasant meal; there was no chatting and laughing;<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_157" id="pg_157">157</a></span> and Dr. +Papa hurried away from the table as soon as possible to go to see a sick +lady up town.</p> + +<p>It was some time before the children were told the dreadful news that +Preston was losing his sight. They wondered the next week why he should +be allowed to stay out of school and play, and why his father, who was +always kind to him, should be so very gentle now, almost as gentle as he +was to little Phil.</p> + +<p>One day Dr. Gray took Preston to New York to see an oculist. An oculist +is a physician who treats diseases of the eye.</p> + +<p>When Dr. A. called Preston up to him, and looked at the beautiful eyes +over which a veil was slowly stealing, he shook his head.</p> + +<p>Poor little Preston! Not twelve years old, yet growing blind like an old +man of ninety!</p> + +<p>“But after he is blind, we can help him,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_158" id="pg_158">158</a></span> said Dr. A., stroking the +boy’s white forehead. “When that dreadful veil, which is stealing over +his eyes, has grown thick enough, then we can take it off, and he can +see. But it is not thick enough yet. He must go home and wait.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Gray was not at all surprised by this. He had known all the while +that Preston’s eyes must grow worse before they could be made better. +But how long the boy must wait, the oculist could not say; some months, +at any rate, and perhaps a year.</p> + +<p>It was a sorrowful time for the whole family when Dr. Gray took Preston +home with him that night and told the story. Julia put her arms around +her dear brother as if she wanted to hold him safe from this trial. +Loving Julia! if darkness was coming upon him, <i>she</i> would surely be, as +Uncle Ben had said:<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_159" id="pg_159">159</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +“Like a little candle burning in the night.” </p> + +<p>And what would Flaxie be? I am afraid Preston did not expect much of +Flaxie, she was such a flyaway child.</p> + +<p>She cried bitterly now, and said:</p> + +<p>“Oh, I wish ’twas <i>my</i> eyes, ’cause I’m a naughty little girl; but +Preston is splendid!”</p> + +<p>Milly didn’t say a word, she only laid her soft cheek against Preston’s +hand to let him know she pitied him.</p> + +<p>“There, there, don’t feel so bad, all of you,” said he, holding up his +head grandly. “I can bear it, you see if I can’t.”</p> + +<p>How they all loved him for that! And he did bear it nobly and patiently, +and the whole family helped him. That is one comfort of having a father +and mother, and brothers and sisters; they always do help you bear your +troubles.</p> + +<p>“Let’s read to him,” said Milly to Flaxie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_160" id="pg_160">160</a></span> So they read,—first one of +them, and then the other,—whenever he wished. This would have been very +pleasant if he had liked “nice books” such as little girls enjoy; but +no, he chose stories of lion-tamers, and sea-serpents, and wild, +dreadful Indians.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it just awful?” said Flaxie to Milly; but they read away like +young martyrs.</p> + +<p>On the whole, as the family was so large, and every member of it so +kind, Preston had a very good time, and seldom thought of his eyes.</p> + +<p>One day the twin cousins were in the shade of the apple-blossoms, in +what was called the “orchard garden,” driving a carriage full of dolls +to a “wedding picnic.” Flaxie’s dolls led a very gay life, and perhaps +that was one reason they all faded so young.</p> + +<p>Just as “Christie Gretchen” was alighting<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_161" id="pg_161">161</a></span> from the carriage, assisted +by her young husband, “Dr. Preston Smith,” and just as Milly had +sweetened the lemonade exactly to the bride’s taste, and was cutting the +cake, there was a quick call from Preston.</p> + +<p>“Girls, girls, come here?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear,” said Flaxie to Milly, “when the picnic is beginning so +beautifully!”</p> + +<p>But then they both remembered that Preston was growing blind and they +must be kind to him; therefore Flaxie dropped Dr. Smith, and Milly +dropped the cake, and they ran along to the stable.</p> + +<p>Before they reached it, however, they had forgotten all about the +picnic, for right in the stable-door stood a shaggy mustang pony, +harnessed to a basket-phaeton; and in the phaeton sat Preston holding +the reins, while Dr. Papa, mamma, and Julia stood looking on and +smiling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_162" id="pg_162">162</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, I never did see anything so cunning,” cried Flaxie, forgetting she +had seen several just such ponies when she went to the seaside with Mrs. +Prim.</p> + +<p>“Whoa! Jump in, both of you,” said Preston, turning the phaeton half +round. His face was all aglow with delight.</p> + +<p>“Yes, jump in,” said Dr. Papa and mamma.</p> + +<p>“It’s Preston’s pony,” cried Julia, who had kept the secret for a whole +day and night, till it “seemed as if she should fly.”</p> + +<p>The way that gentle little beast walked out of the yard, the way he +trotted after he turned into the road! I really cannot give a proper +account of it myself; it needs a little girl about Flaxie’s age to +describe a pony.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s a darling, a beauty, the sweetest little thing, not half as +big as Whiz! Why, Preston, aren’t you just as happy? Is it your +carriage? Where’s the whip? Oh, the silver reins! Didn’t they cost a +<i>thou</i>-sand dollars? What do you call the pony? May I drive?”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:312px"> +<a name="illus-003" id="illus-003"></a> +<img src="images/illus-162.jpg" alt="THE WEDDING PICNIC. Page 160." title="" width="312" /><br /> +<span class="caption">THE WEDDING PICNIC. Page 160.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_163" id="pg_163">163</a></span>“Yes, +by and by, when my eyes grow so bad that I can’t see,” replied +Preston, a little sadly in spite of his joy; “but father says I may +drive now.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie had reached out for the reins, but Milly pinched her,—one of +those sly pinches that both the cousins understood,—and she folded her +little hands to keep them still. She did want to drive this very minute, +but she wouldn’t plague Preston.</p> + +<p>“Who is going to take care of your pony?” she asked.</p> + +<p>They had a boy, Henry Mann, who took care of Whiz and Hiawatha.</p> + +<p>“I shall attend to my pony myself,” replied Preston, driving off at high +speed.</p> + +<p>“Well, you must give him a quart of<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_164" id="pg_164">164</a></span> <i>granary</i> as quick as we get home,” +said Miss Frizzle, looking wondrous wise; “Johnny Townsend feeds his +pony with granary—a whole quart.”</p> + +<p>Preston laughed and chirrupped. He was “just as happy,” there was no +doubt about that.</p> + +<p>“I guess I’ll call him Blackdrop, wouldn’t you, though?”</p> + +<p>The little girls thought it was a queer name, but they said:</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, if you want to call him Blackdrop, I would.”</p> + +<p>“It won’t do any hurt,” added Flaxie encouragingly.</p> + +<p>I wish Blackdrop could have known how happy he made the whole family. +Milly didn’t say much, but her eyes shone as she patted his neck, Julia +sang every time she saw him, Phil “hugged him grizzly,” and<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_165" id="pg_165">165</a></span> Grandma +Gray who was very timid about horses, said she wasn’t any more afraid of +him than if he had been a Newfoundland dog.</p> + +<p>It was the funniest thing, but really and truly, before many days that +dear old lady used to step into the pony carriage and let little Flaxie +drive her all around the town! Everybody nodded and smiled as the couple +passed by, and said it was “the cunningest sight,” for grandma wasn’t so +very much bigger than Flaxie, and they looked like two little girls +riding out, only grandma’s hair was silver-white, and Flaxie’s spun +gold.</p> + +<p>Through the whole summer Preston’s eyes grew worse and worse. It was all +twilight to him now, or, as somebody calls it, “the edge of the dark.” +He still took care of Blackdrop, by the help of Henry, but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_166" id="pg_166">166</a></span> could not +ride out unless somebody else held the reins.</p> + +<p>“But then this sort of thing won’t last always,” said he to his +particular friend, Bert Abbott. “Just wait a year or two, sir, and I +shall be as good as anybody.”</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_167" id="pg_167">167</a></span> +<a name="FLAXIE_A_COMFORT_2935" id="FLAXIE_A_COMFORT_2935"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<h3>FLAXIE A COMFORT.</h3> +</div> + +<p>The days went on, and still Preston’s eyes were not “ready.” Winter +came, then spring, and Milly paid another visit to Laurel Grove. She was +one of those quiet, happy little girls, who make hardly any more noise +than a sunbeam; but everybody likes to see a sunbeam, and everybody was +glad to see Milly.</p> + +<p>She was even more welcome than usual at Laurel Grove just now, for by +this time Preston’s eyes were “ready,” and his father was about taking +him to New York.</p> + +<p>There were four grown people left in the house, and five children beside +Milly; still it<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_168" id="pg_168">168</a></span> seemed lonesome, for everybody was thinking about +Preston, and wondering if the doctor would hurt him very much.</p> + +<p>“He can’t see <i>what</i> the doctor is doing to him,” said Flaxie to Milly; +“I shouldn’t think God would let my brother be blind, my <i>good</i> brother +Preston!”</p> + +<p>“God knows what is best,” replied Milly, meekly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but, oh dear, I feel so bad! Let’s go out in the kitchen and see +what Dodo is doing.”</p> + +<p>Grandma, mamma, and Julia looked sadder than ever to hear Flaxie talk in +this way and run out of the parlor crying.</p> + +<p>Dora stood by the kitchen-table ironing very cheerfully.</p> + +<p>“Dodo,” said Flaxie, “what shall we do to have a good time?”</p> + +<p>“Such a funny child as you are, Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_169" id="pg_169">169</a></span> Flaxie,” said the girl, trying +another flatiron; “haven’t you everything to your mind, and haven’t you +always had ever since you were born?”</p> + +<p>“No, indeed, Dodo,” said Flaxie, mournfully, breaking off a corner from +a sheet of sponge-cake which stood cooling in the window; “<i>I</i> don’t +want my brother to be blind.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but you can’t help it, though. So you’d better not go round the +house, moping in this way and worrying your mother,” returned Dora, +making a quick plunge with her flatiron into the folds of a calico +dress.</p> + +<p>Worrying her mother! Flaxie had not thought of that. She supposed she +was showing very kind and tender feelings when she cried about Preston.</p> + +<p>“Let’s go back to the parlor,” said Milly; “perhaps Aunt Emily will feel +better if we talk and laugh and play with the baby.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_170" id="pg_170">170</a></span></p> + +<p>“That’s the nicest little thing I ever saw,” thought Dora, gazing after +Milly; “she don’t fret about her own feelings, but tries to make other +folks happy.”</p> + +<p>This was very true, but you mustn’t suppose that Flaxie didn’t also try +to make other people happy. She did whenever she could think of it. She +was really learning lessons in unselfishness every day; and how could +she help it when everybody in the house set her such a good example?</p> + +<p>She and Milly went back to the parlor now, and talked to grandma about +their western cousins, Pollio and Posy Pitcher; and then they made +little Phil eat apples like a squirrel,—a very funny performance. After +that they told him to go into the middle of the room, make a bow, and +“speak his piece.” That was funny too, and Ethel joined in on a high +key:<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_171" id="pg_171">171</a></span></p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +“Poor little fish, I know you wish<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To live as well as I;</span><br /> +I will not hook you from the brook,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or even wish to try.</span><br /> +<br /> +”And you, old frog, behind the log,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will not stop your song;</span><br /> +Your great round eyes may watch the flies,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will not do you wrong.“</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Gray and grandma did not know this exhibition was called for on +purpose to amuse them, but they laughed heartily, and felt the better +for it; and so did Flaxie and Milly. Wasn’t it much better than sitting +in silence and thinking about Preston, when they couldn’t help him at +all?</p> + +<p>You may know it was a very sad day for the poor boy. When he found +himself in the “awful chair,” his heart failed him and he sprang out of +it.</p> + +<p>“No, no, he never could have his eyes cut with little daggers. Even if +they did give<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_172" id="pg_172">172</a></span> him ether, he couldn’t; Papa must take him right home +again. It was of no use!”</p> + +<p>It was pitiful to see Preston’s struggles with himself, and the still +greater struggles of the father, who tried to hide his feelings for his +boy’s sake.</p> + +<p>“Wait till to-morrow,” said Preston; “just wait, and I <i>will</i>!”</p> + +<p>So they waited.</p> + +<p>All the afternoon Preston’s heart kept sinking down, down, like a +plummet let into the sea, and his father’s heart sank with it, for a +child cannot feel a sorrow that does not touch his parent too.</p> + +<p>But it chanced in the night, as Preston lay awake, that he fell to +thinking how his father loved him.</p> + +<p>“He would do anything in this world for me. He’d take his eyes right out +and give them to me if he could.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_173" id="pg_173">173</a></span></p> + +<p>And then Preston wondered if it were really true that God loved him +better yet?</p> + +<p>Oh, yes, loved him so that he would never, never let anything really bad +happen to his little boy.</p> + +<p>“So this isn’t really bad,” thought he, clapping his hands softly under +the coverlet; “it seems awful, but it isn’t. God sent it, and I can bear +it—yes, for his sake and father’s sake!”</p> + +<p style="margin-left:2em"> +“Surely what He wills is best,<br /> +Happy in His will I rest,”</p> + +<p>repeated Preston, and went quietly to sleep “like closing flowers at +night.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Gray was joyfully surprised at his bright looks next morning.</p> + +<p>“Smile up your face, Dr. Papa,” said he, playfully. This was what Flaxie +used to say in her baby days, when they didn’t call her Flaxie Frizzle, +but Pinky Pearly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_174" id="pg_174">174</a></span> “Smile up your face, Dr. Papa, and see what Preston +Gray can do.”</p> + +<p>The horror was over then for Dr. Gray; his son was going to behave like +a man.</p> + +<p>He did not know when he saw Preston take his seat so calmly in that +“awful chair,” that he was strong because he felt God’s arms about him.</p> + +<p>But when Preston left that chair, the trouble was not all over. He could +not bear any light yet, so he had to go home a few days afterwards with +a bandage over his eyes, and stay in a dark room for many weeks.</p> + +<p>But didn’t they make the room pleasant for him? Didn’t they treat him +like a prince? Didn’t Bert Abbott and the other boys go up and down on +that stair-carpet till they nearly wore it out?</p> + +<p>Of course Julia was good to the young<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_175" id="pg_175">175</a></span> prisoner; you would have expected +that. Flaxie was good too. She seemed at this time to have forgotten all +her little fretful, troublesome ways, and was always willing to stay in +Preston’s chamber, and tell him everything that happened in the house or +out of it; just how the pony looked and acted, and how he coughed a +little dot of a mouse out of his nose, supposed to have run up his +nostril when he was eating his “granary.” Flaxie could be very +interesting when she chose, and Preston’s face began to light up at the +sound of her little feet on the stairs.</p> + +<p>She had never loved her brother so well as she did now that she had +become useful to him, and it made her very happy to hear Preston tell +his mother that “Flaxie grew better and better; she was almost as good +now as Julia.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_176" id="pg_176">176</a></span></p> + +<p>Milly had gone home, but she came back again in June. You see that the +twin cousins were not very particular about taking turns in their +visits, but went and came just as their two mothers found it most +convenient.</p> + +<p>By this time Preston could venture out of doors on a dark day or in the +evening; but I am sorry to say he was obliged to wear spectacles. This +amused the little ones, Phil and Ethel, but Flaxie was very sorry.</p> + +<p>“I do pity those spectacles,” said she to Milly in a low voice, as they +walked under the apple-trees with their arms around each other’s waist.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well,” returned Milly brightly, “he won’t have to wear them +always.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he will. He said he was afraid the boys would laugh when they saw +him, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_177" id="pg_177">177</a></span> they didn’t. Some of them cried though; I saw Bert Abbott +wiping his eyes.”</p> + +<p>After a while, the little girls, and indeed all Preston’s friends, +became so accustomed to seeing him in glasses that they did not mind it +all. He could see perfectly well, and was as happy as ever; so it didn’t +seem worth while to “pity his spectacles.”</p> + +<p>And now I must tell you one thing more about this dear boy, and then my +story will be done.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_178" id="pg_178">178</a></span> +<a name="BRAVE_PRESTON_GRAY_3133" id="BRAVE_PRESTON_GRAY_3133"></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> +<h3>BRAVE PRESTON GRAY.</h3> +</div> + +<p>“Never saw such folks for jelly; they eat it by the quart. Wish I could +be sick once in a while, and get some myself,” muttered Preston, as he +settled his school-book under his arm, and took the cup his mother had +brought to the door.</p> + +<p>It was Jimmy Proudfit who was sick now, and Mrs. Gray was in the habit +of sending him little dainties by Preston, who often grumbled about it, +and said he was “tired of the whole Proudfit family.” Mrs. Gray never +took any notice of these unfeeling remarks, knowing they meant nothing, +for<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_179" id="pg_179">179</a></span> Preston was an extremely kind-hearted boy. He had a few faults, of +course, and one of them was a strong dislike for doing errands. He was +on his way now to recite a Latin lesson to his kind teacher, Mr. +Garland; and, as usual, the twin cousins were close at his heels, +skipping and dancing, for they never could walk when they felt truly +gay.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” asked Preston, looking back through his +spectacles.</p> + +<p>“Going up on the bank to play ‘Uncle Tom.’ Blanche Jones and Fanny +Townsend and everybody else is going, and ’twill be just splendid,” +replied Flaxie, as Preston walked up to Mrs. Proudfit’s door to deliver +the jelly.</p> + +<p>There were four children playing in the sand this time, and one of them +was Patty. The twin cousins thought they would go<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_180" id="pg_180">180</a></span> by them without +turning their heads, but Patty called out, “Where are you running to in +such a hurry?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we’re going up to play on the bank there somewhere,” replied +Flaxie, trying to shake off the baby, who had been eating candy and was +pulling at her frock with his sticky fingers.</p> + +<p>“Up on the bank? Well, I’m agoin’ too,” said that black-eyed, +disagreeable Patty.</p> + +<p>And without waiting to see whether she was wanted or not, she followed +along with her two dirty sisters; and behind them toddled the baby!</p> + +<p>Preston marched on in front, looking very much amused; but Flaxie’s face +was quite red. She pinched Milly’s arm, and then Milly pinched hers. It +was a strange way to go to a party—<i>the</i> party of the season; and +Flaxie had a great mind to run home;<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_181" id="pg_181">181</a></span> only her mother had charged her +again and again not to be rude; so she said in a very calm, polite +manner:</p> + +<p>“Patty, don’t you think ’twould be a good plan for you to go in the +house and see Jimmy? He’s sick.”</p> + +<p>Patty only laughed, and the four children scuffled along just the same +behind Flaxie and Milly, making the dirt fly with their bare toes.</p> + +<p>Oh, it was all very well for Preston to whistle! It didn’t trouble +<i>him</i>, of course, for <i>he</i> wasn’t going to the party! He stopped in a +few minutes at Mr. Garland’s beautiful brown house with the green vines +around it, and made a low bow as he said “Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>Flaxie scowled. What would Fanny Townsend and Blanche Jones and all the +other nice girls say to see her bringing<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_182" id="pg_182">182</a></span> along such a train of dirty +gypsies? She and Milly kept close together, never turning their heads +till they came to the place “on the bank up there somewhere,” where they +were to have the party.</p> + +<p>Fanny and Blanche, and nearly everybody else, had arrived already, in +clean frocks, with faces just washed; and, dear! dear! who wanted those +Proudfits? But the little girls in Laurel Grove were for the most part +very well-bred, so they said, “How do you do, Patty?” and “How do you +do, Gretty?” and “How do you do, Baby?” just as if they had expected the +whole family; though it was really a picnic party, and nobody had a +right to come to it without an invitation. Patty kept close beside +Flaxie; but Bubby, the fourteen months’ old baby, made himself generally +disagreeable by wiping the candy and sand off his hands upon the little +girls’ skirts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_183" id="pg_183">183</a></span></p> + +<p>“Let’s play something,” said Flaxie nervously.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful place to play. There were trees for hide-and-seek, +flat spots for croquet, and little hills and hollows for everything +else. The village children used this for a sort of park, and the river +seemed to look on and laugh to see them so gay. It was a very sober, +steady river above and below, but right here it went leaping and +tumbling over some rocks, making a merry cascade,—just for fun, you +would think. The children liked to skip stones and see them spin up and +down in the foam; but they had been warned not to go too near the bank. +Nobody had ever fallen in yet, but it wasn’t a safe place for very +little folks, certainly not for roly-poly babies like Bubby Proudfit. He +was very clumsy, falling down, rolling over, and picking himself up<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_184" id="pg_184">184</a></span> +again every five minutes. Patty meant to watch him, but he was not very +interesting, and the little girls quite bewitched her with their kind +smiles and pretty ways.</p> + +<p>Flaxie Frizzle was one of the youngest, but led off in most of the +games. She was little Eva, and died on a bed of grass “elegantly,” while +everybody else groaned and howled, especially poor Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom +was Milly, in a black mask of Preston’s, which had been played with till +it was cracked in fifty places, and made Uncle Tom look about two +hundred years old.</p> + +<p>Then they had the “Old Woman in the Shoe,” and Flaxie was a fierce and +cruel mother, whipping her children so “soundly” that you could hear +them scream half a mile off.</p> + +<p>Patty thought all this was beautiful, and a longing look came into her +bold black eyes, as she gazed at the old woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_185" id="pg_185">185</a></span></p> + +<p>“Oh, if <i>I</i> could wear red stockings, with flowers on them, like Flaxie! +If <i>I</i> could be a doctor’s little girl, and live in a house with blinds +and trees and flowers, and have a cousin come to see <i>me</i>!”</p> + +<p>It wasn’t strange that Patty should feel like this, and want to cover up +her bare feet in the grass; but in admiring Flaxie she forgot entirely +to watch Bubby, and that was a great mistake. <i>He</i> didn’t care, he never +liked to be watched; it was fine fun to see the whole world before him +and go just where he chose. Didn’t the trees and grass and flowers all +belong to him! To be sure they did, and he meant to carry some of them +home. But while he was trudging about, and making up his little mind +where he would begin to pull, he espied the river sparkling in the sun, +and that was finest of all. “Pitty, pitty!” cried<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_186" id="pg_186">186</a></span> he, and thought he +would carry the river home too. How nice it would be to splash in! He +fairly shouted at the idea, for having never seen a bath-tub, he hadn’t +learned to be afraid of soap and water. “Pitty, pitty!” said he, +toddling down with outstretched hands toward the dashing, dancing, +merry, white cascade; while the children, running away from the terrible +old woman, and trying to see which could scream loudest, never saw or +heard him at all.</p> + +<p>Ah, baby, foolish baby, do you think you can seize that bright river and +carry it home? No, it is the bright river that is going to seize <i>you</i>, +unless somebody stops your little feet before they get to the brink!</p> + +<p>About this time Preston Gray had finished reciting his lesson. It was +not a very good one, though his teacher found no fault whatever; and now +instead of going home, Preston<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_187" id="pg_187">187</a></span> strolled along toward the “Children’s +Park,” thinking how strange it was that little girls should scream so +much louder than boys at their games.</p> + +<p>“Flaxie is a gay one,” said he, as he saw her chasing her children with +a white birch switch; but at that moment he saw something else that made +his heart stand still. The Proudfit baby was scrambling down the bank, +just above the falls!</p> + +<p>Preston called out, but it was of no use; there was not a man to be +seen, and if there had been twenty men they could have heard nothing, +while the little girls were making such a noise. He ran with all his +might, but by the time he reached the bank, the baby had tumbled +headlong into the river!</p> + +<p>What was to be done? Preston was only a little boy himself, let me tell +you, and though he had learned to swim, the current<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_188" id="pg_188">188</a></span> was strong right +here, and there was great danger of his being carried over the falls.</p> + +<p>What would <i>you</i> have done, my little reader? Perhaps you would have +stopped to think a good many times, saying to yourself:</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t dare, I don’t dare!”</p> + +<p>And then, ah, <i>then</i>, it might have been too late!</p> + +<p>Preston was called a slow boy, but he didn’t stop to think once; he did +his thinking while he was pulling off his shoes.</p> + +<p>“I must do it!” that was all he thought. And then he dashed in.</p> + +<p>Bubby was in deep water already, and his struggles were carrying him +down stream. Preston seized him by his calico frock, and tried to drag +him toward the bank; but that dreadful baby had always had a habit of +nipping at everything like a snapping-turtle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_189" id="pg_189">189</a></span> and now he caught +Preston’s throat between his thumb and forefinger, half strangling him. +And, oh, the current was so swift!</p> + +<p>For a moment it was life or death with both of them; but Preston managed +to unclasp the tiny hand, hold it down, and land the poor little fellow +safe at last.</p> + +<p>“God helped me—I knew he would!” thought brave Preston Gray, as he drew +his first long breath on the bank.</p> + +<p>Of course all the little girls had gathered around him, screaming in +chorus, and it was a noisy procession that followed the weeping Patty +down the street, with the dripping baby in her arms.</p> + +<p>“’Twas my brother that saved him, ’twas my brother Preston!” cried +Flaxie to everybody they met. “He jumped into the river and pulled out +the baby!”</p> + +<p>That wasn’t the end of it. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_190" id="pg_190">190</a></span> another procession in the evening, +and this one stopped at Dr. Gray’s gate. It was the Brass Band, out in +uniform; but Preston hadn’t the least idea what for, till the men paused +at the end of a tune, swung their caps, and gave “Three cheers for +Master Preston Gray!”</p> + +<p>Even then he didn’t understand. He hid behind his father and thought he +<i>should</i> like to know what his mother was crying about.</p> + +<p>“Hurrah!” said the leader again, Major Patten, swinging his tall fur +cap, which was the pride of the whole company; “hurrah for the boy that +risked his life to save a drowning baby!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, is that it? Anybody’d have done that!” thought little Preston, +hiding again. He was a modest boy; but his sister Flaxie, you know, was +quite too bold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_191" id="pg_191">191</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why don’t he come out?” whispered she, pulling at his sleeve.</p> + +<p>“Hush, let him alone,” said Dr. Gray, with tears in his eyes.</p> + +<p>And then he raised the noble boy in his arms, so the men could see him, +for that was what they wanted. But still Preston hid his face. His heart +was full, and he <i>couldn’t</i> look up when those people were praising him +so.</p> + +<p>By this time there were lamps lighted in every window of Dr. Gray’s +house, and even in the trees; and though the moon was shining her best, +Major Patten, with the wonderful fur cap, asked Preston to stand beside +him and hold a lamp, that he might see to read his music.</p> + +<p>Preston stood there with the light shining on his pure, good face; and +then the men played, “See the Conquering Hero comes,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_192" id="pg_192">192</a></span> the +“Marsellaise,” and a dozen other tunes, while their uniforms made such a +dazzle of red and gold that Flaxie could not help dancing about like a +wild thing for joy.</p> + +<p>It was not so with thoughtful Milly. She snuggled down on the piazza +beside Julia, and looked on quietly.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad Preston was so good,” thought she; “perhaps he wouldn’t have +been so very good if he hadn’t had those blind eyes and spectacles. How +God must love him! Papa says Julia is like a little candle, and I’m sure +Preston is like a candle too. Why, where <i>is</i> Flaxie going now?”</p> + +<p>Flaxie was flying down the hill after Henry, the stable-boy. She had +heard her papa tell him to go to Mr. Springer’s for some ice-cream, and +she wanted to say: “Get it pink, Henry; get the pinkest ice-cream you +can find!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg_193" id="pg_193">193</a></span></p> + +<p>Then when the men were seated all about the yard and on the piazza, +eating their pink ice-cream, somebody threw up a rocket; and that was +the end of the gayest, brightest evening our little friend Flaxie +Frizzle had ever known in her life.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:450px"> +<a name="illus-004" id="illus-004"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad1.jpg" alt="" title="" width="450" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:419px"> +<a name="illus-005" id="illus-005"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad2.jpg" alt="" title="" width="419" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:398px"> +<a name="illus-006" id="illus-006"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad3.jpg" alt="" title="" width="398" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:415px"> +<a name="illus-007" id="illus-007"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad4.jpg" alt="" title="" width="415" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:411px"> +<a name="illus-008" id="illus-008"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad5.jpg" alt="" title="" width="411" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:450px"> +<a name="illus-009" id="illus-009"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad6.jpg" alt="" title="" width="450" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:415px"> +<a name="illus-010" id="illus-010"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad7.jpg" alt="" title="" width="415" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:409px"> +<a name="illus-011" id="illus-011"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad8.jpg" alt="" title="" width="409" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:389px"> +<a name="illus-012" id="illus-012"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad9.jpg" alt="" title="" width="389" /><br /> +</div> + +<hr class="dashed" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:400px"> +<a name="illus-013" id="illus-013"></a> +<img src="images/illus-ad10.jpg" alt="" title="" width="400" /><br /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWIN COUSINS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 23540-h.txt or 23540-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/5/4/23540">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/5/4/23540</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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