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diff --git a/78414-h/78414-h.htm b/78414-h/78414-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1242c02 --- /dev/null +++ b/78414-h/78414-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3413 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + Three girls and especially one | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + body {margin: 0 10%;} + div.chapter, div.section {page-break-before: always;} + h1, h2 {text-align: center; clear: both; page-break-before: avoid;} + h2 {line-height: 2em;} + h2 span {font-size: .8em; letter-spacing: .1em;} + p {margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1em;} + em {font-style: italic;} + blockquote {margin: 1em 3em 0em 3em;} + ins {text-decoration: none;} + + /* General */ + .p180 {font-size: 1.8em;} + .p140 {font-size: 1.4em;} + .noi {text-indent: 0em;} + .center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .mt3 {margin-top: 3em;} + .mt1 {margin-top: 1em;} + .hang {text-indent: -2em; padding-left: 2em;} + .nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + /* Poetry */ + .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} + .poetry-container {text-align: center;} + .poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} + .poetry .stanza {margin: 0em auto;} + .poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + .poetry .outdent {margin-left: -.5em;} + + /* Poetry indents */ + .poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} + + /* Books */ + .book-container {max-width: 20em; width: 20em; margin: auto;} + ul {list-style: none;} + + /* Notes */ + ul {list-style: none; font-family: inherit;} + .tn {margin: auto; color: #000; border: 2px solid #5f6b7b; + background-color: #f0f8ff; padding: 1em; max-width: 40em;} + .tn li {padding-bottom: .5em;} + + + /* Horizontal rules */ + hr {border-color: #5f6b7b;} + hr.divider {width: 65%; margin: 4em 17.5%;} + hr.divider2 {width: 40%; margin: 4em 30%;} + + /* Page numbers */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 2%; text-indent: 0em; + text-align: right; font-size: x-small; + font-weight: normal; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; + letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; + color: #999; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid; + background-color: inherit; padding: .01em .4em;} + + /* Images */ + .figcenter {margin: 2em auto; text-align: center; page-break-inside: avoid; max-width: 100%;} + img {max-width: 100%; width: 100%; height: auto;} + .width500 {max-width: 500px;} + .width78 {max-width: 78px;} + + /* Table */ + table {margin: auto; border-collapse: collapse; width: 28em; max-width: 28em;} + th {font-size: .8em;} + td {padding-bottom: .5em;} + .tdc {text-align: center;} + .tdl {vertical-align: top; text-align: left; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;} + .tdr2 {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom; padding-left: 1em;} + + @media print { + hr.divider, hr.divider2 {border-width: 0; margin: 0;} + a:link, a:visited, a:hover, a:active {text-decoration: none; color: inherit;} + } + + /* ebookmaker */ + .x-ebookmaker table {width: 98%;} + .x-ebookmaker .width78 {width: 2em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78414 ***</div> +<figure class="figcenter width500 x-ebookmaker-drop"> + <img src="images/sm-cover.jpg" width="500" height="800" alt=""> +</figure> + +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<h1>THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY ONE.</h1> + + + +<div class="section"> +<hr class="divider2 x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p class="center">IN THE SAME SERIES.</p> +</div> + +<div class="book-container"> +<p class="hang"><span class="smcap">The Blissylvania Post Office.</span> By Marion Ames Taggart. +16mo, cloth, 50 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="smcap">An Heir of Dreams.</span> By Sallie Margaret O’Malley. 16mo, +cloth, 50 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang"><span class="smcap">A Summer at Woodville.</span> By Anna T. Sadlier. 16mo, cloth, +50 cents.</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="section"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p class="p180 center smcap">Three Girls and Especially +One.</p> + +<p class="center mt3">BY<br> +<span class="p140">MARION AMES TAGGART,</span><br> +<em>Author of “The Blissylvania Post Office,” etc.</em></p> + +<figure class="figcenter width78"> + <img src="images/colophon.jpg" width="78" height="79" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p class="center mt3">NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO:<br> +<span class="p140 smcap">Benziger Brothers</span>,<br> +<em>Printers to the Holy Apostolic See</em>.<br> +1897.</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="section"> +<hr class="divider2 x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1897, by Benziger Brothers.</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="section"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="contents">CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> + +<table> +<tr> +<th class="tdr2" colspan="2">PAGE</th> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER I.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">A Gifted Girl,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#i">5</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">An Arrival,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ii">17</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">Humiliations,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iii">31</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">The End of Dreaming,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iv">42</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER V.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">The Beginning of Living,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#v">54</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">Little Things,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vi">68</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">A Friend in Need,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vii">83</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">A Merry Christmas after All,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#viii">97</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">New Year’s Calls,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ix">112</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER X.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">A Parting,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#x">125</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI.</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl smcap">A Real Poem,</td> +<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xi">137</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span> + +<p class="center p140" id="i">THREE GIRLS, AND ESPECIALLY ONE.</p> + +<hr class="divider2"> + +<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I.<br> +<span>A GIFTED GIRL.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Merricks as a family were very much like a great many other people +in the world—not remarkable in any way. The five younger children were +every-day girls and boys, but the eldest girl was gifted.</p> + +<p>Mr. Merrick was too busied with making money for his flock—in which he +was wonderfully successful—to realize what it meant to be the father +of a genius; but Mrs. Merrick felt with pride that Marcella was not +like other girls, and her sisters and brothers realized it too, but +with more annoyance than pleasure.</p> + +<p>Marcella—or Marcy as she was called—was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>only twelve, but she had +made up her mind to do something to amaze the world. She was not sure +whether she should be the greatest singer, or the greatest painter, +or the greatest poet of her day; but she should be one of these +things, and that which she finally decided upon she was to be in the +superlative degree.</p> + +<p>In the mean time she wrote pretty bad verses, and made sketches in +which nothing ever seemed to have the appearance it had in nature; +and these bulls of the promise of her future greatness were carefully +treasured by her mother, to whom alone—and the genius herself—they +were beautiful. Marcy was a pretty child, and would have been much +prettier had not her delicate face been written over with thoughts of +self, and there were in it possibilities of great beauty if the nobler +side of her childish character should be ever aroused.</p> + +<p>Mr. Merrick was occupied with business; his children did not feel very +well acquainted with him. Poor Mrs. Merrick had social ambition, and +was eagerly pursuing an upward course in life, trying, as she said, +“to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>make a place in the world for her children,” which left her less +time than was needed to make them fit to occupy a place in the world as +fine men and women. Happily she sent the children to Catholic schools, +and, being healthy and sweet-natured little souls, they were growing +up better than one might have feared they would in a home where the +highest standards were lacking.</p> + +<p>There were Marcy, and Inez—whose name was Agnes, but whose mother +preferred the Spanish form as less common—and Bob, and Hugh, and +Grace, and little Lucy, the baby, who resented the title, being arrived +at the dignity of three years.</p> + +<p>Bob and Hugh managed to get a good deal of pleasure out of each other, +but the rest were not especially congenial; and though Inez was but +a year younger than Marcy, they had scarcely any interest in common. +Marcy took refuge in a land of dreams, and spent most of her time in +the house curled up in a favorite window that gave her a glimpse of +the grass of Central Park and full view of the tree-tops, in dreamy +idleness, which Bob scornfully called “mooning,” and from <span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>which, if +any one disturbed her, she was likely to emerge very cross.</p> + +<p>Poor little Marcy “dreamed noble deeds all day long,” but did not do +them; nor had it ever occurred to her that there was no poem, or song, +or picture so beautiful as an unselfish life.</p> + +<p>Marcy sat in her own particular nook one bright October afternoon. +For fully twenty minutes she had not taken her eyes from the floating +clouds over the swaying tree-tops, nor had she touched the pencil, +poised in mid-air, to the sheet of paper laid ready on her lap. The +sheet was long, but so far there was but one line on it, written very +fine near the top, to leave plenty of room for the long poem of which +it was intended to be the beginning.</p> + +<p>Clump! clump! clump! came a rapid and sturdy tread up the stairs. The +door burst open, and Hugh appeared. “Say,” he began before he was in +sight, “fix my marble bag? It’s got a big hole in it, and I’ve lost my +new agate. Oh, I thought Norah was here! Where’s Norah?”</p> + +<p>“My goodness! how should I know?” cried Marcy impatiently.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> +“Well, I want her to sew up my marble bag. I’ve lost my agate and some +alleys, only I can’t tell how many, ’cause I’ve forgotten how many Will +Easton won off me. Where’s Norah?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, I don’t know!” cried Marcy. “Go find her if you want your +bag sewed up. And, Hugh, never say he won them ‘<em>off</em> me’; you +don’t have marbles on you. Say ‘he won them <em>from</em> me.’”</p> + +<p>“What d’you s’pose I care?” retorted Hugh, and departed to find Norah, +leaving the door open behind him. Marcy shut it with unnecessary +emphasis, and reseated herself with a sigh.</p> + +<p>Presently some one came down-stairs from the floor above at such a +rate as could only be done by casting the body over the banisters, and +letting the feet follow as they could. This time it was Bob.</p> + +<p>“Say, where are my bicycle stockings?” he cried. “Oh! I thought Norah +was here. I want my bicycle stockings, and I can’t find them. Where’s +Norah?”</p> + +<p>“Bob, I don’t know,” said Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t take my head off. I want my <span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>stockings; the boys are +waiting. Couldn’t you come help me find them?”</p> + +<p>“No, I could not. Go away; you’ve spoiled my rhyme, and I’ve just +thought of a good one,” said Marcy despairingly.</p> + +<p>“And you don’t care a cent if my ride’s spoiled; glad I’m not such a +mean thing as you are,” retorted Bob, going off in high dudgeon.</p> + +<p>Marcy settled herself once more, feeling very much abused, and had only +succeeded in forgetting Bob when down-stairs, one step at a time, came +the tread of little feet.</p> + +<p>“Nonie, where’s Nonie?” cried Lucy, coming in. “I want Nonie to fitz my +dolly. Marcy, you fitz her; her dwess is all cwooked.”</p> + +<p>“Lucy, I can’t fix your doll. Go find Norah,” cried Marcy. “Go away +this moment, and don’t bother me.”</p> + +<p>“Naughty Marcy!” said Lucy severely. “I’ll wite Santa Closet not to +bwing you any pwesents Cwistmus.”</p> + +<p>Bob met her in the doorway; he looked dangerous; the boys had gone +without him. He had not found Norah nor the stockings; <span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>his ride was +spoiled, and he was ready for mischief. “Hold on, Lu; where’re you +going?” he cried, seizing a curl in each hand and holding Lucy fast. +“Stay here; I want you. ‘Linger longer, Lucy, linger longer, Lu,’” he +sang tantalizingly.</p> + +<p>Lucy raised her voice in vigorous protest. “Let me ’lone, Bob Mehwick!” +she screamed. “Let me go! I want Nonie. Marcy, make Bob let go me.”</p> + +<p>“Bob,” cried Marcy, springing up, “let go of Lulie’s hair, and stop +bothering me. I’d box your ears for a cent.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t offer one,” cried Bob, sticking his head around the door from +the hall whither he had fled, while Lucy went up-stairs one step at a +time, talking to her doll indignantly all the way.</p> + +<p>Marcy shut the door in profound disgust. “I wonder if Madeleine Greene +knows how lucky she is to be an only child?” she said aloud as she +picked up the paper and pencil she had dropped in her rush on Bob. +“There’s no peace in this house for one single minute.”</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later the door opened, and a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>pretty but angry face peeped +in, followed by the odor of violets, and a slender girl entered, saying:</p> + +<p>“Oh, here you are, Marcy! I was looking for you.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Inez, what <em>do</em> you want? I do wish you’d let me alone!” +cried Marcy.</p> + +<p>But Inez was too vexed to quarrel with her sister, to whom she wished +to pour out her grievance. “I’ve got something to tell you,” she said, +laying off her hat with a tragic gesture. “What do you think May +Vanderberg’s done?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Marcy in a tone that meant, “and, what is more, I +don’t care.”</p> + +<p>“She hasn’t invited me to her party!” said Inez, as if she defied the +world to produce another such wrong.</p> + +<p>“Well, what of it? She didn’t ask me either, did she? I wish you’d go +away and let me write, Inez,” said Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Of course she didn’t ask you,” said Inez, ignoring the latter part of +her sister’s remark. “But you don’t care. I heard she said she didn’t +want us.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span> +Marcy almost laughed. “Well, since she didn’t ask us, I suppose that’s +so,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and if you had one bit of pride you’d care,” cried Inez.</p> + +<p>“H’m! I don’t see that,” retorted Marcy. “That’s a funny pride to want +May Vanderberg’s invitation. I don’t care about going to her house +one bit more than she cares to have me. I don’t think she’s a very +nice girl. She stayed overnight with Mary Whiting once, and you know +she made fun and told about everything they had and did just because +they’re poor. And a girl that will do that isn’t a lady, and I don’t +care about knowing her.”</p> + +<p>Inez gasped. “Not a lady! Why, Marcy Merrick! the Vanderbergs are one +of the old New York families; mamma said so.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care; she’s not a lady,” Marcy maintained stoutly. “It was a +mean, sneaky thing to do. What do you care if she didn’t ask you to her +party?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I <em>do</em> care,” replied Inez. “And I hate to be slighted; and +what would you do if you were me?”</p> + +<p>“If I were you I’d speak good English, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>and I’d rather never be invited +to anybody’s party than say: ‘If you were <em>me</em>,’” said Marcy +severely.</p> + +<p>“Well, ‘if you were <em>I</em>,’ then,” said Inez. “You don’t care for +anything but trying to write poetry and mooning.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” said Marcy with sublime confidence. “When I’m +famous I’ll have more invitations than I want, for I never shall care +for such trash as parties; and you’ll be asked everywhere because you +are my sister.”</p> + +<p>“It’s no more trash to go to parties and like nice dresses than it +is to be so vain and proud about being famous,” said Inez, stung by +Marcy’s tone of superiority, and not very grateful for the vague +prospect of future glory to be reflected on her by her sister’s fame.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my, yes; it’s very different,” said Marcy. “These are great, big, +noble things; and when you’re dead people will see what you did; but +parties and all that kind of stuff is just—just <em>stuff</em>—that’s +all.”</p> + +<p>“There’s the bell to get ready for dinner,” cried Inez, rising hastily. +“Mamma’ll be <span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>sorry we’re not asked to May’s party. She likes to have +us know people like that.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, there’s the bell; and between you, and Bob, and Hugh, and Lulie, +I’ve lost this afternoon,” sighed Marcy, gathering up her papers. “Yes, +I suppose mamma will be sorry. I don’t see why she cares, I declare,” +Marcy added with vigor. “Papa says he’ll send me to Europe when I’m +fifteen to finish my education. I wish he’d take the money now and +build a room for me way off somewhere, where none of you could come, +and pad the walls so I wouldn’t hear any noise.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you’re a nice sister,” said Inez. “All you want is never to see +any of us, and yet nothing you do is anything. You think you’re gifted, +but I don’t.”</p> + +<p>Marcy’s eyes filled with sudden tears. Nothing touched her like +throwing cold water on her hopes. “Inez,” she said solemnly, “if I +thought I’d never be anything but just an every-day woman I’d die. I +want to have a splendid life. You don’t understand, Inez, how I feel.”</p> + +<p>Her earnestness impressed Inez for a moment, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>and she was sorry she had +spoken so strongly. The two children were utterly unlike; and though +a year younger, the worldly little Inez was older in many ways than +Marcy, with her unguided longing for nobler things and mistaken notions +of how to reach them.</p> + +<p>“Well, never mind, Marcy,” Inez said kindly. “Very likely you won’t +have a common life; you’re queer enough now, dear knows. Perhaps you +are gifted; I’m sure I can’t tell. Sometimes I think you’re silly, but +maybe that’s because you’re clever. I heard papa say once some man was +either a fool or a genius, and it was pretty hard telling them apart. +I forgot to tell you, the other day I heard one of the nuns saying +Marcella Merrick was a gifted girl, and they ought to know.”</p> + +<p>And Marcy was comforted.</p> + + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ii">CHAPTER II.<br> +<span>AN ARRIVAL.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dinner</span> was nearly over when Mr. Merrick suddenly laid down his knife +and fork and began searching vainly in the pockets of his coat for +something. “Hugh,” he said, “run up-stairs and go to my dressing-room +and bring down a letter you will find in the outside pocket of my +overcoat. I had a letter from Tom, my dear,” he continued, addressing +his wife. “His little girl is coming here to spend the winter with us.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrick dropped her fork in her turn. “Coming here? Tom’s little +girl?” she gasped.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Mr. Merrick said. “Coming here. Tom wrote me last summer saying +he wanted to send her to school somewhere in New York; but the girl did +not like the idea of leaving home; besides, he was afraid <span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>it would +cost a good deal, so he asked my advice.”</p> + +<p>“Did you ask her here then?” inquired Mrs. Merrick with unmistakable +disapproval.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Clara, I asked her here,” Mr. Merrick answered. “I told him that +she could go to school with our children, and it would be pleasanter +than going to a boarding-school, be more like home to her, and to send +her on. This was last summer; and I had forgotten all about it when +this letter came, accepting the offer.”</p> + +<p>“It is most annoying!” exclaimed Mrs. Merrick.</p> + +<p>“Why, in a big house like this, with so many children in it, one +more or less can make no difference,” said Mr. Merrick. “Tom says +Minnie—no, Bessie—no, that’s not her name either. Oh, here’s the +letter. Thank you, Hugh. Oh, yes, Nellie. Tom says Nellie is a pretty +girl and a wonderfully good one, with such a sweet temper that no +one can help loving her. I’ve no doubt the children will enjoy her +tremendously.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span> +The children had been listening to this conversation in such amazement +that they forgot to eat, and at this point a chorus of questions burst +forth.</p> + +<p>“Who’s Tom, papa?”</p> + +<p>“How old is she?”</p> + +<p>“Is a little girl coming here to live?”</p> + +<p>“When is she coming?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrick answered the first question. “Tom, children, is your Uncle +Tom, who lives in some dreadful little Western town, and is quite poor. +This little girl is his daughter, whom your father has brought among +us.”</p> + +<p>“Tom is not very poor, Clara,” her husband corrected her. “He says he +has a comfortable home.”</p> + +<p>“How horrid!” Inez cried petulantly. “I shall be ashamed to be seen +with her, I know, and I shall never introduce a girl like that to nice +people as my cousin.”</p> + +<p>“She is your cousin, Inez,” said her father sternly, “and you will +treat her with all kindness. I will have no such nonsense as this in my +house; so remember to behave yourself properly to your guest.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> +When Mr. Merrick did arouse himself to lay down commands to his +children they dared not disobey; but there was a look around Inez’s +mouth that indicated anything but cheerful obedience, and boded ill for +the comfort of the coming cousin.</p> + +<p>“After all,” said Marcy, with a look of amused contempt at her sister, +“she may not dress in feathers and buffalo skins, Inez. And, perhaps, +after she has been here a while we can get her to eat roast beef +instead of dog meat. How old is she, father? And when is she coming?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Merrick smiled. It often occurred to him that when he could so +arrange his business as to have more leisure for his family he might +find his eldest daughter good company. “She is just your age, Marcy,” +he said. “And she is coming—let me see. Your uncle writes she leaves +Monday—that was yesterday. She will be here to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“I can only repeat that it is most annoying,” said Mrs. Merrick, rising.</p> + +<p>“Well, all I say is it’s a pity she’s not a boy,” said Bob, taking a +hasty drink of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>water before sliding sideways out of his chair. “We’ve +got too many girls here now.”</p> + +<p>“Of course it’s a pity,” said Inez sharply; “for you don’t have to +introduce boys to your friends.”</p> + +<p>“<ins id="Well" title="Original has 'W ell'">W-ell</ins>, I’m sorry she’s so big,” remarked six-year-old Grace, +the quiet member of the family. “Marcy and Inez are big, and Lulie’s +a baby, and Bob and Hugh are boys, and there’s no one for me at all. +Papa, hasn’t Uncle Tom got a nice little girl about six?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve no doubt he has, Gracie,” her father replied, smiling. “I believe +your Uncle Tom has children of all ages, to suit all demands.”</p> + +<p>“Well, please ask him to lend us a little one next time,” said Grace +mournfully.</p> + +<p>The next afternoon Marcy, and Inez, and Bob were watching eagerly +behind the lace curtains of the sitting-room for the arrival of “the +prairie chicken,” as Bob had christened her. Faithful nurse Norah had +gone to the station to meet the little traveller. Mrs. Merrick had a +club meeting to attend, and Mr. Merrick could not leave his business.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span> +When the carriage drove up the children saw Norah’s portly form descend +first, and after her came a little figure all in brown, which stood +looking up and down the tall gray stone house, with every shade drawn +on a level with the upper sash and every window veiled in lace, with no +living thing to be seen that seemed to be looking for or thinking of a +homesick, frightened little stranger.</p> + +<p>“I guess she doesn’t know whether she ought to go in the front door or +the basement,” laughed Bob.</p> + +<p>“She really is pretty,” said Marcy. “Look, Inez, what big brown eyes +she has, and how prettily her hair curls round her forehead.”</p> + +<p>“Well, so it does,” admitted Inez grudgingly. “But for pity’s sake, +where did she get that hat? What will the Hales say to her?”</p> + +<p>“They wouldn’t be the Hales if they didn’t say something rude,” said +Marcy.</p> + +<p>And Bob added: “H’m! they needn’t talk, if they have got lots of money. +I’ve seen some of their relations, and they were a queer lot.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span> +The sitting-room door opened at this point, and Norah looked in.</p> + +<p>“Oh, here they are. Come in, Miss Nellie, dear. Miss Marcy, Miss Inez, +Master Bob, here’s your cousin all safe, and glad to get here, I’ll be +bound.”</p> + +<p>The children turned to meet a wistful and very pretty childish face +surmounting a slender figure taller than either of theirs.</p> + +<p>“How do you do?” said Inez in her most grown-up and fashionable air. +“Hope you’re not too tired.” She gave her cousin her hand, and pecked +one cheek, which reddened fiercely at her greeting.</p> + +<p>“How are you, Cousin Nellie? I am Marcy,” said Marcy with cordiality, +much heightened by Inez’s foolish airs. “You must be half dead after +such a journey.”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not,” said Nellie, kissing Marcy heartily. “I was dreadfully +scared at first, for I’d never been more than an hour on the train +before. But it’s grand in those sleepers, isn’t it? Only I didn’t dare +sleep the first night. I had to say my beads all night, it joggled so. +Last night I never waked up once. I suppose you get used to it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span> +“They serve pretty good dinners on those trains,” remarked Inez with +the air of one who had been around the globe.</p> + +<p>“I shouldn’t wonder,” laughed Nellie. “I didn’t try them. I had my food +in a box. Ma had a whole chicken roasted for me, and lots of cake, and +bread and butter, so I got on fine. I couldn’t afford to buy dinners. +It’s dreadfully expensive coming East anyhow. It’ll cost pa more than +fifty dollars just for my travelling both ways. I wrote postal-cards +home all the way along, and posted them in Chicago, and Cleveland, +and Buffalo, and told them I was beginning to count on going back +already.” The pretty face flushed and looked distressed, and Nellie +added hastily: “Not but that I shall be real happy here with you all. +I think it was awfully good of Uncle Richard and Aunt Clara to ask me +here, because, of course, it’s like being with brothers and sisters to +be with cousins, or most like it. Only I’m awfully fond of my home, and +it’s just the cutest little house anywhere round there. But isn’t New +York grand though? And what a magnificent house you’ve got! Pa <span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>said +Uncle Dick was rich; but I reckon he don’t know what a fine house this +is. I’m most certain I won’t know how to behave among such big rooms +and fine things; but you’ll pull me through, won’t you?” And Nellie +gave a happy laugh, being full of affection for her cousins and feeling +no envy of their greater possessions, nor shame for her own humbler but +beloved home.</p> + +<p>“You’ll find New York very different, of course,” said Inez scornfully. +She thought Nellie was even worse than she feared.</p> + +<p>But Marcy, with a share of Nellie’s honesty, and a sharpness of insight +that made her see that true dignity lay in being free from false +pretence, said heartily: “You’ll be all right, Nellie. I don’t suppose +we’d know how to act in Kansas either.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I reckon Kansas, and Paris, and New York, and everywhere are about +the same,” said Nellie with happy unconsciousness of little things. “Ma +says if you’re good and try to make people happy you’re bound to have +good manners.”</p> + +<p>Inez tossed her head. “You have to do <span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>more than that,” she began; but +Marcy interrupted her.</p> + +<p>“No you don’t,” she said decidedly. “I never thought of it before; but +Aunt—Aunt—Nellie’s mother is right.”</p> + +<p>A look of pain came over Nellie’s face. “Why, don’t you know my +mother’s name?” she asked wonderingly. “It’s Mary. We know all your +names, and we talk lots about you, and I’ve been dying to see you ever +since I can remember.”</p> + +<p>“We never heard of you,” said Bob before Marcy could stop him. “We +never talk about you, and I never thought before I had any cousins out +West.”</p> + +<p>Nellie turned to the girls in mute appeal.</p> + +<p>Inez said: “You see, Nellie, we’ve lots of things to think about.”</p> + +<p>But Marcy put her arm around her cousin. “Come to your room,” she said, +“and take your things off. I’ll show you the way. You see, Nellie,” she +added as they went up the broad stairs side by side, “father’s so busy +we hardly see him; and mamma is fond of society, and taken up with all +kinds of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>clubs and things, so we don’t hear much about our relations.”</p> + +<p>Nellie shivered as though she had stepped from Florida to the North +Pole. “It’s dreadful!” she cried. “If that’s the way you do in New +York, I’d rather live in Prairie Rest—that’s the name of our town. I +suppose you didn’t know where we lived either.”</p> + +<p>Marcy discreetly refrained from saying that she did not. “It’s not New +York, it’s just ourselves,” she said. “You know father made all his +money; he didn’t have any more than Uncle Tom when he began. I think +the reason we live so separate from one another is because they’ve all +got so taken up with money, and society, and such things.”</p> + +<p>“Then I hope I’ll always be poor,” exclaimed Nellie energetically. “Oh, +what a lovely room!”</p> + +<p>“This is your room,” said Marcy. “I don’t care one bit about parties, +and knowing fashionable people, and all that,” she continued, seating +herself on the edge of the bed. “Inez is the one for that. I mean to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>be great and famous some way. I haven’t just decided how.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” said Nellie, taking her hat off and shaking a bright +mass of waving brown hair over her shoulders. “You’re the clever one. +Uncle Richard sent us some of your writings long ago, when you were +little, and they were grand. I would give anything if I were so gifted. +I can’t do one thing,” Nellie continued cheerfully. “I can dust, and +clean, and look after children, and cook a little bit, and darn pretty +well, but I haven’t any accomplishments.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, never mind,” said Marcy with kindly condescension. “I should think +those were good things too if there’s no one else to do them. You won’t +see much of me, I suppose, because out of school I like to stay by +myself and write, or think, or draw. I’m not sure I shall write when I +grow up. I may be a great artist, or a very great actress, like Duse, +you know.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll tell you the only great thing I ever thought I’d like to +be,” said Nellie, “and that is a great saint.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” exclaimed Marcy, staring a little. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>“Are you pious? We’re not +very pious here. We go to church, of course, every Sunday; and we +children go to convent schools, and we’re good Catholics, but we’re not +thinking of being saints.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mean doing something wonderful,” explained Nellie. “I mean +being what pa calls a little cricket-on-the-hearth kind of saint—never +thinking of yourself, or what you want at all, but trying to do +something for others all the while, until every one feels as though +they’d never be able to breathe another minute if you weren’t around. I +think it’s simply grand to be that kind of person; don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I never thought about it at all,” Marcy said honestly. “I shouldn’t +wonder if that would be a great thing if you thought it all out. Now +I’m going to let you rest. Your trunk will be here soon, and we dine at +seven. If you want anything, just ring or call Norah; she’s generally +at the end of this hall. Good-by for awhile,” and Marcy kissed her.</p> + +<p>“I wonder where Aunt Clara is?” thought Nellie. “Nobody seemed to think +it queer <span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>she wasn’t around to see me. If they came out to Kansas, +my, wouldn’t ma look after them! Now, Nellie Merrick, stop that!” she +added, shaking her head at two brown eyes that looked at her in the +glass through a mist of tears. “It’s simply grand here, and Marcy was +very nice.”</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="iii">CHAPTER III.<br> +<span>HUMILIATIONS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Nellie</span> had been just one week in her new surroundings, a week full of +many new experiences for the little girl, and not a few trials. Her +uncle had aroused himself from his preoccupation on the night of her +arrival sufficiently to ask her about her father and her home, but +beyond a pleasant salutation at breakfast and dinner he never again +seemed conscious of her existence. Her aunt treated her with polite +indifference, if there be such a thing, and Inez snubbed her. Marcy +exerted herself for three whole days to make her cousin comfortable, +but after that, having grown accustomed to her presence, old habits +reasserted themselves, and she fell back into her favorite pursuits, +leaving Nellie to her own devices.</p> + +<p>The little girl, accustomed to the loving <span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>intimacy of her simpler +family life, had a hard time, and would have suffered more had it not +been for the younger children. These regarded her as bees must regard a +new and very honey-full variety of blossom. They never tired of hearing +her talk of the mischievous brothers and sisters whom she had left in +Prairie Rest, where, it seemed to them, life was as enchanting as a +fairy tale.</p> + +<p>Bob no longer regretted that Nellie was not a boy when he found out +that she could bat straight and strong from her shoulder, throw a ball +much straighter and swifter than he could, and heard her tell how she +had ridden Mazeppa, the lively three-year-old bay, barebacked, and +clung so tight he could not throw her when he tried. Grace found a +cousin of twelve could be more satisfactory than one of six when she +discovered how beautifully Nellie could play house, what marvellous new +games she invented, and what triumphs of skill her doll’s dress-making +was. Sometimes Marcy, seeing how her younger brothers and sisters clung +to Nellie, felt a faint pang of jealousy, half grudging the love she +had never tried to win. In a vague, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>far-off way new thoughts were +beginning to form in Marcy’s active brain since Nellie came.</p> + +<p>School was a great trial to Nellie. It was no small ordeal to face all +those fashionably dressed, chattering girls, whose difference from +herself she was not slow to feel. Nor did it console her after the +first day to find that she knew a great deal more than they did, for +the girls did not seem to think it the slightest consequence, and made +the most absurd mistakes in recitations with unruffled serenity.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day of her visit the Hales, whose criticism Inez had +dreaded, came to call on the new cousin. Nellie, accustomed to little +girls coming to see her like children, gave her abundant hair two hasty +strokes, and turned from the glass ready to go down, without even +taking off the little black alpaca apron, which, to Inez’s disgust, she +wore about the house to protect the front of her dress.</p> + +<p>“You can’t go down like that, Nellie,” cried Inez sharply. “Change your +dress and look your best; the Hales have lots of money.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span> +“Well, but I haven’t,” said Nellie wonderingly. “I don’t see why I must +wear my best dress.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t stop to talk; but you must do it. I’ll go down, and you come +with Marcy, and for mercy’s sake don’t say anything queer,” cried Inez +impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Now, I wonder,” Nellie began to say, but checked herself, obediently +put on her plain best dress, and was ready when Marcy came.</p> + +<p>“Happy to meet you, Miss Merrick,” murmured two very stylishly dressed, +becrimped, and bedecked girls as they were introduced to Nellie. Their +faces were thin, their voices shrill, they were little girls in years, +but had the air of full-blown young ladies; no greater contrast to them +could have been found than Nellie’s rosy face and childish air.</p> + +<p>“Do you care for the theatre, Miss Merrick?” asked the elder, scanning +with inward wonder “poor Inez’s queer cousin.”</p> + +<p>“I never went,” answered Nellie. “The girls say we shall go Saturday +afternoon, and I can’t wait.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span> +“I suppose you don’t have much worth seeing where you live,” said Rose +Hale.</p> + +<p>“They have grand plays in Kansas City,” said Nellie; “and Prairie +Rest—that’s my home—is only an hour’s ride away. Most people go there +when there’s something fine; but I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Must be tiresome,” murmured Jennie Hale, while Inez vainly tried to +think of something to say, dreading Nellie’s candor.</p> + +<p>“Oh! my, no,” Nellie said cheerfully. “It’s not that. I just love +riding in the cars; but we can’t afford to go. The theatre tickets +and the fare would be too much for us; the round trip to Kansas City, +excursion ticket, costs ninety-four cents, and of course I wouldn’t go +unless my sister and eldest brother could go, and it would cost a lot; +so we all stay at home and act Shakespeare in the barn chamber.”</p> + +<p>Inez was crimson and ready to cry with mortification at this speech, +while Marcy’s eyes danced with fun as she looked from Nellie’s +unconscious face to the shocked expression of the Hales and her +sister’s agony.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span> +“Dear me!” murmured the elder Hale. “How peculiar!”</p> + +<p>“Shakespeare was an English poet,” Marcy said wickedly. “Indeed, he was +the greatest of English poets. I thought you mightn’t understand what +my cousin meant by ‘acting Shakespeare.’”</p> + +<p>“You poor girls; it’s awfully hard on you to have to teach her our +ways,” the Hales said to Marcy and Inez, who followed them to the door.</p> + +<p>Inez almost sobbed. “I feel so mortified,” she began; but Marcy cut +her short. “If only she could teach us,” she said. “You can hardly +appreciate them, I suppose, but she has such perfect manners, and never +tries for one moment to be anything but her honest self.”</p> + +<p>“Marcy,” said Inez after their guests had gone, “I’ll die of shame if +Nellie Merrick goes on like this. Think of telling the Hales she was +too poor to go to the theatre! It’ll be all over New York.”</p> + +<p>“Not quite,” retorted Marcy. “The trouble is Nellie’s too nice for such +snobs. Can’t you see they were just as horrid and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>rude as they could +be? And there’s one thing certain, Inez Merrick, I’d stand up for my +own cousin in my own house if I were you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, look at her dresses,” sighed Inez, changing her complaint.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Marcy, “I have been looking at them, and I’m going to +ask papa to give her what she needs.”</p> + +<p>The result of Marcy’s appeal to her father was that Nellie went to the +matinée on Saturday clad in the prettiest little fur-trimmed jacket, a +hat so delightful that it grieved her to be obliged to take it off and +lay it on her knee, and with her face shining with the excitement of +her first theatre-going and her fashionable raiment. From the moment +the curtain rose she was lost to everything around her; indeed, so +completely lost that even Marcy’s indifference to the opinion of the +world was destined to receive a severe shock. The play was a war drama, +as exciting as it well could be, and in the third act the heroine was +in mortal danger at the hands of the villain, and Nellie, forgetting +everything in the anguish of the moment, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>rose in her seat and cried +aloud: “Oh, save her! save her!”</p> + +<p>Her cousins clutched her skirts, and had her down again in an instant; +but it had been done, and every one who sat near them looked at +blushing Nellie and laughed.</p> + +<p>“I’ll never go out with her again—never,” protested Inez with tears in +her eyes. “What’s the use of getting things to make her look like other +people if she’s going to act that way?”</p> + +<p>But she did go out with Nellie again, and that in a few days. The three +girls were invited to a luncheon party, and at the last moment Marcy +had too severe a cold to go with them.</p> + +<p>“Do your best and watch other people,” advised Marcy, to whom Nellie +confided her fear of not knowing the right thing to do. “Don’t bother +with Inez too much, or she’ll make you crazy. You’ll have better +manners than most of them, because you don’t try to be finicky; and if +they don’t know it, so much the worse for them.”</p> + +<p>So Nellie went away comforted; but the party could hardly have been +called a success.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span> +Inez came to Marcy after their return in a towering rage. “It’s simply +awful, Marcella Merrick,” she sobbed. “I’ll never be able to hold my +head up again.”</p> + +<p>“Now, what is it?” asked Marcy, both amused and anxious.</p> + +<p>“Well, there’s no use talking about Nellie’s taking the wrong fork +for her salad, and not knowing how to use her finger-bowl, and saying +‘No, thank you,’ and ‘If you please,’ to the waiter, though I thought +that was bad enough when she did it; but when Mrs. Greene asked her +if she wouldn’t have some mushrooms she said, ‘I don’t know what they +are,’ instead of taking some and keeping still. And another time, when +Mrs. Greene said: ‘I hope you are fond of chocolate cake; I think most +little people are,’ Nellie said: ‘Yes, ma’am, I am. My mother makes it +perfectly delicious, and she can never make enough for us children. She +says she should like to have a girl just to make chocolate cake, if +ever we get rich. But,’ she said, ‘I’ve learned to make it now, so ma +won’t have to do it all.’”</p> + +<p>“What did the rest do?” asked Marcy, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>half-laughing, but looking vexed +too, for these things sounded worse when repeated than when one saw +Nellie’s cheerful simplicity in saying them.</p> + +<p>“The Hales laughed, and May Vanderberg tossed her head, but Madeleine +Greene gave them a look and said: ‘Isn’t that fun? Lots of the girls +go to cooking-school, but it’s much nicer to learn at home. I think it +must be lovely to live in the country; you can’t do such things in the +big city houses.’”</p> + +<p>“I always did say Madeleine Greene was the truest lady of all the +girls,” said Marcy warmly.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll never, never, never go anywhere with Nellie Merrick again! +I never was so humiliated in my life,” sobbed Inez in a burst of angry +tears.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t go with her,” said Marcy. “I’ll take her about till she +gets used to things. I don’t mind so much, because I think there’s +something wrong somewhere, only I can’t quite explain what I mean. I +think Nellie needn’t tell so much to strangers, but it’s far nicer than +pretending every minute, like the Hales and May Vanderberg. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>However, +I’ll go out with her all the time and I’ll look after her.”</p> + +<p>Poor Marcy! She little dreamed how near lay the end of her happy days, +and how short would be the time when her gay young feet could carry her +whither she would.</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="iv">CHAPTER IV.<br> +<span>THE END OF DREAMING.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Marcy’s</span> first waking thought on All Saints’ Day was that, being a +holiday, there would be no school, and after Mass she should have +nothing to do all day long but write her tragedy. She had begun a novel +and an epic poem on Joan of Arc but a few weeks before, and had several +other great works started, but now she was fired with the desire to +write a tragedy and longed to begin.</p> + +<p>Inez said Marcy did things “by fits and starts—mostly starts,” which +was her way of stating that the genius of the family undertook more +than she fulfilled.</p> + +<p>“Now, Nellie, I’m going to write a play to-day,” said Marcy as she took +off her things and smoothed her rumpled braid on their return from +church. “I’m going to the observatory, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>and I want to be let alone. +Will you keep the children away?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Nellie, impressed by this announcement. “What kind of +a play will it be, Marcy?”</p> + +<p>“It’s to be a tragedy. I don’t know yet what the plot will be, but it +will be the sad story of the loveliest maiden you ever saw or heard of. +She’s to be lovely—oh! more lovely than I can say,” replied Marcy, +waving the pencil she was sharpening in a circle, as if to signify a +loveliness that embraced everything. “I don’t care so much about the +plot, but I do want a nice name for her, and I may have to think hours +before I can find one.”</p> + +<p>Marcy took her pad and pencil and a box of candy, and bidding Nellie +good-by, started up to the top of the house.</p> + +<p>The former owner had evidently been fond of star-gazing, for he had +built an observatory on the roof, and here Marcy liked to establish +herself when the sun was not too hot nor the wind too cold. She had +piled several soft pillows and shawls in one corner, and it certainly +made a nook that a greater <span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>poet than Marcy might have envied, though +the delight of lazily watching the fleecy clouds drift by was apt to +drive all thoughts of her great schemes from the little girl’s brain.</p> + +<p>She had been here scarcely more than half an hour when Inez’s voice was +heard calling her softly from the foot of the stairs.</p> + +<p>Marcy gathered herself up and opened the small door, looking rather +crossly down the steep flight of steps that led to her retreat.</p> + +<p>“Nellie told me you wanted to be let alone, Marcy,” Inez began +apologetically; “but it’s too good for you to miss. We’ve got a street +fiddler in the gymnasium, and we’re dancing; come on down.”</p> + +<p>Marcy could never resist the temptation to dance. She quickly closed +the door behind her and ran down to join the others. She found a +picturesque Italian boy standing in the corner and showing his teeth, +while Grace was teaching Nellie to waltz, and Bob was trying to dance +in a ladylike manner, with Hugh for partner.</p> + +<p>“How did you do it?” demanded Marcy, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>getting her arm around Inez +without loss of time. “Where’s Norah?”</p> + +<p>“Norah has gone with mamma to take Lucy down-town to have her pictures +taken. We brought the boy in by the front door, and nobody saw us,” +Inez replied as they caught the right beat and began to waltz.</p> + +<p>It was twelve o’clock before they thought of stopping dancing, and +then they emptied their purses into the pockets of the young street +musician, who rarely did such a good day’s work as that short time had +proved.</p> + +<p>After luncheon Inez went out, and Marcy and Nellie stopped in the +gymnasium on their way up-stairs.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see how boys can use those bars and rings, do you?” said +Nellie, surveying the appointments of the gymnasium admiringly.</p> + +<p>“Boys! Pooh! I can beat Bob at the exercise,” exclaimed Marcy +contemptuously. “I never did gym exercise for you, did I? You wait here +till I get my suit on, and I’ll show you something.”</p> + +<p>Marcy ran away, leaving Nellie to spread the pads for the floor as she +had directed. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>In a few moments a little figure all in red ran into the +room and made a bow to left and right, like a performer in the ring.</p> + +<p>Nellie exclaimed in delight. She thought that she had never seen +anything so pretty.</p> + +<p>Marcy wore a tight-fitting crimson woollen tunic that fell to +her knees, trimmed with tiny lines of black fur, full Turkish +trousers of the crimson gathered around her slender ankles, and her +black-stockinged feet looked very small under the fur band above them, +and her long dark hair fell loosely on her shoulders, surmounted by a +jaunty crimson cap set saucily on one side.</p> + +<p>Marcy ran across the gymnasium, sprang, caught a ring, pulled herself +up, and swung gayly through the air, looking like a magnified Baltimore +oriole. Giving herself a long, hard swing, she caught the bar, and did +all kinds of things upon it till she was tired, and sat on it, swinging +contentedly, her feet crossed and her lips parted with her quickened +breath, while her cheeks glowed as red as her dress under her long hair.</p> + +<p>“It’s splendid!” cried Nellie. “I never <span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>knew you were so strong. Isn’t +the exercise fun?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s beautiful. The doctor said I was getting round-shouldered, +so papa had this put in. I’ll tell you something, Nellie. Sometimes I +think I’d like this to be the great thing I do in my life,” said Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Gymnastics?” asked Nellie, rather puzzled.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I don’t mean just that; but—well, do you suppose it would be +awful to go in the circus?” asked Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Why, Marcy! Of course,” said Nellie promptly.</p> + +<p>“Well, sometimes I think I’d like to have a beautiful horse, and run +and jump on his back, and do all sorts of strong, splendid things, and +have the band playing, and the crowd cheering,” said Marcy, looking +rather ashamed, but nodding her head emphatically as she swung.</p> + +<p>“Why, they say it’s an awful life, and the people are rough who do +these things,” Nellie began.</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, I’d be a lady-like circus girl, of course,” said Marcy. “But +I suppose I <span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>shouldn’t really like it. Look out, I’m coming down.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t fall, Marcy,” cried Nellie anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Fall! I never fall,” laughed Marcy. “Here goes.” She swung herself +harder, threw herself towards a pair of rings, caught them dexterously, +and dropped to the mattress, where she turned a hand somersault, and +came up bowing and smiling like the acrobats in the circus. “Don’t tell +about the somersault,” she said as soon as she could speak. “Mamma +might think that was rough, and I only practise that when I’m alone. +Now I must go up-stairs and write that tragedy; I haven’t done one +thing all day. Good-by,” and waving her hands. Marcy ran into the hall +and disappeared up the stairs like a red spark up the chimney.</p> + +<p>Marcy opened the door of the observatory and dropped down among her +cushions with a happy sigh.</p> + +<p>“How nice it is to be alive!” she said aloud. “How lovely to dance, +and jump, and run, and then how loveliest it is to think, and dream, +and lie still, and watch the clouds! <span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>But I mustn’t watch the clouds +now, I must write. I don’t believe it makes much difference about the +characters in a tragedy, for I looked all through the books in the +library, and I found some have lots and some have very few; so I’ll +just write ahead, and whenever I need a new one I’ll put it in, and +make a list afterwards. I’m going to call this tragedy ‘Cruel Fate,’ +because it sounds nice, and might mean anything; and I don’t know +yet what it will be about. Only it will be about this lovely, lovely +princess, and I wish I knew a name nice enough for her; I must think +one out, and I must make up my mind what she’s to be like. Oh, dear! I +don’t know whether to have her a princess with hair like spun gold or +black as a raven’s wing. I think she’d better have dark hair, because +it suits an unfortunate person better. I’ll write the name any way.”</p> + +<p>So Marcy wrote in her fairest hand at the head of her blank page, +“Cruel Fate,” then she settled herself back and looked up at the +floating clouds, turning over in her mind all the most beautiful names +she had ever heard in the vain effort to discover one which <span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>should +express all the lovely qualities of mind, and soul, and body with which +she intended to endow her heroine.</p> + +<p>Gradually her thoughts wandered to her own future, and she fell to +building castles in the air of the fine deeds she would do. First +of all, she imagined this tragedy finished and acted before a great +audience, which went mad with delight over the beauty of the piece, and +called for the author; and she bowed unconsciously, fancying herself +responding to this call, and stepping from her box before the curtain. +Or perhaps she should act the part of the heroine herself, and she +pictured the enthusiasm rising to a tremendous pitch as the audience +showered with flowers the gifted creature who could write and act such +glorious things. Or, again, perhaps Nellie was right, and it was best +to give up all thought of glory and live for others; and Marcy imagined +her father beggared by some sudden reverse of fortune, and that she +came forward, saying nobly, “Never mind, father, I will be your comfort +and help. I will lay aside all my hopes of fame, and will work for you +and the children;” <span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>and she wondered if she would be willing to take a +position as a saleswoman in one of the big stores for the sake of her +family.</p> + +<p>Poor Marcy had no notion of doing humdrum duties day by day, and all +her ideas were colored by fancy rather than facts. In the mean time the +setting sun rested warm on the observatory, and her previous exercise +made Marcy rather drowsy. Her fancies grew less and less distinct, and +gradually the dark lashes drooped, her head fell over on her pad, and +the would-be tragic author was fast asleep on the blank page whereon +was written, like a prophecy, the last word her hand was to pen for +many a day—“Cruel Fate.”</p> + +<p>The sun went down in a blaze of crimson and golden splendor, and Marcy +did not waken. The bell that warned the household that they had half +an hour in which to get ready for dinner penetrated her brain dimly, +reaching her in her high perch like a faint echo of real life; but it +was enough to arouse her to partial consciousness. Following instinct +rather than thought—for she was not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>fully awake—Marcy arose to her +feet, gathered up her pad and pencil, staggered to the door of the +observatory, opened it, and the next instant the household was startled +by the sound of a heavy fall.</p> + +<p>The nursery was the room nearest the observatory stairs, and Norah was +the first to reach the little crimson and black heap lying motionless +at their foot.</p> + +<p>“O Miss Marcy! my darling!” cried poor Norah, trembling so that she +scarcely dared lift the hand nearest her.</p> + +<p>Marcy groaned as she touched her, and the entire family, that had by +this time gathered with horror-stricken faces around her, uttered a +sigh of gratitude that at least she was still alive.</p> + +<p>“No bones broken,” said the doctor later, as he examined the poor +little body, but a few hours before flying through the air in the +gymnasium, so full of strength and life. “No one can be sure yet +whether it is brain or spine; we must wait till she becomes conscious. +It is an internal injury, and, I fear, serious.”</p> + +<p>Night settled in awful stillness over the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>Merricks’ house. In all +of great New York there seemed to be but one living thing, and that +was the figure on Marcy’s bed, lying motionless and still but for an +occasional groan, the dark hair falling around a face not less white +than the pillow, on which even the few hours that had passed had set +the mark of pain in the blue eyelids and drawn lips.</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="v">CHAPTER V.<br> +<span>THE BEGINNING OF LIVING.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">A week</span> passed with no change in Marcy’s condition, but each of the +seven days wrought its work in the Merrick family. Mr. Merrick forgot +business altogether in his absorbing anxiety and grief, and Mrs. +Merrick clung to her other children with a tenderness they had never +felt in her before as she waited in tense dread to know the fate of her +eldest, cleverest, and now, at least, her dearest child. Inez realized +that she had never loved her sister half enough, and that there were +other qualities more precious than knowledge of social propriety; for +it was to Nellie—brave, pious, cheerful, kind Nellie to whom she +turned for the only comfort she could get during these dark days. At +last, on the eighth day, Marcy opened her eyes wonderingly on the +world, smiled at the tear-wet faces around <span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>her, and fell asleep, and +the three solemn doctors standing in consultation around her bed said +that she would live. But following quickly on the joy of this verdict +came the sorrow of hearing that, though Marcy would not die, she would +never again be the bright, gay Marcy of old; that the injury was to the +spine, and that the most that could be hoped for her was the suffering +of a cripple through all the long coming years.</p> + +<p>It was a hard saying, and her father and mother shrank from looking in +the face the dreadful fate which had fallen on Marcy. Yet what must be +borne must be, and each of the Merricks, in his or her way, tried to +adjust themselves to a sorrow that at times seemed more bitter than if +Marcy had died.</p> + +<p>The only thing to do now was to nurse the poor child back to such +health as might be hers, and keep from her the knowledge that never +again would she run about, a happy creature on the happy earth. But it +was not easy to deceive Marcy. As the days passed and she grew stronger +she felt the sorrow in the air, and looked with eyes made big and +hollow by pain from face to face, trying <span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>to penetrate the grief she +saw written on them.</p> + +<p>“I’m getting better, Norah?” she asked one day. “Truly, Norah, I am +better. Don’t you think so? I shan’t die, shall I, Norah?”</p> + +<p>“Die, alanna!” cried Norah, with a dismal attempt at gayety; “not you. +Of course you’re better; and I only wish I was as sure of living as +many years as you are. And that’s true. God help you, darling, and help +us all, that we almost have to wish you weren’t,” added Norah under her +breath.</p> + +<p>But Marcy was not satisfied. One day Grace was left alone with her, +very proud to be so trusted, and sat like a faithful little dog with +her brown eyes fastened on Marcy’s face, ready to jump if she saw any +sign of her wanting anything.</p> + +<p>“Gracie, come here,” Marcy whispered.</p> + +<p>Grace sprang up quickly and knelt by Marcy’s face, obedient to the +motion of her finger.</p> + +<p>“Tell me the truth, Gracie,” Marcy said, still in a whisper. “Have you +heard them say anything about me?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span> +“I don’t know,” Gracie stammered.</p> + +<p>“H’sh! not so loud. Yes, you know, Gracie. You must tell sister Marcy +just the truth. Am I going to die?”</p> + +<p>“No, Marcy, you’re not going to die,” answered Grace, relieved to be +able to say something good.</p> + +<p>“Honest, Grace? Maybe they don’t tell you,” Marcy said.</p> + +<p>“Yes—no; but I heard them talking. You’re not going to die——”</p> + +<p>Grace stopped so suddenly that Marcy seized her little hand.</p> + +<p>“Then what is it? When shall I be well? When shall I get up, and go to +school, and dance, and everything?” cried Marcy, the dread that had +been haunting her more than the fear of death clutching her heart.</p> + +<p>Grace only sobbed.</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t ask me anything; I’m not to tell you,” cried the poor +little thing in great distress.</p> + +<p>“Grace, tell me, shall I ever be well again?”</p> + +<p>Grace shook her head.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span> +“Never!” cried Marcy sharply, forgetting her fear of being overheard.</p> + +<p>“Not never,” wailed Grace, and Marcy’s clasp of her wrist relaxed.</p> + +<p>“All right, Gracie,” she said in a queer, husky voice; “you were a good +child to tell me the truth. I’ll go to sleep now.”</p> + +<p>And Grace crept back to her chair, relieved that Marcy took the news so +quietly.</p> + +<p>But from that day Marcy did not mend; she lay with closed eyes, getting +thinner and paler, scarcely speaking, but trying, poor child, to face +her awful doom alone, and say good-by in silence to youth and life when +she was but twelve. She did not dare ask any one just how bad her lot +was to be, but she pictured herself lying as she then was for years and +years, while the children grew up, and her father and mother and Norah +died, and she grew old in her little bed, worse off than the prisoners +whose pictures she had seen, working on the roads in chains. At last +she could endure her thoughts no longer.</p> + +<p>“Nellie,” she said one day, “shut the door and sit here by me.”</p> + +<p>Nellie obeyed. For a few moments Marcy <span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>did not speak, then she opened +her eyes and looked into Nellie’s rosy, healthy face.</p> + +<p>“You look so well,” she said. “I know; Gracie told me, Nellie.”</p> + +<p>Nellie looked frightened.</p> + +<p>“Told you?” she began, and stopped.</p> + +<p>“Told me I should never be better,” said Marcy, and two big tears ran +down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Nellie was shocked, but rallied with great presence of mind.</p> + +<p>“But that isn’t true, Marcy dear,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Don’t fool me, Nellie; I couldn’t bear that,” Marcy cried.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you just the truth,” said Nellie. “You will be better. The +doctor says you may be able to lie in an invalid’s chair by Christmas, +but you won’t ever be as strong as before you were hurt.”</p> + +<p>“If she only won’t ask me if she will ever walk!” thought Nellie.</p> + +<p>Marcy looked at her.</p> + +<p>“That’s something, but it isn’t much,” she said slowly. “I’ll be an +invalid, won’t I, Nellie?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span> +“Yes, I suppose you will,” Nellie answered gently; “but all invalids +are not much invalids. You can’t tell how much better you will be.”</p> + +<p>“And all those splendid things I was going to be and do! Invalids are +no use,” said Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Now, Marcy, I think you can do more splendid things than you ever +dreamed of,” said Nellie.</p> + +<p>“You mean I can be patient and good. Well, but I am not good, and all +that is no use,” said poor Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Indeed, it is,” cried Nellie. “Oh, I believe you’re not getting better +just because you aren’t hoping for anything! Why, you can have the most +wonderful life, and do the most splendid things even though you are +shut up here. I can’t explain, but I know you can just be grand, and +the most use of anybody in the whole house.”</p> + +<p>Marcy closed her eyes wearily.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” she said, and Nellie went away, having an idea in her busy +brain which she meant to carry out at once.</p> + +<p>From the first of her coming to New York <span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>Nellie had been a prime +favorite with Father Glenn, the kindly, gray-haired priest who came +occasionally to see the Merricks. To him Nellie repaired, and laid +before him Marcy’s case.</p> + +<p>“So you think she wants something to live for,” he said, smiling down +on the earnest, little, round face. “I suspect you are right, Nellie. +It is pretty hard for any one to live without hope. I’ll go to see +Marcy to-morrow, and we will see if we cannot help the poor little soul +to face her martyrdom with courage.”</p> + +<p>Father Glenn was a busy man, but he made time that night to write a +little story especially for Marcy. With this in his pocket he rang +the Merricks’ bell, and went up to the room where Marcy lay. Norah +slipped out when he entered, and he drew his chair up to the bedside, +and holding the thin, white hand, talked gently to Marcy, telling her +stories, and watching the pinched face, from which he could win no look +of interest beyond a wan smile for politeness’ sake. At last he said:</p> + +<p>“Well, Marcy, I could find it in my heart <span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>to envy you. It is not all +of us who get our wishes so perfectly fulfilled as you are to have +yours.”</p> + +<p>Marcy opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>“I, Father Glenn?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you. Why, you always wanted to lead some sort of a great and +wonderful life, and now you can. And you hoped to be able to write +great poems, and now you will have a chance not merely to write them, +but be one yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I’m never going to be anything now, Father; I’ll never be well,” said +Marcy, and her voice trembled.</p> + +<p>“I’ve written a little wee bit of a story, Marcy dear. Will you let me +read it to you, and tell me what you think of it?” was Father Glenn’s +only answer.</p> + +<p>He pulled his manuscript out of his pocket as Marcy moved her head on +the pillow a little nearer him, and began to read:</p> + +<p>“Once upon a time there was a garden, which was full of the most +beautiful bright flowers. But though the flowers were all very gay, +and nodded in the breeze, and made a fine display in the garden, not +one <span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>bore any honey nor had any perfume. So the garden was not a very +useful garden, and in spite of its beauty the gardener was sad when he +looked at it, because it yielded no sweetness or no food for the bees, +nor did the birds love to hover over it. One day there came up in a +shady, out-of-the-way corner a tiny white blossom. It grew near the +ground, and did not stand up tall and brave like the other flowers; +indeed, no one walking through the garden would have seen it at all. +But after it began to grow there quietly and humbly all the air was +full of fragrance, and the birds and bees went out of their way to pass +the garden, and having passed it, they would fly back again, and hover +around that corner of the garden where the little white blossom was +hidden; and soon all the air got musical with the song of birds and hum +of bees where no birds or bees had ever been before. And the strangest +part of it all was that, tiny as it was, this little blossom, and +though it was hidden away in a dark corner, it was so full of honey and +fragrance that it not only fed and rejoiced the bees and birds itself, +but it shed its sweetness <span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>on all the other flowers, and they began to +grow sweet, too; and the garden that had been but a garden of gorgeous +colors and flaunting blossoms became so fragrant that the gardener +smiled as he looked on it, and said: ‘Blessings on the little hidden, +frail white blossom, for it has transformed my useless garden into a +garden of delight.’”</p> + +<p>“It is a sweet story, Father,” said Marcy as he ended; “but how?”</p> + +<p>Father Glenn smiled, well pleased.</p> + +<p>“I see you understand the little allegory, Marcy,” he said. “How are +you to be like this little blossom, do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Father,” said Marcy. “You see, I never was anybody before I fell, +and I don’t see how I can be anything now.”</p> + +<p>“You have gained one thing,” said the kind priest. “I doubt if one +little girl would have been willing once to admit that she was nobody. +Now I’ll tell you, my dear, how you can be the happiest, cleverest, +most useful little lassie in all this big city. You know, Marcy, this +has been a household where everybody went his own way. You can be +the link to draw them together. You can <span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>always be ready with needle +and thread for any little service. You can be ready to listen to +everybody’s troubles, and help them through them. You can read to the +children, and play with them. You can show the boys how lovely a good, +sweet girl is, and they will be better men for knowing it; and when +they grow older the thought of their loving, pure sister will keep +them away from many a danger of which you will never know. And you +can coax your father into sitting with you and reading to you, until +he gets into the habit of living close to his children, and enjoying +them as much as they will enjoy him; and you can do all this merely +by being unselfish, putting all yourself away, and living for others. +Your misfortune can be the greatest blessing, for when anything goes +wrong Marcy will be at her post, and when anybody needs a service or +sympathy, they will know where to find Marcy. And you can make this +room a blessed little chapel, like the churches in the early days, +when men were wild and revenge was in every man’s own hand; for then +the churches were sanctuaries, and whoever took <span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>refuge in them was +safe. So your room can be the refuge of all you love, and this little +white hand can change and hold together all the lives of the rest of +the household. And so I say, although all this would not prevent your +writing great poems, if the talent was yours, still you can surely do +something much finer. You can make your whole life a poem, and your +dreams can be fulfilled and far surpassed.”</p> + +<p>Marcy’s cheeks were flushed when Father Glenn ceased speaking, and her +eyes were bright.</p> + +<p>“I’ve been praying to die,” she said, “but if I can do all this I won’t +mind living.”</p> + +<p>“That’s my brave girl,” said the priest heartily. “You mustn’t pray to +die. You will have many a weary hour of discouragement, but never mind. +When you feel thus do something for somebody, and don’t think about +poor, little, wounded Marcy at all.”</p> + +<p>“Nellie can help me; she’s that kind of girl. She does all those things +for her brothers and sisters, and is well, too. Isn’t that better?” +said Marcy wistfully.</p> + +<p>“Neither better nor worse, but much <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>easier,” said Father Glenn. “You +have a harder, higher place to fill, because you will keep nothing for +yourself. You try the plan, Marcy, and a year from now we shall see a +real poem called Marcella Merrick—a poem of a brave, unselfish life, +the patient bearing of a heavy cross. Good-by, dear little girl; don’t +think I am not very sorry that you have such a hard burden to bear.”</p> + +<p>But Marcy smiled brightly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be sorry, Father Glenn,” she said. “I’ll try to be like the +flower that was so little and plain, but made one spot sweet. And I +guess it was a happy flower, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I am sure it was,” said the old priest, laying his hand on her dark +hair. “God bless you, dear. I think instead of dying you are just +beginning to live.”</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="vi">CHAPTER VI.<br> +<span>LITTLE THINGS.</span></h2> +</div> + + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Papa</span>, won’t you send Hugh down for your paper, and let me read to +you?” asked Marcy when her father made his regular visit to her that +evening.</p> + +<p>“You can’t read, my daughter,” said Mr. Merrick.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I can,” said Marcy, with a touch of her old mischief. “I’ve +learned to read—truly, papa. You’d really be surprised if you knew how +advanced I am for a little girl of my age.”</p> + +<p>Of course she obtained her desire, and Mr. Merrick found the first +alleviation of his sorrow in listening to the clear little voice, +grown a bit tremulous, going over the report of the stock market most +conscientiously, pausing for prompting on the hard words.</p> + +<p>“Will you come every night, papa dear, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>and let me read?” Marcy asked, +drawing his head down for a good-night kiss. “And will you explain +things to me, and make me understand all about politics and money and +everything? You see, if I am to do without my feet, and depend on my +head for pleasure, it ought to be a very good one, and you must fill it +with sense.”</p> + +<p>“Dear little Marcy,” said her father huskily, “have you found out that +you may have to depend on your head for pleasure? I’ll come certainly, +and I’ll do all I can to give you happiness, my poor little girl. But +you are better, Marcy; you seem brighter and more like yourself. I have +really enjoyed my hour with you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I want,” cried Marcy delighted. “I’m not much better yet, +papa, but I mean to try to be a great deal better.”</p> + +<p>The next morning Marcy heard furious stamping and roars of wrathful +misery from the next room.</p> + +<p>“That’s no one on earth but Hugh,” she said to herself, and called, +“Hugh! Hugh! come here. What is the matter?”</p> + +<p>“Plague take this old tie!” said Hugh, appearing <span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>in the doorway, very +red of face, with a plaid Windsor tie dragging dejectedly in his hand. +“Norah’s off somewhere, and I called and called Nellie, and I can’t +find her. I can’t tie this old tie, and I’ll be late for school.”</p> + +<p>“If that’s all, I can help you. Come here, small boy; I’ll tie it for +you,” said Marcy, turning on her side as much as she could, for she +could not raise herself in bed.</p> + +<p>Hugh marched over to her, and as her skilful fingers gave a deft +pull here, and a pat and poke there, the scowl disappeared from his +forehead, and the red faded from his cheek.</p> + +<p>“There, give me a kiss in payment,” said Marcy. “Trot along now, and +the next time you want anything, come to Marcy, and she’ll do it for +you.”</p> + +<p>“You’re awful nice, Marcy,” said Hugh, giving her a squeeze that nearly +made her shriek with pain, but was welcome none the less. “I think +you’re nicer than any one, and I never knew it till now.”</p> + +<p>“There’s one little bee after honey,” thought Marcy, tired, but smiling +as she <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>remembered Father Glenn’s story of the garden.</p> + +<p>Presently she heard a plaintive little voice outside her door singing +in a kind of chant: “I <em>wis</em> I had some one to play wiz. I wis I +<em>had</em> some one to play wiz.”</p> + +<p>“Lulie, come in here,” called Marcy. “I’ll play with you.”</p> + +<p>“How can you?” demanded Lucy, coming in with her doll—“how can you +play fen you’re hurted so badily, Marcy? Good-morning,” she added as an +afterthought.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning,” replied Marcy. “I can play lots of things.”</p> + +<p>“House?” asked Lucy, brightening at the prospect.</p> + +<p>“House, and having company, and going travelling, and heaps of things,” +said Marcy; and the eldest and youngest member of the Merrick family +began to play without loss of time, and to Marcy’s surprise she really +enjoyed it.</p> + +<p>“Now, Marcy, let’s betend you was sick, and I’m your nurse, and must +tell you a story to ’muse you,” said Lucy, climbing on the bed, and +sitting down tailor fashion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span> +“Once upon a time there was a little boy, and he cut off his sister’s +hair, and he went out in the woods to walk, and a big bear came ’long, +and ate him up, and he was all deaded, and that’s all. Is that nice?” +said Lucy, bringing her tale to a sudden and tragic close because she +heard Norah coming.</p> + +<p>“Not very nice for the little boy, but it’s a fine story, Lu. Where did +you hear it?” asked Marcy.</p> + +<p>“I just made it up as I went ’long,” said Lucy, with a wave of her +hands and toss of her curly head.</p> + +<p>“Now come up-stairs, Lucy dear,” said Norah, appearing in the doorway; +“you mustn’t tire sister Marcy.”</p> + +<p>“She didn’t tire me, Norah; at least not much, and I liked it. I never +knew how cunning she was before,” said Marcy.</p> + +<p>“And I never knew how nice you were,” said Lucy, not to be outdone in +appreciation. “I’m coming every day to play wiz you.”</p> + +<p>Lucy was borne away, and Marcy had a long rest. After luncheon Nellie +came. She <span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>was dismissed from school early that day, and always +hastened to Marcy’s side, who looked forward longingly to her coming. +To-day she saw that there was a shadow on Nellie’s usually happy face, +and set about discovering the cause.</p> + +<p>“Anything wrong at school?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” Nellie said, swinging the curtain cord listlessly.</p> + +<p>“Fail, Nellie?” hinted Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Dear me, no; it’s so easy keeping +<ins id="head" title="Original has 'head'">ahead</ins> there I’m getting conceited. I +used to think I was a dunce, but even a dunce, if she tries, can beat +people who never try. Those girls hardly study at all, except Madeleine +Greene,” said Nellie, coming over to sit by Marcy.</p> + +<p>Marcy considered a moment, then with tact she never could have shown +before her illness, she said:</p> + +<p>“Talk to me about Prairie Rest, Nellie.”</p> + +<p>Nellie’s face brightened. It was the first time any but her little +cousins had shown an interest in her home.</p> + +<p>“I was thinking about it all day,” she said. “It’s getting Thanksgiving +time, and I keep wondering what they’re all doing.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span> +“Tell me what Aunt Mary looks like, and what kind of a sitting-room +yours is,” said Marcy.</p> + +<p>Nellie closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and rocking very hard +began:</p> + +<p>“Our sitting-room’s awfully sunny; it has two windows on the south and +one on the west, and it looks out on the street. I reckon you’d say it +was a funny street, because it has some blocks of limestone houses, +and some of wood standing alone, and some stores, and a church, all +in a bunch; but I don’t care, it’s nice. And the wall-paper’s cream +color, with sprays of gilt flowers. And the carpet’s all bright colors +mixed, and ma’s darned it in some places, for it gets such hard wear. +And there are some pictures; they aren’t very nice ones, but they’re +cheerful. They’re the kind of pictures that tell a story, and winter +evenings we make up stories about them, and have cookies for prizes for +the best, and pa’s judge. And the furniture’s covered with rep, and +it’s faded some, but it’s good yet, and there are odd pieces around, +mostly rockers. And we’ve china vases on the mantelpiece, and a picture +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>of the Sacred Heart over it, and ma sits here when she gets to sit +down. You needn’t laugh at it all, Marcy. It isn’t handsome, like this +house, but we have more fun in it,” added Nellie, with a touchiness +most unlike her pleasant self, born of the homesickness she was trying +to drive off.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t want to laugh, Nellie,” said Marcy gently. “I am afraid you +do have better times there, but we shall have good times here, too, by +and by. I have a plan, Nellie; I asked mamma, and she was willing. You +know I have lots of nice clothes, and now I can never wear them again. +Inez won’t take them because the girls would know they were mine, and +you can’t wear them here for the same reason, besides you’re taller +than I. I want to make a box and send them to Aunt Mary to fix for the +children this winter. You say Kitty, next to you, is just about my +height. She can take lots of the things, and my gymnasium dress will +make a lovely winter dress for the little one Lulie’s age.”</p> + +<p>Nellie ran to Marcy and buried her face in the counterpane, trying +not to cry as she remembered <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>how pretty and gay Marcy looked in that +gymnasium dress on the fatal day of the fall, and how they had seen her +lying at the foot of the stairs in its soft crimson folds, motionless, +and perhaps dead.</p> + +<p>“O Marcy dear, you don’t know how much good they’ll do, for ma wrote +she couldn’t afford to get new things for the children this winter, +because it had cost so much for me to come here. But I’d give anything +in all the world if you could wear them,” she said.</p> + +<p>“We mustn’t talk about that, you know,” said Marcy with a little +shiver. “Norah has been laying them out for you to look at, so if +you’ll go up she’ll show them to you, and you and she can pack the box +and send it right away, so they’ll have it by Thanksgiving.”</p> + +<p>Nellie did not dare trust herself to speak; she kissed Marcy, and went +away without a word.</p> + +<p>“There,” sighed Marcy after she had gone, “it feels a little like being +dead, but it’s nice, for I’m sure they’ll like them, and after this +I must get papa to send them presents <span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>every year, so Aunt Mary will +always have things for the children. Dear me, I don’t believe I ever +thought of any one before in my life.”</p> + +<p>Inez was Marcy’s next visitor, and she came in with a most woe-begone +expression.</p> + +<p>“What’s wrong, Inez?” Marcy demanded. “You never look like that except +you’re in a scrape.”</p> + +<p>“Well, so I am, but I’m not going to bother you,” said Inez, with an +air of heroic self denial.</p> + +<p>“Why, it won’t bother me. I like to hear anything to make me forget, +you know,” replied Marcy.</p> + +<p>Inez did not need much urging.</p> + +<p>“You see,” she explained, “Saturday will be my birthday, and I’d been +telling the girls I would ask them to luncheon, and take them to the +matinée, for mamma had said I could. Then when you got sick they all +said they supposed the party was off, and I said it wouldn’t make any +difference, for you weren’t going to be sick a little while—I mean, it +wouldn’t be any different by and by. Oh, no, I mean——”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span> +“Yes, I know, Inez; please go on,” said Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Well,” Inez resumed, somewhat embarrassed, “I’ve been telling them +we should have them just the same, and now mamma says it would be +perfectly heathenish to have a theatre party so soon after you were +hurt, and if I had any heart I should not want them, and I’m sure I +didn’t want them, only I hate to tell them they can’t come.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all? I’ll fix that for you. Mamma’ll do anything I ask her to, +she’s so sorry for me, and I’ll tell her I want you to have the girls. +I couldn’t see them,” Marcy said, with a little shudder at the thought +of their curious and pitying eyes, “but I’d rather you would have your +birthday just as if I were well. Why, if I’m to be sick all my life I +must get used to your having good times without me, and what’s the use +of waiting? I’ll get mamma to let you have the girls, so that’s easily +set straight, Inez.”</p> + +<p>Inez kissed her, quite unconscious of the pang this had cost her.</p> + +<p>“It seems to me we were never sisters before, Marcy,” she said. “It’s +just as if there <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>had been a sort of crust, and you had fallen through +and broken it all up.”</p> + +<p>“Come,” said Marcy, smiling, “that’s one good thing, isn’t it? Maybe +some day I’ll be glad I fell.”</p> + +<p>The room was growing dark, and Marcy was aroused from a nap by Bob +coming up-stairs, not two at a time, or tripping in his haste as usual, +but heavily and slowly.</p> + +<p>“Bob, aren’t you going to speak to me?” Marcy called out.</p> + +<p>Bob came in, sat on the edge of a chair, and kicked at the floor with +the toe of one boot, turned upright by a great effort.</p> + +<p>“What’s the news?” asked Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” Bob replied gloomily.</p> + +<p>“You don’t look jolly; won’t you tell me why?” Marcy persisted.</p> + +<p>Bob looked up with a gleam of hope, which faded instantly.</p> + +<p>“What’s the use?” he said.</p> + +<p>“The use is I’d like to hear about almost anything, and so would you +if you had to lie here till you died,” said Marcy, skilfully using her +misfortune to obtain her desire, for no one in the family felt more +keenly than <span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>Bob the affliction that had befallen active Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, softening, “I got into a scrape this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Please tell me; I won’t tell,” Marcy begged.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Bob, “I was over on Sixth Avenue with some boys after +school, and we stopped in front of Old Bones’ shop. Old Bones is a +tailor, and we call him that because he’s so thin. We kind of threw +some pebbles around with our pea-shooters, and one—mine—went +through Old Bones’ window. We ran off, but Old Bones saw one of the +fellows—Nick Hale—and he says he’ll tell Mr. Hale and get Nick +licked. Now Nick says if I’ll give him fifty cents he’ll take the +licking, ’cause he don’t mind much; but if I don’t he’ll tell my father +that I really was the one who did it, and then I’ll be licked for sure, +and when father licks, he licks. I haven’t got a cent to buy Nick off, +and he’ll tell father this evening if I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Bob Merrick, what a mean, sneaky thing, and you don’t even see +it’s mean!” cried Marcy, greatly excited.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span> +“Yes, I do, but I can’t help it,” replied Bob. “What can a fellow do +when he hasn’t any money?”</p> + +<p>“It’s not that, but you’d bribe Nick to take your punishment, and you’d +stand by and act a lie. Why, it’s as dishonorable and mean as it can +be.”</p> + +<p>“I might have known you wouldn’t care!” said Bob sullenly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do care, Bob dear, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give +you the fifty cents if you’ll take it round to the tailor shop and tell +the man that you broke the window, and not Nick Hale, and you came to +pay for it. I’d rather have all my skin taken off, if I were you, than +buy up such a cheating bargain as Nick made. But if you pay for the +window nobody can say a word to you, and be sure you tell Nick Hale +you’re not a liar nor a sneak.”</p> + +<p>“You’re an awful good fellow, Marcy,” said Bob gratefully. “I’m glad I +told you. It <em>is</em> kind of sneaky, now you speak of it——”</p> + +<p>“It’s a lie,” interrupted Marcy.</p> + +<p>“That’s so, but I hadn’t thought of it,” assented Bob. “If you’re sure +you don’t <span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>want your fifty cents, I’ll give it to Old Bones, and be +glad to be square.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t use much money lying here,” said Marcy. “Hand me my purse +from the upper drawer. There,” she added, handing Bob the half dollar, +“the next time you’re in trouble tell me. Only, Bob, for mercy’s sake, +always be square and honest. You’d better be a cripple, like me, than a +sneak.”</p> + +<p>Bob choked as he looked at her.</p> + +<p>“I’m lots obliged, Marcy,” he said. “I wish you wouldn’t say +<em>cripple</em>; it makes me sick. I don’t want to be a sneak—honest. I +never once thought of it like that.”</p> + +<p>“All right. Hurry up before the shop closes,” said Marcy. “Dear me,” +she said aloud as the door slammed, “it’s time I tried to get Bob away +from those boys.” And she sighed happily at this close of a day filled +with little acts for others, and with a new feeling of sisterly love +and care springing up in her heart.</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="vii">CHAPTER VII.<br> +<span>A FRIEND IN NEED.</span></h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was such excitement in school that it overflowed its boundaries, +and reached the quiet chamber of that little pupil who had left its +walls forever, to be taught by the sterner teaching of pain and +patience. There was to be a play during Thanksgiving week, and Inez was +selected for the principal part. She and Nellie came home one afternoon +with burning cheeks and dilated eyes, and ran to Marcy’s room, followed +by Grace, and seriously annoying Lucy, who was sitting in her favorite +position on the foot of Marcy’s bed, “’musing her” with one of her +wonderful tales.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what do you think?” burst out Inez when scarcely inside the door.</p> + +<p>“O Marcy, really it’s the sweetest thing!” added Nellie.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span> +“And I’m to be the princess. You ought to see how mad the Hales are, +though they try to act as if they didn’t care,” said Inez.</p> + +<p>“They’re court ladies on the bad side,” cried Nellie. “And I’m to be +the queen’s counsellor, sort of a good fairy.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and Madeleine Greene is my first maid of honor, who helps it all +out,” added Inez.</p> + +<p>“What is it all?” cried Marcy. “The play?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it’s the nicest play; one of the nuns wrote it,” said Nellie.</p> + +<p>“Just think that I’ve the principal part!” cried Inez. “It makes me so +nervous, I’m just about sure I’ll spoil it, but I love to do it.”</p> + +<p>“You won’t spoil it,” said Marcy; “you always do well. What is the +play? I can’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a princess,” began Inez. “Oh! you tell, Nellie; I’m too crazy to +remember it.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a princess who has been put out of her kingdom, and she has to +try to get it back. It’s kind of an +<ins id="alle" title="Original has 'alle alleglory'">alle—alleglory</ins>. Isn’t <span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>that what +you call the things that mean something deeper than the story?”</p> + +<p>“Allegory,” corrected Marcy, thinking of the one Father Glenn had read +her.</p> + +<p>“Well, allegory then. The princess kind of stands for a soul, and the +kingdom is the right, and all her enemies and misfortunes stand for +temptations, and she has to win her kingdom back herself. And the +counsellor and maid of honor—that’s I and Madeleine Greene—they stand +for conscience, and the guardian angel, or something like that.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and in the end, Marcy—oh, it’s fine!” Inez burst out. “You see, +the princess wins back her kingdom, and all her foes are conquered, +and she’s been dressed as poorly as poor can be, but here all her old +things fall off, and she steps out in the most beautiful clothes, and +puts a crown on her head, and there’s a cross on the crown, and the +nuns say they’re going to have it beautiful, and have the cross all +rhine stones, and a little electric light behind it, right on my head. +And there’s to be a chorus, and a nice song behind the scenes, and then +all the characters rush on, and the good ones dance <span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>with joy around +the princess, and the bad ones fall on their knees and crouch down, +like this,” and Inez struck an attitude of terror, shading her eyes +from an imaginary ray.</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear, it will be lovely!” sighed Marcy, realizing that she should +never again have part in such joys.</p> + +<p>Inez saw the pain on the face growing so thin and pathetic in its +patient sweetness, and tears of sympathy arose in her eyes. With a +gentleness taught by new sisterly love and pity, she kissed Marcy, +saying:</p> + +<p>“I would never have dared be the princess, only I knew you would help +me. Nellie and I are going to practise in this room, and you can tell +us just how to act, because you can act so well, and it will be most as +if you did it; won’t it, Marcy?”</p> + +<p>Marcy kissed her back, and answered, “Yes,” quite cheerily.</p> + +<p>“And I’m something too, Marcy,” Grace remarked meekly, taking advantage +of a pause.</p> + +<p>“Why, of course you are, Gracie,” cried Nellie. “Grace is one of the +little girls chosen to be the good fairies who dance before <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>the +princess in the second act, and try to lead her in the right path to +her kingdom.”</p> + +<p>“But, Marcy, you never saw any one so provoked as the Hales are,” said +Inez. “Why, they show they care like anything. Jennie Hale was just as +mean to me as she could be after the nuns had said who were to have +the parts, and Rose Hale said to May Vanderberg, as they passed me in +the corridor, just when she knew I couldn’t help hearing: ‘I’m glad I +haven’t got to do it, because I hate to put myself forward; but I’m +sorry she’s got it, because she can’t act, and she’ll spoil the whole +play.’ And May said: ‘It’ll be fun seeing the Wild West show trying to +act like a court lady.’”</p> + +<p>“Well, you won’t spoil it, and you can act,” said Marcy, her pale face +flushing. “Who is the Wild West show—Nellie?”</p> + +<p>Inez nodded.</p> + +<p>“The impertinent, hateful girls,” cried Marcy, losing her temper.</p> + +<p>“Don’t get mad, Marcy,” said Nellie coolly, though her cheeks were +redder than usual. “I don’t mind very much now; I <span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>did at first, +because I wasn’t used to things, and they scared me, but now I see +they’re not really worth minding. They put me in mind of the Indian ma +used to tell us about that came to her house selling things when she +first went to Kansas. She had a bottle of cologne one day when he came +that she was using for headache, and the next time he came she said he +was full of all kinds of strong things—musk, and mint, and grease, and +everything—and he said, ‘H’m, Indian just as good as white woman, heap +better than white woman! She got one little weak smell-bottle, Indian +got quarts big, strong, many smell-bottles.’ And some way when I see +the Hales trying to be fine ladies, and doing such disagreeable things, +I always think of ma’s Indian.”</p> + +<p>“Well, if that isn’t just it,” cried Inez.</p> + +<p>From that day till the great event Marcy’s room was turned into +a green-room and a stage. Grace did her dance for her, and tried +heroically to give in her one small person the effect of twelve little +girls dressed in different colors, dancing the most complicated, mazy +figures, and if she did not succeed <span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>it was not for lack of trying. +Inez and Nellie rehearsed their parts before Marcy, until she was quite +able to prompt them without a book, and proved so ambitious for their +success, that when she said she was satisfied with their performance +they felt quite sure of pleasing their audience.</p> + +<p>Their costumes were really beautiful, for Mrs. Merrick had done her +utmost to have them so. Nellie’s was a silvery, grayish blue, with +pearl trimming, a court train, and silver satin petticoat, laced with +silver, and Inez’s was ivory white, with gold trimming, and such a +profusion of stage gems on the rose-colored bodice as to make one blink +at their splendor.</p> + +<p>The rehearsals at school went on perfectly, and there seemed no doubt +that the affair was an assured success, but for the ill-concealed +malice of Jennie and Rose Hale. Either the nuns were blind to this, or +thought it best to appear so, for they seemed quite unconscious of the +spirit of opposition in the air; but Nellie and Madeleine Greene were +aware of it, and worried over it in secret, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>for they both felt these +girls were capable of making Inez taste their spite.</p> + +<p>The dress rehearsal on the last day went off without a hitch, and the +final scene in which right triumphed, and Inez, throwing off her ragged +garments, shone forth resplendent in her glittering gown, and placed +the blazing crown on her head, was so dramatic and effective, and so +well acted, that all the community and pupils gathered to see it burst +into applause.</p> + +<p>The black look of anger and jealousy that passed between the Hale +sisters did not escape Nellie, and she went home with Inez full of +anxiety, yet not liking to disturb her by uttering her fears. Inez +herself walked on air, and no happier little girl than she laid her +head on her pillow the night before the play.</p> + +<p>The hall was crowded when the curtain rose to the chorus of girls’ +voices singing in the wings. Nellie quite astonished her friends by +her performance; the Hales were clever as the leaders of the enemies +of the princess, while Inez was so excited that her acting amazed +her mother and father and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>Bob, all of whom were present at Marcy’s +especial request. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, but Nellie +and Madeleine kept a sharp look-out, feeling that the day would not be +safe till the curtain should have fallen for the last time.</p> + +<p>The crown was in the dressing-room, and it was the duty of one of +the smaller girls to fetch it in the beginning of the third act, and +stand with it in the wings, until the moment when the stage should be +darkened, when she was to carry it on the stage and lay it on a table, +the reason for all this being that the crown was so brilliant that if +it were on the stage before it was to be used it would be seen, and the +dramatic effect spoiled. The moment was almost come, and Nellie was +standing in the wings, watching the play, when some one touched her +elbow. She turned, and saw the frightened face of the little girl who +was to bring the crown.</p> + +<p>“It’s gone,” whispered the child. “I can’t find the crown.”</p> + +<p>Nellie gathered up her train and ran for dear life. There was not +a moment to be lost. If the crown were not ready when <span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>needed, all +the effect of the scene would be ruined, and Inez would surely be so +shocked that she would break down, and her moment of triumph be turned +into defeat.</p> + +<p>“Those Hales!” gasped Nellie. “Have you seen them?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, they came out of the dressing-room as I went in,” said the little +girl wonderingly. “Did they take the crown?”</p> + +<p>“Which way did they go, Lillie?”</p> + +<p>“Into the hall,” said the child, and Nellie turned and ran swiftly down +the corridor.</p> + +<p>A pink and a green dress whisked across the end, and Nellie felt sure +she had the right clew.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” said Jennie Hale as she passed her.</p> + +<p>Nellie never paused to answer.</p> + +<p>“Stop!” said Rose Hale, putting out her hand.</p> + +<p>Nellie pushed it down, saying breathlessly, “You’ll be sorry if you try +to stop me,” and ran on.</p> + +<p>Opening the door of the closet where the girls’ wraps were hung, with +little Lillie’s help she threw them all on the floor, and, as <span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>she +expected, the crown rolled out among them.</p> + +<p>The Hales saw her snatch it and start back; they put themselves in her +path.</p> + +<p>“Here goes,” thought Nellie, who had played football with her brothers. +Running with all her might, she put her head down just as she +reached her foes, swung one of the sisters round by the force of the +concussion, and before they could rally sufficiently to seize her, was +beyond the reach of their hands, and flying for her life down the long +hall.</p> + +<p>“The Western savage!” exclaimed Jennie Hale, white with anger and shame +as she realized they were found out and disgraced before the school.</p> + +<p>Nellie made her best speed to get to the stage before it should be too +late, and Lillie was left far behind. She got to the wings in time to +see the darkened stage light up again, and Inez turn to take the crown, +which was not there. Inez grew white. There was no time for Nellie to +hesitate. She went swiftly on the stage, and knelt, saying, “Here, +most gracious lady,” which was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>all she could think of at the moment, +and more than she had breath for. Inez stared, but fortunately was not +thrown off her balance. She took the crown, Nellie retired, and the +play went on to the end amid great applause.</p> + +<p>It had been an exciting ten minutes, and had taken no small amount of +courage and presence of mind in the heroine of them, but she had saved +the day, and only a few in the audience were the wiser.</p> + +<p>“Now, what do you suppose possessed the Prairie Chicken to do that?” +whispered Bob, but his mother, who had seen Inez’s face and the absence +of the crown, and had trembled lest her girl was going to fail, after +all, shook her head, and felt grateful for an evident rescue.</p> + +<p>Inez sat on the edge of the bed that night thoughtfully unbuttoning her +shoes. She had asked Nellie to let her share her room, for she wanted +to discuss the events of the evening, and felt besides that she could +not sufficiently show her affection for her once despised cousin, who +had saved her from a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>mortification that it seemed to her only death +could wipe out.</p> + +<p>“I think I’m getting a little sense,” she remarked, with one shoe +dangling in her left hand, while her right one absently smoothed the +wrinkles out of the heel of her stocking.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that nice?” said Nellie sleepily from the pillow, where she had +preceded Inez.</p> + +<p>“You see,” explained Inez, “I’m beginning to find out what Marcy +always knew about being a real lady. It’s not because these girls were +mean to me to-night, but I see it’s all part of their being humbugs +and pretending. Madeleine Greene and you and Marcy, though you’re +so different, are all ladies, because you’re honest and polite, and +never squirm around to try to seem what you are not. I’m through with +imitation ladies forever.”</p> + +<p>“Much obliged for my part of the compliment,” laughed Nellie, giving +her pillow a few pokes and pulls. “<em>Squirm</em> around is good, Inez, +but I’m glad if you’ve had enough of imitation people, because they’re +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>not much good. I suppose the Hales can’t help being plated ware, poor +things. Still they needn’t have taken the crown,” added candid Nellie, +who found it hard to forgive such a contemptible trick.</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="viii">CHAPTER VIII.<br> +<span>A MERRY CHRISTMAS AFTER ALL.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Marcy</span> lay with her cheek pillowed on her hand, watching the fire +burning red in the growing dusk of the December early twilight. Her +mother had been reading to her the “Lady of the Lake,” the musical +rhythm of which was delightful to the sick child’s ear, but it had long +been too dark to read, and thinking Marcy asleep Mrs. Merrick had not +moved, but sat with her finger shut in the book on her knee, meditating +sadly on the coming of Christmas, which it seemed to her she could not +celebrate this year.</p> + +<p>But Marcy was not asleep, and she, too, was thinking of the celebration +of Christmas, with similar thoughts to her mother’s, but she had +reached the opposite conclusion. It took a little effort before she +could say steadily:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span> +“Mamma, I’ve been thinking of Christmas.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrick started.</p> + +<p>“So have I, Marcy dear,” she said.</p> + +<p>“You know,” Marcy went on, “I think we shall have to try to make it +merry, or it may be the least wee bit sad. Nellie was never away from +home at Christmas before, and I’m afraid she’ll be homesick, and, +anyway, I wouldn’t like our children not to have a good time; so what +can we do to keep my being sick from half spoiling things?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dearest, sweetest little daughter, what can we do to keep your +Christmas from being wholly spoiled?” cried her mother, with more love +than wisdom.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t the doctor say I might get up at Christmas?” asked Marcy. “Do +you think he meant just sit up, or that I might walk around?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrick’s heart ached. Marcy evidently did not know that he had +said she would never “walk around again.”</p> + +<p>“I think he only meant that you might be laid on a couch chair and +moved a little,” answered her mother gently. “We <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>shall have to be very +careful, you know, Marcy.”</p> + +<p>Marcy was silent a moment.</p> + +<p>“Well, even that,” she said at last. “Then I could be taken into the +sitting-room?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think so,” said Mrs. Merrick.</p> + +<p>“Now, mamma, would it be too much trouble for you to have a little +supper laid there for us children?”</p> + +<p>“None at all, dear, if you would like it,” replied her mother, +rejoicing at the request.</p> + +<p>“I thought,” Marcy continued, “we might have a kind of combination of a +Twelfth Night, and Christmas, and birthday party. If Eliza would bake a +cake for me I’d write a lot of mottoes, and have them laid all around +the top in the icing, so that every one who took a piece of cake would +get one. And we’d have a ring in the cake, too, if you would buy one. +And Lucy could be crowned queen of the feast, and I could be there, +and no one would feel a little sad, as they might if I were up-stairs +alone, and we’d have a merry time after all.”</p> + +<p>“It shall all be done, my dearest,” said her mother. “And now tell +me if you have <span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>thought of anything you would like for yourself this +Christmas?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing but books and the Madonna I love, to hang opposite on the wall +there,” said Marcy; “but I do want to send a splendid box to Prairie +Rest, and have it packed here in my room, and let every one, even +Lulie, have a hand in getting it up. And if we begin right away, and +think of nothing but these things, I really do believe we can be happy.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrick got up and kissed Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Do you know, dear, you are making the whole house sweet, like a bit of +mignonette among a bunch of showy flowers?” she said; and after she had +left the room Marcy lay smiling contentedly, pondering the remarkable +coincidence that her mother had used almost the same comparison as +Father Glenn.</p> + +<p>A busier household than the Merricks’ could hardly have been found +preparing for Christmas. Every afternoon after school Inez, and Nellie, +and Bob, and Hugh, and Grace hastened up to Marcy’s room, where Lucy +was already established, and the task of dressing dolls and getting +things ready for <span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>the box for Prairie Rest went merrily forward. There +were other meetings in mysterious corners of the house, as far from +Marcy’s room as possible, yet where conversation was carried on in +whispers lest she might hear, and discussions of presents for her were +the object of the conclaves.</p> + +<p>A chance remark of Norah’s that Miss Marcy might like a pet struck +Grace and Lucy favorably, and they combined their pocket money to get +her a canary-bird. The same remark had a similar effect on Hugh, who, +without consulting any one, went off and bought her a pair of rabbits. +Bob, too, considered this a happy thought of Norah’s, and he obtained a +Yorkshire puppy from a boy who had five. Inez, ignorant of the secrets +of the younger children, carried out her original intention, and bought +for Marcy a snow-white Angora kitten, for which Nellie, who had to +supply her lack of pin-money by the work of her skilful fingers, fitted +up a cozy basket with blue linings.</p> + +<p>The Christmas tree was abandoned for that year, and the presents were +to be placed on the hearth in Marcy’s room, where the family <span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>was to +assemble to get them. Marcy had to feign sleep while mysterious figures +glided in, bent a moment over the hearth, and tiptoed out again. She +had fallen asleep very late, and was still resting peacefully when +she was aroused by a succession of most incomprehensible sounds. She +distinguished short, sharp cries, ending in little whimpers and grunts, +the sound of scratching, and sniffing, and something rather like damp +fire-crackers, but she could not tell from what they came. While she +was wondering the door opened softly, and Hugh poked a tumbled head +through, followed briskly by the rest of his body, when Marcy spoke. +Soon Inez crept in with Nellie, and then Bob stole down, and they +all went over to the hearth. Earnest whispers took the place of the +mysterious sounds which had ceased as soon as the children entered, and +in a moment a shout of laughter, instantly checked by hands clapped +over lips lest Mr. and Mrs. Merrick should be awakened. Marcy could +see Bob rolling on the floor and kicking in an ecstasy of repressed +laughter, while the shoulders under Inez’s and Nellie’s dressing-gowns +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>were shaking convulsively, as they sat on the floor clasping their +knees with their hands, on which their faces were bowed.</p> + +<p>“Oh! do tell me the joke,” begged Marcy. “I’ve been hearing the +queerest noises, and I’ll go crazy if you don’t tell me what is so +funny.”</p> + +<p>Bob climbed up and lit the gas, and Marcy saw a very frightened pair +of rabbits huddled up in the corner of a wooden cage, a canary-bird +on a chair, a long-haired, bow-legged little puppy making frantic +dashes in his box at a beautiful snowy kitten, whose long plume of a +tail was swollen to an enormous size, and she occasionally spit at the +demoralized puppy, which explained the fire-crackers Marcy had heard.</p> + +<p>“Oh, how funny! Oh, aren’t they dear?” cried Marcy, who loved all kinds +of pets. “Where did they all come from?”</p> + +<p>“That’s the joke,” explained Inez, wiping her eyes and gasping for +breath. “We all thought you’d like a pet to keep you company while +you’re sick, and we never said a word to one another, only I told +Nellie about mine. So we each got an animal, only Hugh, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>and he got +two, and among us we’ve turned your room into a menagerie. I think it’s +the funniest thing I ever saw.”</p> + +<p>Marcy laughed, too, but she was very much pleased, for she had room +in her heart for all the animals in the ark. The rest of the family +was aroused, and followed the sound of voices to Marcy’s room, and the +presents were seized upon, though it was but half-past five, and they +had been intended to be left till after Mass.</p> + +<p>Nellie had never dreamed of such riches as she was gloating over: a +beautiful little pin, a wreath of mistletoe, with the berries of tiny +pearls from Marcy; a pretty moonstone ring from Bob; the softest of +chinchilla muffs and collars from her uncle; a complete silver manicure +set, the counterpart of the one Inez had, from her aunt, and a dear +little chatelaine and watch from Inez, the chatelaine pin being in the +form of a tiny crown, in memory of the play. Marcy rejoiced in her +coveted Madonna, quantities of books, and her “menagerie,” and her +father gave her three hundred dollars to do with as she liked. It came +in crisp new bills, wrapped in a note, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>to be read at her leisure, and +while the others were at church she read it with a glad heart.</p> + +<p>“First of all, my dearest daughter,” Mr. Merrick wrote, “I wish you a +blessed Christmas, which should be yours, who are proving yourself, in +the midst of a great affliction, our chiefest blessing. I intend that +each year you shall have this sum of money to use in charity as you see +fit, for I foresee that your greatest pleasure will lie in doing for +others. You will learn to use this sum, and thus be better prepared to +make the most of the larger amount which will one day be yours to do +with as you think best.”</p> + +<p>Marcy lay dreaming of all she could do with so much money, and she +planned to support several families, beside educating some clever child +with it, for she had no more idea of the value of a hundred cents than +many persons whom misfortune has not taught.</p> + +<p>When it was time for the supper Marcy was taken for the first time from +her bed, wrapped in her white eider-down wrapper with the swan’s down +around her wrists and throat, and wheeled into the next room on <span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>the +couch-chair, which was but another bed on wheels.</p> + +<p>The sitting-room had been turned into a Christmas banqueting hall. The +table in the centre was bright with holly and candles with red shades, +and each napkin was tied with a bow of scarlet ribbon, ornamented +with a sprig of holly. Evergreen, holly, and mistletoe hung on the +walls, and made the chandelier a bower of green. Julia, the waitress, +and Norah, who was to help, wore wonderful mediæval dresses, with +canton-flannel ermine trimming, and holly-trimmed caps. Marcy’s couch +was wheeled into place at one side of the table, and suddenly there +arose the sound of music. A harp and violin began to play the carol, +“God rest ye, merry gentlemen,” and in walked the procession. First +came Queen Lucy, the queen of the feast, very stately, with a golden +(pasteboard) crown on her pretty head, and a sceptre in her hand. Then +came Grace and Hugh—one dressed as a cavalier in cuffs and slashed +doublet, with a sword at his side; the other as a court lady, with a +train as long as the queen’s, and her hair dressed high on <span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>her head +and powdered, and a black patch of court-plaster in the form of a star +on her chin. Bob and Nellie followed, another court lady and gallant, +she in the costume she had worn in the play, he in rose-colored +doublet, slashed with white, and a mustache that was at once the joy +and trial of his soul, because it looked so fierce when it was on, and +was perpetually falling off. Last came Inez and Madeleine Greene, both +in the costumes of the play.</p> + +<p>Marcy clapped her hands at the sight of her favorite schoolmate. +Since her accident she had shrunk from seeing any of her friends, +but Madeleine’s coming so unexpectedly was only a pleasure, and she +held out her hands to her in ecstasy. The meeting might have been a +sad one, but Mrs. Merrick gave them no time to think, and hurried the +gorgeous company to their seats, Queen Lucy presiding at the head of +the table with much dignity. Mr. Merrick was present, introduced as +a distinguished guest from Australia. He wore a queer high collar, a +flaring plaid necktie, and a green coat with brass buttons, and had +black spectacles on his nose, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>equally surprised and delighted his +children by the funny things he said and did.</p> + +<p>At last the great cake was cut, and everybody carefully nibbled around +the frosting to find the motto which they were warned was hidden +there. This was the supreme moment to Marcy, who had spent long hours +composing these little couplets. When the last crumb of the cake had +gone the reading of the mottoes was called for.</p> + +<p>“No, first the ring. Who has the ring?” cried Marcy.</p> + +<p>Nellie instantly cried, “I have,” and held up a dainty little golden +ribbon, tied in a true lover’s knot, with two slender ends flying.</p> + +<p>“You can’t get it on,” said Hugh, anxiously regarding the tiny band.</p> + +<p>“It’s for her pinkie fin’ner, you silly boy,” said Lucy, to every one’s +amusement.</p> + +<p>“Now the guest from Australia will read his motto first, please,” cried +Marcy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Merrick had to poke up his spectacles to see, and read:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“May your Christmas joy and peace</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Through the new year never cease.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span> +“Mamma,” cried Marcy.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“Christmas green, or Christmas white,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Be your heart forever light,”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noi">read Mrs. Merrick.</p> + +<p>Madeleine, Inez, and Nellie read in succession:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“For him whose heart is good and pure</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Christmas joy shall aye endure.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container mt1"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“May He who in the stable lay</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bless you every Christmas day.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container mt1"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“She who loves both man and beast,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Truly keeps the Christmas feast.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>“Gracie,” said Marcy, and Grace read slowly and carefully:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“Once a Child was cold and sad,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That all children might be glad.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>“Queen Lucy next,” cried Marcy, and Lucy handed her slip to Norah, +saying:</p> + +<p>“P’raps you’d better read it, Nonie,” which, considering the small girl +did not know her letters, seemed advisable.</p> + +<p>Norah read:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“May the Babe of Bethlehem bless</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All your life with happiness.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span> +Bob read his couplet next, which ran:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“May Christmases coming, and Christmases past,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Crown you with joys that forever shall last.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Finally Hugh read:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse outdent">“Christmas comes all wreathed in holly;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">May each Christmas find you jolly.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The applause for Marcy’s verses was the signal for her return to her +room, and that the feast was over.</p> + +<p>The procession formed once more to precede her; the harp and violin +played the merriest airs, and Norah pushed Marcy’s chair back to her +door, where the children divided, and drew up on each side, dropping +her old-fashioned courtesies as she passed. The new white kitten and +the excited puppy, who had been already named “Merry Christmas,” called +Merry for short, and Kris Kringle, in honor of the day, welcomed her +boisterously.</p> + +<p>“One thing more, mamma,” said Marcy, “please sing the <em>Adeste</em> +for me after I am in bed again, and leave the door open so I can hear +it, for it is the dearest of all hymns. It <span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>has been a Merry Christmas +after all, hasn’t it, mamma?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my darling,” said her mother, kissing her good-night.</p> + +<p>And soothed by the beautiful <em>Adeste Fideles</em>, tired out with her +exciting day, Marcy sank to sleep.</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="ix">CHAPTER IX.<br> +<span>NEW YEAR’S CALLS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was New Year’s Eve, and Mr. Merrick sat with Lucy on his knee, and +his other children around him, in Marcy’s room. The custom of Marcy’s +reading the paper to him every evening had grown into a long chat with +all the children after the reading. From being exclusively occupied +with thoughts of business in his home, Mr. Merrick had ceased to be +exclusively occupied with it even in business hours. His associates on +Wall Street were amazed to see him sometimes smiling to himself, and +then hear him say: “That eldest boy of mine’s a funny rascal!” Or, “My +little niece said a pretty good thing the other day.” Or, “Well, sir, +what do you suppose that youngest girl of mine did yesterday?” and +follow up these introductory remarks with an anecdote of the children. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>He was surprised himself to discover how he looked forward to this +hour after dinner with the little band, and how the memory of it +followed it throughout the succeeding day.</p> + +<p>This New Year’s Eve Mr. Merrick was telling the children of the custom +of making calls on New Year’s Day, which had been universal in his +youth, and had fallen into disuse.</p> + +<p>“Why, I am not old,” he began, but Hugh immediately interrupted him:</p> + +<p>“Not old! Well!” he cried, but stopped himself.</p> + +<p>“What’s this? Do you think I am old?” asked Mr. Merrick, looking down +at the boy curled up on the rug, pulling Kris Kringle’s ears. “I am not +quite forty-five.”</p> + +<p>“Forty-five isn’t old,” said Nellie, with an air of decision. “Fifty is +old though.”</p> + +<p>“Five years more of grace,” said Mr. Merrick, laughing. “Nothing like +having the line clearly defined; some people find it harder to settle. +I’ll tell you a secret about old age, children. It is always the next +turn beyond where you have gone, and though <span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>you can plainly see others +reach it, you never quite get there yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Poor papa; you don’t like to grow old, then,” said Marcy thoughtfully. +“I suppose it’s like being crippled, and thinking you can never run +around again, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Merrick bent his head a moment over Lucy’s curls without answering; +when he spoke, it was of something else, and his voice was husky.</p> + +<p>“It was a pretty custom going to call on one’s friends to wish them +health and happiness for a new year, but it grew into a caricature and +abuse, and it was better then to stop it. Still I sometimes think I +should like to see the old custom again in the old way.”</p> + +<p>“Come, Miss Lucy, bed-time,” said Norah, appearing in the doorway, and +Lucy slipped down, kissed every one good-night, and Marcy three times, +and was gone.</p> + +<p>New Year’s Day was damp and disagreeable. Grace had a cold, and +required Norah’s care; Mr. and Mrs. Merrick were at church, and Nellie +and Inez were in Marcy’s room, when Norah came down looking frightened.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span> +“Dear Miss Inez and Miss Nellie,” she said, in great distress, “please +come and help me look for Lucy. Her bonnet and cloak are gone, and she +certainly is nowhere in the house; she must have slipped out unawares.”</p> + +<p>The girls started up at this alarming summons, leaving Marcy in an +agony of helpless excitement. The house was ransacked again in vain, +and there was no mistake that she had gone out alone in the streets of +the great city.</p> + +<p>“She’ll be lost; she’ll be run over; she’ll be killed!” wailed Inez, +falling on her knees, and burying her face in the coverlid of Marcy’s +bed.</p> + +<p>Marcy shook with speechless terror, and Nellie said:</p> + +<p>“Stop, Inez, you’ll hurt Marcy. Let’s all say our beads till Uncle Dick +and Aunt Clara come. Julia has gone to the church to find them.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the cause of this alarm had gone serenely down the street to +the avenue. She had put on her cloak and bonnet unaided, but rubbers +and leggings were beyond <span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>her memory, and she sallied forth with no +thought of her thin shoes and unprotected knees. Lucy had listened +with much more attention than any one knew to her father’s stories of +old-fashioned New Year’s calling, and finding herself left quite alone +that morning felt that she had a golden opportunity to revive the +pleasing custom. She had not forgotten to take the new muff, which, +as she said, “Santa Closet” had brought her, and in its depths lay +hidden her mother’s card-case with which she had thoughtfully provided +herself. No one interfered with the small midget as she went her way +past the high brown-stone houses of her street, and turned into Fifth +Avenue, where she selected a dignified mansion, and going up the steps, +put her finger on the electric bell button, and kept it there till her +summons was answered.</p> + +<p>The maid who came to the door was a newly arrived Swede, who could not +speak a word of English. She showed the small caller into the parlor, +received the card on her tray, and disappeared without a word.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Francis, whom Lucy had selected for <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>this first call, was very +busy getting ready for a journey to Washington, when the card was +brought her. She scanned it impatiently, read “Mrs. Richard Merrick” +wonderingly, and gave a sigh of annoyance.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know any Mrs. Richard Merrick,” she exclaimed. “What can have +brought any one on such a day as New Year’s? I suppose I should better +see her.”</p> + +<p>She changed her dress very quickly, looked hastily at her slightly +disordered hair, hoping that she should find the parlor shades, drawn, +and went down indisposed to be gracious to her untimely visitor.</p> + +<p>As she entered the room she could scarcely believe her eyes. There sat +“Mrs. Merrick” on a stiff Louis XV. chair, upon which she had climbed +with difficulty, her feet sticking straight out before her, and her +eyes shining out very bright from a brown beaver-trimmed bonnet.</p> + +<p>“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Francis, and stopped short in amazement.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning. I’m making you a New Year’s call,” explained Lucy, +slipping down from her perch in what might be called recklessness <span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>when +one considers what a piece of work it was to get up.</p> + +<p>“Where did you come from, you provoking little midget?” cried Mrs. +Francis, laughing, yet irritated as she thought of her change of +toilette and the unfinished packing waiting her supervision.</p> + +<p>“I’m <em>not</em> a little midget,” cried Lucy indignantly. “I’m +Mrs. Mehwick, and I don’t fink you’re very espectable.” She meant +respectful, but it did not much matter.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Merrick,” said Mrs. Francis humbly. “Now I see +you all, but when I came in it was so dark, I really thought you were a +little girl.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” said Lucy, mollified at once. “I’m ’fwaid I’ve got to go +wight away quick, ’cause I’m going to make more’n a fousand calls.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, then, good-by,” said her hostess, opening the heavy front door for +her. “I hope you’ll come again for a longer call.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I will,” said Lucy cheerfully. “Good-by.”</p> + +<p>She had made half the long journey down <span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>the high steps, one step at a +time, when she remembered something.</p> + +<p>“I wis you a happy New Year,” she said, retracing some of the hard +road, then she was gone.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if I ought not send a messenger to this address,” said Mrs. +Francis, looking at the card. “I am sure the funny tot has run away. +However, it is too late now.”</p> + +<p>Lucy went on down the avenue. She passed many houses which for some +reason did not attract her, and her feet were getting very wet, and +she began to feel tired and thoroughly cold. At last she selected a +house where children’s faces appeared at the window, and tried to ring +the bell. But it was not an electric one, and her small arms could +not manage to pull it. She tapped on the glass for a long time, till +at last some one heard her, and a merry-faced girl came to the door. +She took the card from Lucy, read it, stared at her a moment, and then +burst out laughing.</p> + +<p>“Come in, Mrs. Merrick, ma’am. Sure it’s delighted Mrs. Van Alen will +be to see ye.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span> +This reception cheered Lucy’s soul, and she followed readily when the +maid bade her come up to the sitting-room. Here a motherly-looking +woman came to greet her, and shook the little hand extended to her.</p> + +<p>“I am very glad to meet Mrs. Merrick,” she said.</p> + +<p>But Lucy’s eyes were riveted on a wonderful doll house in the corner, +before which a little girl and boy were seated staring at her.</p> + +<p>“Well, I was Mrs. Mehwick out making New Year’s calls, but I guess I’ll +be Lulie here, if you’ll let me see that pessely beautiful house,” she +said.</p> + +<p>“Certainly I will if you will do something for me first,” said Mrs. Van +Alen, “and that is let me take off your wet shoes and stockings, and +rub your little feet nice and warm, and then give you some warm milk to +drink, for you are as cold as a little icicle.”</p> + +<p>“Well, all wight,” said Lucy graciously. “I did forgot my wubbers and +leggings.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe nurse put your things on for you, did she?” asked Mrs. +Van Alen, taking Lucy on her knee, and cuddling her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>feet in her warm +hand as she held them close to the grate fire.</p> + +<p>“Nobody didn’t put ’em on,” said Lucy, “nobody but just me. Gwacie’s +got sore froat, and Nonie’s taking care of her, and mamma’s out, and +Inez and Nellie is in Marcy’s woom, and nobody, not nobody saw me. +Won’t they be s’prised fen they know I’s out?”</p> + +<p>“I think it is only too certain,” said Mrs. Van Alen. “Hurry, Katie; +the address is there.” And she gave Katie, who had been waiting, the +card that Lucy had sent up to her.</p> + +<p>“Now may I see the baby house?” asked Lucy when Mrs. Van Alen had put +on a pair of her children’s stockings and slippers, and set her down on +the hearth, and she had finished the last drop of her warm milk.</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed. This is Daisy Van Alen, and Harry Van Alen, and, +children, this is little Lulie Merrick come to see you.”</p> + +<p>After a few moments of silent staring the three burst into chatter over +the charms of the cooking-stove in the doll-house kitchen, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>and the +little Van Alens explained it had only just come, being a gift from +Santa Claus delayed in the express.</p> + +<p>While Lucy’s adventures had come to such a happy end, the agony at her +home was increasing every moment. The description of the lost child had +been telegraphed to every police station and hospital in the city, but +no result had followed so far. Mrs. Merrick made up her mind that Lucy +was kidnapped, and walked up and down the room, moaning and wringing +her hands, refusing to be comforted. Perhaps it was hardest of all for +Marcy, denied the relief of motion, and doomed to lie perfectly still +through the two long hours of uncertainty, thinking of the dear little +sister whose pretty curly head she might never see again tipped back +against the foot-board of her bed, as she sat in her favorite position +telling her stories. And Mr. Merrick hurried along in fruitless search +from street to street, fearing that Lucy had been run over, and that +if not killed outright, the youngest, like the eldest of his children, +might be crippled.</p> + +<p>Into all this agony came hurrying the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>pleasant, rosy face of Mrs. Van +Alen’s Katie, saying breathlessly:</p> + +<p>“I came to tell ye all your little girl was safe at our house, where +she come and knocked at the front-door glass, being too small entirely +to ring the bell, and sint up this card, saying she do be making New +Year’s calls. And Mrs. Van Alen took off her wet shoes and stockings, +and made her drink warm milk, for she was that wet and muddy from the +sloppy streets, and she’ll be playing with our children till you send +for her.”</p> + +<p>Norah put her arms around Katie and hugged her, and all the Merricks +would have liked to have followed her example.</p> + +<p>When Norah, who went to fetch Lucy home, arrived, she found that young +lady very ill-disposed to leave, being quite happy with the wonderful +baby house, and having so much attention paid to her.</p> + +<p>On her return she was hugged nearly breathless by the entire family, +who were themselves so breathless from laughing and sobbing that they +could not scold her.</p> + +<p>But poor little Lucy paid for her adventures <span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>and forgotten rubbers by +a sharp attack of croup that night, when for three hours her mother and +Norah feared that they had only found her to lose her again forever.</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe I’ll make more New Year’s calls, Nonie,” croaked the +poor child hoarsely in the morning. “They’re nice, but they make me +choke too badily. You tell papa I’m glad there’s no more New Year’s +calls, and not to be sorry ’bout they’re being all stopped making them.”</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="x">CHAPTER X.<br> +<span>A PARTING.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> soft winds of April were blowing over New York, and the spring +sunshine made everything as gay and bright as that cheerful city always +is in fine weather. The Merricks had “spring fever,” and school was +irksome; they yearned to go somewhere, it did not much matter where, +and talked longingly of the time when they should go into the country.</p> + +<p>The mail was brought in as they were all seated at breakfast, and among +the letters was one for Nellie. She read it with flushing cheeks and +eyes dancing with joy, which gave place to a very sober look as she +folded the letter and glanced around the table.</p> + +<p>“Any news from home, Nellie?” asked her aunt, noticing her varying +expressions.</p> + +<p>“Pa says he would like me to come back,” said Nellie.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span> +“Go back!” cried Inez in horror, while Bob said decidedly: “Well, you +can’t do it!” and Hugh added: “Not much you can’t.”</p> + +<p>“When does he want you, and why must you go?” asked Mrs. Merrick, while +her uncle said: “Nonsense, you can’t go till school closes, and then I +had planned taking you to the country with us, and keep you till school +begins again.”</p> + +<p>“Oh my, I never could stay away like that,” laughed Nellie. “Pa says +he won’t set a day for my coming, because he doesn’t know what you may +have planned for me to do, but he would like me to go the first of the +week. He says a month or so more school can’t matter much, and ma isn’t +well. It has been a hard winter for her without me, and she’s tired. He +says he doesn’t want to tell her I’m coming, but let it be a surprise +to her, and so I’m just to telegraph him when I start, and walk in on +her. If ma’s tired and needs me, I’ll really have to go, you see.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you want to go,” cried Inez, with tears in her eyes. “I +suppose you haven’t thought how Marcy’d feel.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span> +“I do want to see them all at home just lots,” said Nellie honestly. +“When I think about them I get nearly crazy, for, you see, I was never +away from home before, and they <em>are</em> so nice. But when I think of +leaving you all I feel as though I couldn’t do it, and I do think of +Marcy, and I only hope she won’t miss me.”</p> + +<p>“You know very well she will, and she needs you more than anybody,” +cried Inez.</p> + +<p>“She has you——” began Nellie.</p> + +<p>“Oh, me,” cried Inez, in new and very becoming humility, “I’m not you, +and I never shall be.”</p> + +<p>“Now, my dear Inez,” said her mother, “I shall dread Nellie’s going +quite as much as you will, not only because I cannot bear the thought +of our poor girl up-stairs being lonely, but because I shall miss +Nellie myself sorely. But if her mother needs her, and her father has +bidden her come, I do not see how we can escape the misfortune. So we +will try not to be selfish, only I want Nellie to know that we shall +all feel that we have lost our right hand if she goes.”</p> + +<p>“Where’s Nellie going?” demanded Lucy, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>who had held a teaspoonful of +oatmeal suspended in mid air, with the milk slowly dripping back into +the bowl, while she turned from one speaker to the other in puzzled +dismay.</p> + +<p>“Nellie’s going home,” said Grace, tears running quietly down each +cheek.</p> + +<p>“She can’t go. Papa, don’t let her go. You wite to ’em, and say, ‘I’m +sowwy, but you can’t never get Nellie; not never, forever, at all,’” +cried Lucy.</p> + +<p>“Nellie will come back in the fall, Lulie. You must be a good girl, and +take care of Marcy till she comes,” said Mr. Merrick. “Well, if it must +be, Nellie, what day do you think you will go?”</p> + +<p>“This is Saturday. Suppose I go Wednesday?” said Nellie.</p> + +<p>“Alone?” cried Mrs. Merrick.</p> + +<p>“I came alone,” said Nellie; “I don’t mind. Pa took me to Kansas City +and put me in care of the conductor, and he looked after me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I think it’s the meanest thing I ever heard of,” said Bob, with +a face crimson from repressing the tears that Hugh <span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>could not quite +keep back, and which were streaming down Inez’s and Grace’s cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t want to leave you, though I shall be glad to see ma and +pa and the children,” cried Nellie, choking. “Please don’t cry, Inez, +or you’ll make me. If I can I’ll come East to go to school again next +winter. I wish you’d all move to Prairie Rest.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter with your moving to New York?” asked Bob.</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s so much more to do in Prairie Rest,” said Nellie, nor +could she see why the others laughed.</p> + +<p>The dismal news was broken to Marcy, who received it in silence, trying +to keep Nellie from seeing how hard it was to give up the cheery cousin +who made so much of the sunshine of her shadowed life.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said at last, “I’m glad you came, Nellie, for you have been +such a comfort, and if you hadn’t we should never have known you. But +it will be awful without you, and I’m sure I don’t see how we shall get +on at all.”</p> + +<p>“I want you to love me, Marcy, and it makes me so happy, I don’t know +what to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>do to have you say I was a comfort to you, but I can’t bear to +think you’ll miss me,” cried Nellie.</p> + +<p>“I do love you so much,” said Marcy, putting her arms around her, and +kissing the bright face till her breath gave out. “You’re so sweet and +good, and full of fun, nobody could help loving you, and unless I lost +my head as well as my feet, I don’t know anything I couldn’t better +spare than you. And it might be a good idea to lose my head, for then +maybe I’d go to heaven, after a while in purgatory, and then I could +fly about. Sometimes I get into black pits of despair, Nellie.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I can tell you one thing: if you went to heaven this house would +be a pretty sad place,” said Nellie earnestly. “You may not know it, +Marcy, but since you were hurt you’ve just been the hub of the wheel, +and they all simply worship you, and think all you say is law and +gospel. So if you want to know, I can tell you that you’re the thing +on earth they all love best, and not because you are sick, but because +you are so patient, and loving, and thoughtful, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>sweet. I don’t +suppose you remember that when I came you said you wanted to do some +big, splendid thing, and I said I’d like to be a saint—just a little +home saint. Well, you’re doing what I thought I’d like to do, and I +envy you, Marcy Merrick, even if you never got one bit better than you +are now.”</p> + +<p>Marcy had hidden her face in the pillow and was crying quietly during +this outburst, but her tears were tears of joy that her dreams were +fulfilling.</p> + +<p>At Marcy’s special request Nellie’s trunk was brought into her room to +be packed, and many and peculiar were the things that found their way +into it during the operation. Gifts for each member of the family in +Prairie Rest of course were there, and many little treasures for Nellie +were tucked in when she was not looking, to be discovered after she +reached home. Mrs. Merrick had grown so fond of the sunny little girl, +and was so grateful to her for the comfort she had given Marcy during +the first hardest weeks of her trial, that she vied with the children +in showing it in parting. Indeed, another trunk had to be purchased on +the last day, in which <span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>Bob and Hugh deposited their parting gift to +Nellie, which they had themselves made with much mystery and no small +effort. This was a box, which they had put together and carved, which +accounted for the two bandaged fingers on Hugh’s hand and the one on +Bob’s. The box bore the initials N. M. on the lid in blue paint with +red trimmings, and below that the boys’ own initials. This was intended +as a work-box, and though the lid never would quite shut, and the +letters were rather wavering, it was much prized by Nellie when she +found it on opening her trunk in Prairie Rest.</p> + +<p>“Where can my muff be?” cried Nellie, holding the chinchilla collar in +her hand and whirling about wildly. “I was sure I laid it on the couch.”</p> + +<p>Nellie and Inez shook up the pillows and peered under chairs, but there +was no muff to be found. Suddenly Grace cried out:</p> + +<p>“Oh, look, Nellie!”</p> + +<p>There in the furthest corner, where Kris Kringle had carried it, was +her muff, and in it lay the small Yorkshire himself, his forepaws and +shiny nose sticking out of it, sleeping <span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>the sleep of youth, though not +of innocence, for he did more mischief in a day than most dogs could +think of in a week. And with her snowy head resting on the side of the +muff, and her long plume of a tail gently tapping the floor, while her +parted lips wore almost a smile of self-satisfaction, and her forepaws +drooped gracefully was Miss Merry, also sound asleep.</p> + +<p>“I’ll get it,” cried Inez. “You bad babies, get up this moment.”</p> + +<p>But Nellie stayed her hand.</p> + +<p>“No, don’t waken them, they’re so cosey and dozy,” she cried. “I’ll +pack everything else, and put in the muff after they wake up.”</p> + +<p>“Nellie’s a lady, sure pop!” cried Bob, who loved animals with all +his boyish heart. “Nobody but a real lady would put herself out to be +polite to a puppy and a kitten.”</p> + +<p>“I never can thank you all for being so good to me,” said Nellie as +they were gathered together for her last evening in New York. One hand +was held tight in both of Marcy’s, while the other rested on Bob’s +shoulder, and Hugh clasped the thumb. Inez sat behind Nellie, both arms +around her <span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>neck, and her head on hers, while Lucy sat on her lap, and +Grace clasped her knees, crying softly.</p> + +<p>“We have not been kind to you, my dear child, because there can be +no kindness where one is as dear to us as you are,” said Mr. Merrick +heartily. “You’ve been a little sunbeam in the house through a hard +winter, and if I had my way, I’d never let you go away, even for a +visit, but I’d keep you in spite of your father and the law if I +weren’t promised to have you back in October.”</p> + +<p>When it was time to go to the train two carriages drew up to the +Merricks’ door, for all the family insisted on seeing Nellie off; even +Mr. Merrick had promised to be at the station to say good by, and give +the conductor special injunctions to look after Nellie’s safety and +welfare. Marcy clung to her as if she could never let go, and watched +her out of the door with such wistful eyes that Nellie had hardly +courage to turn back to wave her hand and meet them.</p> + +<p>“Only till October, Marcy,” she cried, as she ran down the stairs. But +to poor Marcy five months looked very long. All the servants <span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>gathered +in the hall to bless Miss Nellie, and wish her good luck, for the +little maid had endeared herself to high and low.</p> + +<p>Inez, with her hat on ready to go to the station, had an inspiration of +unselfishness, and resolved to go back to Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Good-by, you dearest, darlingest thing,” she said, hugging Nellie with +all her might. “I hope you will forgive me for being nasty to you when +you first came, and I’ll be a better girl when you come back.”</p> + +<p>At the station they found Madeleine Greene with flowers and candy, and +Mr. Merrick said warningly:</p> + +<p>“Now don’t eat all the candy you have, Nellie, or I don’t know what may +happen. I wish I had brought you a bottle of medicine instead.”</p> + +<p>For Bob, Inez, and Hugh had given her candy, and Mr. Merrick had +himself brought down a five-pound box.</p> + +<p>The bell rang, and her friends left Nellie in her compartment, and drew +up in line along the platform below her window. The engine puffed, the +couplings tightened with a little <span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>jar, and the train began to move +slowly out of the station.</p> + +<p>The last the Merricks saw was a tearful round face pressed close to the +window-pane, surmounted by a hat very much awry, and with straining +eyes striving to get the last glimpse of them.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Bob hoarsely, as they went through the station to the +carriages, “she’s the nicest girl in the world, except Marcy. But who +would have thought when she came that we should feel as if the bottom +had fallen out of the world because we had lost the Prairie Chicken?”</p> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="xi">CHAPTER XI.<br> +<span>A REAL POEM.</span></h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is always a sensation of surprise in returning to a familiar spot +after an absence and finding it unchanged. The feeling was strong in +Marcy when, in May, the Merricks went to their country-house after the +winter that had so transformed her life.</p> + +<p>The journey was very painful to her, not only because of the fatigue, +which was lessened by all sorts of devices, but because she had grown +so sensitive to the wondering eyes of strangers, that even in her +closed litter she felt as though they were fixed upon her curiously. +Merry made the journey in the litter with her little mistress, which +was fortunate, for she was so firmly convinced that she was being borne +to destruction, and mewed her woes so plaintively, that in trying to +soothe her Marcy forgot some of her own discomfort.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span> +For a few days after her arrival Marcy was not so well, but when +she had rested, and grown accustomed to the bracing air, she gained +strength daily, and by June was able to spend long hours in her +couch-chair, tasting a little of her old joy in merely being alive.</p> + +<p>One day she said to her mother:</p> + +<p>“Mamma, I want to get on the grass so badly; it seems as though my +flesh and bones were aching for it. Don’t you know how I always loved +to get right down in it, and Norah used to scold me for getting all +grass stains, and say I was worse than the little children? Well, it +seems to me I shall fly into tiny pieces if you don’t help me get at +the grass. Can’t you have a bed made on the ground, so I can at least +run my fingers through it?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll try,” her mother said, and after that every day there was a +mattress carried out under a big tree, and there Marcy could lie +watching the swaying boughs above her and running her thin fingers +through the grass blades.</p> + +<p>She soon discovered that the tree was a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>sort of village, where myriad +little lives were living. Gray squirrels frisked up and down its trunk, +and would run out on a limb close above her, and scold her well when +they discovered she was there, and whisk back, only to return and peer +at her with uncontrollable curiosity. Marcy began providing herself +with crumbs, and soon the little fellows learned that she was quite +harmless, and vouchsafed to come down and partake of the luncheons she +spread for them. An oriole had built a nest on a limb directly above +her, and she could watch the quietly clad mother bird swing and swing +in the soft air, while her husband, like a big jewel, flashed back and +forth, bringing her solid comfort in some delicious morsel, or cheering +her with short bursts of liquid song that sounded like the scent of +flowers and the beauty of June made audible. And one day, to Marcy’s +infinite delight, a cat-bird, that naughty cousin of the mocking-bird, +who can sing so exquisitely when he will, poised in the air about three +feet above the tall grass gone to seed close by her head, and keeping +himself up by rapid strokes of his wings, poured <span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>forth his soul in +such glorious, joyous melody, that Marcy felt her eyes grow moist from +the keen delight of its beauty, and gratitude that life could still be +so sweet.</p> + +<p>These pleasures were hers only when she was alone, which was seldom. +The children could not be tempted from her long by all the attractions +of the country, and no joy was perfect and no sorrow comforted without +Marcy.</p> + +<p>A collection of all sorts of treasures were always around her +couch—fading flowers, queer stones, and everything the fields can +yield—brought by the little brothers and sisters as an offering at the +shrine of their household saint.</p> + +<p>“They love me—oh, they really do love me, and they’re never happy +without me now!” thought Marcy in deep content. “And how I used to +drive them off just to be selfish, and try to do silly things which I +thought were fine ones.”</p> + +<p>And Marcy found consolation on those days when the brisk breeze drove +swiftly over her tree-top the gray clouds, with curly edges showing +dazzling white beneath, that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>though she could no longer run over the +hill-tops with her kite faster than the boys, they now thought no one +could untangle their snarled kite-tails as well as Marcy, and no one +could do anything as well as she could.</p> + +<p>“Auntie Stockton is coming up for a week, Marcy,” said Inez one +morning. “She will be here this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m glad!” cried Marcy joyfully.</p> + +<p>“Auntie Stockton” was a sweet old lady, no relation to the children, +but was the kind of old lady who was auntie to all the world, whose +coming is hailed with delight by all little folk.</p> + +<p>When she came Marcy was seated on the western piazza. It was sunset, +and all the west was flaming with crimson and gold, and Norah had just +brought Marcy out to see it. The blinds of the parlor were closed, and +no one knew she was there.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrick welcomed Auntie Stockton heartily, and at once the dear +old lady said:</p> + +<p>“How is my poor little Marcy? I long to see her, and I dread to, I am +so afraid of crying over her.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you mustn’t,” Mrs. Merrick said <span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>quickly. “Marcy is getting +stronger; the country has done wonders for her. I suppose, considering +the nature of her injury, we could hardly have hoped she would do so +well.”</p> + +<p>“I know. I saw the doctor before I came up here,” said Auntie Stockton. +“He said he thought she would be able to walk on crutches when she was +twenty.”</p> + +<p>Marcy turned pale, and bowed her face on her hands.</p> + +<p>The words that sounded so hopeful to her mother and old friend, who had +feared she could never walk, rang in her ears like a knell. Although +she had made up her mind to being an invalid, she had looked forward +to walking in a year at most. The tears fell fast through her fingers. +When she was twenty! Eight—no seven full years more, for she would be +thirteen in September, and then only to walk with crutches!</p> + +<p>“Oh, I can’t, I can’t!” she sobbed under her breath.</p> + +<p>Just then a little brown song sparrow, perched on the very tip of +a little cedar-tree, and outlined in a tiny silhouette against the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>bright west, repeated his simple little song, so sweet, so clear, +so pathetic, and yet so cheerful. “<em>Sweet</em>, <em>sweet</em>, +<em>sweeter</em>, <em>sweeter</em>, <em>sweeter</em>, <em>sweet</em>,” he sang.</p> + +<p>Marcy raised her tear-wet face, and smiled at the little bird.</p> + +<p>“Bless you, birdie; you always sing when the sun goes down,” she said. +“Perhaps I can if I try.” And she hastily dried her eyes, hearing some +one coming.</p> + +<p>“How is it with Marcy?” asked a gentle voice, as a tender hand was laid +on her shining hair.</p> + +<p>“Well, dear auntie,” said Marcy cheerily, receiving her kiss, and +returning it with all her heart.</p> + +<p>Auntie Stockton sat down by her and watched Marcy as she asked about +her life, and what pleasure she contrived to get out of it.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you, auntie, but I never told any one else what made me able +to bear it,” said Marcy. And she told Auntie Stockton how impossible it +had seemed to her to live, with all that made life worth having, and +her dreams of doing noble things all ended. And <span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>how Father Glenn had +told her that her life could be a poem, which was more than writing +one, and how beautiful it would be to make the children love and lean +on her; and she repeated the little allegory of the garden. “And do you +know, auntie, what the little flower is that grew there and sweetened +all the air?” Marcy asked. “Father Glenn said it was a little white +blossom, but I think it is all purple and gold, like the altar on +Passion Sunday, for I am finding the little blossom, auntie, and it is +heartsease.”</p> + +<p>Auntie Stockton could not reply, but just then Hugh ran up, crying:</p> + +<p>“Marcy! Oh, Marcy, here you are! I was looking for you down by the +tree, and couldn’t find you.”</p> + +<p>“Did you want anything, Hughie?” asked Marcy, stroking the damp hair +from his forehead.</p> + +<p>“Nothing but you,” replied Hugh, balancing affectionately on the arm of +her chair.</p> + +<p>“What could you do without Marcy?” asked Auntie Stockton, watching the +scene, well pleased, and beginning to think Marcy’s <span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>fall was rather +cause for rejoicing than regret.</p> + +<p>“We couldn’t do a thing without her,” answered Hugh promptly. “They +used to say she was the genius of the family, and I never knew what it +meant, but now I do, for she is just like the genius in the fairy-tale +that makes everything come out right.”</p> + +<p>“You mean <em>genii</em>, Hugh—not <em>genius</em>,” laughed Marcy.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what’s the difference?” said Hugh, with supreme contempt for +trifles. “That’s what you are, anyhow, and what’s the difference +whether you stick on an <em>s</em> or not?”</p> + +<p>Auntie Stockton was given a chamber in the back of the house as the +quietest.</p> + +<p>“You won’t be afraid, auntie, though Mr. Merrick is not here,” said +Mrs. Merrick. “There are so many of us, and there is a bell from my +room into the coachman’s house; besides I have a revolver.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me, no; I’m not afraid,” replied Auntie Stockton cheerfully.</p> + +<p>But, nevertheless, Mrs. Merrick was wakened at what seemed to her the +middle of the night by a tapping at her chamber-door.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span> +“What is it?” she cried, and on Auntie Stockton’s voice responding +tremblingly: “It’s I, Clara,” she sprang up to let her in.</p> + +<p>“There is some one in the house,” whispered the old lady. “I heard him +walking across the kitchen, and as I lay and listened to make sure, I +distinctly heard a door shut and a window open.”</p> + +<p>“Mercy upon us!” cried Mrs. Merrick, and ran trembling to her bureau +drawer and took out the revolver; but Auntie Stockton threw up her +hands imploringly.</p> + +<p>“Clara, I beg you put it back,” she gasped. “I am more afraid of it +than of any man.”</p> + +<p>Inez and Grace had the room next their mother’s, and they appeared at +this moment.</p> + +<p>“Oh, mamma, is it burglars? Oh, mamma, what shall we do?” they sobbed.</p> + +<p>The boys, too, sleeping at the end of the hall, had heard the voices, +and came to ask what was happening. Bob was inclined to consider it +good sport, but Hugh was panic-stricken.</p> + +<p>“Now let us be calm, and think,” said Mrs. Merrick, forgetting all +about the bell <span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>to the coachman’s house in the excitement. “Turn the +gas up higher, Inez. We must do something.”</p> + +<p>And to prove that she was perfectly calm and equal to the emergency, +Mrs. Merrick went to the glass and put on a linen collar and necktie +that lay on her bureau over her night-dress.</p> + +<p>Bob giggled, and so did Inez, though she was dreadfully frightened, +but Grace wept steadily, and Hugh tried to hide under the pillow. Mrs. +Merrick, fortified by her fitting preparation to meet burglars, turned +from the glass, saying:</p> + +<p>“I am going down. We must not waken Marcy and Lulie. Children, you stay +here. Auntie, I’ll take the revolver, and you can come with me if you +like.”</p> + +<p>“Clara Merrick, I will not stir one step if you touch that weapon,” +said Auntie Stockton. “You mustn’t lay your finger on it. Your hands +are shaking like a leaf, and you might kill these children.”</p> + +<p>This awful suggestion, adding fear of his own mother to his other +terror, caused Hugh to wail outright.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span> +Suddenly Inez said:</p> + +<p>“What time is it?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrick’s room was so darkened by heavy curtains and green shades +that no one could guess the hour. Mrs. Merrick pulled her watch from +under her pillow. “Six o’clock!”</p> + +<p>With one accord Mrs. Merrick, Inez, and Bob ran to the head of the back +stairs.</p> + +<p>“Eliza, are you up?” “Eliza, are you down?” “Eliza, are you there?” +cried all three together.</p> + +<p>Eliza, the cook, was heard coming heavily across the floor, and opened +the door at the foot of the stairs.</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma’am,” she replied; “I’m building me fire.”</p> + +<p>Bob sat down on the upper step and fairly howled with laughter, while +Inez ran shrieking back to her mother’s room, crying:</p> + +<p>“Why, auntie, auntie, the burglar is Eliza getting breakfast!”</p> + +<p>It was Saturday, and Mr. Merrick came up that evening to spend Sunday +with his family.</p> + +<p>“A note from Father Glenn, Marcy,” he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>said, handing her one as he +kissed her on his arrival. “This is the anniversary of your First +Communion, and he remembered it.”</p> + +<p>The note ran: “Just a line, dear child, to tell you how glad I am of +the growth of the sweet little blossom, and that I pray every day the +Good Gardener will tend it, and care for it, and long spare it to us to +sweeten the lives of all who come into the garden.”</p> + +<p>“A secret, Marcy?” said her mother, watching the smile and tears rise +in the eyes of her darling.</p> + +<p>“A little secret between Father Glenn and me, mamma dear,” replied +Marcy, slipping the note in the folds of her wrapper.</p> + +<p>“These dear little fingers used to try to do great deeds,” said Mr. +Merrick, taking up Marcy’s hand. “What do you think, children? Do they +do great things now?”</p> + +<p>“I think they do everything I want done,” said Bob.</p> + +<p>“I think Marcy’s just like the queen bee, and we’re the other bees,” +said Grace, who had been much interested of late in reading of the +wonderful ways of bees.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span> +“I think she’s more like the honey pot if we are the bees,” said Hugh, +giving her a hug that he had learned to make gentle as well as tight.</p> + +<p>“I think she’s the comfort of her mother’s heart,” said Mrs. Merrick, +kissing her.</p> + +<p>“And the light of her father’s eyes,” added Mr. Merrick.</p> + +<p>“And I say she’s just Marcy,” said Lucy.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s the whole of it, Lulie; there’s only one Marcy,” cried +Inez.</p> + +<p>“At last our little genius has made her perfect poem, sung her perfect +song, and painted her perfect picture,” said Auntie Stockton gently. +“Yours was a fall upward, wasn’t it, Marcy?”</p> + +<p>“They all spoil me,” Marcy said, with happy tears on the face grown +beautiful in its sweetness and patience. “I think we’re the happiest +family in the world, and when I fell I seemed to fall right into +everybody’s heart.”</p> + +<div class="section"> +<p class="center mt3"><span class="smcap">Printed by Benziger Brothers, New York.</span></p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="tn"> +<p class="center">Transcriber’s Note:</p> + +<p class="noi">New original cover art included with this eBook +is granted to the public domain.</p> + +<p class="noi">Hyphenation and spelling have been retained as they appear in the +original publication except as follows:</p> + +<ul> + <li>Page 21<br> + W ell, I’m sorry she’s so big <em>changed to</em><br> + <a href="#Well">W-ell</a>, I’m sorry she’s so big</li> + + <li>Page 73<br> + so easy keeping head there <em>changed to</em><br> + so easy keeping <a href="#head">ahead</a> there</li> + + <li>Page 84<br> + kind of an alle alleglory <em>changed to</em><br> + kind of an <a href="#alle">alle—alleglory</a></li> +</ul> +</div> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78414 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |