CHAPTER XIII.MAMIE HECKER.
According to the children’s ideas, one of the funniest things about living in the country was that eggs could be used as money.
It was such a delightfully simple way of getting candy. One could go to the barns, find two eggs, and, with one in each hand, march off to the corner grocery-store and get their value in chocolate-sticks, if you liked chocolate. If not, why, four marsh-mallows, rather stale and floury, to be sure, but just as nice for toasting, could be had for one egg.
It always seemed remarkably like getting candy for nothing, and “egg-candy,” as they called it, was certainly much more delicious than that for which one paid just ordinary, every-day pennies.
There were many errands to be done in so large a family, and as mamma believed that every child should be brought up to be useful, Cricket and Eunice were very apt to be the“leggers,” as they called it. They usually sold their services for an egg or two apiece.
“Well, young women,” said Dr. Ward, one morning, “I am in search of a pair of messengers of just about your size.”
“All right, papa. You can have them on the usual terms,” answered Cricket, importantly.
“You’re a regular pair of Jews, you two,” laughed papa, teasingly. “You do nothing for nothing. Don’t you think you ought to run on errands for love? I work for your board and clothes, and certainly you should do errands for me.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” returned Cricket, hugging him. “I love you in return for that, and I cut your magazines for you, too. That’s plenty of pay. The errands are my persquisites. Cook says everybody ought to have persquisites.”
“Oh, that’s it. On the ground of persquisites, then, I’m perfectly willing to pay.”
“And then, of course,” went on Cricket, “I would be willing to do an errand for nothing, very socionally”—she meant occasionally—“just to be obliging, you know.”
“That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” laughed papa. “Now, then, I want you to go to Mr.Henry Barnes, and give him this note, and wait for an answer. It’s important. Then, when you come back, you can go to the barns and get two eggs apiece, and go to the store if you want to. When you come back, mind. I want the note carried directly.”
“All right, sir,” answered Cricket, taking the note, and away scampered the little “leggers” for their broad-brimmed hats.
It goes without saying that Cricket’s could not be found, and at last she recollected she had dropped it yesterday, down into the dry well in the lower pasture, and had forgotten to get it again.
“Can’t I wear my best one, mamma?” she begged.
“No, my dear, certainly not,” answered mamma, not knowing it was necessary that the note should be taken immediately. “You know that is the rule always. If you will be careless and leave your things about, you must find them.”
So the children ran down to the lower pasture after the hat. It took some time to recover it, and then they had forgotten that there was any necessity for haste.
“Let’s take the ponies,” said Eunice, as they came back from the pasture, “and ride around the lake-road home. I haven’t been there since I fell in.”
“We can’t,” said Cricket. “Mike said yesterday that Charcoal’s shoe was loose, and he must take him to the blacksmith’s this morning. I saw him going right after breakfast, and he isn’t home yet.”
“Oh, bother! then we’ll have to walk,” said Eunice. But the walk looked very inviting, as they turned out of the avenue into the shady road. It wound down the hill, over the Kayuna, and swept around the curve out of sight.
Just over the bridge was the farmer’s house, a low, white building, half hidden in the trees. As the two little girls passed, they saw a frowzyheaded child of seven swinging on the gate.
“H’lo!” she called. “Where you goin’?”
“Somewhere to make little girls ask questions,” replied Eunice, teasingly.
“I’m goin’, too,” cried the child, scrambling down off the gate.
Now Mamie Hecker, the farmer’s little daughter, always wanted to “go too,” whenever she saw the children pass. She was a whining, dirty,disagreeable little thing, and always made herself very unpleasant. She stuck to the children like a burr, and oftentimes they would go far out of their way, if they saw her in the distance, to avoid her tagging after them. So when she now got off the gate and came up, chewing her sunbonnet string, as usual, the two little girls exchanged vexed glances.
“You can’t come, too,” said Cricket, decidedly.
“Yes, I can, too, you’re goin’ to the store to get some candy an’ I want some, too,” cried Mamie, dancing around them.
“No, we’re not, either. We’re going for a long walk, and you can’t come one step,” said Eunice, looking very determined, as they walked on.
“I will come, too! I will!” cried Mamie, catching hold of her dress, and trotting along.
“Don’t you dare touch my dress with your dirty little fingers,” cried Eunice, pulling her fresh gingham frock indignantly out of Mamie’s hands.
Mamie Hecker was one of those disagreeable children that give everyone a desire to box their ears, no matter what they do. Truth to tell, shegenerally deserved it, for her mother spoiled her. She was almost the only person that upset Cricket’s sweet temper, and Cricket now looked as if she could bite her.
“Oh, Cricket!” exclaimed Eunice, stopping short. “Have you papa’s note?”
“No, I thought you had,” said Cricket, in dismay.
“We must have left it by the dry well, then,” said Eunice, turning. “We must go and find it. Now, we’re going home again,” she added to Mamie, “so you needn’t tag any more. Horrid little tag-tail, anyway.”
Cricket and Eunice ran back up the road, jumped over the fence, and raced across to the pasture. Much to their relief, the white envelope still lay where they had left it.
Cricket picked it up, and put it safely in her pocket this time, and then the children walked more deliberately back.
“Let’s get our eggs now,” Eunice said, as they passed near the barn, “and skip around to the store the back way and get some candy, so we’ll have it to eat on the way. I’m awfully hungry.”
“All right, and Mamie Hecker won’t see us,either,” assented Cricket, entirely forgetting her father’s order to do the errand first. So they turned towards the barns. They had to search some little time for eggs, for the hens were late about their usual duties.
“Plaguey things,” said Cricket, “and there’s lots of hens standing ’round doing nothing.”
“Oh, here’s a nest,” called Eunice, “with two eggs in it, and here’s a hen on—”
Cricket unceremoniously slipped her hand under the hen and whisked her off. A warm white egg lay in the nest.
“She was just going to cluck, anyway,” said Cricket, as the hen clucked indignantly. “Say, cut-a-cut-ca-da-cut, if you want to, and don’t scold so. Your egg is all right. Here’s another in this nest. That’s four. Come on.”
They went out the side-door of the barn, intending to run across the orchard and into the back door of the store, and then to take a cut over the fields to the main road again. This would bring them out below the Heckers’ house.
To their great disgust, however, just outside the barnyard, they found Mamie Hecker lurking.
“I seen yer,” she said, triumphantly. “You’ve got some eggs, and you’re a-goin’ to the store to swap them for some candy. I’m a-goin’, too.”
“Now, Mamie Hecker,” said Eunice, stopping angrily, “you can go straight home. You shan’t go one step with us.”
Mamie squinted up her impish little black eyes, provokingly.
“Road’s mine as much as yours,” she said, dancing around, in a way peculiar to herself. “You can’t help my walkin’ in it.”
“You shan’t come with us,” said Eunice, stubbornly, ignoring that point.
“I’ll come as far as my father’s fence, any way,” said Mamie, walking backwards in front of them.
“You’re a horrid, mean, little copy-cat,” said Cricket, wrathfully. “I shouldn’t think you’d like to come where you’re not wanted.”
“I don’t keer,” returned Mamie, carelessly. “I want some candy.”
“We’ve given you candy, and we’vegivenyou candy,” said Cricket, “and the more we give you, the more you want. You shall not go one step with us to-day.”
“I’ll go as far as my pa’s fence goes, anyway,” repeated Mamie, skipping along, “’n’ I’ll go further if I wanter.”
“Mamie Hecker,” said Eunice, stopping suddenly, “if you go one step further than your father’s fence,—I’ll spank you.”