CHAPTER XXIII.WHEN MAMMA WAS A LITTLE GIRL.
The next morning rather dragged. Eunice was up and about again, though she looked a trifle pale, and did not feel in the mood even for a drive. Cricket went out for a short time with Mopsie, and took the twins with her, but she soon came back, finding that the motion of the pony-cart made her arm ache.
Mamma and auntie were sitting on the piazza under the vines, with their embroidery, and Cricket found Eunice there, also, comfortably settled in the broad Mexican hammock.
“Come here, Cricket,” Eunice called, “for mamma is going to tell us stories.”
“Goody!” cried Cricket, skipping up joyfully, in spite of her stiff knee.
Was there ever a child to whom mamma’s stories were not a mine of delight?
“Curl up in the other hammock, pet,” said mamma, “and rest while we talk. You don’t look like my Cricket, yet.”
Cricket stopped to give mamma one of her bear-squeezes,—for she looked so cool and sweet and pretty to her little girl, as she sat in her low chair,—and then she climbed into another hammock, and settled herself comfortably to listen.
“What shall I tell you about?” asked mamma, ready to begin. “I think I’ve told you every single thing I ever did, when I was a little girl.”
“Tell usanything,” said the children, in chorus. “Never mind if you have told it before.”
“Let me see. Did I ever tell you about my first lie? Indeed, my only one, for that matter.”
“Why, mamma!” cried Cricket, in great surprise. “Did you ever tell a story? I didn’t know that little girls ever used to do that. I thought they were all so good.”
“This happened when I was a very little girl, dear. Do you remember,” mamma asked auntie, “that little lilac print dress I had when I was about five years old? It was such a pretty little dress.”
“I remember the dress very well, and what happened the first time you wore it,” laughed auntie.
“Yes, that’s the time I mean. Well, children, I had on this little new dress, of which I was very proud. It was an afternoon in early spring, and it was the first cambric dress that I had had on that season, so I felt particularly fine in it. Auntie Jean and I ran out to play. You remember, don’t you, children, how the house and barns at your grandfather’s are, and how steep the little hill back of the barn is? It was all green and grassy, and we loved to play there. Jean’s new dress was not quite finished, so she had on her regular little afternoon frock, and I felt prouder than ever of mine. I plumed myself so much, that finally Jean wouldn’t play with me. I know I made myself very disagreeable,” added mamma, smiling.
“There were barrels and boxes back of the barn, where we used to play house. I got up on one of the boxes, after a time, when Jean left me to myself, and I began jumping off it. Jean was arranging the play-house near by. The hill, with its short, green grass, looked very inviting to me, and presently I called to Jean, ‘I dare jump off this box, and roll right down the hill over and over.’
“‘I wouldn’t,’ Jean said, very pleasantly,‘you might spoil your new dress.’ She really meant to advise me not to do it, but I thought that she meant that I was afraid of my new frock.
“‘Yes, I dare, too, and I will,’ I said, and off I jumped and rolled sideways down the hill, over and over. It had rained in the night, and, though the hill was dry, the water had collected in a little hollow at the foot, which I did not notice on account of the grass. Through this I rolled, splash.”
“Just like me,” remarked Cricket, with much interest. “Eunice says I’d tumble into the water, if there wasn’t a saucerful around.”
“Yes, very much like you,” returned mamma, smiling. “When I got up, my pretty little lilac frock, of course, was all draggled and stained.”
“What an object you looked!” laughed auntie, “and how angry you were!”
“Yes,” said mamma, laughing, also. “That was the funny part of it. I was so angry, but I’m sure I don’t know who with. I felt thatsomebodywas very much to blame, but I wasn’t at all willing to say that that somebody was my naughty little self. I got up, and looked down at my dress. Then I called out angrily, ‘Seewhat you’ve done, Jean Maxwell,’ as I stood at the foot of the hill. Jean looked at me as I came climbing up, scolding all the way, and then she burst out laughing. I suppose I was a very funny object, but I didn’t feel funny at all.”
“It was funny enough to hear you scold, and that was principally what I was laughing at,” said auntie.
“I dare say,” answered mamma. “By the time I reached the top of the hill I was in a great rage. I used to get into rages very easily, then.”
“You, mamma?” Eunice looked as if she could scarcely believe it.
“Yes, my dear, I wasn’t always a good little girl in those days. ‘I’m going to tell mother what a naughty girl you are, Jean,’ I half-sobbed.
“‘What a naughty girlIam? You’d better tell her what a naughty girl you are yourself, rolling down hill, and getting your dress all dirty,’ Jean said, getting angry in her turn. Then she went on with her play-house and wouldn’t speak to me any more. I ran crying towards the house. Before I got there, I had quite made up my mind that it was certainly allJean’s fault, somehow, and that if it hadn’t been for what she said, I shouldn’t have rolled down the hill in the first place, and so I shouldn’t have spoiled my new dress.
“I burst into the sitting-room, where your grandmother sat sewing. You know what a lovely old lady grandma is now, children, with her white puffs and dark eyes, and she was just as lovely then, when her hair was black. She looked up, as I rushed in panting.
“‘Gently, gently, little daughter,’ she said. ‘Whathashappened to your new frock, my dear? oh, what a sight you are!’
“Now I knew very well that grandma wouldn’t have punished me for spoiling the dress, for after all, it was an accident. I had often rolled down that hill before, and no harm had come of it. So I don’t, in the least, know what made me say it, excepting that I was so angry, but almost before I realized it, I was saying very fast, ‘mother, Jean was angry because I had on my new frock and she hadn’t, and so, when I was just standing on a box, suddenly she came behind me, and pushed me over as hard as she could, and I rolled down the hill, and rolled right through some water,and so I’ve spoiled my new dress.’ I was so excited that it never occurred to mother that I was not speaking the truth. I was so little—only five years old,—and I had never told her a lie before.
“‘Why! why!’ she exclaimed, laying down her work, and getting up. ‘I am surprised that Jean should do that. Come upstairs with me, and I will change your dress.’ That was all she said to me then, for mother never scolded at one child for what another one did, as I have heard some mothers do, and of course she thought this was Jean’s fault. So she took me upstairs to the big nursery and took off my dress.
“‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘that your pretty little dress is spoiled. Now, it will have to go straight to the wash, and it won’t look so pretty again.’
“‘That naughty Jean!’ I ventured to say, growing bolder.
“‘Hush, my dear,’ said grandma, ‘I will talk to Jean. I dare say she did not mean to push you so hard.’”
“But I should think, mamma,” broke in Eunice, “that you would have thought that Jeanwould come in any minute, and say she hadn’t done it at all.”
“Of course, I was a very silly little girl not to think of that,” answered mamma, “but it shows that I wasn’t used to deceiving. I never thought of the consequences. Somehow, too, by that time, I felt quite certain that I was telling the exact truth, and I entirely forgot that Jean would soon be in to say she hadn’t touched me.
“Well, only a few minutes after that, Jean came into the house, and ran quickly upstairs to the nursery. I was still running around in my little white petticoat and under-waist, while mother went to the clothes-press, to get a dress for me. You know that big carved wardrobe that still stands by grandma’s door in the hall? The one your grandpa brought home in one of his voyages? Well, it was that very one. Grandma came back, as Jean came in singing. She looked so entirely unconcerned that I think mother was surprised.
“‘Jean,’ she said, coming in and holding out her hand to her, ‘how could you do such a naughty thing as to push your little sister so hard that she fell off the box, and rolled down the hill?’
“I can see your look of surprise now, Jean,” said mamma, turning to auntie, “as you stopped short and said, ‘Pushed her off the box? why, I didn’t! she jumped off herself.’
“Grandma looked from one to the other of us.
“‘What is this?’ she said. ‘One or the other of you is telling me what isn’t true.’ I shall never forget her look of grieved surprise. It must have been difficult for her to decide which was the guilty one, at first, for I felt that I must stick to what I had said. All my anger came back, and I jumped up and down, screaming, ‘you pushed me off, Jean Maxwell! you pushed me off.’
“‘Mother, Ididn’t!’ Jean said. ‘Please believe me, for you know I wouldn’t do such a thing.’ Really, it would have been much more like me, for I had a quick temper, and I was always losing it.
“‘Margaret,’ said mother, taking hold of my hands, ‘stand still and tell me the exact truth. Did Jean push you off the box, or did you jump?’
“‘Jean pushed,’ I began, but I could not look into mother’s eyes, and tell her a lie again. ‘Anyhow,’ I said, half-crying, ‘she wanted to push me!’
“‘Tell me the truth, Margaret,’ mother said. ‘Did Jean touch you at all?’
“‘No,’ I said, unwillingly.
“‘Did she even say she was going to?’
“‘No!’ I cried, ‘for she would not speak to me.’
“‘Then why did you say that she wanted to push you off? Did she ever do such a thing?’
“‘No, never!’ I admitted, and then I began to feel very much ashamed of myself, for my anger never lasted long.
“Then mother said, ‘Very well, Jean, I quite understand the matter now.’ Then she sent her away, and talked to me for a long time. She questioned me closely, and learned that I was the only one to blame. She made me understand what a dreadful thing it was to tell even a little lie, and how telling little ones would lead to a habit, so that one might say what was not true in very important matters. Altogether, I was very repentant, and promised never to tell another lie about anything, and I believe I never did. The soap and water helped me remember it.”
“What was the soap and water?” asked Cricket.
“Why, my mother said, when she had finished talking to me, that she couldn’t kiss the little mouth that had let such a dreadful thing as a lie come through it, till it was all clean again,—and the only way to clean it was to wash it out. So she really did wash my mouth out thoroughly with Castile soap and water, and all the time she made me feel that it was not so much for a punishment, as really to make my mouth clean after the lie.
“Grandma seldom punished us, but somehow we always felt the consequences of our naughty deeds. And as I said, I think I never told another story.”