CHAPTER IV
A New Doll
Mrs. Murdoch was very cool to Eleanor after this, and Olive followed suit, while Donald did everything in his power to annoy his cousin. Jessie, however, was too sweet-tempered to make herself disagreeable, and little Alma was too much of a baby to be influenced against any one who was always kind to her and ready to amuse her. Mrs. Murdoch kept Bubbles strictly under her eye, and would not allow her to take Alma out of her sight, a fact which Eleanor resented more than Bubbles did. "As if Bubbles would be cruel to a little baby," she said to Jessie.
"But you know she beat Don dreadfully," Jessie replied.
"She didn't hurt him hardly one bit, and besides, he was going to strike me."
"Well, you know he didn't strike you," returned Jessie, and Eleanor felt helpless to argue the point.
Rock's letter had cheered her and strengthened her. If Rock would not tell his mother that he was having a hard time, neither would she tell her mother about her worries, for she was sure that her dearest mamma had more to trouble her than had Mrs. Heath, Dallas Rock's mother, and the child bore Olive's snubs and Mrs. Murdoch's cold looks with open defiance, but she would not tell any one but Rock; to him she wrote quite a long letter.
"It is so dreadful here now," she wrote. "My little house in the yard is all full of all sorts of stuff, and it is oh, so dirty, for the boys that Don brings in there do just as they please. Cousin Ellen is very partikular about mamma's house, but she don't care what comes of mine. I'm not going to worry mamma, Rock, but I wish you and Florence were here instead of Don and Olive. Jessie is a right nice little girl but she is a good deal littler than I am." These and other things Eleanor wrote to Rock and he answered in kind, so that Eleanor felt that they were comrades in misery as they had been comrades in pleasure the summer before.
It was the day before the butterman made his appearance, that an express package, addressed to Miss Eleanor Dallas, was left at the door. As it happened Eleanor was in her room when Bubbles came running upstairs saying: "Somepin fo' yuh! Somepin fo' yuh! Miss Dimple. Ain't I glad!"
With eager fingers Eleanor undid the string, uncovered the box and very carefully lifted the soft paper snugly packed around the prettiest little doll just about the size of the one which Donald had so wantonly destroyed. The child's little scream of delight brought Olive and Jessie from the next room, and they were soon all examining this new arrival. The doll wore a pretty traveling dress of grey with hat to match and grey suede shoes. Pinned to her frock was a note which read:
"Dear Dimple:"I am sending you a little friend of mine who, I hope, will be able to comfort you while your mamma is away. Her name is Ada and she is ready to be loved very much. I should like to have her taught from the books which you will find in her trunk, and I hope you will have no trouble in teaching her to be obedient and attentive."Your very loving"Aunt Dora."
"Dear Dimple:
"I am sending you a little friend of mine who, I hope, will be able to comfort you while your mamma is away. Her name is Ada and she is ready to be loved very much. I should like to have her taught from the books which you will find in her trunk, and I hope you will have no trouble in teaching her to be obedient and attentive.
"Your very loving"Aunt Dora."
The note was type-written and was very easy to read.
"Oh, my dear lovely child!" cried Eleanor. "I am so glad you have come. But where is the trunk, Bubbles?"
"Law! I nuver brought it up; I thought hit were fo' somebody e's," and Bubbles skurried downstairs as fast as her legs could take her, coming back in a moment with the trunk in her arms. Eleanor proceeded immediately to open it and found it filled with a most complete little wardrobe: two school dresses, a handsome suit for extra occasions, a fine white frock for parties. Then there were stockings, tiny handkerchiefs, all manner of under-clothing, a set of furs, ribbons, a little hood trimmed with fur, a cunning hat in a small bandbox, and at the very bottom of the trunk were found a slate and several funny little books. Even Olive could not resist many ohs and ahs as one after another of the dainty garments appeared. Aunt Dora had evidently made everything with her own hands and the tiny hems, the neat little seams, so excited the children's admiration that Jessie begged to take them to her mother to look at.
"Eleanor proceeded to open the trunk"
"Eleanor proceeded to open the trunk"
"Eleanor proceeded to open the trunk"
Mrs. Murdoch's remark was: "They are very nice, Jessie, but I wish Eleanor were more worthy of such kindness."
Eleanor, hearing the words, retreated to the door of her own room; standing there she retorted: "I am worth Aunt Dora's kindness as much as you are worth my mamma's. She wouldn't treat one of your children the way you do me, and I think when she lets you have her nice house to live in that you might be a little more polite to me."
"Such a want of fine feeling," sighed Mrs. Murdoch. "When you show a sweet and amiable spirit, Eleanor, I shall be ready to give you more affection, but you cannot expect it from those whom you twit and taunt because of their misfortunes."
"My mamma has a trouble, too," returned Eleanor, "and you are making a lot for me. I wish I had never seen you."
"Such a dreadfully spoiled child," sighed Mrs. Murdoch. "I would rather you did not come into my room, Eleanor, since you only stir up strife, and seem to delight in making impertinent speeches."
"You just keep out of my mother's room," said Olive, looking defiantly at Eleanor.
With a little choking sob, Eleanor turned and went away, saying only: "It's my mamma's room; my own mamma's room, and I was never turned out of it before."
"Never mind her, Olive," she heard Mrs. Murdoch say. "She is a spoiled, badly-managed child, and you must try to set her a good example. I am grieved to find that Florence is so indulgent and injudicious a mother."
Eleanor hearing, turned in a perfect storm of tears goaded beyond endurance to say, "You shall not say such things about my mother. She is the dearest and best in the world, and I'd like to know where anybody could find such a hateful, spoiled, wicked, wicked child as Donald. And as for Olive, she is a horrid little sneak. I saw her steal cake from the pantry and she told you that Bubbles did it. I don't tell stories and I don't take things without leave."
"Oh, mamma, I didn't," said Olive turning very red, but denying Eleanor's charge with emphasis.
"Don't add falsehood to your other sins, Eleanor," said Mrs. Murdoch. "Go to your room. Indeed, I wish to do my duty by you, but I cannot have you shield that favorite of yours by telling falsehoods about my children."
Olive whispered something to her, and she nodded in reply while Eleanor walked from the room and threw herself sobbing into Bubbles' arms. "Oh, Bubbles, Bubbles," she cried, "they say I tell stories and it is they who do, and they call me selfish and wicked when it is they who are. Oh, what shall I do?"
"Ne'm mind, Miss Dimple," said Bubbles, soothingly. "'Tain't goneter las' fo'ever, an' yuh jes' go 'long an' don' min' what Miss Murder say." Then she whispered: "Don' min' 'bout me. She ain't a goin' to fin' no place fo' me, an' yuh know I is goin' to Sylvy. Mebbe she won't be so cross when I'm gone. Come, now, le's play with yo' new dolly. My, ain't she pretty with them big eyes an' them rosy cheeks?"
"She is lovely," returned Eleanor, drying her eyes, "and I shall just love her, but I wish I could run away with you, Bubbles."
"Sh!" said Bubbles, for just then Olive entered and said in a prim way: "Mamma says you are not to stay in here with Eleanor, Barbara. She says you are to go down and set the table for tea, and you are not to stay in Eleanor's room nor even come in here without express permission."
Bubbles arose and obediently went below stairs, but she muttered much to herself and racked her brain for some way in which she could avenge the trials of her beloved Miss Dimple, who, meanwhile was trying to comfort herself with her new doll. A letter from her mother that day had said that Mr. Dallas was not quite so well but that Eleanor was not to worry, for she hoped to have better news the next time she wrote, and she was glad to hear that her little daughter was getting along well at school and that she was well. She must try to be kind and obedient and helpful to her Cousin Ellen.
"I won't, I won't, I won't," whispered Eleanor to herself. "I can't be. She is too hateful to me. I wish I had never seen her and I wish I could stay out of the house all the time." And indeed this is what she tried to do, starting early for school, and trying to spend as much of the afternoon as possible with some of her schoolmates. Olive had made friends with Janet Forrester, and Jessie had found a playmate nearer her own age, so Eleanor was free to select her own friends. Upon one occasion there came a clash upon this very subject, for Mrs. Murdoch insisted that Eleanor should go to Janet Forrester's to spend the afternoon. "I feel myself responsible for you, Eleanor," she said, "and I should like to know that you are somewhere with Olive that I may be able to account for you."
"Mamma doesn't like me to play with Janet," Eleanor blurted out.
"Why not?"
Eleanor hung her head. She did not like to tell tales, in school or out, but Olive spoke up: "I know, mamma; it's because Barbara stole a ring from Janet and she and Eleanor quarreled about it."
"Oh, what a story," cried Eleanor. "She didn't steal it, any such a thing. Janet said she did just to get Bubbles into trouble and she found the ring afterward at her own house. So there."
Mrs. Murdoch and Olive exchanged glances and Mrs. Murdoch lifted her eyebrows slightly, in a way that Eleanor much disliked.
"That's what Janet told me, anyhow, mamma," said Olive meaningly.
"There are always two sides to a question," said Mrs. Murdoch, "but if you are sure, Eleanor, that your mamma does not like you to play with Janet you needn't go. Mrs. Forrester has doubtless the same objection on her side."
Eleanor looked at her with blazing eyes; then stamping her foot she cried: "I wish you'd just write to mamma and ask her. She will tell you the truth, anyhow, if you don't believe me. I never tell stories. I never do such things. You can ask mamma." And she turned away.
This was on Wednesday before school, and on her return home she found Mrs. Murdoch in quite a perturbed state. "Eleanor," she said, "have you seen anything of Barbara? She hasn't been seen since about eleven o'clock."
"I haven't seen her," returned Eleanor curtly.
"Do you know where she is?"
Eleanor hesitated, then remembered that she did not know just where Sylvy's parents lived; it was somewhere in the country, but where she could not tell.
"Answer me," said Mrs. Murdoch. "Where is she?"
"I don't know, Cousin Ellen, at least, I know she has gone away somewhere in the country, but I don't know where the place is. You said you were going to send her away, and so she went anyhow."
"And you have known this all the time and haven't told me? Such deceit!"
"I don't know why I should have told," retorted Eleanor. "It wouldn't have done Bubbles any good, and I love her a thousand million times more than I do you, if she is black. She is white inside and I know you are not."
"Eleanor!" Mrs. Murdoch spoke very sternly. "You are really the most dreadful child I have ever encountered. I never had any one speak to me as you have done. You are completely contaminated by your association with servants."
"I don't tell stories, and I don't steal from the pantry, and I don't do lots of things your children do," returned Eleanor thoroughly defiant.
"Hush!" cried Mrs. Murdoch. "If it were not for worrying your mother I should tell her very plainly what I think of you, but as it is, my hands are tied. I shall have to pass over this as I have over many other things. If Barbara has gone I wash my hands of her, and when your mother returns she can do as she thinks fit about the affair. I am not in a position to punish you as you deserve, but I wish you not to address me or any of my family, except when absolutely necessary, while we remain here."
However much Mrs. Murdoch was pleased at Bubbles' departure to Eleanor it was a sore loss, and she went to bed that night clasping her dear Ada close to her heart and shedding many tears for Bubbles. The absence of the little colored girl in more ways than one, made it hard for Eleanor, for now Bubbles could not be used as a scapegoat for Olive's sly pilferings, nor for Don's tricks, and so by degrees it was Eleanor herself upon whom all the blame was laid. Did anything happen to be out of place, Eleanor had it last. Were there mud tracked through Mrs. Murdoch's clean halls, Eleanor did it; and, since Mrs. Murdoch's blind idolatry of her children did not permit her to see a fault in any one of them, poor Eleanor was gradually made to believe herself a most wicked person, and she was in danger of acquiring some of the very qualities which were attributed to her.
It was Miss Reese who first noticed this, for she saw that the child's sunny little face was now habitually clouded and that, whereas she had formerly been responsive to gentle chiding for some slight fault, she was beginning to show open defiance, and so the teacher called upon Mrs. Murdoch and very tactfully brought around the conversation to the subject which was upon her mind.
"You find Olive and Jessie tractable, I hope," said Mrs. Murdoch.
"Yes," returned Miss Reese, "Jessie particularly. I have some times thought that Olive was not as frank as I should like her to be, but I may be mistaken."
Mrs. Murdoch's visible resentment showed Miss Reese that she was upon dangerous ground. "That is a quality that belongs to Eleanor rather than to Olive," Mrs. Murdoch said. "The child has been brought up very unwisely."
"Why, what do you mean?" Miss Reese was surprised into saying. "I have always thought Mrs. Dallas one of the tenderest and most devoted of mothers. Every one thinks Eleanor one of the best behaved little girls in town; for myself I think she is a charming child."
"One can never tell unless one lives in the house with such a character," said Mrs. Murdoch, sighing. "Your estimate simply proves what I say that Eleanor is vain and deceitful."
Miss Reese began to take in the situation but she only said:
"I think a teacher has an excellent opportunity for judging of the characters of those placed in her care, and I cannot agree with you, Mrs. Murdoch." Then she took her leave, resolved to give more attention to Eleanor from this out.