Elizabeth Annblushed and the people who had come to the fair clapped. Doris forgot to be shy and beamed.
“Nobody ever guessed it was you, Elizabeth Ann,” she kept saying.
Uncle Hiram took them both over to the ice cream booth and there was still some ice cream left, vanilla and chocolate. Before they had quite finished their plates, Aunt Grace called to Uncle Hiram to come where she was and look at something, and that left Elizabeth Ann and Doris alone. The children in charge of the ice cream booth had gone to buy something at one of the tables—for the fair was almost over—and the teacher who had given the two little girls their ice cream had taken her money box over to have the money counted where all the money boxes were.
“P-st!” whispered someone right in Elizabeth Ann’s ear.
Of course she jumped, for it startled her.
“Here I am—back of these pillows,” said a voice and Catherine Gould put her head out between two black satin pillows that had been left on a piano bench.
“I think you were awfully mean to fool people, Elizabeth Ann,” said Catherine reproachfully. “Of course if I had known who you were, I wouldn’t have asked you to tell my fortune.”
“It was just for fun,” Elizabeth Ann answered, taking the last spoonful of her chocolate ice cream and looking at her empty plate wistfully.
“Well, don’t you ever tell what I told you about the corncrib door, or I’ll never forgive you,” said Catherine.
“Why I wouldn’t tell—I don’t carry tales,” Elizabeth Ann declared indignantly, “but aren’t you going to tell Mr. Bostwick—or your father?”
“Why should I?” asked Catherine, though her face turned red. “I’m not sure I left itunfastened. I can’t be perfectly sure some of the boys didn’t go to the corncrib after I left the candy there.”
Doris almost choked on her last bit of ice cream in her hurry to tell Catherine what she thought of her.
“Why Catherine Gould, you’re telling a lie,” she cried. “I mean you will be telling a lie, if you don’t explain to your father about the corncrib door. He thinks Roger left it open, and Roger has to work for him every Saturday.”
“I am not telling a lie, and don’t you say such things, Doris Mason!” stormed Catherine. “Maybe I didn’t leave the door open. Anyway, it won’t hurt Roger Calendar to work Saturdays—my father says idleness is bad for anyone. And Rogeriscareless—one day last summer he left the pasture bars down and Mr. Bostwick’s cows got in the garden and ate almost the entire first crop of peas.”
Someone struck a chord on the piano just then—that was to attract the attention of everyone in the room. Elizabeth Ann peekedaround a tall man and saw that it was Roger who sat at the school piano.
“We’re going to auction the cakes that are left,” announced Mr. Fundy the principal. “We have six fine cakes left and they won’t keep till our next fair, so we’ll sell them to the highest bidder.”
Roger played softly while the cakes were being auctioned off and they were soon sold. Aunt Grace bought a banana layer cake, much to the pleasure of Elizabeth Ann and Doris, who liked banana cake. And when the last cake had been sold and the money added to that already counted, Mr. Fundy had another announcement to make.
“I’m glad to be able to tell you,” he said, “that everything in all the booths has been sold; and we have cleared for our Christmas fund for poor and sick children, exactly $160. I call that pretty fine for a country school like ours.”
All the people clapped and Roger broke into a rollicking march on the piano. With $160, Miss Owen explained to Elizabeth Ann who stood near her, they could buy more than theyhad planned, and not a child would have to be left off the list.
Then, of course, it was time to go home, and Elizabeth Ann and Doris couldn’t talk about Catherine in the car for not only would Uncle Hiram and Aunt Grace hear them, but Roger, who was going to have supper at their house before he went to the Bostwick farm. Uncle Hiram had arranged that with Mr. Bostwick, and it was a real treat for Roger who seldom visited anywhere.
“Don’t you wish you had a piano of your own?” Doris asked him, when they were almost home.
“Yes, I’d like one,” said Roger, “but the only way I’ll ever get it will be to earn the money; and if people keep on saying I leave doors open and kill cows, it will take me all my life to pay them. I never will get any money saved for a piano.”
“Avast there,” Uncle Hiram mumbled over his shoulder. “The wind can blow in the east only so long; your east wind is about blown out and you ought to be looking for clear weather.”
“I hope you’ll get a nice west wind soon, Roger,” said gentle Aunt Grace. “I’m having waffles for supper—maybe they will help.”
They couldn’t help laughing a little at the idea of waffles being a west wind, but Roger told Aunt Grace that hot waffles were as good as a spell of clear weather to him; a west wind, he explained to Elizabeth Ann, always brought clear weather.
Elizabeth Ann looked at Doris and Doris looked at Elizabeth Ann. But they couldn’t make up their minds what they ought to do.
Roger had his golden brown waffles and went home, whistling cheerily as though he had forgotten such unpleasant things as corncrib doors, and perhaps he had. Aunt Grace went out into the kitchen—excuse us, the galley—to set her bread. And Elizabeth Ann and Doris sat on the floor of their bedroom and talked about Catherine Gould until Uncle Hiram called to them that it was high time sailors their age were fast asleep.
In the morning, on the way to school, Elizabeth Ann and Doris were still talking about Catherine.
“I don’t want Roger to have to work Saturdays for Mr. Gould,” said Elizabeth Ann. “It isn’t fair; he used to have two hours to himself every Saturday and he could go over to Mrs. Weber’s and play on her piano, he told me. Now he can’t do anything because Mr. Bostwick says he must help him every minute to make up for the time he has to give Catherine’s father.”
“But you can’t make Catherine tell her father,” Doris pointed out. “And you don’t want to tell him yourself—you told her you wouldn’t.”
Elizabeth Ann shook her head so that her red tam almost fell off.
“No, of course I wouldn’t tell,” she declared. “But I am going to think and think and by and by I’ll find a way.”
Doris had great respect for Elizabeth Ann’s thinking powers and she watched her anxiously the rest of the day. Catherine was absent from school, so when they left the bus at the cross-roads in the later afternoon, only Roger was with them. He turned off at the lane leading to the Bostwick farm, and as soonas they were alone, Elizabeth Ann turned eagerly to Doris.
“I know what to do!” she exclaimed. “I’ve thought it all out—first we ask Uncle Hiram to promise that he will tell Mr. Gould about Catherine—how she hid the candy and forgot to fasten the door and then let him think Roger did it. But before Uncle Hiram tells Mr. Gould, he must make him promise that he won’t scold Catherine.”
“She ought to be scolded,” said Doris sternly. She didn’t like to be scolded herself, mind you, but she didn’t mind seeing other people get their “comeuppance,” as Aunt Grace called it.
“Well, perhaps,” Elizabeth Ann admitted, “but we can’t help that. If Catherine thinks she is going to be scolded, she will never tell. And if we can promise her no one will say a word, she won’t mind telling. We want Roger to stop working for Mr. Gould—never mind about Catherine.”
“Yes, but how can you tell Uncle Hiram when you said you wouldn’t?” asked the practical Doris.
“I’m going to see Catherine now and ask her to let me tell,” Elizabeth Ann explained. “You go on to the house and tell Aunt Grace where I am; I’ll come as soon as I see Catherine.”
Doris went on, grumbling that the plan wouldn’t work. But the surprising thing about it was that itdid,it worked out exactly as Elizabeth Ann planned. Catherine said if her daddy wouldn’t scold or punish her, she didn’t mind having Uncle Hiram tell what had happened. And Uncle Hiram, though at first he said he wouldn’t ask Mr. Gould to make any silly promises, finally consented. He told him the story Elizabeth Ann had told him—about the corncrib door and the candy, and Catherine’s fear that led her to shift the blame to Roger.
Mr. Gould was sorry about Roger and went at once to see Mr. Bostwick to tell him a mistake had been made, and that Roger wasn’t careless after all. And of course Roger no longer had to work all day Saturday at the Gould farm. But Mr. Gould was even sorrier about his own little girl, and he said that nomatter what happened another time, if Catherine would come to him and tell him he wouldn’t scold but would help her to set the mistake right. And Catherine promised to tell him after this.
Of course it was almost Christmas by this time—less than two weeks to Christmas Eve. But we haven’t enough pages to tell you about Christmas in the Bonnie Susie, so that will have to wait till another book. Only you may be sure Elizabeth Ann and Doris had a wonderful time, for the country is the place for little girls to enjoy Christmas.
THE END