CHAPTER IIIThe Neighbor of the Yellow House
CHAPTER IIIThe Neighbor of the Yellow House
Everymorning after this Jessie went down to the brook to play with Playmate Polly. Charity soon recovered from her illness, Dr. Bramble’s medicine being the very thing for her, and she was able to enjoy her share of the scrapings of marmalade which Jessie ate for her from the big preserving-kettle. Mrs. Mooky called frequently, and so did other persons. Jessie made the acquaintance of a lively cricket which lived under the big stone that she was accustomed to call her house, and she also had several conversations with a fat toad which would come out and blink at her on mild days. Still it was Playmate Polly whom Jessie liked the best. She kept the knowledge of this queer friend a secret from everybody, and for that very reason probably enjoyed her the more.
One afternoon, however, when she and Pollyhad been having a particularly interesting talk, Jessie heard a laugh from the other side of the brook, and looking up quickly she saw a little girl with very black hair and eyes, astride a fallen log. “Hello!” said the little girl.
Jessie looked at her interestedly. “Hello!” she responded. She had never seen the little girl before;—not at church, nor on the road, nor anywhere, and she wondered who she could be. “Who are you?” she asked presently, “and how did you get over there?”
“I’m Adele Pauline Falaise Hallett,” was the reply, “and I got here by walking.”
“Goodness! what a long name,” said Jessie. “Do you live near here?”
“Yes, I live in the yellow house this side the bridge.”
“Oh, I know now,” returned Jessie; “you’re the new people. Did you come through the woods or by the road?”
“Through the woods. What’s your name?”
“Jessie Loomis.”
“Who was it that you’ve been talking to all this time? I looked and listened for ever so long and I couldn’t see anybody.”
“I was talking to my doll, Charity, part of the time,” said Jessie, after a little hesitation. She did not want to tell her secrets to a stranger.
“Who is Polly Somebody? You kept saying Polly this and Polly that. Hare you a parrot over there?”
“Dear me, no,” returned Jessie. “I was talking to a make-believe friend of mine.”
“What kind of friend? Can’t you see her truly?”
“Yes, I can see her. She’s this tree.” Jessie laid her hand affectionately on Playmate Polly’s rough bark.
Adele laughed. “That’s a mighty funny sort of friend. I’m coming over to you. Where can I get across?”
“There’s a log higher up,” Jessie told her. “I cross that way sometimes, and in summer when the brook is very low I can cross on the stones.”
“It isn’t so very low now.”
“No, and so you’d better try the log. I’ll show you where it is.” She took the path on one side the brook, Adele following that on the other, and pretty soon they came to a log thrown across the stream.
“It’s a little wobbly,” said Jessie, “so you’d better be careful.”
With some small shrieks and exclamations Adele managed to cross the bridge without mishap. “Now show me where you play,” she said somewhat commandingly, Jessie thought, and therefore she led the way silently to her favorite spot.
“This is Playmate Polly,” she said as if introducing a friend.
Adele laughed. “What do you call it that for?”
“Because it is her name,” rejoined Jessie stoutly, as she turned toward the big stone near by. “This is my house,” she went on; “it is where Charity and I live. Charity is my doll.”
Adele, without answering, picked up Charity and looked her over. “She wears mighty queer clothes,” she remarked after a moment.
“That’s because she is a Colonial Dame,” returned Jessie in a superior tone.
“Oh,” said Adele, setting down Charity carefully. She did not know just what a Colonial Dame was and did not want to show her ignorance. “What do you call her Charity for?” she asked presently.
“My Aunt Lucy bought her at a charity bazaar, and she said as Charity was one of the old-fashioned names, she thought it would suit an old-fashioned doll. I like it,” she added with decision.
“I knew a girl once named Temperance,” remarked Adele. “They used to call her Tempy.”
“Where was that?”
“In New Orleans where I lived before we came here; before—” she hesitated, and then added in a low voice, “before I lost my mother.”
“Oh!” Jessie gazed at her with sympathetic eyes. She had never known, before this, any little girl who had not a mother. “Was it very long ago?” she asked softly.
“A little over a year,” Adele told her. “I have six dolls,” she went on, changing the subject. “How many have you?”
“Five, but I like Charity the best. She is the biggest and prettiest, too. I have one a little smaller named Lucy, and a little China boy-doll I like very much; he is about so high.” She measured a height of four inches or so. “I bring him down here because he is so little that I can put him most anywhere.”
“What is his name?” asked Adele.
“Peter Pan,” returned Jessie. “Then I have a baby in long clothes and a German doll my uncle brought me when he came from Europe.”
It seemed a very interesting family to Adele who said regretfully, “My dolls are so much alike I don’t care much more for one than another. Some are newer than others; that’s all. Will you show me all your dolls some day?”
“Why, certainly,” returned Jessie warmly, adding, “I’m awfully glad you live near. There’s no one this side the bridge at all. Effie Hinsdale is the nearest, but she lives across the railroad track.”
“Aunt Betty won’t let me cross it,” said Adele.
“I used to do it every day; that was before Ezra had rheumatism. I don’t go to school now. Do you go to the Hill school?” Jessie asked, then added, “Oh, no, of course you don’t, if you can’t cross the railroad track.”
“No, I don’t go anywhere,” returned Adele. “I am going to have a governess next week.”
“Shall you like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I like Miss Eloise. Sheis a friend of my aunt’s and she is very nice and kind, at least she is now.”
“I thought governesses were always cross,” said Jessie as if it were a well-known fact.
“Maybe she will be when she gets to be a governess,” Adele remarked. “I hope she will not. I believe I’d rather not have her anyway. I hate lessons.”
“So do I,” returned Jessie delightedly. “I’m so glad you feel that way. I was so pleased when I knew I could stay at home for a while.”
“Are you going to stay away from school always?” asked Adele.
“Oh, I am sure I don’t know. I suppose we have to have educations, but it is very disagreeable. I don’t see why educations can’t come like teeth, when you’re ready for them, or an easier way still would be to wake up some morning and find you could do every example in the arithmetic, and another morning you could speak French, and another you would know all the rivers and capitals and mountains and things. Wouldn’t that be fine?”
Adele laughed. “I wake up every morning and know I can speak French.”
“Oh, do you?” Jessie looked at her half incredulously. “I didn’t know any little girls could do that unless they were real French children who couldn’t speak English. How does it happen?”
“My grandmother was French. I am named after her,” Adele told her, “and my mother spoke French as well as English. I always had a French nurse, too, so I learned French at the same time I did English.”
Jessie looked at her admiringly, then she sighed. “Well, I don’t know a word of French or anything except ‘Guten Tag.’ We had a German to work for us once and he taught me that much.”
“Don’t let’s talk about such stupid things,” said Adele suddenly. “What is behind those branches piled up against that place in the bank here?”
Jessie looked at her quickly. It seemed as if Adele’s quick eyes and ears would discover all her secrets. “You won’t tell?” she asked after a minute’s pause. “Cross your heart you won’t? It’s a secret, you see. Playmate Polly is a secret, too. Not even mother or Minerva know about her.”
“I promise,” said Adele readily. “Who is Minerva?”
“Our girl. She is as nice as she can be. I’m awfully fond of her.”
“Show me what is behind the branches.”
Jessie led the way to the spot where the bank dropped three or four feet. She carefully removed the branches, saying mysteriously: “It is a cave, a grotto.”
Adele knelt down and peeped in to see where the bank, shelving in, made quite a little hollow. The floor of the small grotto was paved with pebbles upon which lay rugs of green moss. A piece of looking-glass set in the earth served for a tiny lake. The sides of the grotto were hung with another kind of moss. At one end two small candlesticks, bearing red candles, were set up and in a chair between them was the little china doll.
“This is where Peter Pan lives,” said Jessie. “I’ll light the candles and you can see the lake better. That pile of moss over there is Peter Pan’s bed. I haven’t any table for him yet. I am hunting for a nice little square block of wood, or a smooth round stone would do. I haven’treally finished the grotto yet Don’t you think it is right pretty?”
“It is perfectly beautiful,” said Adele enthusiastically. “I don’t see how you did it. Oh, won’t you let me come and play with you sometimes?”
Jessie felt that she was very generous to be sharing her secrets with a stranger, but when she remembered that Adele was motherless she felt that anything she could do to give her pleasure would be a small thing, so she responded cordially, “Why, of course.”
“I haven’t any little doll like Peter Pan,” Adele went on, “but maybe a paper doll would do till I could get the right kind.”
“A paper doll would do very well and you could call her Wendy,” said Jessie with satisfaction.
“Why?”
“Oh, don’t you know Peter Pan? I thought every one did,” said Jessie in surprise.
“Please tell me.”
“All right, I will. I know all about him. When I went to see Aunt Lucy last winter she took me to see Peter Pan, and oh, it was theloveliest thing you can imagine. Sit down here and I will tell you.” Adele did as she was told and Jessie launched forth into her story, Adele listening attentively.
But before the story was finished a shrill whistle sounded from the house. “Oh, dear,” said Jessie jumping up, “I must go. That is for me.”
“How do you know it is for you?”
“Mother has a little whistle that she blows whenever she wants me to come home.”
“Can’t you just stay long enough to finish the story?” said Adele coaxingly. “Please do.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. There is a lot more, and mother doesn’t like me to stay out too late.”
“She won’t mind just this once.”
Jessie hesitated and glanced toward the house. Again the whistle sounded.
Hastily gathering up Peter Pan and Charity she made ready to return home.
“I think you are real mean,” cried Adele. “You just get into the most interesting part and then you stop. I don’t like you one bit. I’m just going home and you can talk to your old dumb Polly after this.” She stalked awayindignantly while Jessie slowly made her way toward the house, looking back every little while over her shoulder. She knew she was doing right, but she did wish Adele had not gone off in a huff. After all, perhaps Playmate Polly was more satisfactory, for she never quarreled with her. This thought made her turn and run back a few steps to call out: “Good-night, Polly.”
Just then she heard a scream and some one crying out: “Jessie, Jessie!” in tones of distress. For only a second Jessie hesitated and then she rushed to the spot from which the voice came to find Adele splashing about in the brook.
“I slipped off the log,” she cried. “I’m all wet and drownded and there is a cow coming!”
Fortunately the brook was not very deep, particularly at this point. Jessie laid down her dolls, and went to the bank near the log, reaching out her hands and calling to Adele, “Come up here.”
Adele cast a frightened look over her shoulder at Mrs. Mooky, who was taking an evening drink from the stream. “She won’t hurt you, will you, Mrs. Mooky?” said Jessie encouragingly.
The cow lifted her head and looked fixedly at Jessie, moving a few steps nearer.
“Oh, she’s coming! She’s coming!” cried Adele frantically trying to scramble up the bank.
“No, she isn’t,” Jessie assured her. “Give me your hand. There now, you are safe, but you are awfully wet. Come right home with me and get some dry clothes.”
“No, no,” protested Adele, “I’ll go home.”
“It’s further to your house. You’d better come,” said Jessie decidedly.
“It was all that horrid cow,” said Adele. “She came splashing down into the water and scared me so my foot slipped and down I went.”
Jessie smiled. She could not imagine any one being afraid of Mrs. Mooky, but she saw that Adele was really frightened so she only repeated: “You’d better come home with me.”
“What will your mother say?” said Adele, still holding back.
“She’ll say she’s very sorry it happened, and she’ll have Minerva take you home unless Sam is there with the carriage. Father went to town to-day and maybe Sam hasn’t gone to meet him yet. Come right along; you’ll get cold.”
Thus admonished, Adele allowed herself to be led up to the house. Mrs. Loomis met the two little girls at the porch steps. “This is Adele Hallett,” said Jessie. “She lives in the yellow house, and she slipped off the log into the brook just now. Mrs. Mooky frightened her.”
“That was very unkind of Mrs. Mooky,” said Mrs. Loomis smiling down at Adele. “Come in, dear. You must be chilled to the bone in those wet clothes. There is a good fire in the sitting-room. I always like to have it bright and cheery for Jessie’s father when he comes in. Take your friend in there, Jessie, and I will go up for some dry clothes.”
The open wood-fire was sending out a comforting heat as Adele shiveringly came up to it. “You’d better take off your shoes and stockings first; they are the wettest,” Jessie told her. “Your feet must be very cold. I’ll take off one shoe and you do the other.”
Adele sat down meekly on the big fur rug, while Jessie helped her to take off her wet foot gear. “There,” said Jessie, “stick out your feet and get them good and hot while I unbutton your frock.” Adele obeyed without a word.
Presently Mrs. Loomis returned with the dry things and bade Jessie take the wet ones to Minerva to dry. “We’ll send them home to you,” she told Adele as she helped her into Jessie’s garments. They were a little large for her, but they did very well.
Jessie laughed when she came back. “It is another me, isn’t it, mother?” she said. “Only that me isn’t as big as this me, and it has black hair instead of light brown, and black eyes instead of blue. Do you feel as if your name were Jessie, and are you real warm, Adele?”
“I feel quite warm,” said Adele in a low voice, her head drooping.
“I’m going to mix something good and hot for her to drink,” said Mrs. Loomis, “and then Sam can take her home. Miss Hallett will be anxious about her, and Sam is about ready to go to the station to meet your father.”
As soon as Mrs. Loomis had left the room Adele lifted her eyes, and Jessie saw that they were full of tears. “I said I didn’t like you one bit,” she burst out, “but I do, I do. I love you. I love you dearly.”
“Oh!—why——” Jessie began. She felt embarrassedand was glad of her mother’s reappearance. Mrs. Loomis held a glass in her hand. “Drink this, dear,” she said to Adele. “You will find that it tastes very good and it will keep you from taking cold.” Adele silently obeyed, and found it a spicy-sweet draught which sent a warm glow through her.
Jessie pulled her mother’s head down to her level and whispered something to her. Mrs. Loomis nodded understandingly and when Adele set down the glass she lifted the child’s face and kissed her gently on the cheek. “You must come again,” she said.
“And will you take me to see her?” asked Jessie eagerly.
“To be sure I will,” replied Mrs. Loomis. “I am going to call on your aunt, dear,” she said to Adele, “and I hope we shall all be good friends and neighbors.”
Adele looked at her for a moment and then she caught her hand and laid her own cheek against it. “You are lovely,” she said, “and Jessie is just like you. I want her to be my friend forever.”
Then Minerva appeared at the door to say that Sam was ready with the carriage.