CHAPTER VA New Pet
CHAPTER VA New Pet
AsMrs. Loomis had said, Miss Hallett’s proposition settled the question of lessons for Jessie, and so when Adele appeared the next morning, bright and early, Jessie had the great piece of news to tell her, and Adele responded in her usual tempestuous way by giving Jessie a tremendous hug, and by rushing to Mrs. Loomis to embrace her, too. “It will be perfectly lovely,” she cried. “You will come to my house every morning and we’ll have lessons in the playroom; it will have to be a workroom then, and in the afternoon we can play by the brook.”
“We’ll not be able to all winter,” said Jessie, “for it will be too cold.”
“Oh, I forgot that; we don’t have much winter down our way, you know.”
“Of course I don’t mean that we can never play out-of-doors,” returned Jessie, “but it will be too damp down by the brook most of the time, and it will often be too snowy.”
“Oh, the snow! I long for it,” cried Adele clasping her hands.
“It is nice,” said Jessie. “I like to slide on the ice, too, even when it isn’t snowy. We can often go out on the little pond when the ice is thick. It is rather fun to be out in the cold at any time, for you feel so good when you come in.”
“I shall get Miss Eloise to let me walk home with you sometimes,” said Adele, “because you will have to come by yourself in the morning, and it wouldn’t be fair for you to walk both ways alone. Does the brook freeze over?”
“Sometimes,” Jessie told her, “and then we can cross on the ice. I’d rather go that way always, for it is shorter than to go around by the road, but I suppose I can’t in very bad weather.”
“What will you do about Polly when it gets cold?” asked Adele.
“Oh, I can always see her except when there is deep snow.”
“And the grotto?”
“I’ll have to cover it up with brush and it will be there in the spring. Why did you tell my secret, Adele?”
“Because I don’t like Polly. I didn’t tellabout the grotto, did I? and I think Polly is ugly. I wish you didn’t like her.”
“Anyhow, she never tells things I don’t want her to,” said Jessie severely.
Adele buried her head in the sofa cushion of the lounge upon which she was sitting, and began to sob, “I don’t care, I don’t care. She is nothing but an ugly wicked old tree, and youshalllove me best, because I love you best. I don’t pick out queer bad old creatures like that to love more than you. I believe she is nothing but an old witch.”
For a moment Jessie felt quite remorseful, but then a feeling of not wanting to be forced into likes and dislikes took possession of her, and she relentlessly said: “I shall not like you best if you tell my secrets.”
“I won’t tell any more. ’Deed and ’deed I won’t,” said Adele, lifting a tear-stained face. “Please love me best, Jessie.” She caught Jessie’s hands and put them around her own neck looking at her so pleadingly that Jessie’s heart melted and she answered; “All right, I’ll like you best.”
But the words were scarcely out of her mouthbefore they were stopped with kisses, and Adele looked as happy as she had looked miserable a moment before. “Now come,” she said, “let’s go to the grotto. I brought paper dolls; one is Wendy and the other is Tinker Bell. Now you can finish the story, and we’ll have a lovely time.”
They started off very happily, Mrs. Loomis watching them from the window. “I don’t know how it is going to turn out,” she said to herself, “but I hope Jessie will learn self-control by seeing how it looks to fly into such tantrums as Adele’s. I think the sight of them will do her more good than any amount of precept.”
Having given her word that Polly should no more have first place, Jessie was ready to be very amiably disposed toward Adele, yet from nine o’clock in the morning till six in the evening is a long stretch, and it was rather too much to expect that two excitable little girls could spend all that time in one another’s company without disagreements. Once during the day Jessie gathered up her dolls and started for home, leaving Adele disconsolately sitting on a stone, but Adele was the first to ask to make up, and begged so hard to be taken back into favor that Jessie yielded.Once, too, Adele in a sudden rage threatened to demolish the grotto, because Jessie insisted upon having her way with Wendy.
“She’s mine,” protested Adele.
“I don’t care. I know all about her better than you. I saw the play and you didn’t,” this conclusively.
Adele flung Wendy on the ground and added insult to injury by threatening to chop down Playmate Polly some night. “And when you get up in the morning, she will be gone forever,” said Adele.
This was too much for Jessie. “You won’t dare to do such a thing,” she cried. “I shall tell my father never to let you step your foot on the place again. You can just take your old paper dolls and go home.”
Adele arose speechless with rage. She deliberately tore Tinker Bell into bits and threw the pieces at Jessie, then snatching up Wendy she turned toward home.
At once Jessie seemed to hear her mother say: “We must be patient with her; she has no mother.” And she was filled with remorse. “Come back, come back,” she cried. “I didn’tmean it at all. You can have Wendy do anything you like. And it doesn’t matter about Tinker Bell. No one ever sees her anyway, for she’s just a little twinkling light. One of the candles will do for her. I’m sorry; I really am, Adele.” So peace was made, and the rest of the day passed happily enough.
When they went up to the house for dinner Sam met them. “I’ve got a new pet for you,” he said to Jessie. “Come down to the barn after dinner and I’ll show you.”
“Oh, what is it? Do tell us,” begged Jessie.
But Sam laughed and walked away, so Jessie knew it was no use to question further, for Sam never would be coaxed to tell. She was in great haste to finish her dinner, but Adele was hungry and seemed to enjoy everything so much that Jessie felt that it would not be polite to hurry her. She did not hesitate, however, to urge Adele to make haste as soon as her last mouthful of dessert was swallowed. “Do come right away,” she said. “I must see what Sam has. Aren’t you wild to know? I am.”
“What do you think it is?” said Adele. “Maybe he was only fooling.”
“No, I am sure he was in earnest. I know Sam well enough for that. He often brings me things, and I have an idea this is something alive.”
The two children were not long in reaching the barn, the big door of which was open. It was a big, roomy place smelling of hay. Three horses stood in their stalls, and as the little girls entered, a brown hen flew cackling from one of the empty mangers. “I’ll have Sam get that egg for us,” remarked Jessie. “I wonder where he is. Sam! Sam!” she called.
A voice answered from the harness room and Jessie led the way thither. Sam was sitting on a box mending harness. “Here we are,” said Jessie. “Show us what you said you had.”
“See if you can find it,” said Sam, and Jessie immediately set to work to search. She knew all the corners and crannies, if Adele did not. It was quite like a game, and rather an entertaining one. Here they came upon a setting hen who had stolen a nest in the hay; there a squeaking mouse would scuttle across the timbers, scaring both girls into shrieking. At last they made their discovery, for, as they were searching infront of Barney’s stall, directly above their heads something suddenly cried out: “Caw!”
The children looked up to see a black crow looking down at them from a perch in the corner. “Oh, I believe that is it,” said Jessie. “Sam! Sam! is it a crow?”
Sam came forward and lifted down the bird which was tethered by a long cord. “Yes,” he said. “He is a young one that got a little hurt somehow. I found him in the cornfield. He’ll learn to talk after a bit, and I’ve clipped his wings so he can’t fly far. He will get as tame as a dog after a while.”
Jessie put a finger on the shining black head of the crow. “Isn’t he funny?” she said. “It will be perfectly lovely to have a pet who can talk, and I think you are very good, Sam, to bring him to me. Will he say real words, like people?”
“He won’t be quite as glib as a parrot, maybe, but he will say a number of words, and it won’t be long before he will be following you everywhere.”
“I don’t think he is very pretty,” remarked Adele, who was standing at one side and did not seem to care about touching the bird.
“Oh, I think he is,” returned Jessie. “He is so jetty black, and has such a knowing look. I like him very much. I don’t suppose I can keep him in the house, Sam.”
“Better not, or he’ll be playing havoc with things. He’ll soon learn to stay around with the chickens, and when you want to have him near you can tether him. I knew one once that was as good as a watch-dog. Let any one come around day or night and he’d set up his Caw! Caw! I’ll take him out-of-doors for you now. He can’t get away very far, but I’d better tether him. Where’ll you have him?”
“Oh, down by the brook where we play,” Jessie told him.
The two little girls led the way and Sam tethered the bird by a long cord. He hopped around contentedly, and soon became tame enough to come quite close to the girls and peck at their feet. “Polly can take care of him, you see,” said Jessie. “I think she rather likes birds, at least I’ve seen her holding them quite often.”
Adele laughed. “You do say such ridiculous things about Polly.”
Jessie paid no attention to this remark butcontinued her line of thought. “I think she misses my playing with her as much as I used to, so I’ll tell her she can play with the crow all she likes. I wonder what we’d better call him. He’s as shiny and black as coal; you know the kind that has all sorts of colors in it. He looks that way when he turns his head.”
“I don’t think Coal would be a very pretty name,” objected Adele.
“I don’t think so either,” Jessie agreed with her. “I’ll have to think of something else.” They turned over in their minds all the things that suggested blackness or darkness, from ink to thunder-clouds, finally hitting upon Ebony, which was a happy thought of Jessie’s who remembered an ebony chest in her Aunt Lucy’s house. “We can call him Ebon for short,” she said. “It is a nice, easy name.”
“And Eb would be still shorter,” said Adele. “Hello, Eb.”
The crow responded by putting his head to one side and remarking “Caw!” in a way which made both girls laugh.
“When I get the gray kitten,” said Jessie, “I shall have two new pets.”
“And I haven’t any,” said Adele wistfully.
“I am sure Effie Hinsdale would give you one of the kittens,” said Jessie. “I’ll ask mother if we can go there Saturday. I know she will be glad—Effie I mean—to get a good home for another kitten. There is a gray something like mine and two black ones.”
“I’d rather have black, I think, and I’ll call it Velvet,” said Adele swift in decision.
“I’ve named mine Cloudy,” Jessie told her. “We can’t have them yet, you know.”
“Why not?”
“They’re not big enough to leave their mother. I thought I saw a cat, a yellow cat, on your porch one morning.”
“Oh, that’s the stable cat. He is very wild and won’t let me come near him. I’d rather have a kitten anyway.”
“Well, we can go see the kittens at Effie’s even if we can’t take them just yet, and we shall have the crow.”
“And Polly,” put in Adele with a laugh.
“She isn’t a pet; she is a friend,” replied Jessie with some dignity, feeling that Adele meant to underrate Playmate Polly’s importance.
In a very short time Ebon had become quite tame, and followed the little girls as if he were a dog. He constantly amused them by his funny ways. Although he had not yet learned to talk, Sam declared that he would in time, and meanwhile Adele went with Jessie to see Effie’s kittens, and was promised a black one. So from having no companions at all, Jessie felt that she would be very well supplied that winter. “There will be you and your kitten, me and my kitten, Polly and Eb,” she said to Adele. “That will be a great many of us to play together.”
“Yes, and there will be Miss Eloise and horrid lessons,” returned Adele.
Jessie sighed. “Yes,” she said, “I have been thinking of that. I wish we could take lessons like pills and have done with them.”
“In jelly?”
“No, I’d just gulp them down with water and have some bread and jelly afterward.”
The children were in the sitting-room, having just returned from Effie’s. Mrs. Loomis was sitting there sewing. She smiled as she listened to what the children were saying. “I think youwill be doing just about as you say,” she remarked. “You will swallow down your lessons in the morning, and in the afternoon you will have your bread and jelly in the shape of play. I don’t believe you will find the lessons such a terrible dose as you think.”
“Indeed, I hope so,” returned Jessie with a sigh. “Come on, Adele; Peter Pan has lost his shadow again and I must find it.” This Peter Pan of Jessie’s lost his shadow much more frequently than did the original one, for the shadow was nothing but a bit of newspaper fastened by a piece of thread and it was torn off very often.
“I’m going to have a Peter Pan, too,” Adele announced triumphantly. “Aunt Betty has written papa to bring me one the next time he comes.”
“There couldn’t be two Peter Pans,” said Jessie in an annoyed tone.
“There could, too. I am sure I have just as much right to name my doll after the Peter Pan as you have. There are hundreds and hundreds of George Washingtons in the world and lots and lots of Grover Clevelands.”
Jessie could not deny this, but she was notpleased with the idea of there being another Peter Pan so close at hand. “If you name your doll Peter Pan, I’ll call mine something else,” she said, and then she added, “I won’t have any use for the grotto, of course, so I will just pull it down.”
“I think you are horrid mean,” said Adele. “You know I do love that grotto.”
“Well, you can make one for yourself,” said Jessie calmly. “There’s just as much stuff for it on your side of the brook as there is on mine.”
The tears rushed to Adele’s eyes. “You know I couldn’t. I should never know how, and besides your side of the brook has a much better bank.”
“Well,” said Jessie, unmoved, “there simply cannot be two Peter Pans.”
Adele snatched up her hat and ran from the room. Jessie, watching her from the window rather shamefacedly, saw her hurrying down the hill. She waited till Adele had safely crossed the log, then she turned away saying to herself, “There couldn’t possibly be two Peter Pans.”