FLAXIE LOOKED BEWILDERED. Page 60.FLAXIE LOOKED BEWILDERED. Page 60.
CHAPTER IV.LUCY’S MITTENS.
Aunt Charlotte ran to the door with the baby, calling out:
“Flaxie, come back! come back!”
But the little runaway would not even turn her head.
“Crazy,” said Freddy, still laughing.
“I do believe,” exclaimed his mother, “that child is going to the depot! Run after her! You and Johnny both run!”
The boys did their best, but Flaxie was already far ahead, and never once paused till she reached the station, where she nearly ran the baggage-master through the body with her little umbrella.
“Now look here, my little lady,” said he, catching her in his arms, “I ain’t used to being punched in this style, like a passenger-ticket; and you’d better stop to explain.”
“Oh, don’t hold me, don’t hold me! I’m going on the cars to my mamma.Letme go to my mamma!”
“Why, certainly,” said the man, winking to Johnny and Freddy, who had reached the platform and stood there panting. “Tobe sure! We let little girls go to their mothers. But you didn’t think of starting on ahead of the cars, did you?”
Flaxie looked bewildered.
“You see the cars haven’t come,” said Johnny, coaxingly. “You’d better go back with Freddy and me, and wait awhile.”
“No, no, no,” said Flaxie, brandishing her umbrella. The boys were too anxious to get her away, and she wouldn’t trust them.
“The cars won’t be here till two o’clock,” said the baggage-man. “Now I’d advise a nice little lady like you to eat your dinner before starting on a journey. Or would you like it any better to have me lock you up in the ladies’-room till two o’clock? But I should think you’d get rather hungry.”
He held up a big key as he spoke, and Flaxie gazed at it in dismay. Was this the way they treated little girls that wanted to go to see their mothers?
“Come, Freddy,” said Johnny, “let’s hurry home, or there won’t be any apple-dumpling left. If Flaxie doesn’t want to come she needn’t, you know.”
Johnny spoke with such a show of indifference that Flaxie was struck by it. He was ten years old, just the age of her brother Preston, and had had some experience in managing children younger than himself.As he was walking off with Freddy, she trudged after, exclaiming:
“Well, will you lemme leave my umberella? Will you lemme come back again? Will you, Johnny?”
“We’ll see what mother says. What makes you come home with us? Why don’t you stay with the man and be locked up?” replied Master Johnny. But he had her fast by the hand, and led her home in triumph.
“What did make you try to run away?” asked Freddy, when they were safely in the house.
Flaxie felt rather ashamed by that time, for Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Ben were both looking at her.
“I read about a little girl that did it,” said she, dropping her eyes.
“Well, I’ll read to you about a little girl that didn’t do it.”
“Hush, Freddy,” said mamma, for Flaxie’s lips were quivering, “we’ll have our dinner now, and then I am going to Chicopee to see Mrs. Adams, who has the gold-fishes and parrot and canary. Flaxie may go with me if she likes.”
Flaxie brightened a little at this, and thought she wouldn’t go home to see her mother to-day; she would wait till to-morrow. Still her heart ached now and then just as hard as ever, and when she was riding in the cars that afternoon to Chicopee with her aunt beside her and her second-best dolly in her arms, she did look the picture of woe.
“Toothache, perhaps,” thought a woman who entered the car with a baby and two little girls. One of the girls limped along, scowling as if every step hurt her.
“How do you do, Mrs. Chase?” said AuntCharlotte, making room for the mother and baby by taking Flaxie in her lap; then turning over the seat just in front of them for the two little girls. “I think it will be a good thing for my niece, Flaxie Frizzle, to see your children, Mrs. Chase.”
Flaxie wondered why it should be a good thing; still she was glad the little girls had come, for she liked to look at them.
Hattie was a bright child of six, just her own age; but the lame girl of ten, what a white face she had! What very light, straw-colored hair! Her manners were odd, Flaxie thought, for as soon as she saw the doll Peppermint Drop, she snatched at her and would have pulled off her blue satin sash if Flaxie had not drawn it away.
“Lucy, Lucy,” said Mrs. Chase, “don’t touch the little girl’s doll!”
Then Lucy leaned forward again, and fingeredthe buttons on Aunt Charlotte’s dress, and stroked her fur cloak, with a smile. That was a queer thing for such a large girl to do, but Aunt Charlotte did not seem to mind it, and only said, “I fancy Lucy wants a lozenge,” and popped one into her mouth as if she had been a baby. Flaxie stared, and the mother said, with a sad smile:
“Poor Lucy knows but very little. Aren’t you sorry for her?”
“Oh dear, why doesn’t she?” said Flaxie, forgetting her own trouble in gazing at the strange little girl, who was now stroking Aunt Charlotte’s cloak again, as if she did not hear a word that was said. “Why doesn’t she know but little?”
“Because she was very sick a great many years ago, and it hurt her mind.”
“Can she talk?”
“She only says ‘Papa,’ ‘Mamma,’ ‘Hattie.’She talks just about as well as the baby does, and they play together half the time.”
“Does she go to school?” asked Flaxie, growing very much interested indeed.
“To school? Oh no!shecouldn’t learn anything,” said Mrs. Chase, sighing.
But Hattie seemed rather proud of having such a strange sister.
“See that?” said she, holding up Lucy’s right hand.
“Why, it’s littler than mine, and all dried up,” exclaimed Flaxie Frizzle.
“Poor dear, she has lost her mittens again,” said Mrs. Chase, wiping Lucy’s mouth. “I can’t afford to keep buying mittens for her, she loses them so.”
“Wouldn’t it be well to fasten them to her cloak-sleeve by a string?” asked Mrs. Allen.
Flaxie gazed bewildered at this singular little girl, who could not wipe her own mouth,or talk, or go to school. She had never known of such a little girl before.
“Too bad about Lucy!” said she, thoughtfully, to her aunt as they got out at Chicopee, and left the whole Chase family looking after them from the car-window. “Is Lucy poor?”
“Very.”
“Where does she live?”
“In Hilltop.”
“Oh! I didn’t s’pose she lived in Hilltop.”
“There,” said Aunt Charlotte, “now this next house is Mrs. Adams’s, where you will see the gold-fishes.”
But Flaxie did not care just then for the gold-fishes.
“Auntie, don’t you think Lucy ought to have some mittens?”
She spoke cheerily, as if mittens were the very thing, and the only thing Lucy needed.
“And, auntie,Ican crochet!”
“Is it possible?” said Aunt Charlotte, thinking how many things Flaxie had learned that little Milly knew nothing about. “How much can you crochet?”
“Well, I made a scarf once for my dolly. IwishI could make some mittens for Lucy!”
“That’s the very thing! I’ll buy you some worsteds this afternoon,” said Aunt Charlotte, as she rang Mrs. Adams’s door-bell; and Flaxie “smiled” up her face in a minute, exclaiming:
“Red, auntie, please get ’em red!”
They had a lovely time with Mrs. Adams’s gold-fish, and parrot, and canary; but after all it was the vision of those red mittens that eased the ache at Flaxie’s poor little heart.
Auntie was all patience next morning, and her young niece all smiles; and between themthe ivory hook and the red worsteds kept moving.
“Lucy can’t say ‘thank you,’ but her mamma’ll besopleased,” said Flaxie, her face beaming. She really thought she was making the mittens herself, because she took a stitch now and then.
“What, working on Sunday?” said teasing Johnny.
“Oh, it isn’t Sunday, and Ididn’tcome Friday, and Icanwait two weeks to see my mamma. You see I didn’t know there was a little girl I could make mittens for, or I shouldn’t have cried,” said Flaxie, stopping a moment to kiss the baby.
The mittens were lovely. Aunt Charlotte finished them off at the wrists with a tufted border. Lucy couldn’t say “thank you,” but her poor mother was delighted, and fastened them to the child’s cloak by a string, so they wouldn’t be lost.
The moment Milly got home from Troy and had been kissed all around, Flaxie said:
“Oh, you don’t know how I did feel, staying here all alone, Milly. But I made those mittens, and then I felt better.”
“What mittens?” asked Milly, who hadn’t untied her bonnet yet, and couldn’t know in a minute everything that had happened.
“Why, Lucy’s red mittens; don’t you know? I tell you, Milly, what you must do when you don’t feel happy: you must make somebody some mittens.”
This was Flaxie’s way of saying “You must help other people.” But Milly knew what she meant. Children understand one another when the talking is ever so crooked.
Flaxie had now been at Hilltop more than three weeks, and had become so contented and happy that she was really sorry when Aunt Jane Abbott appeared one morning to take her home.
“Thank you ever so much,” said Miss Frizzle, politely; “but I don’t care ’bout going home.”
“Indeed!” said Aunt Jane, smiling. “And why not?”
“’Cause she wants to stay here and go to school with me,” spoke up Milly, with her cheek close to Flaxie’s.
“But we thought she’d like to see her little brother Phil; he has eight teeth,” said Aunt Jane.
“Oh yes’m, I do, I do!”
“Now, Flaxie,” pleaded Milly, looking grieved, “when you haven’t been to my school, and haven’t seen my elegant teacher!”
“Well, but isn’t Philip my brother? And so are Preston and Ninny. I forgot about them.”
“And don’t you want to see your mothertoo?” asked Aunt Jane, with another smile. She had been smiling ever since she came.
“Oh, yes, my mamma; I want to see her most of anybody in this world—’cept my papa!”
Milly’s head drooped.
“Oh, but I’m coming back again,” said Flaxie, kissing her. “And then I’ll go to school. Where’s my valise?”
She was such a restless, impatient little girl that it wasn’t best to let her know till the last minute what a beautiful thing had happened at home. But the next morning, when her hat and cloak were on, Aunt Jane told her she had a dear, new little baby sister, three days old!
Flaxie did just what you might expect she would do: clapped her hands and cried for joy.
“What’s her name? Has she any teeth?Has she any curls? Where does she sleep?”
“Why, what’s the matter now?” said Uncle Ben, coming in as Flaxie and Milly were whirling around the room in each other’s arms.
“Oh, good-bye, Uncle Ben, good-bye! I don’t know what her name is, but there’s a little sister at home, and I must go right off in the cars. IwishI had someseven-leggedboots! Good-bye, Uncle Ben.”
She meantseven-leagueboots, for the cars did seem very slow. And when she got home the baby was so small that she laughed and cried again.
“Oh, it’s the littlebit-of-estbaby ever I saw!”
Phil had a grieved lip. He hardly liked the little pink morsel in the nurse’s lap; but he was glad to see Flaxie, and stood on his head with delight.
Mamma looked very happy, and so did Dr. Papa. Ninny went singing about the house, and Preston whistled more than ever.
It was all beautiful, only Flaxie wanted to have a “talk” with mamma, but nurse said, “You’d better go down-stairs to play;” and then, not long after supper, she said again, “And now you’d better go to bed!”
“A queer woman, scolding so to other people’s little girls,” thought Flaxie.
CHAPTER V.THAT HOMELY MISS PIKE.
The nurse did leave the room next day for a minute, and Flaxie ran up to the bed and nestled close to her mother.
“Now I’ll tell you all about it. I wanted to see you so, my heart ached and ached, and once I ran away home.”
“You did, darling? I’m glad I didn’t know it,” said mamma, kissing her.
“I didn’t tell anybody—much,” returned Flaxie. “I thought ’twasn’t polite. And then auntie bought me some red worsteds, and I made some mittens for a sick girl named Lucy, that can’t wipe her mouth,or go to school, or talk; and it made me just as happy!”
“That was right. Of course it made you happy to forget yourself and help somebody else.”
“Yes’m, I knowall aboutthat!” replied Flaxie, with a wise look. She had learned a deep lesson from those mittens.
“But I don’t ever want to go away again,” said she, dropping a tear on the pillow, “for there isn’t anyyouand Dr. Papa anywhere else.”
“Oh, some time you’ll want to.”
“No, mamma. When I said I’d go there to school with Milly I didn’t know about my baby sister. I ought to stay and take care of her, and never go away any more as long as I live,—not till I die, and go to heaven.”
But three months passed, and Flaxie had forgotten all this. She was always fond ofthe baby, whose name was Ethel Gray; but sometimes she thought Ethel needn’t cry quite so much, and ought to cut a tooth, and ought to have more hair.
The world looked dark to Flaxie, for she was sick that spring, and a long while getting well. It was a queer sort of illness too. First it made her look yellow and then pea-green, and Julia had to sing and smile a great deal in order to keep her at all comfortable.
“After dandelions, buttercups,After buttercups, clover;One blossom follows another one,Over and over and over!”
sang Julia one evening, when Flaxie was making ready to take her medicine.
“Now, Flaxie dear, swallow it like a lady.”
“Yes. Dr. Papa knows a great deal, andI shall do just as he says,” replied the little girl, grasping her cup of rhubarb tightly in one hand, and a glass of cold water in the other.
It was a comfort to see her take her medicine for once without crying, and Preston shouted “Hurrah!”
She was pea-green at this time, and oh, so cross! For supper she had had three slices of bread and butter, and cried because she couldn’t have the fourth.
“If the poor little thing wasn’t so cross we’d send her to Aunt Charlotte’s for a change,” said Dr. Papa in a low voice to his wife; but Flaxie heard it.
“Oh, mamma, do lemme go to Aunt Charlotte’s, and go to school with Milly; she has such a dear teacher! And Milly’s my twin cousin, born just the same month. And I won’t be cross if theydon’tgive me enough to eat; and I’ll take a whole bushel o’ pills!”
“Let her go,” laughed papa; “the bushel of pills settles it.”
Flaxie was six and a half years old, and could have gone to Hilltop alone—almost; but as Captain Jones happened to be travelling that way, Dr. Papa thought he would pretend to put her in his charge.
“Did you ever go in the cars alone, Ninny, with your own valise, and a check in your pocket?” asked Flaxie in glee, as she rode up to the station; “and oh, a umbrella, too!”
“No, I never did—at your age,” replied Ninny, who was now a young lady of twelve.
“You see Uncle Ben will be there to meet me when we get to Hilltop,” said Miss Frizzle, fluttering her darling umbrella against the captain’s spectacles; “and won’t he laugh when he sees me coming all alone, with a check in my pocket?”
“Good-bye, curly-head; take care of thatumbrella,” said her father, kissing her pea-green cheek, and hurrying out of the car as the bell rang.
“Let’s see, where is Hilltop, and how will you know when you get there?” asked the captain, before Flaxie had time to cry.
“Oh, it’s where Uncle Ben lives and Aunt Charlotte,” replied the little traveller, who had a vague idea that the house was in the middle of a snow-drift, with roses in the front yard and strawberries behind it. “Their name is Allen.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve told me all the particulars,” said the captain gravely. “And I shall be easy, for we can’t miss it.”
Flaxie smiled and looked at her check. She felt the whole care of the journey, but it didn’t trouble her at all, for the captain would tell her when to stop. She “’membered” all about Hilltop just as well as could be, but she didn’t’xactlyknow where it was!
It was a pleasant ride on that beautiful spring day, and the captain would have been very agreeable, only he seemed to have a perfect horror of “pinnuts,” the very things Flaxie had dreamed about and expected to eat all the way. He shook his head at the peanut boys, and told her he “wished they would keep away with their trash!” If he had only gone into a smoking-car and left her, she might have bought some, for she had her red portemonnaie with her; but then he never thought of leaving her, for he really had no idea she was travelling alone.
She had said Uncle Ben would laugh at meeting her; and so he did. He threw up both hands and cried, “Bless me! what’s all this?” for it is not every day one sees a little girl of just that color; but he looked sober the next minute.
“Poor little thing, you’ve had a hard time.”
“Oh no, sir, not very,” said Flaxie, thinking he meant the journey. “I like to travel alone.”
Captain Jones, who was putting the little umbrella into the carriage, laughed, and said he wished he had known that before.
“Good-bye,” said he, kissing his hand to her. “I shall miss you very much, forI don’tlike to travel alone!”
Then Flaxie drove off with her uncle in the nice easy carriage, and found Aunt Charlotte and all her cousins delighted to see her, as she had known they would be. She had told the captain they were “elegant cousins;” but when Johnny exclaimed, “Hullo! Miss Frizzle, you look like a pickled lime,” she blushed a sort of pinkish-green blush, and thought he had grown very disagreeable.
“Well, I didn’t mean anything. I’ve seen folks look worse’n you do—a good deal,”added the little fellow, and thought it a handsome apology.
“I’ll tell you who looks worse,” he broke in again, as they were all seated at supper; “it’s our teacher, Miss Pike. She isn’t the same color by a long shot, but she’s awful homely.”
“Is she? Well, I guess I shan’t go to school.”
“Johnny ought not to speak in that way of his dear teacher,” said Aunt Charlotte gravely; “it is not her fault that she is not pretty; and everybody loves her, for she has a beautiful soul.”
“Oh, yes, everybody loves her,” said Master Freddy; “but didn’t Jemmy Glover send her a mean valentine last winter?
‘Old Miss Pike, she’s ninety-nine,Her hair’s the color of a ball of twine.’“
“If she looks so bad, why don’t she letthe doctor take care of her?” asked Flaxie, thoughtfully. “Dr. Papa gives me medicine three times a day, and I’m going to be real white.”
“Oh, Miss Pike isn’t sick; she was born so, and medicine wouldn’t help her any,” said Johnny, trying hard not to laugh at his simple little cousin. “I’ll take you to see her to-morrow.”
Flaxie set her teeth firmly into a cookie, resolving that she would not see such a monster of ugliness, much less go to school to her, not if Johnny should drag her to the schoolhouse by a rope.
After tea she sat on the front doorsteps awhile in Milly’s lap. The little friends had a way of sitting in each other’s lap, and it was a droll sight, as they were just of a size.
“Where’s Lucy, that I made the mittens for?” asked Flaxie.
“Oh, she’s at home, but her sister Hatty goes to school.”
“Well, I shan’t have to make mittens or anything this time, ’cause you’re at home, Milly. I like to be with my twin cousin in a twin house,” said Flaxie, twisting her neck to look at Mrs. Hunter’s door-stone. It was just like Aunt Charlotte’s, only there were flower-pots on it.
“Guess what I dreamed last night,” returned Milly. “I dreamed you were my sister; and then I woke up and thought how queer it is that God always sends brothers to this house, and not any sisters.”
“Why so he does; for Johnny and Freddy arebothboys, and so is Ken,” said Flaxie, struck with a new idea. “It’s real-too-bad!”
“But now you’ve come, and we’ll go to school together, and it’s just as well,” said Milly, kissing her pea-green friend in rapture.
“Oh, I didn’t say I’d go to school, Milly Allen.—Why, who’s that coming?”
“Hush! that’s my teacher and her sister.”
“Which is the sister?”
“The big one.”
“Well, she’s got the dropsies.”
“Oh, no, she hasn’t; she teaches the singing in our school.”
“But shehasgot the dropsies, Milly Allen, for a fat woman has ’em where I live, and my papa takes care of her; so don’t I know?”
Milly said no more, forherpapa was not a doctor; so what right had she to give an opinion concerning diseases?
The two ladies nodded and smiled in passing. “Oh, how homely!” whispered Flaxie, in amazement; “I mean the other one, not the sister.”
There was no doubt about it. I really suppose Miss Pike was one of the ugliest womenin the whole state. Her eyes were small and half shut; her mouth was large and half open; her nose was enormous, and turned up at the end,—and, to crown the whole, it was red!
Milly, who had always known her, did not mind her looks. Indeed, so little can children judge of the beauty of those they love, that I dare say she might have thought her dear teacher quite handsome if she had not heard everybody speak of her as “that homely Miss Pike.”
“We don’t have such looking folks keep school where I live,” said Flaxie, in scorn.
“I can’t help it if you don’t,” returned Milly, slipping her cousin off her lap with much indignation. “God made her so, and my mamma says you mustn’t notice how anybody looks when they have a beautiful soul.”
“Well, you won’t getmeto go to school, not if you give me five million thousand dollars,Milly Allen!” said Flaxie; and their loving chat on the doorstep was over for the evening.
Flaxie kept her word, and Milly went off next morning half crying; but little Freddy confided to his mother thathewas “glad Flaxie wouldn’t go to school, for the scholars would laugh at her, true as you live.”
It was rather dull, all alone with Aunt Charlotte and little Ken, who was cutting his teeth and cried a great deal; but Flaxie held out for a whole week. This was fortunate, as it gave time for the greenish color to fade out of her face, and her own natural pink and white to come back again as beautiful as ever.
“I guess Iwillgo to school with you, Milly, if you want me to so much,” said she at last one morning, when her cousins had all stopped teasing her. “I just despise Miss Pike, but I like the one that has the dropsies, and I want to hear her sing.”
Such a hugging and kissing followed this remark that Flaxie felt as if she had said a very fine thing, and started off with Milly, carrying her head very high.
The schoolhouse was white, with green blinds, and stood on the bank of the river, shaded by trees. Burdocks, milkweed, rushes, dandelions, and buttercups, were sprinkled around, while close down by the river was a narrow strip of clay bank, very nice to cut into with penknives,—as you would think if you had seen the pretty images some of the children made and spread out on boards in the sun.
Inside the schoolhouse it was nice and cool, with a large entry and recitation-room, and flowers on the desks and tables. The teacher, “that homely Miss Pike,” moved about softly, and spoke in low, sweet tones, smiling, and showing even white teeth.
“I s’pose her soul will fly right out of her when she dies,—andthatwon’t have a red nose,” thought Flaxie, gazing at her with curiosity mingled with awe.
Somehow there was a happy feeling all over the schoolroom because Miss Pike was in it, and Flaxie’s thoughts grew pleasant, she could not have told why. But one thing she did know, she wanted to be a good girl,—not pretty good, but the very best in the world,—that that sweet woman might love her.
CHAPTER VI.THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.
“Well, darling,” said Aunt Charlotte at noon, “you said you went to hear the singing, and you look as if you had enjoyed it.”
“Oh, the singing isn’t as good as Miss Pike; she’s just the best woman. Only,” added Flaxie regretfully, “IwishI could see her soul, auntie!”
Mrs. Allen smiled.
“Wait till you know her better, and then you’ll see it shine through her face. There’s a good look about her that is better than beauty.”
After she had once begun, Flaxie wouldnot have missed a day at school for anything. She had never learned so fast before, for she had never had a teacher she loved so well.
“Oh, auntie,” said she one day, “I’ve seen her soul shine! It shines when she smiles.”
Milly and Flaxie were the best scholars, so Miss Pike told Aunt Charlotte. But they did not study all the time. Oh, no. Miss Pike understood children, and didn’texpectthem to study all the time. She often drew pictures on the blackboard for them to copy on the slate, and if they wanted to bring their dinners and play at noon she was perfectly willing; only they were not to scream too loud, or go near the desks, for fear of spilling the ink. She noticed that the little girls were more noisy after Flaxie Frizzle came; but this was not strange, for Flaxie knew a great many games that the Hilltop children had never heard of before.
“Lesson? Oh, yes. I’ve got that ole thing,” she would say sometimes, as she rushed for her hat long before school-time.
“Spellocean, then,” said studious Milly, following her with the spelling-book in her hand.
“O-s-h-u-n.There! I’m in a hurry. I want to get to school to play ‘Bloody Murder.’”
That sounded dreadful, but I dare say was not as bad as it seemed. And one day after Flaxie had taught the little folks all the games she could possibly remember, she thought of a new thing to do.
“See there, Milly,” said she, pointing to a high pile of boards behind the schoolhouse, under one of the windows. “A man has gone and put those down there, and now let’s make a house of ’em, and live in it!”
Milly hugged Flaxie, it was such a brightidea. Make a house? Of course they would! They had made cupboards out of shingles and stones, and put clay dishes on the shelves; they had dug ovens all along the bank like swallows’ nests; but a real live house, what could be so charming as that?
But when you came to think of it, it wasn’t what you might call easy work, for the boards were very heavy; and with all their tugging the little girls could only drag them a little way across the ground.
“Well, Johnny will help,” said Milly, puffing for breath. “And perhaps Freddy will too.”
She knew they couldn’t coax Freddy quite as well as they could Johnny. The little girls never once thought of asking who owned the boards, but I will tell you; it was Esquire Blake, and he was intending to usethem to repair his office, which stood not far from the schoolhouse.
“’Twill be our ownty-doanty house, and nobody must come into it but us,” said Flaxie, gazing with satisfaction at the clean boards.
“The boys must come,” suggested Milly.
“Well, yes, I s’pose they’ll have to, if they help make it.”
“And Ada Blake.”
“You always want Ada Blake to go everywhere,” pouted Flaxie. “We can invite her for company, if you want to, but ’twill beourhouse.”
Johnny thought it all nonsense, but consented to undertake the business. He drove four stakes into the ground, near a beautiful maple-tree, and then nailed boards on the stakes all around, making a pen about three feet high. Everybody looked on deeply interested.After that he and Freddy went fishing. The little girls felt very impatient.
“Oh dear,” said Milly, “it doesn’t look much like a house. You’d think it was for pigs to live in.”
Next day it rained; but the day after, as Johnny could get no peace of his life, he nailed on more boards, till the pen was so high you couldn’t see over it, unless you stood on tiptoe. That was high enough; but where was the roof?
“Oh, bother, what do you want of a roof? Hold up your umbrella.”
“Next house I make I’ll make it myself!” cried Flaxie, stamping her foot.
That amused good-natured Johnny, and he called together some of the boys, to help him put on a sloping roof. Then he sawed a door in the side next the river; and when all was done the building looked so much like a“truly house” that the little girls screamed for joy, and Johnny felt rather proud of his work.
“Tell you what,” said he, looking around at the boys, “this is the house that Jack built. Now let’s saw a hole in the roof and put in a stove-pipe.”
Ah, Johnny! Johnny! it was thoughtless enough to use those boards without leave; but to put in a stove-pipe was downright madness!
The girls were charmed, and wanted a fireplace immediately. Why not? That wasn’t much to make, and they made it themselves with the loose pieces of brick they picked out of the old hearth in the recitation-room.
Squire Blake knew nothing of this; neither did the teacher. The new and elegant building was located on the bank behind the schoolhouse, and as the windows that way letin the sun, the blinds were kept closed, and Miss Pike did not look out. If she had only looked out! But then perhaps she wouldn’t have thought much about it; for who would dream of little daughters of respectable parents bringing matches to school?
It might be very funny to light a fire on one’s own little hearth, and bake one’s own little biscuits for tea; but then it was certainly wrong. If it hadn’t been wrong, why didn’t the little girls tell of it at home? What made Flaxie seize a bunch of matches from the kitchen-shelf and hide them in her pocket? What made Milly snatch that piece of dough when Nancy’s back was turned, and run away with it so fast? Children are never sly, you know, when they are doing right.
If these biscuits turned out well, they were to bake some more to-morrow, and have what Johnny called a “house-warming,” andFreddy had partly promised some fish. But this was only the very first day of housekeeping, and they had invited nobody but Ada Blake to tea,—Ada and her dolls.
It seemed as if recess would never come that afternoon, and when it came it wasn’t “any longer than your little finger.” The fire was kindled the very first minute, the thimble-biscuits rolled out, and then the three children sat on the grass around their hearth to watch the baking. Seven dolls sat there too, with their party-dresses on, waiting very politely. There was a dictionary in the middle of the room for a table, with a pocket-handkerchief spread on it for a table-cloth, and Milly had set out all her best dishes there at noon, with a dot of butter, a pinch of sugar, and some bits of cake.
“I guess our oven is slow; they don’t bake much,” said Milly, peeping at the biscuits,which were placed in a row on a cabbage-leaf at a respectful distance from the fire.
“Let’s wish something while we’re waiting,” said hungry Flaxie, who had only snatched a very hurried dinner. “I wish this world was one big doughnut, with only us to eat it!”
“Pshaw!” sniffed Milly, “why didn’t you wish something good,—sponge-cake, with jelly between?”
“Wish yourself, Milly Allen, if you can do it so much better’n I can,” retorted Flaxie, putting another stick on the fire.
“Well, lemme see; I wish you and I were sisters, Flaxie Frizzle, and Ada was our aunt come from Boston.”
“Well there, Milly Allen, that isn’t half as nice as my doughnut! What’s the use to wish we were sisters, when we are twins now, and that’s almost as good?”
“Oh, I never!” laughed Ada. “Such anideaasyoubeing twins! You weren’t born the same day, either of you! Twins have to be born the same day, now truly, or they can’tbetwins!”
There was wisdom in Ada’s voice, and wisdom in her superior smile. Flaxie raised her eyes, but that smile was too much for her, and she dropped them again. If there was one thing Flaxie could not bear, it was to be laughed at by a girl of her own age, who knew more than she did.
At that moment the school-bell rang, and, oh dear, those biscuits were not half done! So very queer, too, for the stove-pipe was red-hot, and roaring away beautifully!
The three little cooks were the last to enter the schoolhouse, and Miss Pike wondered what they were whispering about in the entry.
“Dear little creatures,” thought she, petting their heads, “I’m glad they’ve had a good time, for they deserve it!”
She called a class, and everything went on as usual, till suddenly she thought she smelt smoke, and went to the window to look out.
Miss Pike was a most sensible young lady, and knew better than to scream; but I assure you she never felt more like screaming in her life. The “house that Jack built” was all ablaze from top to bottom, and had already set fire to the schoolhouse!
She had to think fast. There were sixty children to be got out, and no time to lose. If they should know the house was on fire they would be crazed with fright and run hither and thither like wild creatures; it would never do to let them know it.
Miss Sarah was at the farther end of theroom setting copies slowly, very slowly. She did not look up, and Miss Pike had no time to go and speak to her; the only thing she could do was to walk quietly up to the desk and ring the bell. That meant, “Put up your books.” A strange order while a class was reciting; but it was obeyed instantly.
“Star-spangled Banner,” said Miss Pike, calmly. She could see the little tongues of flame running along the ceiling now, but she looked as if she was thinking of nothing but music and waiting for Miss Sarah to pitch the tune. Miss Sarah dropped her pen and did it of course, wondering why; and all the sixty voices joined in it, clear and loud, as they had often done before; while in time to the music the whole sixty children marched in orderly file out of the room.
“Now, run!” cried Miss Pike, the momentthe last child was in the entry, “run and tell everybody the schoolhouse is on fire!”
She had a pail of water in her hand. The children rushed through the streets screaming; the bells began to ring; the Hilltop fire-engine came out; and all the people and horses and dogs in the village. But Miss Pike was the first to pour water on the flames, and everybody said it was she who saved the schoolhouse.
There was a black hole in the wall, and another in the roof; the books were, many of them, soaked and ruined; the floor an inch deep with water, and it would take a whole week to set things to rights. But the schoolhouse was saved.
“Why, how did it take fire?” asked Uncle Ben, who had been out of town and did not come back till all was over.
The boys looked another way, the twincousins hung their heads. Aunt Charlotte did not answer. She was wondering which child would speak first.
It was Flaxie Frizzle. Her face was very pale, and her eyes were fixed on the carpet.
“We’ve got somethingorfulto tell you,” said she, her voice trembling; “we baked our biscuits, and Johnny built a house out there with a stove-pipe in, and we oughtn’t to taken any matches. You better believe we cried!”
“Well, well, you young rogues; soyouset the schoolhouse afire? And who saved it?”
“Miss Pike!” broke forth all the children in chorus.
“Yes,” said Johnny; “but she marched us all out first, so the little ones wouldn’t get burnt. Never said a word about the fire till we got out!”
“She always does things just right. She’s one of God’s girls,” cried Freddy.
“Yes,” broke in Flaxie, strongly excited; “I don’t care if I can’t see her soul. I’ve seen it shine! Oh, it’s beautiful to be homely!”
Nobody smiled—they all thought Flaxie was right.
“Yes, it is beautiful to be homely in just Miss Pike’s way,” said Aunt Charlotte.
And then they went out to supper, and, as the twin cousins looked broken-hearted, nothing more was said about the house that Jack built.
“Oh, Flaxie,doyou s’pose we’ve suffered enough?” asked little Milly that night after they had said their prayers and were lying in bed looking at the pure soft moonlight which shone on the far-away hills.
“I don’ know. I feel as if I had a pain, don’t you? Oh dear!”
“Yes, that’s just the way I feel; a pain way in deep,” replied Milly, heaving a sorrowful sigh. “And I ought to, I’m glad of it.”
“Glad, Milly Allen? How queer! Why,Idon’t like to feel bad!”
“I don’t either,” said Milly, sitting up in bed and speaking very earnestly. “But don’t you ’member what Auntie Prim said that time we ran away from the party? She said children ought to suffer for their naughtiness; it’s the only way they can learn to behave better.”
“Well, any way,” said Flaxie, rolling her eyes uneasily, “’twas Johnny that put in the stove-pipe, and he ought to feel the worst. I’m going to ask Preston about that, see ’f I don’t.”
Two days after this Flaxie went home, and her little frizzled head was not seen at Hilltopany more till the next December. Then her dear Grandma Gray had rheumatic fever, and though Flaxie pitied her all she could, she made too much noise in the house, and had to be sent away. But I will tell you about that in the next chapter.