MR. LITTLE SELECTS THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY
"I should think that was queer, the day before Thanksgivin'," said Mrs. Little. She was examining the turkey critically. "I guess it'll do," she declared finally. That was her highest expression of approbation. "Well, I rayther thought you'd think so," rejoined the old man, beaming. "I guess it's about as good a one as can be got—they said 'twas, down there. Sam White he was in there, and he said 'twas; he said I was goin' to get it in pretty good season for Thanksgivin', he thought."
"I don't think it's such very extra season, the day before Thanksgivin'," said Mrs. Little.
"Well, I don't think 'twas, nuther. I didn't see jest what Sam meant by it."
Ann Mary was dumb with admiration. When the turkey was laid on the broad shelf in the pantry, she went and gazed upon it. In the afternoon there was great enjoyment seeing it stuffed and made ready for the oven. Indeed, this day was throughout one of great enjoyment, being full of the very aroma of festivity and good cheer and gala times, and even sweeter than the occasion which it preceded. Ann Mary had only one damper all day, and that was the non-arrival of a letter. Mrs. Little had invited her son and his family to spend Thanksgiving, but now they probably were not coming, since not a word in reply had been received. When Mr. Little said there was no letter in the post-office, Ann Mary's face fell. "Oh, dear," said she, "don't you suppose Lucy will come, grandma?"
"No," replied her grandmother, "I don't. Edward never did such a thing as not to send me word when he was comin', in his life, nor Maria neither. I ain't no idee they'll come."
"Oh, dear!" said Ann Mary again.
"Well, you'll have to make up your mind to it," returned her grandmother. She was sore over her own disappointment, and so was irascible towards Ann Mary's. "It's no worse for you than for the rest of us. I guess you can keep one Thanksgivin' without Lucy."
For a while it almost seemed to Ann Mary that she could not. Lucy was her only cousin. She loved Lucy dearly, and she was lonesome for another little girl; nobody knew how she had counted upon seeing her cousin. Ann Mary herself had a forlorn hope that Lucy still might come, even if Uncle Edwardwasalways so particular about sending word, and no word had been received. On Thanksgiving morning she kept running to the window and looking down the road. But when the stage from the village came, it passed right by the house without slackening its speed.
Then there was no hope left at all.
"You might jest as well be easy," said her grandmother. "I guess you can have a good Thanksgivin' if Lucyain'there. This evenin' you can ask Loretty to come over a little while, if you want to, an' you can make some nut-candy."
"Loretta ain't at home."
"She'll come home for Thanksgivin', I guess. It ain't very likely she's stayed away over that. When I get the dinner ready to take up, you can carry a plateful down to Sarah Bean's, an' that'll be somethin' for you to do, too. I guess you can manage."
Thanksgiving Day was a very pleasant day, although there was considerable snow on the ground, for it had snowed all the day before. Mr. Little and Ann Mary did not go to church as usual, on that account.
The old man did not like to drive to the village before the roads were beaten out. Mrs. Little lamented not a little over it. It was the custom for her husband and granddaughter to attend church Thanksgiving morning, while she stayed at home and cooked the dinner. "It does seem dreadful heathenish for nobody to go to meetin' Thanksgivin' Day," said she; "an' we ain't even heard the proclamation read, neither. It rained so hard last Sabbath that we couldn't go."
The season was unusually wintry and severe, and lately the family had been prevented from church-going. It was two Sundays since any of the family had gone. The village was three miles away, and the road was rough. Mr. Little was too old to drive over it in very bad weather.
When Ann Mary went to carry the plate of Thanksgiving dinner to Sarah Bean, she wore a pair of her grandfather's blue woollen socks drawn over her shoes to keep out the snow. The snow was rather deep for easy walking, but she did not mind that. She carried the dinner with great care; there was a large plate well filled, and a tin dish was turned over it to keep it warm. Sarah Bean was an old woman who lived alone. Her house was about a quarter of a mile from the Littles'.
When Ann Mary reached the house, she found the old woman making a cup of tea. There did not seem to be much of anything but tea and bread-and-butter for her dinner. She was very deaf and infirm, all her joints shook when she tried to use them, and her voice quavered when she talked. She took the plate, and her hands trembled so that the tin dish played on the plate like a clapper. "Why," said she, overjoyed, "this looks just like Thanksgiving Day, tell your grandma!"
"Why, itisThanksgiving Day," declared Ann Mary, with some wonder.
"What?" asked Sarah Bean.
"It is Thanksgiving Day, you know." But it was of no use, the old woman could not hear a word. Ann Mary's voice was too low.
Ann Mary could not walk very fast on account of the snow. She was absent some three-quarters of an hour; her grandmother had told her that dinner would be all on the table when she returned. She was enjoying the nice things in anticipation all the way; when she came near the house, she could smell roasted turkey, and there was also a sweet spicy odor in the air.
She noticed with surprise that a sleigh had been in the yard. "I wonder who's come," she said to herself. She thought of Lucy, and whether theycouldhave driven over from the village. She ran in. "Why, who's come?" she cried out.
Her voice sounded like a shout in her own ears; it seemed to awaken echoes. She fairly startled herself, for there was no one in the room. There was absolute quiet through all the house. There was even no sizzling from the kettles on the stove, for everything had been dished up. The vegetables, all salted and peppered and buttered, were on the table—but the turkey was not there. In the great vacant place where the turkey should have been was a piece of white paper. Ann Mary spied it in a moment. She caught it up and looked at it. It was a note from her grandmother:
We have had word that Aunt Betsey has had a bad turn. Lizz wants us to come. The dinner is all ready for you. If we ain't home to-night, you can get Loretty to stay with you. Be a good girl.Grandma.
We have had word that Aunt Betsey has had a bad turn. Lizz wants us to come. The dinner is all ready for you. If we ain't home to-night, you can get Loretty to stay with you. Be a good girl.Grandma.
Ann Mary read the note and stood reflecting, her mouth drooping at the corners. Aunt Betsey was Mrs. Little's sister; Lizz was her daughter who lived with her and took care of her. They lived in Derby, and Derby was fourteen miles away. It seemed a long distance to Ann Mary, and she felt sure that her grandparents could not come home that night. She looked around the empty room and sighed. After a while she sat down and pulled off the snowy socks; she thought she might as well eat her dinner, although she did not feel so hungry as she had expected. Everything was on the table but the turkey and plum-pudding. Ann Mary supposed these were in the oven keeping warm; the door was ajar. But, when she looked, they were not there. She went into the pantry; they were not there either. It was very strange; there was the dripping-pan in which the turkey had been baked, on the back of the stove, with some gravy in it; and there was the empty pudding-dish on the hearth.
"What has grandma done with the turkey and the plum-pudding?" said Ann Mary, aloud.
She looked again in the pantry; then she went down to the cellar—there seemed to be so few places in the house in which it was reasonable to search for a turkey and a plum-pudding!
Finally she gave it up, and sat down to dinner. There was plenty of squash and potatoes and turnips and onions and beets and cranberry-sauce and pies; but it was no Thanksgiving dinner without turkey and plum-pudding. It was like a great flourish of accompaniment without any song.
Ann Mary did as well as she could; she put some turkey-gravy on her potato and filled up her plate with vegetables; but she did not enjoy the dinner. She felt more and more lonely, too. She resolved that after she had washed up the dinner dishes and changed her dress, she would go over to Loretta Adams's. It was quite a piece of work, washing the dinner dishes, there were so many pans and kettles; it was the middle of the afternoon when she finished. Then Ann Mary put on her best plaid dress, and tied her best red ribbons on her braids, and it was four o'clock before she started for Loretta's.
Loretta lived in a white cottage about half a mile away towards the village. The front yard had many bushes in it, and the front path was bordered with box; the bushes were now mounds of snow, and the box was indicated by two snowy ridges.
The house had a shut-up look; the sitting-room curtains were down. Ann Mary went around to the side door; but it was locked. Then she went up the front walk between the snowy ridges of box, and tried the front door; that also was locked. The Adamses had gone away. Ann Mary did not know what to do. The tears stood in her eyes, and she choked a little. She went back and forth between the two doors, and shook and pounded; she peeked around the corner of the curtain into the sitting-room. She could see Loretta's organ, with the music-book, and all the familiar furniture, but the room wore an utterly deserted air.
Finally, Ann Mary sat down on the front door-step, after she had brushed off the snow a little. She had made up her mind to wait a little while, and see if the folks would not come home. She had on her red hood, and her grandmother's old plaid shawl. She pulled the shawl tightly around her, and muffled her face in it; it was extremely cold weather for sitting on a door-step. Just across the road was a low clump of birches; through and above the birches the sky showed red and clear where the sun was setting. Everything looked cold and bare and desolate to the little girl who was trying to keep Thanksgiving. Suddenly she heard a little cry, and Loretta's white cat came around the corner of the house.
"Kitty, kitty, kitty," called Ann Mary. She was very fond of Loretta's cat; she had none of her own.
The cat came close and brushed around Ann Mary so she took it up in her lap; and wrapped the shawl around it, and felt a little comforted.
She sat there on the door-step and held the cat until it was quite dusky, and she was very stiff with the cold. Then she put down the cat and prepared to go home. But she had not gone far along the road when she found out that the cat was following her. The little white creature floundered through the snow at her heels, and mewed constantly. Sometimes it darted ahead and waited until she came up, but it did not seem willing to be carried in her arms.
When Ann Mary reached her own house the lonesome look of it sent a chill all over her; she was afraid to go in. She made up her mind to go down to Sarah Bean's and ask whether she could not stay all night there.
So she kept on, and Loretta's white cat still followed her. There was no light in Sarah Bean's house. Ann Mary knocked and pounded, but it was of no use; the old woman had gone to bed, and she could not make her hear.
Ann Mary turned about and went home; the tears were running down her cold red cheeks. The cat mewed louder than ever. When she got home she took the cat up and carried it into the house. She determined to keep it for company, anyway. She was sure, now, that she would have to stay alone all night; the Adamses and Sarah Bean were the only neighbors, and it was so late now that she had no hope of her grandparents' return. Ann Mary was timid and nervous, but she had a vein of philosophy, and she generally grasped the situation with all the strength she had, when she became convinced that she must. She had laid her plans while walking home through the keen winter air, even as the tears were streaming over her cheeks, and she proceeded to carry them into execution. She gave Loretta's cat its supper, and she ate a piece of mince-pie herself; then she fixed the kitchen and the sitting-room fires, and locked up the house very thoroughly. Next, she took the cat and the lamp and went into the dark bedroom and locked the door; then she and the cat were as safe as she knew how to make them. The dark bedroom was in the very middle of the house, the centre of a nest of rooms. It was small and square, had no windows, and only one door. It was a sort of fastness. Ann Mary made up her mind that she would not undress herself, and that she would keep the lamp burning all night. She climbed into the big yellow-posted bedstead, and the cat cuddled up to her and purred.
Ann Mary lay in bed and stared at the white satin scrolls on the wall-paper, and listened for noises. She heard a great many, but they were all mysterious and indefinable, till about ten o'clock. Then she sat straight up in bed and her heart beat fast. She certainly heard sleigh-bells; the sound penetrated even to the dark bedroom. Then came a jarring pounding on the side door. Ann Mary got up, unfastened the bedroom door, took the lamp, and stepped out into the sitting-room. The pounding came again. "Ann Mary, Ann Mary!" cried a voice. It was her grandmother's.
"I'm comin', I'm comin', grandma!" shouted Ann Mary. She had never felt so happy in her life. She pushed back the bolt of the side door with trembling haste. There stood her grandmother all muffled up, with a shawl over her head; and out in the yard were her grandfather and another man, with a horse and sleigh. The men were turning the sleigh around.
"Put the lamp in the window, Ann Mary," called Mr. Little, and Ann Mary obeyed. Her grandmother sank into a chair. "I'm jest about tuckered out," she groaned. "If I don't ketch my death with this day's work, I'm lucky. There ain't any more feelin' in my feet than as if they was lumps of stone."
Ann Mary stood at her grandmother's elbow, and her face was all beaming. "I thought you weren't coming," said she.
"Well, I shouldn't have come a step to-night, if it hadn't been for you—and the cow," said her grandmother, in an indignant voice. "I was kind of uneasy about you, an' we knew the cow wouldn't be milked unless you got Mr. Adams to come over."
"Was Aunt Betsey very sick?" inquired Ann Mary.
Her grandmother gave her head a toss. "Sick! No, there wa'n't a thing the matter with her, except she ate some sassage-meat, an' had a little faint turn. Lizz was scart to death, the way she always is. She didn't act as if she knew whether her head was on, all the time we were there. She didn't act as if she knew 'twas Thanksgivin' Day; an' she didn't have no turkey that I could see. Aunt Betsey bein' took sick seemed to put everythin' out of her head. I never saw such a nervous thing as she is. I was all out of patience when I got there. Betsey didn't seem to be very bad off, an' there we'd hurried enough to break our necks. We didn't dare to drive around to Sarah Bean's to let you know about it, for we was afraid we'd miss the train. We jest got in with the man that brought the word, an' he driv as fast as he could over to the village, an' then we lost the train, an' had to sit there in the depot two mortal hours. An' now we've come fourteen mile' in an open sleigh. The man that lives next door to Betsey said he'd bring us home, an' I thought we'd better come. He's goin' over to the village to-night; he's got folks there. I told him he'd a good deal better stay here, but he won't. He's as deaf as an adder, an' you can't make him hear anythin', anyway. We ain't spoke a word all the way home. Where's Loretty? She came over to stay with you, didn't she?"
Ann Mary explained that Loretta was not at home.
"That's queer, seems to me, Thanksgivin' Day," said her grandmother. "Massy sakes, what cat's that? She came out of the settin'-room!"
Ann Mary explained about Loretta's cat. Then she burst forth with the question that had been uppermost in her mind ever since her grandmother came in. "Grandma," said she, "what did you do with the turkey and the plum-pudding?"
"What?"
"What did you do with the turkey and the plum-pudding?"
"The turkey an' the plum-puddin'?"
"Yes; I couldn't find 'em anywhere."
Mrs. Little, who had removed her wraps, and was crouching over the kitchen stove with her feet in the oven, looked at Ann Mary with a dazed expression.
"I dunno what you mean, child," said she.
Mr. Little had helped the man with the sleigh to start, and had now come in. He was pulling off his boots.
"Don't you remember, mother," said he, "how you run back in the house, an' said you was goin' to set that turkey an' plum-pudding away, for you was afraid to leave 'em settin' right out in plain sight on the table, for fear that somebody might come in?"
"Yes; I do remember," said Mrs. Little. "I thought they looked 'most too temptin'. I set 'em in the pantry. I thought Ann Mary could get 'em when she came in."
"They ain't in the pantry," said Ann Mary.
Her grandmother arose and went into the pantry with a masterful air. "Ain't in the pantry?" she repeated. "I don't s'pose you more'n gave one look."
Ann Mary followed her grandmother. She fairly expected to see the turkey and pudding before her eyes on the shelf and to admit that she had been mistaken. Mr. Little also followed, and they all stood in the pantry and looked about.
"I guess they ain't here, mother," said Mr. Little. "Can't you think where you set 'em?"
The old woman took up the lamp and stepped out of the pantry with dignity. "I've set 'em somewhere," said she, in a curt voice, "an' I'll find 'em in the mornin'. You don't want any turkey or plum-puddin' to-night, neither of you!"
But Mrs. Little did not find the turkey and the plum-pudding in the morning. Some days went by, and their whereabouts was as much a mystery as ever. Mrs. Little could not remember where she had put them; but it had been in some secure hiding-place, since her own wit which had placed them there could not find it out. She was so mortified and worried over it that she was nearly ill. She tried to propound the theory, and believe in it herself, that she had really set the turkey and the pudding in the pantry, and that they had been stolen; but she was too honest. "I've heerd of folks puttin' things in such safe places that they couldn't find 'em, before now," said she; "but I never heerd of losin' a turkey an' a plum-puddin' that way. I dunno but I'm losin' what little wits I ever did have." She went about with a humble and resentful air. She promised Ann Mary that she would cook another turkey and pudding the first of the week, if the missing ones were not found.
Sunday came and they were not discovered. It was a pleasant day, and the Littles went to the village church. Ann Mary looked over across the church after they were seated and saw Loretta, with the pretty brown frizzes over her forehead, sitting between her father and mother, and she wondered when Loretta had come home.
The choir sang and the minister prayed. Suddenly Ann Mary saw him, standing there in the pulpit, unfold a paper. Thenthe minister began to read the Thanksgiving Proclamation. Ann Mary cast one queer glance at her grandmother, who returned it with one of inexpressible dignity and severity.
As soon as meeting was done, her grandmother clutched her by the arm. "Don't you say a word about it to anybody," she whispered. "You mind!"
When they were in the sleigh going home she charged her husband. "You mind, you keep still, father," said she. "It'll be town-talk if you don't."
The old man chuckled. "Don't you know, I said once that I had kind of an idee that Thanksgivin' weren't quite so early, and you shut me up, mother," he remarked. He looked good-naturedly malicious.
"Well, I dunno as it's anything so very queer," said Mrs. Little. "It comes a whole week later than it did last year, and I s'posed we'd missed hearin' the proclamation."
The next day a letter arrived saying that Lucy and her father and mother were coming to spend Thanksgiving. "I feel jest about beat," Mrs. Little said, when she read the letter.
Really, she did feel about at her wit's end. The turkey and pudding were not yet found, and she had made up her mind that she would not dare wait much longer without providing more. She knew that another turkey must be procured, at all events. However, she waited until the last minute Wednesday afternoon, then she went to work mixing a pudding. Mr. Little had gone to the store for the turkey. "Sam White was over there, an' he said he thought we was goin' right into turkeys this year," he reported when he got home.
That night the guests arrived. Thanksgiving morning Lucy and Ann Mary and their grandfather and Lucy's father and mother were all going to meeting. Mrs. Little was to stay at home and cook the dinner.
Thanksgiving morning Mr. Little made a fire in the best parlor air-tight stove, and just before they started for meeting Lucy and Ann Mary were in the room. Lucy, in the big rocking-chair that was opposite the sofa, was rocking to and fro and talking. Ann Mary sat near the window. Each of the little girls had on her coat and hat.
Suddenly Lucy stopped rocking and looked intently over towards the sofa.
"What you lookin' at, Lucy?" asked Ann Mary, curiously.
Lucy still looked. "Why—I was wondering what was under that sofa," said she, slowly. Then she turned to Ann Mary, and her face was quite pale and startled—she had heard the turkey and pudding story. "Oh, Ann Mary, it does look—like—oh—"
Both little girls rushed to the sofa, and threw themselves on the floor. "Oh, oh, oh!" they shrieked. "Grandma—mother! Come quick, come quick!"
When the others came in, there sat Ann Mary and Lucy on the floor, and between them were the turkey and the plum-pudding, each carefully covered with a snow-white napkin.
Mrs. Little was quite pale and trembling. "I remember now," said she, faintly, "I run in here with 'em."
She was so overcome that the others tried to take it quietly and not to laugh much. But every little while, after Lucy and Ann Mary were seated in church, they would look at each other and have to put their handkerchiefs to their faces. However, Ann Mary tried hard to listen to the sermon, and to behave well. In the depths of her childish heart she felt grateful and happy. There, by her side, sat her dear Lucy, whose sweet little face peeped out from a furry winter hat. Just across the aisle was Loretta, who was coming in the evening, and then they would pop corn and make nut-candy. At home there was the beautiful new turkey and unlimited pudding and good cheer, and all disappointment and mystery were done away with.
Ann Mary felt as if all her troubles would be followed by thanksgivings.
Ann Lizy was invited to spend the afternoon and take tea with her friend Jane Baxter, and she was ready to set forth about one o'clock. That was the fashionable hour for children and their elders to start when they were invited out to spend the afternoon.
Ann Lizy had on her best muslin delaine dress, her best embroidered pantalets, her black silk apron, and her flat straw hat with long blue ribbon streamers. She stood in the south room—the sitting-room—before her grandmother, who was putting some squares of patchwork, with needle, thread, and scissors, into a green silk bag embroidered with roses in bead-work.
"There, Ann Lizy," said her grandmother, "you may take my bag if you are real careful of it, and won't lose it. When you get to Jane's you lay it on the table, and don't have it round when you're playin' out-doors."
"Yes, ma'am," said Ann Lizy. She was looking with radiant, admiring eyes at the bag—its cluster of cunningly wrought pink roses upon the glossy green field of silk. Still there was a serious droop to her mouth; she knew there was a bitter to this sweet.
"Now," said her grandmother, "I've put four squares of patchwork in the bag; they're all cut and basted nice, and you must sew 'em all, over and over, before you play any. Sew 'em real fine and even, or you'll have to pick the stitches out when you get home."
Ann Lizy's radiant eyes faded; she hung her head. She calculated swiftly that she could not finish the patchwork before four o'clock, and that would leave her only an hour and a half to eat supper and play with Jane, for she would have to come home at half-past five. "Can't I take two, and do the other two to-morrow, grandma?" said she.
Her grandmother straightened herself disapprovingly. She was a tall, wiry old woman with strong, handsome features showing through her wrinkles. She had been so energetic all her life, and done so much work, that her estimation of it was worn, like scales. Four squares of patchwork sewed with very fine even stitches had, to her, no weight at all; it did not seem like work.
"Well, if a great girl like you can't sew four squares of patchwork in an arternoon, I wouldn't tell of it, Ann Lizy," said she. "I don't know what you'd say if you had to work the way I did at your age. If you can't have time enough to play and do a little thing like that, you'd better stay at home. I ain't goin' to have you idle a whole arternoon, if I know it. Time's worth too much to be wasted that way."
"I'd sew the others to-morrow," pleaded Ann Lizy, faintly.
"Oh, you wouldn't do it half so easy to-morrow; you've got to pick the currants for the jell' to-morrow. Besides, that doesn't make any difference. To-day's work is to-day's work, and it hasn't anything to do with to-morrow's. It's no excuse for idlin' one day, because you do work the next. You take that patchwork, and sit right down and sew it as soon as you get there—don't put it off—and sew it nice, too, or you can stay at home—just which you like."
Ann Lizy sighed, but reached out her hand for the bag. "Now be careful and not lose it," said her grandmother, "and be a good girl."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't run too hard, nor go to climbin' walls, and get your best dress torn."
"No, ma'am."
"And only one piece of cake at tea-time."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And start for home at half-past five."
"Yes, ma'am."
Little Ann Lizy Jennings, as she went down the walk between the rows of pinks, had a bewildered feeling that she had been to Jane Baxter's to tea, and was home again.
Her parents were dead, and she lived with her Grandmother Jennings, who made her childhood comfortable and happy, except that at times she seemed taken off her childish feet by the energy and strong mind of the old woman, and so swung a little way through the world in her wake. But Ann Lizy received no harm by it.
Ann Lizy went down the road with the bead bag on her arm. She toed out primly, for she had on her best shoes. A little girl, whom she knew, stood at the gate in every-day clothes, and Ann Lizy bowed to her in the way she had seen the parson's wife bow, when out making calls in her best black silk and worked lace veil. The parson's wife was young and pretty, and Ann Lizy admired her. It was quite a long walk to Jane Baxter's, but it was a beautiful afternoon, and the road was pleasant, although there were not many houses. There were green fields and flowering bushes at the sides, and, some of the way, elm-trees arching over it. Ann Lizy would have been very happy had it not been for the patchwork. She had already pieced one patchwork quilt, and her grandmother displayed it to people with pride, saying, "Ann Lizy pieced that before she was eight years old."
Ann Lizy had not as much ambition as her grandmother, now she was engaged upon her second quilt, and it looked to her like a checked and besprigged calico mountain. She kept dwelling upon those four squares, over and over, until she felt as if each side were as long as the Green Mountains. She calculated again and again how little time she would have to play with Jane—only about an hour, for she must allow a half-hour for tea. She was not a swift sewer when she sewed fine and even stitches, and she knew she could not finish those squares before four o'clock. One hour!—and she and Jane wanted to play dolls, and make wreaths out of oak-leaves, and go down in the lane after thimbleberries, and in the garden for gooseberries—there would be no time for anything!
Ann Lizy's delicate little face under the straw flat grew more and more sulky and distressed, her forehead wrinkled, and her mouth pouted. She forgot to swing her muslin delaine skirts gracefully, and flounced along hitting the dusty meadowsweet bushes.
Ann Lizy was about half-way to Jane Baxter's house, in a lonely part of the road, when she opened her bead bag and drew out her pocket-handkerchief—her grandmother had tucked that in with the patchwork—and wiped her eyes. When she replaced the handkerchief she put it under the patchwork, and did not draw up the bag again, but went on, swinging it violently by one string.
When Ann Lizy reached Jane Baxter's gate she gave a quick, scared glance at the bag. It looked very flat and limp. She did not open it, and she said nothing about it to Jane. They went out to play in the garden. There were so many hollyhocks there that it seemed like a real flower-grove, and the gooseberries were ripe.
Shortly after Ann Lizy entered Jane Baxter's house a white horse and a chaise passed down the road in the direction from which she had just come. There were three persons in the chaise—a gentleman, lady, and little girl. The lady wore a green silk pelerine, and a green bonnet with pink strings, and the gentleman a blue coat and bell hat. The little girl had pretty long, light curls, and wore a white dress and blue sash. She sat on a little footstool down in front of the seat. They were the parson's wife's sister, her husband, and her little girl, and had been to visit at the parsonage. The gentleman drove the white horse down the road, and the little girl looked sharply and happily at everything by the way. All at once she gave a little cry—"Oh, father, what's that in the road?"
She saw Ann Lizy's patchwork, all four squares nicely pinned together, lying beside the meadowsweet bushes. Her father stopped the horse, got out, and picked up the patchwork.
"Why," said the parson's wife's sister, "some little girl has lost her patchwork; look, Sally!"
"She'll be sorry, won't she?" said the little girl, whose name was Sally.
The gentleman got back into the chaise, and the three rode off with the patchwork. There seemed to be nothing else to do; there were no houses near and no people of whom to inquire. Besides, four squares of calico patchwork were not especially valuable.
"If we don't find out who lost it, I'll put it into my quilt," said Sally. She studied the patterns of the calico very happily, as they rode along; she thought them prettier than anything she had. One had pink roses on a green ground, and she thought that especially charming.
Meantime, while Sally and her father and mother rode away in the chaise with the patchwork to Whitefield, ten miles distant, where their house was, Ann Lizy and Jane played as fast as they could. It was four o'clock before they went into the house. Ann Lizy opened her bag, which she had laid on the parlor table with theYoung Lady's AnnualsandMrs. Hemans's Poems. "I s'pose I must sew my patchwork," said she, in a miserable, guilty little voice. Then she exclaimed. It was strange that, well as she knew there was no patchwork there, the actual discovery of nothing at all gave her a shock.
"What's the matter?" asked Jane.
"I've—lost my patchwork," said Ann Lizy.
Jane called her mother, and they condoled with Ann Lizy. Ann Lizy sat in one of Mrs. Baxter's rush-bottomed chairs and began to cry.
"Where did you lose it?" Mrs. Baxter asked. "Don't cry, Ann Lizy, maybe we can find it."
"I s'pose I—lost it comin'," sobbed Ann Lizy.
"Well, I'll tell you what 't is," said Mrs. Baxter; "you and Jane had better run up the road a piece, and likely as not you'll find it; and I'll have tea all ready when you come home. Don't feel so bad, child, you'll find it, right where you dropped it."
But Ann Lizy and Jane, searching carefully along the road, did not find the patchwork where it had been dropped. "Maybe it's blown away," suggested Jane, although there was hardly wind enough that afternoon to stir a feather. And the two little girls climbed over the stone-walls and searched in the fields, but they did not find the patchwork. Then another mishap befell Ann Lizy. She tore a three-cornered place in her best muslin delaine, getting over the wall. When she saw that she felt as if she were in a dreadful dream. "Oh, what will grandma say!" she wailed.
"Maybe she won't scold," said Jane, consolingly.
"Yes, she will. Oh dear!"
The two little girls went dolefully home to tea. There were hot biscuits and honey and tarts and short gingerbread and custards, but Ann Lizy did not feel hungry. Mrs. Baxter tried to comfort her; she really saw not much to mourn over, except the rent in the best dress, as four squares of patchwork could easily be replaced; she did not see the true inwardness of the case.
At half-past five, Ann Lizy, miserable and tear-stained, the three-cornered rent in her best dress pinned up, started for home, and then—her grandmother's beautiful bead bag was not to be found. Ann Lizy and Jane both remembered that it had been carried when they set out to find the patchwork. Ann Lizy had meditated bringing the patchwork home in it.
"Aunt Cynthy made that bag for grandma," said Ann Lizy, in a tone of dull despair; this was beyond tears.
"Well, Jane shall go with you, and help find it," said Mrs. Baxter, "and I'll leave the tea-dishes and go too. Don't feel so bad, Ann Lizy, I know I can find it."
But Mrs. Baxter and Jane and Ann Lizy, all searching, could not find the bead bag. "My best handkerchief was in it," said Ann Lizy. It seemed to her as if all her best things were gone. She and Mrs. Baxter and Jane made a doleful little group in the road. The frogs were peeping, and the cows were coming home. Mrs. Baxter asked the boy who drove the cows if he had seen a green bead bag, or four squares of patchwork; he stared and shook his head.
Ann Lizy looked like a wilted meadow reed, the blue streamers on her hat drooped dejectedly, her best shoes were all dusty, and the three-cornered rent was the feature of her best muslin delaine dress that one saw first. Then her little delicate face was all tear-stains and downward curves. She stood there in the road as if she had not courage to stir.
"Now, Ann Lizy," said Mrs. Baxter, "you'd better run right home and not worry. I don't believe your grandma 'll scold you when you tell her just how 't was."
Ann Lizy shook her head. "Yes, she will."
"Well, she'll be worrying about you if you ain't home before long, and I guess you'd better go," said Mrs. Baxter.
Ann Lizy said not another word; she began to move dejectedly towards home. Jane and her mother called many kindly words after her, but she did not heed them. She kept straight on, walking slowly until she was home. Her grandmother stood in the doorway watching for her. She had a blue-yarn stocking in her hands, and she was knitting fast as she watched.
"Ann Lizy, where have you been, late as this?" she called out, as Ann Lizy came up the walk. "It's arter six o'clock."
Ann Lizy continued to drag herself slowly forward, but she made no reply.
"Why don't you speak?"
Ann Lizy crooked her arm around her face and began to cry. Her grandmother reached down, took her by the shoulder, and led her into the house. "What on airth is the matter, child?" said she; "have you fell down?"
"No, ma'am."
"What does ail you, then? Ann Lizy Jennings, how come that great three-cornered tear in your best dress?"
Ann Lizy sobbed.
"Answer me."
"I—tore it gittin' over—the wall."
"What were you gettin' over walls for in your best dress? I'd like to know what you s'pose you'll have to wear to meetin' now. Didn't I tell you not to get over walls in your best dress?Ann Lizy Jennings, where is my bead bag?"
"I—lost it."
"Lost my bead bag?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"How did you lose it, eh?"
"I lost it when—I was lookin' for—my patchwork."
"Did you lose your patchwork?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"When?"
"When I was—goin' over to—Jane's."
"Lost it out of the bag?"
Ann Lizy nodded, sobbing.
"Then you went to look for it and lost the bag. Lost your best pocket-handkerchief, too?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Old Mrs. Jennings stood looking at Ann Lizy.
"All that patchwork, cut out and basted jest as nice as could be, your best pocket-handkerchief and my bead bag lost, and your meetin' dress tore," said she; "well, you've done about enough for one day. Take off your things and go up-stairs to bed. You can't go over to Jane Baxter's again for one spell, and every mite of the patchwork that goes into the quilt you've got to cut by a thread, and baste yourself, and to-morrow you've got to hunt for that patchwork and that bag till you find 'em, if it takes you all day. Go right along."
Ann Lizy took off her hat and climbed meekly up-stairs and went to bed. She did not say her prayers; she lay there and wept. It was about half-past eight, the air coming through the open window was loud with frogs and katydids and whippoorwills, and the twilight was very deep, when Ann Lizy arose and crept down-stairs. She could barely see her way.
There was a candle lighted in the south room, and her grandmother sat there knitting. Ann Lizy, a piteous little figure in her white night-gown, stood in the door.
"Well, what is it?" her grandmother said, in a severe voice that had a kindly inflection in it.
"Grandma—"
"What is it?"
"I lost my patchwork on purpose. I didn't want—to sew it."
"Lost your patchwork on purpose!"
"Yes—ma'am," sobbed Ann Lizy.
"Let it drop out of the bag on purpose?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, you did a dreadful wicked thing then. Go right back to bed."
Ann Lizy went back to bed and to sleep. Remorse no longer gnawed keenly enough at her clear, childish conscience to keep her awake, now her sin was confessed. She said her prayers and went to sleep. Although the next morning the reckoning came, the very worst punishment was over for her. Her grandmother held the judicious use of the rod to be a part of her duty towards her beloved little orphan granddaughter, so she switched Ann Lizy with a little rod of birch, and sent her forth full of salutary tinglings to search for the bead bag and the patchwork. All the next week Ann Lizy searched the fields and road for the missing articles, when she was not cutting calico patchwork by a thread and sewing over and over. It seemed to her that life was made up of those two occupations, but at the end of a week the search, so far as the bead bag was concerned, came to an end.
On Saturday afternoon the parson's wife called on old Mrs. Jennings. The sweet, gentle young lady in her black silk dress, her pink cheeks, and smooth waves of golden hair gleaming through her worked lace veil entered the north room, which was the parlor, and sat down in the rocking-chair. Ann Lizy and her grandmother sat opposite, and they both noticed at the same moment that the parson's wife held in her hand—the bead bag!
Ann Lizy gave a little involuntary "oh;" her grandmother shook her head fiercely at her, and the parson's wife noticed nothing. She went on talking about the pinks out in the yard, in her lovely low voice.
As soon as she could, old Mrs. Jennings excused herself and beckoned Ann Lizy to follow her out of the room. Then, while she was arranging a square of pound-cake and a little glass of elderberry wine on a tray, she charged Ann Lizy to say nothing about the bead bag to the parson's wife. "Mind you act as if you didn't see it," said she; "don't sit there lookin' at it that way."
"But it's your bead bag, grandma," said Ann Lizy, in a bewildered way.
"Don't you say anything," admonished her grandmother. "Now carry this tray in, and be careful you don't spill the elderberry wine."
Poor Ann Lizy tried her best not to look at the bead bag, while the parson's wife ate pound-cake, sipped the elderberry wine, and conversed in her sweet, gracious way; but it did seem finally to her as if it were the bead bag instead of the parson's wife that was making the call. She kept wondering if the parson's wife would not say, "Mrs. Jennings, is this your bead bag?" but she did not. She made the call and took leave, and the bead bag was never mentioned. It was odd, too, that it was not; for the parson's wife, who had found the bead bag, had taken it with her on her round of calls that afternoon, partly to show it and find out, if she could, who had lost it. But here it was driven out of her mind by the pound-cake and elderberry wine, or else she did not think it likely that an old lady like Mrs. Jennings could have owned the bag. Younger ladies than she usually carried them. However it was, she went away with the bag.
"Why didn't she ask if it was yours?" inquired Ann Lizy, indignant in spite of her admiration for the parson's wife.
"Hush," said her grandmother. "You mind you don't say a word out about this, Ann Lizy. I ain't never carried it, and she didn't suspect."
Now, the bead bag was found after this unsatisfactory fashion; but Ann Lizy never went down the road without looking for the patchwork. She never dreamed how little Sally Putnam, the minister's wife's niece, was in the mean-time sewing these four squares over and over, getting them ready to go into her quilt. It was a month later before she found it out, and it was strange that she discovered it at all.
It so happened that, one afternoon in the last of August, old Mrs. Jennings dressed herself in her best black bombazine, her best bonnet and mantilla and mitts, and also dressed Ann Lizy in her best muslin delaine, exquisitely mended, and set out to make a call on the parson's wife. When they arrived they found a chaise and white horse out in the parsonage yard, and the parson's wife's sister and family there on a visit. An old lady, Mrs. White, a friend of Mrs. Jennings, was also making a call.
Little Ann Lizy and Sally Putnam were introduced to each other, and Ann Lizy looked admiringly at Sally's long curls and low-necked dress, which had gold catches in the sleeves. They sat and smiled shyly at each other.
"Show Ann Lizy your patchwork, Sally," the parson's wife said, presently. "Sally has got almost enough patchwork for a quilt, and she has brought it over to show me," she added.
Ann Lizy colored to her little slender neck; patchwork was nowadays a sore subject with her, but she looked on as Sally, proud and smiling, displayed her patchwork.
Suddenly she gave a little cry. There was one of her squares! The calico with roses on a green ground was in Sally's patchwork.
Her grandmother shook her head energetically at her, but old Mrs. White had on her spectacles, and she, too, had spied the square.
"Why, Miss Jennings," she cried, "that's jest like that dress you had so long ago!"
"Let me see," said Sally's mother, quickly. "Why, yes; that is the very square you found, Sally. That is one; there were four of them, all cut and basted. Why, this little girl didn't lose them, did she?"
Then it all came out. The parson's wife was quick-witted, and she thought of the bead bag. Old Mrs. Jennings was polite, and said it did not matter; but when she and Ann Lizy went home they had the bead bag, with the patchwork and the best pocket-handkerchief in it.
It had been urged that little Sally Putnam should keep the patchwork, since she had sewed it, but her mother was not willing.
"No," said she, "this poor little girl lost it, and Sally mustn't keep it; it wouldn't be right."
Suddenly Ann Lizy straightened herself. Her cheeks were blazing red, but her black eyes were brave.
"I lost that patchwork on purpose," said she. "I didn't want to sew it. Then I lost the bag while I was lookin' for it."
There was silence for a minute.
"You are a good girl to tell of it," said Sally's mother, finally.
Ann Lizy's grandmother shook her head meaningly at Mrs. Putnam.
"I don't know about that," said she. "Ownin'-up takes awaysomeof the sin, but it don'tall."
But when she and Ann Lizy were on their homeward road she kept glancing down at her granddaughter's small face. It struck her that it was not so plump and rosy as it had been.
"I think you've had quite a lesson by this time about that patchwork," she remarked.
"Yes, ma'am," said Ann Lizy.
They walked a little farther. The golden-rod and the asters were in blossom now, and the road was bordered with waving fringes of blue and gold. They came in sight of Jane Baxter's house.
"You may stop in Jane Baxter's, if you want to," said old Mrs. Jennings, "and ask her mother if she can come over and spend the day with you to-morrow. And tell her I say she'd better not bring her sewing, and she'd better not wear her best dress, for you and she ain't goin' to sew any, and mebbe you'll like to go berryin', and play out-doors."
"And you must spin faster, Dorothy, or you'll go to bed without your supper," said Dame Betsy.
"Yes, ma'am," replied Dorothy. Then she twirled the wheel so fast that the spokes were a blur.
Dorothy was a pretty little girl. She had a small pink-and-white face; her hair was closely cropped and looked like a little golden cap, and her eyes were as blue as had been the flowers of the flax which she was spinning. She wore an indigo-blue frock, and she looked very short and slight beside the wheel.
Dorothy spun, Dame Betsy tended a stew-kettle that was hanging from the crane in the fire-place, and the eldest of Dame Betsy's six daughters sat on the bench beside the cottage door and ate honey-cakes. The other daughters had arrayed themselves in their best tuckers and plumed hats and farthingales, spread their ruffled parasols, and gone to walk.
Dame Betsy had wished the oldest daughter to go with her sisters; but she was rather indolent, so she dressed herself in her best, and sat down on the bench beside the door, with a plate of honey-cakes of which she was very fond. She held up her parasol to shield her face, and also to display the parasol. It was covered with very bright green satin, and had a wreath of pink roses for a border. The sun shone directly into the cottage, and the row of pewter plates on the dresser glittered; one could see them through the doorway. The front yard of Dame Betsy's cottage was like a little grove with lemon-color and pink hollyhocks; one had to look directly up the path to see the eldest daughter sitting on the bench eating honey-cakes. She was a very homely girl. All Dame Betsy's daughters were so plain and ill-tempered that they had no suitors, although they walked abroad every day.
Dame Betsy placed her whole dependence upon the linen chests when she planned to marry her daughters. At the right of her cottage stretched a great field of flax that looked now like a blue sea, and it rippled like a sea when the wind struck it. Dame Betsy and Dorothy made the flax into linen for the daughters' dowries. They had already two great chests of linen apiece, and they were to have chests filled until there were enough to attract suitors. Every little while Dame Betsy invited all the neighboring housewives to tea; then she opened the chests and unrolled the shining lengths of linen, perfumed with lavender and rosemary. "My dear daughters will have all this, and more also, when they marry," she would remark. The housewives would go home and mention it to their sons, for they themselves were tempted by the beautiful linen; but there it would end. The sons would not go to woo Dame Betsy's homely, ill-natured daughters.
Dorothy spun as fast as she was able; Dame Betsy kept a sharp watch upon her as she stirred the stew. Dorothy wanted some of the stew for her supper. It had a delicious odor, and she was very faint and hungry. She did not have a great deal to eat at any time, as she lived principally upon the scraps from the table, and the daughters were all large eaters. She also worked very hard, and never had any time to play. She was a poor child whom Dame Betsy had taken from the almshouse, and she had no relatives but an old grandmother. She had very few kind words said to her during the day, and she used often to cry herself to sleep at night.
Presently Dame Betsy went down to the store to buy some pepper to put in the stew, but as she went out of the door she spoke to the eldest daughter, and told her to go into the house and mend a rent in her apron. "Since you were too lazy to go to walk with your sisters you must go into the house and mend your apron," said she. The eldest daughter pouted, but she made no reply. Just as soon as her mother was out of hearing she called Dorothy. "Dorothy, come here a minute!" she cried, imperatively. Dorothy left her wheel and went to the door. "Look here," said the eldest daughter, "I have one honey-cake left, and I have eaten all I want. I will give you this if you will mend my apron for me."
Dorothy eyed the honey-cake wistfully, but she replied that she did not dare to leave her spinning to mend the apron.
"Why can't you mend it in the night?" asked the eldest daughter.
"I will do that," replied Dorothy, eagerly, and she held out her hand for the honey-cake. Just as she did so she saw the little boy that lived next door peeping through his fence. His beautiful little face, with his red cheeks and black eyes, looked, through the pickets, like a damask-rose. Dorothy ran swiftly over to him with her honey-cake. "You shall have half of it," said she, and she quickly broke the cake in halves, and gave one of them to the little boy. He lived with his old grandmother, and they were very poor; it was hard for them to get the coarsest porridge to eat. The little boy often stood looking through the fence and smiling at Dorothy, and the old grandmother spoke kindly to her whenever she had an opportunity.
The little boy stood on one side of the fence and Dorothy on the other, and they ate the honey-cake. Then Dorothy ran back to the house and fell to spinning again. She spun so fast, to make up for the lost time, that one could not see the wheel-spokes at all, and the room hummed like a hive of bees. But, fast as she spun, Dame Betsy, when she returned, discovered that she had been idling, and said that she must go without her supper. Poor Dorothy could not help weeping as she twirled the wheel, she was so hungry, and the honey-cake had been very small.
Dame Betsy dished up the stew and put the spoons and bowls on the table, and soon the five absent daughters came home, rustling their flounces and flirting their parasols.
They all sat down to the table and began to eat, while Dorothy stood at her wheel and sadly spun.
They had eaten all the stew except a little, just about enough for a cat, when a little shadow fell across the floor.
"Why, who's coming?" whispered Dame Betsy, and directly all the daughters began to smooth their front hair; each thought it might be a suitor.
But everything that they could see entering the door was a beautiful gray cat. She came stepping across the floor with a dainty, velvet tread. She had a tail like a plume, and she trailed it on the floor as she walked; her fur was very soft and long, and caught the light like silver; she had delicate tufted ears, and her shining eyes were like yellow jewels.
"It's nothing but a cat!" cried the daughters in disgust, and Dame Betsy arose to get the broom; she hated cats. That decided the daughters; they also hated cats, but they liked to oppose their mother. So they insisted on keeping the cat.
There was much wrangling, but the daughters were too much for Dame Betsy; the beautiful cat was allowed to remain on the hearth, and the remnant of the stew was set down there for her. But, to every one's amazement, she refused to touch it. She sat purring, with her little silvery paws folded, her plumy tail swept gracefully around her, and quite ignored the stew.
"I will take it up and give it to the pig," said Dame Betsy.
"No, no!" cried the daughters; "leave it, and perhaps she will eat it by-and-by."
So the stew was left upon the hearth. In the excitement Dorothy had stopped spinning, and nobody had observed it. Suddenly Dame Betsy noticed that the wheel was silent.
"Why are you not spinning, miss?" she asked, sharply. "Are you stopping work to look at a cat?"
But Dorothy made no reply; she paid no attention whatever: she continued to stare at the cat; she was quite pale, and her blue eyes were very large. And no wonder, for she saw, instead of a cat, a beautiful little princess, with eyes like stars, in a trailing robe of gray velvet covered with silver embroidery, and instead of a purr she heard a softly-hummed song. Dame Betsy seized Dorothy by the arm.
"To your work!" she cried.
And Dorothy began to spin; but she was trembling from head to foot, and every now and then she glanced at the princess on the hearth.
The daughters, in their best gowns, sat with their mother around the hearth until nine o'clock; then Dorothy was ordered to leave her wheel, the cottage was locked up, and everybody went to bed.
Dorothy's bed was a little bundle of straw up in the garret under the eaves. She was very tired when she lay down, but did not dare to sleep, for she remembered her promise to mend the eldest daughter's apron. So she waited until the house was still; then she arose and crept softly down-stairs.
The fire on the hearth was still burning, and there sat the princess, and the sweet hum of her singing filled the room. But Dorothy could not understand a word of the song, because it was in the Persian language. She stood in the doorway and trembled; she did not know what to do. It seemed to her that she must be losing her wits to see a princess where every one else saw a cat. Still she could not doubt the evidence of her own eyes. Finally she advanced a little way and courtesied very low. The princess stopped singing at once. She arose in a stately fashion, and fastened her bright eyes upon Dorothy.
"So you know me?" said she.
Dorothy courtesied again.
"Are you positive that I am not a cat?"
Dorothy courtesied.
"Well, I amnota cat," said the princess. "I am a true princess from Persia, travelling incognita. You are the first person who has pierced my disguise. You must have very extraordinary eyes. Aren't you hungry?"
Dorothy courtesied.
"Come here and eat the stew," ordered the princess, in a commanding tone. "Meantime I will cook my own supper."
With that the princess gave a graceful leap across the floor; her gray velvet robe fluttered like a gray wing. Dorothy saw a little mouse scud before her; then in an instant the princess had him! But the moment the princess lifted the mouse, he became a gray pigeon, all dressed for cooking.
The princess sat down on the hearth and put the pigeon on the coals to broil.
"You had better eat your stew," said she; "I won't offer you any of this pigeon, because you could not help suspecting it was mouse."
So Dorothy timidly took up the stew, and began to eat it; she was in reality nearly starved.
"Now," said the Persian princess, when she had finished, "you had better do that mending, while I finish cooking and eat my own supper."
Dorothy obeyed. By the time the apron was neatly mended, the princess had finished cooking and eaten the pigeon. "Now, I wish to talk a little to you," said she. "I feel as if you deserved my confidence since you have penetrated my disguise. I am a Persian princess, as I said before, and I am travelling incognita to see the world and improve my mind, and also to rescue my brother, who is a Maltese prince and enchanted. My brother, when very young, went on his travels, was shipwrecked on the coast of Malta, and became a prince of that island. But he had enemies, and was enchanted. He is now a Maltese cat. I disguise myself as a cat in order to find him more readily. Now, for what do you most wish?"
Dorothy courtesied; she was really too impressed to speak.
"Answer," said the princess, imperiously.
"I—want," stammered Dorothy, "to—take my grandmother out of—the almshouse, and have her sit at the window in the sun in a cushioned chair and knit a silk stocking all day."
"Anything else?"
"I should like to—have her wear a bombazine gown and a—white lace cap with—lilac ribbons."
"You are a good girl," said the princess. "Now, listen. I see that you are not very pleasantly situated here, and I will teach you a way to escape. Take your hood off that peg over there, and come out with me. I want to find my portmanteau that I left under the hedge, a little way down the road."
Dorothy put on her hood and followed the princess down the road. The little girl could scarcely keep up with her; she seemed to fairly fly through the moonlight, trailing her gray robe after her.
"Here is my portmanteau," said the princess, when they had reached the hedge. The hedge was all white hawthorn and very sweet. The portmanteau had lain well under it. All Dorothy could see was a tiny leather wallet, that a cat could carry in her mouth. But the princess blew upon it three times, and suddenly a great leather trunk stood on the grass. The princess opened it, and Dorothy gave a little cry, her eyes were so dazzled. It was like a blaze of gold and silver and jewels. "Look at this," said the princess. And she took out of the trunk the splendid robe that was laid uppermost.
Dorothy looked; she could not say anything. The robe was woven of silk, with gold and silver threads, and embroidered with jewels.
"If you will give this to Dame Betsy for her eldest daughter's bridal dress, she will let you go," said the princess. She took a pair of silver shears out of the trunk and cut off a bit of the robe under a flounce. "Show that to Dame Betsy," said the princess, "and tell her you will give her the dress made of the same material, and she will let you go. Now you had better run home. I shall stay here and sleep under the hedge. I do not like Dame Betsy's house. Come here in the morning, when you have told her about the dress."
The princess sat down on the trunk, and it immediately shrunk into the little wallet; then she curled herself up on the grass under the flowery hedge. Dorothy ran home and crept noiselessly up to her bed in the garret.
In the morning, when the daughters came down to breakfast, they missed the cat. "Where is the cat?" they inquired indignantly of their mother. They suspected her of driving the cat away with the broom. They had quite a wrangle over it. Finally, the daughters all put on finery and went out shopping for some needles and pins; then Dorothy showed Dame Betsy the scrap of the splendid robe, and said to her what the princess had directed she should say.
Dame Betsy was very much surprised and disturbed. She did not wish to lose Dorothy, who was a great help to her; still, she had no doubt that a suitor would soon appear for her eldest daughter, if arrayed in so beautiful a bridal gown as that. She reflected how she might have a tea-party and invite all the neighbors, and display the robe, and how all the sons would come flocking to the door. Finally she consented, and Dorothy, as soon as her mistress's back was turned, ran out and away to the hedge, under which she knew the Persian princess to be concealed.
The princess looked up and rubbed her eyes. She had slept late, although the birds were singing loudly all around her. Dorothy courtesied and said that she had come for the robe. "Very well," replied the princess, "I will give it to you; then you must carry it and hang it over Dame Betsy's gate, and run back to me as fast as you are able."
Then the princess blew on the wallet until it became a trunk, and she took out the splendid robe and gave it to Dorothy, who carried it and hung it over Dame Betsy's gate just as she had been bidden. But as she was about to run away, she saw the little boy who lived next door peeping through his fence, so she stopped to bid him good-bye. He felt so sad that he wept, and Dorothy herself had tears in her eyes when she ran to join the princess.
Dorothy and the princess then set off on their travels; but nobody except Dorothy herself knew that there was a princess. Every one who met them saw simply a little girl and a beautiful gray cat. Finally they stopped at a pretty little village. "Here," said the princess, "we will rent a cottage."
They looked about until they found a charming cottage with a grape-vine over the door, and roses and marigolds in the yard; then Dorothy, at the princess's direction, went to the landlord and bargained for it.
Then they went to live in the cottage, and the princess taught Dorothy how to make lovely tidies and cushions and aprons out of the beautiful dresses in her trunk. She had a great store of them, but they were all made in the Persian fashion and were of no use in this country.
When Dorothy had made the pretty articles out of the rich dresses, she went out and sold them to wealthy ladies for high prices. She soon earned quite a sum of money, which she placed at interest in the bank, and she was then able to take her grandmother out of the almshouse. She bought a beautiful chair with a canary-colored velvet cushion, and she placed it at the window in the sun. She bought a bombazine dress and a white cap with lilac ribbons, and she had the silk stocking with the needles all ready.
But the day before the old grandmother came the princess bade Dorothy good-bye. "I am going out again on my travels," said she; "I wish to see more of the country, and I must continue my search for my brother, the Maltese prince."
So the princess kissed Dorothy, who wept; then she set forth on her travels. Dorothy gazed sorrowfully after her as she went. She saw a dainty little princess, trailing her gray velvets; but everybody else saw only a lovely gray cat hurrying down the road.
Dorothy's grandmother came to live with her. She sat in her cushioned chair, in the sunny window and knitted her silk stocking, and was a very happy old woman. Dorothy continued to make beautiful things out of the princess's dresses. It seemed as if there would never be any end to them. She had cut up many dresses, but there were apparently as many now as when she began. She saw no more of the princess, although she thought of her daily, until she was quite grown up and was a beautiful maiden with many suitors. Then, one day, she went to the city to deliver a beautiful cushion that she had made for some wealthy ladies, and there, in the drawing-room, she saw the Persian princess.
Dorothy was left in the room until the ladies came down, and as she sat there holding her cushion, she heard a little velvet rustle and a softly-hummed song in the Persian language. She looked, and there was the princess stepping across the floor, trailing her gray velvets.
"So you have come, dear Dorothy," said the princess.
Dorothy arose and courtesied, but the princess came close and kissed her. "What have you there?" she inquired.
Dorothy displayed the cushion; the princess laughed.
"It is quite a joke, is it not?" said she. "That cushion is for me to sleep on, and it is made out of one of my own dresses. The ladies have bought it for me. I have heard them talking about it. How do you fare, Dorothy, and how is your grandmother?"
Then Dorothy told the princess how the grandmother sat in the cushioned chair in the sunny window and knitted the silk stocking, and how she herself was to be married the next week to the little boy who had lived next door, but was now grown up and come a-wooing.
"Where is his grandmother?" asked the princess.
Dorothy replied that she was to live with them, and that there was already another cushioned chair in a sunny window, another bombazine dress and lace cap, and a silk stocking, in readiness, and that both grandmothers were to sit and knit in peace during the rest of their lives.
"Ah, well," said the princess, with a sigh, "if I were only back in Persia I would buy you a wedding present, but I do not know when that will be—the ladies are so kind."
Dorothy ventured to inquire if the princess had found her brother, the Maltese prince.
"Dear me, yes," replied the princess. "Why, he lives in this very house. He is out in the back parlor asleep on the sofa, this minute. Brother, dear brother, come here a second, I pray!"
With that a Maltese prince, with a long, aristocratic face, and beautiful, serious eyes, entered with a slow and stately tread. He was dressed in gray velvet, like his sister, and he wore white velvet mittens. Dorothy courtesied very low.
"Yes, I found my brother here, some time ago," said the princess; "but I have very little hope of freeing him from his enchantment. You see, there is only one thing that can break the spell: one of his mistresses must drive him out of the house with the broom, and I do not believe that either of them ever will—they are so exceedingly gracious and kind. I have tried to induce my brother to commit some little sin—to steal some cream or some meat, or to fly around the room as if he were in a fit (I myself have shown him how to do that), but he will not consent. He has too much dignity, and he is too fond of these ladies. And, if he should, I doubt if he would be driven out with the broom—they are so kind."
The princess sighed. The prince stood looking in a grave and stately manner at Dorothy, but he did not speak. "However," the princess continued, cheerfully, "we do very well here, and in some respects this is a more enlightened country than either Persia or Malta, and it is a privilege to live here. The ladies are very kind to us, and we are very fond of them; then, too, we see very fine company. And there are also Persian hangings and rugs which make it seem home-like. We are very well contented. I don't know, on the whole, that we are in any hurry to go away. But should either of the ladies ever take it into her head to drive my brother out of the house with the broom, we shall at once leave the country for Persia and Malta; for, after all, one's native land is dear."
The princess stopped talking, and began to hum her Persian song, and then the ladies entered the room. They greeted Dorothy kindly; then they began to call, "Vashti, Vashti, come here, pretty Vashti," and, "Muff, Muff, come here, pretty Muff." For they did not see the Persian princess and the Maltese prince, but two beautiful cats, whose names were Vashti and Muff.
"Just hear Vashti purr," said one of the ladies. "Come here, pretty Vashti, and try your new cushion."
And the ladies saw a cat sitting on the rich cushion, and another cat looking at her gravely, while Dorothy saw a Persian princess and a Maltese prince.
However, the ladies knew that there was something uncommon about their cats, and they sometimes suspected the truth themselves, but they thought it must be a fancy.
Dorothy left her cushion and went away, and that was the last time she ever saw the Persian princess. As she went out the door the princess pressed close to her. The ladies thought she mewed, but in reality she was talking.
"Good-bye, Dorothy," said she, "I hope you will live happily ever after. And as for my brother and I, we really enjoy ourselves; we are seeing the country and improving our minds, and we love the ladies. If one of them should drive him out with the broom, he will become a prince again, and we shall leave; but I do not know that it is desirable. A cat has a more peaceful life than a prince. Good-bye, dear Dorothy."
The princess was going closer to embrace Dorothy, but the ladies became alarmed; they thought that their beautiful cat was going to steal out of the house. So they called, and a maid with a white cap ran and caught the Persian princess, and carried her back to the drawing-room. The ladies thought she mewed as she was being carried in, but in reality she was calling back merrily, "Good-bye, and live happily ever after, dear Dorothy!"