THE DIAMOND-MINES
Not very long after this a very exciting thing happened. Not only Sara,
but the entire school, found it exciting, and made it the chief subject
of conversation for weeks after it occurred. In one of his letters
Captain Crewe told a most interesting story. A friend who had been at
school with him when he was a boy had unexpectedly come to see him in
India. He was the owner of a large tract of land upon which diamonds had
been found, and he was engaged in developing the mines. If all went as
was confidently expected, he would become possessed of such wealth as it
made one dizzy to think of; and because he was fond of the friend of his
school-days, he had given him an opportunity to share in this enormous
fortune by becoming a partner in his scheme. This, at least, was what
Sara gathered from his letters. It is true that any other business
scheme, however magnificent, would have had but small attraction for her
or for the school-room; but "diamond-mines" sounded so like the "Arabian
Nights" that no one could be indifferent. Sara thought them enchanting,
and painted pictures, for Ermengarde and Lottie, of labyrinthine
passages in the bowels of the earth, where sparkling stones studded the
walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange, dark men dug them out with
heavy picks. Ermengarde delighted in the story, and Lottie insisted on
its being retold to her every evening. Lavinia was very spiteful about
it, and told Jessie that she didn't believe such things as diamond-mines
existed.
"My mamma has a diamond ring which cost forty pounds," she said. "And it
is not a big one, either. If there were mines full of diamonds, people
would be so rich it would be ridiculous."
"Perhaps Sara will be so rich that she will be ridiculous," giggled
Jessie.
"She's ridiculous without being rich," Lavinia sniffed.
"I believe you hate her," said Jessie.
"No, I don't," snapped Lavinia. "But I don't believe in mines full of
diamonds."
"Well, people have to get them from somewhere," said Jessie.
"Lavinia,"--with a new giggle,--"what do you think Gertrude says?"
"I don't know, I'm sure; and I don't care if it's something more about
that everlasting Sara."
"Well, it is. One of her 'pretends' is that she is a princess. She plays
it all the time--even in school. She says it makes her learn her lessons
better. She wants Ermengarde to be one, too, but Ermengarde says she is
too fat."
"She _is_ too fat," said Lavinia. "And Sara is too thin."
Naturally, Jessie giggled again.
"She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you
have. It has only to do with what you _think_ of, and what you _do_."
"I suppose she thinks she could be a princess if she was a beggar," said
Lavinia. "Let us begin to call her Your Royal Highness."
Lessons for the day were over, and they were sitting before the
school-room fire, enjoying the time they liked best. It was the
time when Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia were taking their tea in the
sitting-room sacred to themselves. At this hour a great deal of talking
was done, and a great many secrets changed hands, particularly if the
younger pupils behaved themselves well, and did not squabble or run
about noisily, which it must be confessed they usually did. When they
made an uproar the older girls usually interfered with scoldings and
shakes. They were expected to keep order, and there was danger that if
they did not, Miss Minchin or Miss Amelia would appear and put an end to
festivities. Even as Lavinia spoke the door opened and Sara entered with
Lottie, whose habit was to trot everywhere after her like a little dog.
"There she is, with that horrid child!" exclaimed Lavinia, in a whisper.
"If she's so fond of her, why doesn't she keep her in her own room? She
will begin howling about something in five minutes."
It happened that Lottie had been seized with a sudden desire to play in
the school-room, and had begged her adopted parent to come with her. She
joined a group of little ones who were playing in a corner. Sara curled
herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read. It was
a book about the French Revolution, and she was soon lost in a harrowing
picture of the prisoners in the Bastille--men who had spent so many
years in dungeons that when they were dragged out by those who rescued
them, their long, gray hair and beards almost hid their faces, and they
had forgotten that an outside world existed at all, and were like beings
in a dream.
She was so far away from the school-room that it was not agreeable to be
dragged back suddenly by a howl from Lottie. Never did she find anything
so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was
suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of
books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a
moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy
to manage.
"It makes me feel as if some one had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde
once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember
things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered."
She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the
window-seat and jumped down from her comfortable corner.
Lottie had been sliding across the school-room floor, and, having first
irritated Lavinia and Jessie by making a noise, had ended by falling
down and hurting her fat knee. She was screaming and dancing up and
down in the midst of a group of friends and enemies, who were
alternately coaxing and scolding her.
"Stop this minute, you cry-baby! Stop this minute!" Lavinia commanded.
"I'm not a cry-baby--I'm not!" wailed Lottie. "Sara, Sa--ra!"
"If she doesn't stop, Miss Minchin will hear her," cried Jessie. "Lottie
darling, I'll give you a penny!"
"I don't want your penny," sobbed Lottie; and she looked down at the fat
knee, and, seeing a drop of blood on it, burst forth again.
Sara flew across the room and, kneeling down, put her arms round her.
"Now, Lottie," she said. "Now, Lottie, you _promised_ Sara."
"She said I was a cry-baby," wept Lottie.
Sara patted her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew.
"But if you cry, you will be one, Lottie pet. You _promised_."
Lottie remembered that she had promised, but she preferred to lift up
her voice.
"I haven't any mamma," she proclaimed. "I haven't--a bit--of mamma."
"Yes, you have," said Sara, cheerfully. "Have you forgotten? Don't you
know that Sara is your mamma? Don't you want Sara for your mamma?"
Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff.
"Come and sit in the window-seat with me," Sara went on, "and I'll
whisper a story to you."
"Will you?" whimpered Lottie. "Will you--tell me--about the
diamond-mines?"
"The diamond-mines?" broke out Lavinia. "Nasty, little spoiled thing, I
should like to _slap_ her!"
Sara got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she had been
very deeply absorbed in the book about the Bastille, and she had had to
recall several things rapidly when she realized that she must go and
take care of her adopted child. She was not an angel, and she was not
fond of Lavinia.
"Well," she said, with some fire, "I should like to slap _you_,--but I
don't want to slap you!" restraining herself. "At least I both want to
slap you--and I should _like_ to slap you,--but I _won't_ slap you. We
are not little gutter children. We are both old enough to know better."
Here was Lavinia's opportunity.
"Ah, yes, your royal highness," she said. "We are princesses, I believe.
At least one of us is. The school ought to be very fashionable now Miss
Minchin has a princess for a pupil."
Sara started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box her
ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending things was the joy of her
life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not fond of. Her new
"pretend" about being a princess was very near to her heart, and she was
shy and sensitive about it. She had meant it to be rather a secret, and
here was Lavinia deriding it before nearly all the school. She felt the
blood rush up into her face and tingle in her ears. She only just saved
herself. If you were a princess, you did not fly into rages. Her hand
dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she spoke it was in a
quiet, steady voice; she held her head up, and everybody listened to
her.
"It's true," she said. "Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I
pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one."
Lavinia could not think of exactly the right thing to say. Several times
she had found that she could not think of a satisfactory reply when she
was dealing with Sara. The reason of this was that, somehow, the rest
always seemed to be vaguely in sympathy with her opponent. She saw now
that they were pricking up their ears interestedly. The truth was, they
liked princesses, and they all hoped they might hear something more
definite about this one, and drew nearer Sara accordingly.
Lavinia could only invent one remark, and it fell rather flat.
"Dear me!" she said; "I hope, when you ascend the throne, you won't
forget us."
"I won't," said Sara, and she did not utter another word, but stood
quite still, and stared at her steadily as she saw her take Jessie's arm
and turn away.
After this, the girls who were jealous of her used to speak of her as
"Princess Sara" whenever they wished to be particularly disdainful, and
those who were fond of her gave her the name among themselves as a term
of affection. No one called her "princess" instead of "Sara," but her
adorers were much pleased with the picturesqueness and grandeur of the
title, and Miss Minchin, hearing of it, mentioned it more than once to
visiting parents, feeling that it rather suggested a sort of royal
boarding-school.
To Becky it seemed the most appropriate thing in the world. The
acquaintance begun on the foggy afternoon when she had jumped up
terrified from her sleep in the comfortable chair, had ripened and
grown, though it must be confessed that Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia
knew very little about it. They were aware that Sara was "kind" to the
scullery-maid, but they knew nothing of certain delightful moments
snatched perilously when, the up-stairs rooms being set in order with
lightning rapidity, Sara's sitting-room was reached, and the heavy
coal-box set down with a sigh of joy. At such times stories were told by
instalments, things of a satisfying nature were either produced and
eaten or hastily tucked into pockets to be disposed of at night, when
Becky went up-stairs to her attic to bed.
"But I has to eat 'em careful, miss," she said once; "'cos if I leaves
crumbs the rats come out to get 'em."
"Rats!" exclaimed Sara, in horror. "Are there _rats_ there?"
"Lots of 'em, miss," Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact manner.
"There mostly is rats an' mice in attics. You gets used to the noise
they makes scuttling about. I've got so I don't mind 'em s' long as they
don't run over my piller."
"Ugh!" said Sara.
"You gets used to anythin' after a bit," said Becky. "You have to, miss,
if you're born a scullery-maid. I'd rather have rats than cockroaches."
"So would I," said Sara; "I suppose you might make friends with a rat in
time, but I don't believe I should like to make friends with a
cockroach."
Sometimes Becky did not dare to spend more than a few minutes in the
bright, warm room, and when this was the case perhaps only a few words
could be exchanged, and a small purchase slipped into the old-fashioned
pocket Becky carried under her dress skirt, tied round her waist with a
band of tape. The search for and discovery of satisfying things to eat
which could be packed into small compass, added a new interest to Sara's
existence. When she drove or walked out, she used to look into shop
windows eagerly. The first time it occurred to her to bring home two or
three little meat-pies, she felt that she had hit upon a discovery. When
she exhibited them, Becky's eyes quite sparkled.
"Oh, miss!" she murmured. "Them will be nice an' fillin'. It's
fillin'ness that's best. Sponge-cake's a 'evingly thing, but it melts
away like--if you understand, miss. These'll just _stay_ in yer
stummick."
"Well," hesitated Sara, "I don't think it would be good if they stayed
always, but I do believe they will be satisfying."
They were satisfying,--and so were beef sandwiches, bought at a
cook-shop,--and so were rolls and Bologna sausage. In time, Becky began
to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal-box did not seem so
unbearably heavy.
However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook, and the
hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had always the
chance of the afternoon to look forward to--the chance that Miss Sara
would be able to be in her sitting-room. In fact, the mere seeing of
Miss Sara would have been enough without meat-pies. If there was time
only for a few words, they were always friendly, merry words that put
heart into one; and if there was time for more, then there was an
instalment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered
afterward and sometimes lay awake in one's bed in the attic to think
over. Sara--who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better than
anything else, Nature having made her for a giver--had not the least
idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor she
seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open,
and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands
are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of
that--warm things, kind things, sweet things,--help and comfort and
laughter,--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.
Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor, little
hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with her; and, though
neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was as "fillin'" as the
meat-pies.
A few weeks before Sara's eleventh birthday a letter came to her from
her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish high spirits
as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently overweighted by the
business connected with the diamond-mines.
"You see, little Sara," he wrote, "your daddy is not a business man at
all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really understand
them, and all this seems so enormous. Perhaps, if I was not feverish I
should not be awake, tossing about, one half of the night and spend the
other half in troublesome dreams. If my little missus were here, I dare
say she would give me some solemn, good advice. You would, wouldn't you,
little missus?"
One of his many jokes had been to call her his "little missus" because
she had such an old-fashioned air.
He had made wonderful preparations for her birthday. Among other things,
a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her wardrobe was to be,
indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection. When she had replied to the
letter asking her if the doll would be an acceptable present, Sara had
been very quaint.
"I am getting very old," she wrote; "you see, I shall never live to have
another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There is something
solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure a poem about 'A Last
Doll' would be very nice. But I cannot write poetry. I have tried,
and it made me laugh. It did not sound like Watts or Coleridge or
Shakespeare at all. No one could ever take Emily's place, but I should
respect the Last Doll very much; and I am sure the school would love it.
They all like dolls, though some of the big ones--the almost fifteen
ones--pretend they are too grown up."
Captain Crewe had a splitting headache when he read this letter in his
bungalow in India. The table before him was heaped with papers and
letters which were alarming him and filling him with anxious dread, but
he laughed as he had not laughed for weeks.
"Oh," he said, "she's better fun every year she lives. God grant this
business may right itself and leave me free to run home and see her.
What wouldn't I give to have her little arms round my neck this minute!
What _wouldn't_ I give!"
The birthday was to be celebrated by great festivities. The school-room
was to be decorated, and there was to be a party. The boxes containing
the presents were to be opened with great ceremony, and there was to be
a glittering feast spread in Miss Minchin's sacred room. When the day
arrived the whole house was in a whirl of excitement. How the morning
passed nobody quite knew, because there seemed such preparations to be
made. The school-room was being decked with garlands of holly; the desks
had been moved away, and red covers had been put on the forms which were
arrayed round the room against the wall.
When Sara went into her sitting-room in the morning, she found on the
table a small, dumpy package, tied up in a piece of brown paper. She
knew it was a present, and she thought she could guess whom it came
from. She opened it quite tenderly. It was a square pincushion, made of
not quite clean red flannel, and black pins had been stuck carefully
into it to form the words, "Menny hapy returns."
"Oh!" cried Sara, with a warm feeling in her heart. "What pains she has
taken! I like it so, it--it makes me feel sorrowful."
But the next moment she was mystified. On the under side of the
pincushion was secured a card, bearing in neat letters the name "Miss
Amelia Minchin."
Sara turned it over and over.
"Miss Amelia!" she said to herself. "How _can_ it be!"
And just at that very moment she heard the door being cautiously pushed
open and saw Becky peeping round it.
There was an affectionate, happy grin on her face, and she shuffled
forward and stood nervously pulling at her fingers.
"Do yer like it, Miss Sara?" she said. "Do yer?"
"Like it?" cried Sara. "You darling Becky, you made it all yourself."
Becky gave a hysteric but joyful sniff, and her eyes looked quite moist
with delight.
"It ain't nothin' but flannin, an' the flannin ain't new; but I wanted
to give yer somethin' an' I made it of nights. I knew yer could
_pretend_ it was satin with diamond pins in. _I_ tried to when I was
makin' it. The card, miss," rather doubtfully; "'t warn't wrong of me
to pick it up out o' the dust-bin, was it? Miss 'Meliar had throwed it
away. I hadn't no card o' my own, an' I knowed it wouldn't be a proper
presink if I didn't pin a card on--so I pinned Miss 'Meliar's."
Sara flew at her and hugged her. She could not have told herself or any
one else why there was a lump in her throat.
"Oh, Becky!" she cried out, with a queer little laugh. "I love you,
Becky,--I do, I do!"
"Oh, miss!" breathed Becky. "Thank yer, miss, kindly; It ain't good
enough for that. The--the flannin wasn't new."