If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss
Minchin's Select Seminary for the next few years would not have been at
all good for her. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished
guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. If
she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might have
become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much
indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would
have learned nothing. Privately Miss Minchin disliked her, but she was
far too worldly a woman to do or say anything which might make such a
desirable pupil wish to leave her school. She knew quite well that if
Sara wrote to her papa to tell him she was uncomfortable or unhappy,
Captain Crewe would remove her at once. Miss Minchin's opinion was that
if a child were continually praised and never forbidden to do what she
liked, she would be sure to be fond of the place where she was so
treated. Accordingly, Sara was praised for her quickness at her
lessons, for her good manners, for her amiability to her fellow pupils,
for her generosity if she gave sixpence to a beggar out of her full
little purse; the simplest thing she did was treated as if it were a
virtue, and if she had not had a disposition and a clever little brain,
she might have been a very self-satisfied young person. But the clever
little brain told her a great many sensible and true things about
herself and her circumstances, and now and then she talked these things
over to Ermengarde as time went on.
"Things happen to people by accident," she used to say. "A lot of nice
accidents have happened to me. It just HAPPENED that I always liked
lessons and books, and could remember things when I learned them. It
just happened that I was born with a father who was beautiful and nice
and clever, and could give me everything I liked. Perhaps I have not
really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and
everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? I
don't know"--looking quite serious--"how I shall ever find out whether
I am really a nice child or a horrid one. Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child,
and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials."
"Lavinia has no trials," said Ermengarde, stolidly, "and she is horrid
enough."
Sara rubbed the end of her little nose reflectively, as she thought the
matter over.
"Well," she said at last, "perhaps--perhaps that is because Lavinia is
GROWING." This was the result of a charitable recollection of having
heard Miss Amelia say that Lavinia was growing so fast that she
believed it affected her health and temper.
Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sara.
Until the new pupil's arrival, she had felt herself the leader in the
school. She had led because she was capable of making herself
extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered
over the little children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough
to be her companions. She was rather pretty, and had been the
best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked
out two by two, until Sara's velvet coats and sable muffs appeared,
combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin
at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter
enough; but as time went on it became apparent that Sara was a leader,
too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because
she never did.
"There's one thing about Sara Crewe," Jessie had enraged her "best
friend" by saying honestly, "she's never 'grand' about herself the
least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I couldn't
help being--just a little--if I had so many fine things and was made
such a fuss over. It's disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off
when parents come."
"'Dear Sara must come into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave
about India,'" mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation
of Miss Minchin. "'Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her
accent is so perfect.' She didn't learn her French at the Seminary, at
any rate. And there's nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says
herself she didn't learn it at all. She just picked it up, because she
always heard her papa speak it. And, as to her papa, there is nothing
so grand in being an Indian officer."
"Well," said Jessie, slowly, "he's killed tigers. He killed the one in
the skin Sara has in her room. That's why she likes it so. She lies on
it and strokes its head, and talks to it as if it was a cat."
"She's always doing something silly," snapped Lavinia. "My mamma says
that way of hers of pretending things is silly. She says she will grow
up eccentric."
It was quite true that Sara was never "grand." She was a friendly
little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a free hand.
The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out
of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve, were never made to cry
by this most envied of them all. She was a motherly young person, and
when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them
up and patted them, or found in her pocket a bonbon or some other
article of a soothing nature. She never pushed them out of her way or
alluded to their years as a humiliation and a blot upon their small
characters.
"If you are four you are four," she said severely to Lavinia on an
occasion of her having--it must be confessed--slapped Lottie and called
her "a brat;" "but you will be five next year, and six the year after
that. And," opening large, convicting eyes, "it takes sixteen years to
make you twenty."
"Dear me," said Lavinia, "how we can calculate!" In fact, it was not
to be denied that sixteen and four made twenty--and twenty was an age
the most daring were scarcely bold enough to dream of.
So the younger children adored Sara. More than once she had been known
to have a tea party, made up of these despised ones, in her own room.
And Emily had been played with, and Emily's own tea service used--the
one with cups which held quite a lot of much-sweetened weak tea and had
blue flowers on them. No one had seen such a very real doll's tea set
before. From that afternoon Sara was regarded as a goddess and a queen
by the entire alphabet class.
Lottie Legh worshipped her to such an extent that if Sara had not been
a motherly person, she would have found her tiresome. Lottie had been
sent to school by a rather flighty young papa who could not imagine
what else to do with her. Her young mother had died, and as the child
had been treated like a favorite doll or a very spoiled pet monkey or
lap dog ever since the first hour of her life, she was a very appalling
little creature. When she wanted anything or did not want anything she
wept and howled; and, as she always wanted the things she could not
have, and did not want the things that were best for her, her shrill
little voice was usually to be heard uplifted in wails in one part of
the house or another.
Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out
that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought
to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grown-up
people talking her over in the early days, after her mother's death. So
it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge.
The first time Sara took her in charge was one morning when, on passing
a sitting room, she heard both Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia trying to
suppress the angry wails of some child who, evidently, refused to be
silenced. She refused so strenuously indeed that Miss Minchin was
obliged to almost shout--in a stately and severe manner--to make
herself heard.
"What IS she crying for?" she almost yelled.
"Oh--oh--oh!" Sara heard; "I haven't got any mam--ma-a!"
"Oh, Lottie!" screamed Miss Amelia. "Do stop, darling! Don't cry!
Please don't!"
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" Lottie howled tempestuously.
"Haven't--got--any--mam--ma-a!"
"She ought to be whipped," Miss Minchin proclaimed. "You SHALL be
whipped, you naughty child!"
Lottie wailed more loudly than ever. Miss Amelia began to cry. Miss
Minchin's voice rose until it almost thundered, then suddenly she
sprang up from her chair in impotent indignation and flounced out of
the room, leaving Miss Amelia to arrange the matter.
Sara had paused in the hall, wondering if she ought to go into the
room, because she had recently begun a friendly acquaintance with
Lottie and might be able to quiet her. When Miss Minchin came out and
saw her, she looked rather annoyed. She realized that her voice, as
heard from inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or
amiable.
"Oh, Sara!" she exclaimed, endeavoring to produce a suitable smile.
"I stopped," explained Sara, "because I knew it was Lottie--and I
thought, perhaps--just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try,
Miss Minchin?"
"If you can, you are a clever child," answered Miss Minchin, drawing in
her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by
her asperity, she changed her manner. "But you are clever in
everything," she said in her approving way. "I dare say you can manage
her. Go in." And she left her.
When Sara entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming
and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending
over her in consternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with
heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that
kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted
on. Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method, and then
another.
"Poor darling," she said one moment, "I know you haven't any mamma,
poor--" Then in quite another tone, "If you don't stop, Lottie, I will
shake you. Poor little angel! There--! You wicked, bad, detestable
child, I will smack you! I will!"
Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going
to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better
not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and
excitedly.
"Miss Amelia," she said in a low voice, "Miss Minchin says I may try to
make her stop--may I?"
Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. "Oh, DO you think you
can?" she gasped.
"I don't know whether I CAN", answered Sara, still in her half-whisper;
"but I will try."
Miss Amelia stumbled up from her knees with a heavy sigh, and Lottie's
fat little legs kicked as hard as ever.
"If you will steal out of the room," said Sara, "I will stay with her."
"Oh, Sara!" almost whimpered Miss Amelia. "We never had such a
dreadful child before. I don't believe we can keep her."
But she crept out of the room, and was very much relieved to find an
excuse for doing it.
Sara stood by the howling furious child for a few moments, and looked
down at her without saying anything. Then she sat down flat on the
floor beside her and waited. Except for Lottie's angry screams, the
room was quite quiet. This was a new state of affairs for little Miss
Legh, who was accustomed, when she screamed, to hear other people
protest and implore and command and coax by turns. To lie and kick and
shriek, and find the only person near you not seeming to mind in the
least, attracted her attention. She opened her tight-shut streaming
eyes to see who this person was. And it was only another little girl.
But it was the one who owned Emily and all the nice things. And she
was looking at her steadily and as if she was merely thinking. Having
paused for a few seconds to find this out, Lottie thought she must
begin again, but the quiet of the room and of Sara's odd, interested
face made her first howl rather half-hearted.
"I--haven't--any--ma--ma--ma-a!" she announced; but her voice was not
so strong.
Sara looked at her still more steadily, but with a sort of
understanding in her eyes.
"Neither have I," she said.
This was so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped
her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a
crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while
Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was
foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew her.
She did not want to give up her grievance, but her thoughts were
distracted from it, so she wriggled again, and, after a sulky sob,
said, "Where is she?"
Sara paused a moment. Because she had been told that her mamma was in
heaven, she had thought a great deal about the matter, and her thoughts
had not been quite like those of other people.
"She went to heaven," she said. "But I am sure she comes out sometimes
to see me--though I don't see her. So does yours. Perhaps they can
both see us now. Perhaps they are both in this room."
Lottie sat bolt upright, and looked about her. She was a pretty,
little, curly-headed creature, and her round eyes were like wet
forget-me-nots. If her mamma had seen her during the last half-hour,
she might not have thought her the kind of child who ought to be
related to an angel.
Sara went on talking. Perhaps some people might think that what she
said was rather like a fairy story, but it was all so real to her own
imagination that Lottie began to listen in spite of herself. She had
been told that her mamma had wings and a crown, and she had been shown
pictures of ladies in beautiful white nightgowns, who were said to be
angels. But Sara seemed to be telling a real story about a lovely
country where real people were.
"There are fields and fields of flowers," she said, forgetting herself,
as usual, when she began, and talking rather as if she were in a dream,
"fields and fields of lilies--and when the soft wind blows over them it
wafts the scent of them into the air--and everybody always breathes it,
because the soft wind is always blowing. And little children run about
in the lily fields and gather armfuls of them, and laugh and make
little wreaths. And the streets are shining. And people are never
tired, however far they walk. They can float anywhere they like. And
there are walls made of pearl and gold all round the city, but they are
low enough for the people to go and lean on them, and look down onto
the earth and smile, and send beautiful messages."
Whatsoever story she had begun to tell, Lottie would, no doubt, have
stopped crying, and been fascinated into listening; but there was no
denying that this story was prettier than most others. She dragged
herself close to Sara, and drank in every word until the end came--far
too soon. When it did come, she was so sorry that she put up her lip
ominously.
"I want to go there," she cried. "I--haven't any mamma in this school."
Sara saw the danger signal, and came out of her dream. She took hold
of the chubby hand and pulled her close to her side with a coaxing
little laugh.
"I will be your mamma," she said. "We will play that you are my little
girl. And Emily shall be your sister."
Lottie's dimples all began to show themselves.
"Shall she?" she said.
"Yes," answered Sara, jumping to her feet. "Let us go and tell her.
And then I will wash your face and brush your hair."
To which Lottie agreed quite cheerfully, and trotted out of the room
and upstairs with her, without seeming even to remember that the whole
of the last hour's tragedy had been caused by the fact that she had
refused to be washed and brushed for lunch and Miss Minchin had been
called in to use her majestic authority.
And from that time Sara was an adopted mother.
5