Taking a Walk
"PHEW!" gasped Jean, wheeling as the north wind, sweeping round the
corner, caught her square in the face. "I don't think much of that!
It's like ice."
"Ugh!" groaned Marjory, "I wish I'd stayed home."
"Mercy!" gulped Henrietta, "it's blowing my skin off."
After that, no one had very much to say. The girls needed their breath
for other purposes. With heads down and jackets pulled tightly about
them, they started up the long hill with the wind in their faces. It
was not a pleasant wind. Cold and cutting, it flung icy particles of
snow against their cheeks, nipped their unprotected ears, stung their
fingers and found the thin places in their garments. It rushed down
their throats when they opened their mouths to speak, wrapped their
petticoats so tightly about them that they had to keep unwinding
themselves in order to walk at all, heaped the whirling snow in drifts
and filled the air so full of flakes that it was only between gusts
that the houses were visible. Worst of all, the way was very much
uphill, and Mabel, besides being short of breath, was burdened with
the basket of eggs. The snow seemed to take a delight in piling itself
directly in front of them.
"Ugh!" gasped Henrietta, "I wish my stockings were fur-lined. They
thawed out in Mrs. Malony's and now they're frozen stiff. I don't like
'em."
"Mine, too," panted Mabel.
"And all my skirts," groaned Marjory. "The edges are like saws and
they're scraping my knees."
"How do you like a real storm?" queried Jean, steering Henrietta
through a mighty drift.
"Not so well as I thought I should," admitted Henrietta. "I miss my
blizzard clothes."
The streets, when the girls finally reached the top of the hill, were
deserted. Even the sides of the houses looked like solid walls of snow,
for the wind had hurled the big flakes in gigantic handfuls against the
buildings until they were all nicely coated with a thick frosting; and
so, all the world was white. And, by the time the five girls reached
Jean's house, for they finally accomplished that difficult feat, they,
too, were nicely plastered from head to heels with the clinging snow.
They looked like animated snow men as they piled thankfully into Mrs.
Mapes's parlor.
The girls themselves were warm and glowing from the unusual exercise,
but their stockings and cotton skirts were frozen stiff.
"Henrietta will simply have to stay all night," said Mrs. Mapes,
discovering the wet stockings. "I sent the coachman home half an hour
ago for the sake of the horses. I'll telephone Mrs. Slater that you're
safe. You other girls must go home at once and change your clothes
before they thaw. And, Jean, you and Henrietta must get into bed at
once. I'll bring you a hot supper inside of five minutes."
"That'll be fun," declared Jean, seizing Henrietta's hand and making
for the stairs. "Good-night, girls."
"I guess," said Marjory, when the Mapes's door had closed behind
Bettie, Mabel and herself, "Jean and Henrietta are going to be great
chums."
"I'm afraid so," sighed Bettie. "I like Henrietta; but, dear me, I
don't want Jean to like her better than she does me."
"She won't," comforted Marjory. "Henrietta's all right for a little
while at a time, but you're _always_ nice."
Thanks to Mrs. Mapes's instructions, none of the girls caught cold; but
their mothers were so afraid that they might that not one of them was
permitted to poke her nose out of doors the next day. To Henrietta's
delight, the drifts reached the fence tops; and, until a huge plow,
drawn by six horses arranged in pairs, had cleared the way, the roads
were impassable. The wind, after raging furiously all night, had
quieted down; but the snow continued to fall in big, soft, clinging
flakes, every tree and shrub was weighted down with a heavy burden and
all the world was white. To Henrietta, who had never before seen snow
in such abundance, it was a most pleasing spectacle.
Bettie, however, was sorely troubled. There was Jean shut in with
attractive Henrietta and getting "chummier" with her every minute.
There was Bettie, a solitary prisoner in a fuzzy red wrapper and bed
slippers, sighing for her beloved Jean. To be sure, Bettie had brothers
of assorted sizes and complexions, but not one of them could fill
Jean's place in Bettie's troubled affections.
Had Bettie but known it, however, Jean was not having an entirely
comfortable day. It happened to be one of Henrietta's "Frederika"
days. The lively girl tormented bashful Wallace by pretending that
she herself was excessively shy, and, as shyness was not one of her
attributes, her victim was covered with confusion. She teased and
bewildered Roger by chattering so rapidly in French that he couldn't
understand a word she said, although he had studied the language for
three years under Miss McGinnis and was proud of his progress. A number
of times she became so witty at Jean's expense that "Sallie" had to
rush to the rescue with profuse apologies. Also, she disturbed both Mr.
and Mrs. Mapes by her extreme restlessness.
"My sakes," confided Mrs. Mapes, in the privacy of the kitchen, whither
she had fled for the sake of quiet, "I'm glad that girl doesn't belong
to me; she isn't still a minute."
"Perhaps," said Roger, who had escaped on the pretext of blacking his
shoes, "it's because she has traveled so much. Maybe she feels as if
she had to keep going."
"Bettie's certainly a great deal quieter," agreed Jean, who looked
tired, "and she doesn't talk all night when a body wants to sleep; but
Henrietta's more fun. You see, you never know what she's going to do
next, but Bettie's always just the same."
At dinner time that day, Mrs. Mapes asked her husband if he knew
whether the School Board had accomplished anything at the meeting held
the night previously.
"No," replied Mr. Mapes, a tall, thin man with a preoccupied air.
"And they never will as long as each one of them wants to put that
schoolhouse in a different place. They can't come to any sort of an
agreement."
Indeed, the poor School Board was having a perplexing time. The
citizens that lived at the north end of the town wanted the new school
built there. Other tax-payers declared that the southern portion of
Lakeville, being more densely populated, offered a more suitable site.
Then, since the town stretched westward for a long distance, a third
group of persons were clamoring for the building in _their_ part of the
town. Besides all these, there were persons who declared that the old
site was the _only_ place for a school building. As the Board itself
was divided as to opinion, it began to look as if Lakeville would have
to get along without a schoolhouse unless it could afford to build
four, and the tax-payers said it couldn't do that.
"I wish," said Mrs. Mapes, "that I could find a first-class girls'
school within a reasonable distance. If they don't have a proper
building in Lakeville by next September I'll send Jean away. That
Baptist cellar is damp, and I know it. Besides, I went to a good
boarding school myself and I'd like Jean to have the experience--I'll
never forget those days."
"Send her," suggested Henrietta, "to the school I'm going to."
"Which one is that?" asked Mrs. Mapes.
"I don't know; but Grandmother says it mustn't be too far away. She
wants me within reach."
"I think," said Mrs. Mapes, reflectively, "I'll send for some
catalogues."
The next morning the sun shone brightly on a glittering world.
Henrietta went into ecstasies over it, for even the tree trunks seemed
incrusted with diamonds--or at least rhine-stones, Henrietta said. The
coachman arrived with the Slater horses a little before nine o'clock
and the two girls were carried off to school in state. They waved their
hands to Bettie as they passed her trudging in the snow; and poor
Bettie was suddenly conscious of a sharp twinge of jealousy.
Now that Henrietta had been properly called on and had returned the
call, she became a permanent part of all the Cottagers' plans.
Thereafter, there was hardly a day when one or another of the four
girls did not see the fascinating maid of many names. They always found
her interesting, attractive and entertaining. Yet, there were days
when she teased them almost to the limit of their endurance, times
when they could not quite approve her and moments when she fairly
roused them to anger; but, in spite of her faults, they could not
help loving her, because, with all her impishness and her distressing
lack of repose, she was warm-hearted, loyal and thoroughly true. And,
although she possessed dozens of advantages that the other girls
lacked, although she was beautifully gowned, splendidly housed and
bountifully supplied with spending money, never did she show, in any
way, the faintest scrap of false pride. She mentioned her life abroad,
in a simple, matter-of-fact way (as if it were a mere incident that
might have happened to anybody), but never in any boasting spirit. Her
prankishness, however, kept her from being too good or too lovable;
for, as her Grandmother said, she spared no one; sometimes even Jean,
who was a model of patience, found it hard to forgive fun-loving
Frederika, the Disguised Duchess.