THE PINK-AND-WHITE APRON
Alice had a toothache. At least she had had a toothache, but now the
pain was gone, leaving her with a swollen cheek twice as plump as it
ought to be.
Alice quite enjoyed her too plump face. When she looked in the mirror
she couldn’t help smiling, her face was so droll. And her smile was
so funny, so twisted, so ‘fat,’ that Alice just couldn’t help smiling
again.
As for Sally, she laughed outright at Alice’s face when she came over
to play that afternoon.
‘This is the way you look,’ said she, plumping out both cheeks like two
red balloons.
In spite of all the laughing and the fun, Alice didn’t feel yet like
playing lively games.
Her mother had gone to the city, shopping, and Alice, after a little
nap, had been sitting quietly downstairs with Miss Neppy until Sally
came over to play.
But when Sally did come, Alice didn’t feel like romping in the garden,
nor going down to the beach, nor even swinging in Sally’s big red
swing. So she and Sally settled down, with a picture book between them,
in the kitchen where Miss Neppy was ironing aprons.
Sally was always interested in Miss Neppy’s aprons, and it was because
she wore so many of them. Yes, all at one time, Miss Neppy would wear
as many as four or five aprons, and Sally knew quite well, by now, what
each apron meant.
First of all, just over her dress, Miss Neppy wore a small, fine, white
apron, trimmed with lace she had made herself, and often with pockets
ornamented by tiny bows of pale lavender ribbon. This was her very best
apron, quite nice enough to wear when the minister came to call.
Over the small white apron Miss Neppy would tie a large, full, white
one, with three fine tucks above the hem. This was the apron in which
Miss Neppy would knit or sew or even sit and talk with her friends.
Above this white apron came a stout one, perhaps of white with little
blue dots or rings, or perhaps with gay bunches of pink or blue posies.
In this apron Miss Neppy did her dusting, her bed-making, her shelling
of peas and stringing of beans.
While, last of all, came a dark blue-and-white gingham apron that
covered little Miss Neppy all round about and was meant for cooking and
washing, for digging in the garden and for scrubbing the floors.
As I say, Sally had grown to know the proper use of each apron, and she
knew, too, that Miss Neppy would not feel completely dressed unless she
had the right apron on at the right time. Sally had often watched her
slip out of her gingham and her dotted aprons when a neighbor knocked
at her door, and once she had seen Miss Neppy untie three aprons
in the twinkling of an eye and, neat and trim, shake hands with the
minister who had come to call.
This afternoon Miss Neppy was ironing aprons, and for this work she
wore a white apron covered closely with fine dark blue dots.
Thump, thump went the iron, with an occasional hiss! when Miss Neppy
tested it with a Wet forefinger to see whether it were hot enough or
no. The pile of ironed aprons grew higher and higher, and Sally and
Alice looked up every now and then from the picture book to watch it
grow.
‘You must have more than a hundred aprons, Miss Neppy,’ said Sally,
watching Miss Neppy unroll and shake out a dampened apron covered over
with bright pink flowers.
‘That is the prettiest apron of all,’ thought Sally to herself.
‘Oh, no, Sally,’ replied Miss Neppy, looking at the little girl over
her spectacles, ‘I have nothing like a hundred aprons. Why, I should
think it was wicked to have as many as that.’
Presently Miss Neppy finished her ironing.
‘I’m going into the garden to pick beans for dinner, children,’ said
she.
So she tied about her waist a dark blue-and-white checked apron that
covered her all round, and with her basket on her arm went into the
garden that sloped down the steep hill toward the sea.
‘I think I will go upstairs and bring down Jack Tar,’ said Alice. ‘I
haven’t seen him since last night when I went to bed with toothache.’
So Sally was left alone.
She walked round the kitchen that she knew almost as well as her own,
and looked out of the window at Miss Neppy’s head and back bending over
the green rows of beans. Then she eyed the high pile of aprons left on
the table to air. On top of the pile lay the pink-and-white apron, ‘the
prettiest one of all.’
The next thing Sally knew she had taken the pink-and-white apron from
the pile, had unfolded it, and was shaking it out.
Of course she knew she shouldn’t touch Miss Neppy’s apron. She knew it
as well as you or I. But in spite of this, she first held the apron up
before her, and then, finding that it dragged upon the floor, she flung
it round her shoulders like a cape, and swept about the room with the
cape flying out behind.
What fun it was! How fine she felt! When Alice came downstairs she,
too, must borrow an apron and they would play ‘lady come to see.’
Round the room whirled Sally again, laughing as she went. But, alas!
for Sally and her fun!
Somehow the pink-and-white apron caught on the iron latch of the
stairway door, there was a sharp sound of tearing, and frightened Sally
looked round to see a long strip of the apron hanging limp and loose
from the rest of the hem.
She had torn Miss Neppy’s apron! What should she do?
Sally didn’t stop to think. If she had, she would have known that the
only thing for her to do would be to go straight to Miss Neppy in the
garden and tell her just what had happened.
But Sally didn’t do this.
She took off the apron in a flash, she rolled it into a ball, and then
she tucked it away in the lowest drawer of Miss Neppy’s dresser, hidden
under a pile of napkins and the big kitchen roller towel.
She was just in time, for downstairs came Alice, smiling and laughing
and ready now for fun.
‘I have been making new faces upstairs, in front of Mother’s mirror,’
said she. ‘Look, can you do this?’
But Sally wouldn’t try the new faces, nor even laugh nor smile.
‘I feel sick,’ said Sally. ‘My throat hurts. I want to go home.’
So Sally went home. She couldn’t run fast enough, she wanted so badly
to whisper in Mother’s ear the dreadful thing she had done.
But Mother had company, two strange ladies, who stayed until Sally
thought they never meant to go.
And, somehow, when at last she and Mother were alone, Sally didn’t feel
like telling. When Father came home, Sally didn’t feel like telling
him, either.
She couldn’t eat her dinner. Her throat hurt, she said. She couldn’t
swallow. She couldn’t speak.
She sat alone on the doorstep with Paulina in her arms, and was really
glad when Mother called her to come in to bed.
Once in bed, Sally lay and tossed.
Why hadn’t she told Miss Neppy? Miss Neppy wouldn’t scold. Sally was
not afraid of that. Did Miss Neppy know yet about the apron? Had she
found it, tucked away in the lowest dresser drawer?
Perhaps Miss Neppy would come straight over the moment the apron was
found. She might be coming over that very night. Perhaps she would say
that Mother must buy her a new pink-and-white apron. Did such aprons
cost very much? Sally didn’t know.
Perhaps, too, when Mrs. Burr heard of it, she would not allow Alice to
play with Sally any more. And would Miss Neppy ever love Sally after
this? If she thought it was wicked to have one hundred aprons, what
would she think of a little girl who tore one and didn’t tell!
Oh, if Sally had only told Mother and Father! If only they knew!
Oh, oh, oh!
Sally was crying and choking, when suddenly she slipped out of bed.
Downstairs she started, tumbling over her long nightgown, slipping and
catching the banisters at every step.
In astonishment Father looked up from his paper and Mother from her
sewing to see Sally in the doorway, the tears rolling down her cheeks.
‘I tore Miss Neppy’s apron,’ sobbed Sally. ‘I tore it and I hid it in
the dresser drawer. I played with her apron, and I tore it and I didn’t
tell.’
And Sally fairly danced up and down, she felt so miserable and unhappy
about it all.
But after a moment or two, with Sally safe on Father’s lap, and Mother
kneeling on the floor, holding both hands in hers, Sally was able to
stop crying and to tell all that had happened that afternoon.
When she had quite finished, Father said, ‘Suppose we go straight over
to Miss Neppy’s and tell her now.’
Sally nodded. It was just what she wanted to do.
So Mother ran for Sally’s slippers and long blue coat, and Father
carried her over the way to where Miss Neppy sat alone by her front
window, rocking and knitting and humming a little song.
Miss Neppy, when she heard Sally’s story, was very much surprised.
‘Land sakes!’ exclaimed Miss Neppy, ‘I never missed that apron when
I put the others away. And I left it on the top of the pile, too,
because, when I ironed it, I saw that the hem was ripped. Go get the
apron, Sally, and let us look at it, do.’
Out of the lowest dresser drawer Sally pulled the apron, all crumpled
into a ball. And, would you believe it, when Sally and Miss Neppy and
Father looked at it, the apron was not torn at all, the hem was only
ripped. It seemed too good to be true.
‘Mother will mend it,’ said Sally joyfully. ‘She told me to bring it
home with me. Mother will mend it, Miss Neppy.’
And Sally put both arms about Miss Neppy’s neck and gave her a tight,
tight hug.
In the morning, bright and early, Sally ran over to Miss Neppy’s again,
with the apron nicely mended and freshly ironed in her arms.
‘Next time I will tell the very first thing, Miss Neppy,’ said Sally,
smiling up into her friend’s face.
Miss Neppy smiled back.
‘I would,’ said she. ‘Never keep a secret like that again. And, Sally,
there is a peach for you on the window-sill. Don’t spill it on your
dress.’