SARAH IN DISGRACE
The first person Rosemary saw was Shirley, looking very small and
forlorn. She sat on a chair so high that her little feet dangled in
mid-air. One hand clutched a half eaten bun, the other held a
scarcely tasted glass of milk.
"Oh Rosemary!" cried the familiar little voice. "I'm so glad you've
come!"
An obliging man in a blue uniform took the bun and the glass of milk
and Rosemary hugged Shirley tightly.
"How could you run away again, darling?" the older sister whispered
reproachfully. "You worried us so! Were you out in the rain?"
"Only a little," said Shirley, restored to cheerfulness now that
Rosemary was here to take care of her.
"She got frightened when it began to thunder," the sergeant at the
desk was saying to Doctor Hugh. "As nearly as I can make out, from
what she says, she started to run at the first clap, and ran away
from her home, instead of toward it. She crossed the line from
Eastshore into Moreland before Jim Doran found her, running as hard
as she could and jerking the express wagon behind her and crying as
though her heart would break. He brought her here and as soon as she
calmed down a bit and told us her name and address, we telephoned
you. Oh, no thanks due us at all--we get a lost child every week or
so. But you ought to break her of running away--the automobile
traffic is so heavy, specially in the summer time, it's dangerous
for a child to be crossing the streets alone."
Doctor Hugh shook hands with the sergeant and turned toward Rosemary
and Shirley.
"Come here, Shirley," he said quietly.
A little frightened, Shirley approached him dubiously. He lifted her
gently and swung her to the top of the table before the sergeant's
desk.
"There's a sand box and a box of sand toys coming to our house
to-morrow," he said unexpectedly, "but I couldn't think of letting a
little runaway girl touch them. Perhaps I had better send them back
to the store."
A sand-box had been one of Shirley's fondest wishes.
"Oh, no, Hugh," she begged, "Don't send them back, please don't. I
won't run away again, ever. Honestly."
"Will you promise not to leave the yard again unless you first ask
Rosemary or Winnie or Aunt Trudy?" asked the doctor.
"Yes," nodded Shirley instantly.
"Well then, if you are not going to run away again, I'll keep the
sand-box," decided Doctor Hugh. "And now we must be getting home for
I have a busy afternoon ahead of me."
The sergeant shook hands with Shirley and told her that she was wise
to make up her mind to play in her own yard. His little girl, he
said, never ran away. The blue-coated man who had taken the bun and
the milk, carried the express wagon down and put it in the car, and
fifteen minutes later Shirley was deposited safely on her own front
porch.
The sand-box and the toys came the next morning and Shirley played
for hours with them. Sometimes she induced Sarah to play with her,
but more often that young person was otherwise engaged. She had a
lame cat to care for now in addition to the rabbits and Winnie
declared that if it came to a choice between cream for her aunt's
tea or the cat, she wouldn't trust Sarah with the bottle.
"I don't think you have a very kind heart, Winnie," said Sarah one
morning when she had been discovered in a raid on the refrigerator.
"Well I have some conscience and you haven't, or you wouldn't be
wanting to feed loin chops that cost forty-five cents a pound to a
cat," declared Winnie grimly.
"Sick animals need good food," maintained Sarah, swinging on the
screen door, a habit which invariably irritated Winnie.
"Go on out and play, do," she now advised Sarah. "How can I get my
work done with you buzzing around me like a fly! Well what do you
suppose struck the child that minute--" Winnie broke off in
amazement. Sarah had dashed around to the front of the house,
banging the screen door noisily behind her. Not curious enough to
speculate further, Winnie went on with her task of scrubbing the
table top already immaculate in its snowy purity.
Aunt Trudy was descending the front stairs leisurely an hour or two
later, pleasantly contemplating the nearness of the lunch hour, when
the door bell rang sharply. Really it sounded as though someone had
jabbed it viciously. Aunt Trudy approached the door with reproving
dignity.
"You're Miss Wright, aren't you?" said a rasped voice. "Well, I'm
Mrs. Anderson and I want to tell you that something has got to be
done to Sarah; that child is simply unbearable. She slapped the face
of my Ray this morning and the poor lamb came into the house crying
with pain. He's only four years old, and I think when a great girl
of nine takes to slapping babies' faces, she needs a sound whipping.
No, I won't come in, but I was determined you should know about it.
That child will end up in prison if her temper isn't curbed."
"No one ever spoke to me like that, Hugh," complained Aunt Trudy
tearfully to her nephew when he came in a few minutes later. "She
didn't give me a chance to say a word. I'm sure I don't approve of
Sarah slapping any one's face."
"Of course you don't," agreed the doctor soothingly. "Where is the
culprit? We'll see what she has to say for herself. Look here,
Sarah," he opened fire as that young person came up the porch steps
and into the hall, "Mrs. Anderson says you slapped Ray's face this
morning."
"Well?" inquired Sarah coolly.
"Did you?" said the doctor matching her briefness.
"I certainly did," Sarah assured him. "He is a bad, cruel boy and I
wish I had slapped him harder. He was stepping on poor baby ants!"
Aunt Trudy stared in astonishment, but something pathetic in Sarah's
defiant little figure touched Doctor Hugh. She so evidently
considered she had vindicated herself.
"That wasn't being kind, was it?" he said gently, "but, Sarah,
slapping his face didn't teach him not to step on ants--it merely
taught him that one of his neighbors was a very impolite little
girl. I want you to go over now and apologize to Mrs. Anderson."
"But I slapped Ray," hedged Sarah cannily.
"Well Ray is so little he probably doesn't hold malice," explained
Doctor Hugh seriously. "It is Mrs. Anderson's feelings that are
hurt; don't you think you are a little ashamed, Sarah, to know you
struck a child so much younger than you are?"
"Go and tell her you are sorry, dearie," suggested Aunt Trudy.
"I won't say I am sorry, because that would be a lie," said Sarah
virtuously.
"If you are not sorry you slapped Ray you ought to be, because such
an act is the height of discourtesy," declared the doctor. "However,
if you apologize, I don't doubt that will be satisfactory. Go right
away, Sarah."
"I think Mrs. Anderson should apologize to us," announced Sarah with
explosive suddenness. "She came over here telling tales and that is
the meanest thing any one can do. You hate tale-bearers, you said so
Hugh."
The doctor's long-suffering patience snapped.
"What Mrs. Anderson does is no concern of yours," he said testily.
"If you do not go to her house immediately and apologize, Sarah,
I'll march you over there and wait while you do it. I've listened to
all the argument I intend to."
"I'll go," surrendered Sarah sullenly.
What she said could only be conjectured but apparently Mrs. Anderson
was mollified for peace reigned the remainder of the week. Sunday
afternoon though, a fresh storm broke, with Sarah again the center.
"Where's Sarah?" Doctor Hugh demanded, meeting Rosemary in the hall
on his return from a round of calls.
Rosemary was dressed in white and ready for a sedate walk with Aunt
Trudy.
"She's in your office, reading," she answered. "She likes the goat
skin rug, you know."
"All right," nodded the doctor, "run along, chick, and tell Aunt
Trudy to keep on the shady side of the street. The sun is blazing."
Sarah was not visible from the door, but walking around his desk,
her brother discovered her stretched full length in her favorite
reading attitude, on the white goat skin rug. Her book dealt with
the health of cats.
"Sarah," began the doctor looking down at her, "did you take a
telephone message from Mrs. Anderson yesterday morning?"
Sarah looked obstinate.
"Did you?" her brother insisted. "Answer me," he commanded, pulling
her to her feet.
"Yes I did," muttered Sarah. "Rosemary was busy practising and
Winnie's bread was in the oven."
"Why didn't you tell me she wanted me to call there Saturday night?"
demanded the doctor sternly.
"'Cause," murmured Sarah uneasily.
"You're ashamed to tell me, and I don't wonder," Doctor Hugh said
crisply. "You'd let a miserable little thing like an apology you
were forced to make her, interfere with your loyalty to service. I
thought you were bigger than that, Sarah," he added.
Sarah said nothing.
"If you were a nurse in a hospital or a doctor's office, you'd be
dismissed," her brother went on, "for all you know I might have been
needed seriously. As it happened, no harm was done, but that doesn't
excuse you. Hereafter you are not to answer the phone under any
circumstances. You can't be trusted to deliver the messages you
receive."
If he had only known it, Doctor Hugh had delivered a severe blow to
Sarah's pride. She had been extremely proud of her ability to answer
the telephone and welcomed the rare opportunities when Rosemary was
out or busy with her beloved music. But she said nothing and after a
day or two the doctor realized that she was not on "speaking terms"
with him.
"She ought to be spanked," he confided to Winnie, "but I don't
believe in that form of punishment for children as old as she is."
"It wouldn't do any good," said Winnie, "your mother spanked her
years ago when she'd take these silent fits. It only made her more
obstinate. You can do more with Sarah, Hughie, by helping her out
of a tight place than any way I know. She's always getting into
trouble and she never forgets the ones that stand by her. You keep
your eyes open and the chance will come."
The opportunity came sooner than either of them expected. For nearly
a week Jack Welles had been storming, to any one who would listen to
him, about the "low-down" thief who nightly took his can of fishing
worms.
"Plumb lazy, I call it," grumbled Jack, "to cart away the worms a
fellow breaks his back digging. Some worthless tramp is catching
fish with my worms and I intend to catch him."
His wails had reached the ears of Doctor Hugh, himself an ardent
fisherman when time permitted and his sympathies were entirely with
the defrauded one.
"Sit up some night and watch," he advised the lad. "Put the can in
the usual place--where do you keep it--on the back step?--all right,
put it there, and then hide back of the willow tree. You say it is
done sometime between ten and twelve, for you go to bed at ten and
your father comes home at midnight and finds the can empty? That
ought to make it easy for you, for you know when to watch for the
thief."
Jack's father was engaged in some delicate electrical experiments
that were conducted in his factory at night to escape the vibration
caused by the heavy machines.
Coming home from the Jordan office a little after then the next
night after he had given Jack his advice, Doctor Hugh remembered
what he had said and wondered if the boy had been successful in
detecting the thief. As he neared the Welles house he heard loud and
angry voices.