GARDEN DAYS
Mr. Oliver did think differently. He talked very seriously to Fannie
for nearly an hour and then Rosemary was sent for to come to the
office.
"Rosemary," said the principal, when she appeared, "I know you have
a great many last things to do for the fair, but I had to speak to
you before the three o'clock dismissal bell. Fannie is ready to
apologize to you before your class is dismissed this afternoon."
He had explained to Fannie that she must either publicly apologize
to Rosemary or be indefinitely suspended.
"I quite understand," went on Mr. Oliver, "that a belated apology
like this can not make up to you for the humiliation you suffered on
the night of the dinner, but at least the cooking class will know
that you were not at fault. I'm afraid you've had to endure a good
deal of teasing on the score of the salty soup."
"Oh, I didn't mind, really I didn't!" cried Rosemary quickly. "I'd
rather Fannie didn't say anything, Mr. Oliver. Honestly I would."
"I think it will be good for her," said the principal whimsically.
"Any girl who can be guilty of a series of such mean little acts as
Fannie has confessed to, can not help but benefit by open
confession."
"But Mr. Oliver!" Rosemary spoke involuntarily and the color
deepened in her face.
"Yes?" he encouraged.
"Nothing--only, if you make Fannie apologize, you are punishing me,"
brought out Rosemary desperately. "I can't stand it to sit there in
class and listen to her. I don't care about the salty soup--at least
I don't now; but I know how I should feel to have to get up before
the whole class. Please don't make Fannie do it."
The principal tapped his desk thoughtfully with his pencil.
"All right," he said presently. "I certainly have no right to make
you uncomfortable, Rosemary, and even less desire. Apologize here
and now, Fannie, and I'll excuse you from a class acknowledgment.
But only on Rosemary's account, mind you. I think you deserve all
the punishment I can give you."
Fannie made a faltering and shame-faced apology and then Rosemary
was allowed to go back to the kitchen and, as the three o'clock bell
sounded, Fannie to go home. She did not come to the fair and her
class mates did not see her again till next Monday.
True to his promise, Doctor Hugh took his family to the high school
cafeteria for supper and Jack Welles, who was one of the carvers,
served them in fine style. Frank Fenton was manager and he insisted
on securing the most desirable table for them, much to Doctor Hugh's
amusement and Sarah's ill-concealed disgust.
"Why do you smile and say 'How do you do' to him, Rosemary?" she
demanded of her sister hotly. "I think it's untruthful to pretend to
like people you don't."
"Well it isn't!" flung back Rosemary, who was tired from standing
behind the cake table that afternoon. "It's impolite to stick out
your tongue at them the way you do!"
"Let me catch you doing that!" Doctor Hugh warned Sarah. "However,
children, let's not have any quarrels on a fair night. How late are
they going to keep this up, Rosemary?"
"Only till eight o'clock," Rosemary answered. "We have to go back,
now, Hugh, and serve at the tables. Are you and Aunt Trudy coming
up?"
"Right away," he assured her. "And we'll bring our pocketbooks."
The fair was an unquestionable success. Shirley's bouquets sold
swiftly and her tray was replenished again and again that evening
and during the next Saturday afternoon. Sarah convulsed her
customers by her business-like manner and she did a thriving trade
in gold fish.
Winnie came Saturday afternoon and bought a large cake and another
for Mrs. Welles who was kept home by a bad cold. The coveted state
of bare tables was attained an hour before the fair was scheduled to
close Saturday afternoon, and the Eastshore pupils had the pleasant
knowledge that they would have more money to turn over to the
hospital than in any previous year.
Spring came to Eastshore with fascinating suddenness. One night it
was blustery and cold and householders stoked their furnaces with a
sigh for the nearly empty coal bins, and the following morning a
South wind blew gently, robins chirped on the lawns that showed a
faint green tinge and children appeared in school with huge bundles
of pussy willows.
"What do you say to fixing up the garden, Rosemary?" Doctor Hugh
suggested, tumbling a sheaf of seed catalogues on the living-room
table early in April. "If Mother comes home in June, she'd like to
find plenty of flowers growing, wouldn't she?"
"Oh, yes!" Rosemary's response was enthusiastic. "Do let's plan a
garden, Hugh, and if it doesn't cost too much, we could have Peter
Cooper fix up the lawn. It's rather thin in spots."
The gardening fever seized upon the Willis family and the girls sped
home from school to dig and plant and rake and hoe. They recklessly
promised Winnie a vegetable garden back of the garage and risked a
late frost to jab onion and radish and lettuce seeds into the patch,
Peter Cooper, the handy man, spaded up for them. Rosemary acquired a
line of golden freckles across her nose and Sarah "got a shade
darker every day," according to Winnie.
"I don't care!" the object of her solicitation retorted. "I won't
wear a hat--they're hot and stuffy and make my head ache."
"But your mother won't know you," urged Aunt Trudy, who was sewing
on the porch in the warm sunshine. "She'll take you for an Indian."
"Oh, I guess my mother'll know me," said Sarah, but all her
determination could not keep out a note of doubt in her voice.
The next morning she was late for breakfast. Rosemary called her
twice and Winnie went up to see what was the matter.
"She says she's all dressed and she's coming right away," she
reported, but no Sarah appeared.
Doctor Hugh went to the foot of the stairs.
"Sarah!" he called in a tone that seldom failed to produce results.
"I'm coming," answered Sarah, and they heard her feet beginning the
descent of the stairs.
She came into the dining-room so quietly, that Aunt Trudy glanced at
her in surprise.
"Why Sarah!" she gasped, "What in the world have you done to your
face?"
"What's the matter with it?" demanded Sarah hardily.
"It looks skinned," said Shirley critically. "You can't go to school
looking like that, can she Hugh?"
Rosemary seemed to understand.
"So that's what you were doing last night!" she said. "I wondered
what you were fussing around so for; your light was burning long
after I went to bed."
"You've skinned your face, child," insisted Aunt Trudy. "I never saw
a worse looking complexion, never. What have you done to yourself?"
Winnie, bringing in the later-comer's oatmeal, took one hasty
glance.
"My land, Sarah, have you been walking in your sleep?" she asked in
alarm. "You look as though you'd fallen out of a window and landed
on your face."
Sarah's eyes filled with tears and two splashed down into her lap.
She looked at Doctor Hugh, who nodded to her encouragingly. He had
not said a word since her entrance.
"Never mind what they say, Sarah," he told her cheerily, "just tell
your old brother about it; looks are not the most important thing in
this world, are they?"
"Aunt Trudy said my mother wouldn't know me," explained Sarah,
winking back the tears for her poor sore face smarted at the touch
of salt. "And I bleached all the brown off, Hugh; only it is so
sore."
"My dear child!" he said in amazement. Then added, "What did you put
on your face, dear?"
"Well, you see, I wanted it to be real white," said Sarah, sure that
he would understand, "so I used a cucumber and buttermilk and a
lemon and I scrubbed it afterward with pumice stone."
They stared at her a moment in silence.
"It's a wonder you have any face left," declared Winnie. "I missed
the buttermilk from the refrigerator."
Doctor Hugh said little then, but he took Sarah into the office and
put something healing on the red little face. Then he explained that
Aunt Trudy had only been teasing her, and that tan was pleasing to
most people because it showed that the owner of the face liked to be
outdoors. He allowed Sarah to go with him on his rounds that morning
and so saved her the ordeal of going to school to meet the
inevitable questions about her face. And, after the girls were in
bed that night, he "spoke his mind" as Winnie said, to her and Aunt
Trudy.
"I'd rather have her tanned as black as a piece of leather," he
concluded, "than to be fussing with 'creams' and bleaching lotions.
For goodness sake, don't bother her about her looks for at least ten
years. She'll begin soon enough."
So Sarah gardened to her heart's content without a hat, and in time
the seeds planted made a creditable showing. The doctor spent
several evenings figuring and at last decided they might afford to
have the house painted. He chose a deep cream color, after many
family consultations, combined with a soft brown and when it was
finished every one was pleased and sure that the little mother, for
whom it was really done, would be equally delighted.
It did seem a waste of sunshine to be obliged to be cooped up in
school during such enchanting weather, but it was impossible to
convince the trustees of this. The three Willis girls had to be
content with spending every hour out of school in the open air. Jack
Welles was also gardening and though he gloomily spoke of the
weeding to come, he taught the girls many things about planting and
showed them how to care for the shrubbery that Doctor Hugh had sent
out from the nearest nursery and had small time to care for himself.
"Mother does love roses so," said Rosemary once, "and Hugh is
determined to surprise her with a lot of new bushes."
"Is that why you're named Rosemary?" asked Jack curiously, thinking
it strange that he had never noticed before how pretty freckles
were.
Rosemary's expressive face sobered.
"Partly," she answered, "but I had a sister, you know, whom I never
saw. She was named Mary, for Mother. And she died when she was three
years old. So when I was born, a year later, Mother named me
'Rosemary,' which means remembrance. Mother told me once that I was
named in memory of the little dead sister, and for the flowers she
loved and to please my father who thought 'Mary' the most beautiful
name in the world. So I've always liked my name."
"It suits you, somehow," said Jack. "Want to hold this bush steady
while I fill in round the roots?"
Whenever Jack was touched, he sought employment for his hands, for
fear he might say something to show his feeling. He had all the
boy's horror of "making a fool" of himself.
April, with its soft, sudden showers and its exquisite velvety
greens ran into May with its first hot days and the sound of Peter
Cooper's hammer loud in the land as he diligently worked putting up
screens and awnings. Aunt Trudy began to "feel the heat" and Winnie
and Sarah battled again over the ethics of killing defenseless
flies.
Toward the end of the month, the Student's Council, conceived the
plan of holding a picnic for the three schools, an all-day picnic
some Saturday. The plan was proposed at a morning assembly and met
with such vigorous and hearty response that the date was settled
upon then and there. Winnie was besieged that night by three excited
girls who asked her advice on what "would do" to take to the picnic.
"We want to take enough, because some of them will bring only a
little," said Rosemary. "The boys always stuff an apple in their
pockets and then wonder why they are hungry when noon comes."
"I'll pack you three lunches that will be lunches," promised Winnie,
"and there'll be enough to give away, too."
"We're going in motor trucks," bubbled Shirley, "I want to ride up
front."
"I want to ride on back," proclaimed Sarah who never, by any chance,
seemed to agree with anyone else. "I want to ride with my feet
hanging over. And I'm going to tie a string to Shirley's rag doll
and drag it in the dust--like the pictures in the Early Martyrs
book, you know."
Shirley began to hop up and down with anger and began to cry.
"I won't have my dolly dragged in the dust," she shrieked.
"Martyrs have to be dragged in the dust," the perverse Sarah
insisted. "I want to see her bounce when she hits the stones."
"Oh, Sarah, do be still," begged Rosemary. Then, to the weeping
Shirley, "Sarah is only teasing you, darling. She wouldn't hurt your
dolly."
"Are the teachers going?" asked Aunt Trudy anxiously. "I hope some
older people will be on hand to look after you."
"Oh, the teachers are going--worse luck!" Sarah assured her. "I'll
bet they shriek every time I find a water snake."