THE INDIAN DRILL
Mid September and school days.
"I like my new teacher, that's why I'm happy," Suzanna told her mother
at the end of the first school day.
"I saw her," said Maizie, who was a pupil at public school for the
second year. "She holds her arm funny."
Suzanna flushed darkly. "She's beautiful," she averred; "she's my
teacher."
"But didn't you see her arm?"
"No," said Suzanna, "I did not."
Maizie cried out triumphantly: "Well, that's the first time you didn't
see something I saw."
Suzanna did not answer. She could not voice her emotions.
"Well, I don't want you or anyone in the whole world even to notice Miss
Smithson's arm," she flung out, and so Maizie was silenced.
Suzanna glanced through the window.
"Why there's father," cried Suzanna; "I wonder why he's coming home so
early?"
Mr. Procter came hurriedly down the path, pushed open the front door,
and with no word sprang up the stairs. To the attic, the children knew.
"He must have thought of something to do to The Machine," said Maizie.
"Yes," Suzanna answered; "whenever he has that still look on his face he
has a new idea."
"Someone must be taking his place at the store," said Mrs. Procter. "I'm
glad the baby's asleep. Be very quiet, children. Father may have a
splendid thought--why there, he's coming downstairs again."
He entered the kitchen at once, his face aglow.
"Just the turn of a screw!" he exclaimed. He spoke directly to his wife.
"Oh, my dear, it's coming on. Nearly ready to show to John Massey."
"Oh, I am happy for you," she cried.
He spoke to Suzanna and Maizie: "Would you chicks like to take a walk
down town with me?" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a ticket good for
ten dishes of ice cream." He held up a small card.
"Oh, daddy, where did you get it?" cried Maizie.
"From Raymond Cunningham, leading druggist," he announced slowly. "His
soda fountain was out of order and I fixed it for him. I didn't want
money for a small act of kindness, so he issued this ticket to me."
The children were delighted. Mrs. Procter smiled too. In generosity of
spirit, she forbore to point out to her husband the fact that Raymond
Cunningham was known from one end of the town to the other as one who
would "skin a gnat for its teeth."
Without doubt the man now beaming upon his little daughters had saved
the druggist a bill of ten dollars for which he had issued a ticket
worth sixty cents!
But she simply smiled, and going to her husband she brushed an imaginary
dust speck from his coat. He caught her hand.
"Wait, Dear One, till the invention is ready," he said; "all shall give
homage to my wife."
She did not answer him in words, but he seemed satisfied with the
silence. Such moments of love, of high hope, were beautiful to both.
The little group started away for their trip to town.
Just as they reached the drug store, Suzanna pulled her father's sleeve.
She was all excitement.
"See, daddy," she cried, "that tall lady dressed in black standing near
the lamp post is Miss Smithson, my new teacher."
"Well, let's go and say a word to her," suggested Mr. Procter, easily.
"Oh, father, I don't think she talks outside of school," said Suzanna,
her voice falling. She fell into prim step as they neared Miss Smithson.
Miss Smithson, seeing Suzanna, smiled.
"This is my father," said Suzanna proudly.
"I should know that at once by the close resemblance," returned Miss
Smithson.
"Yes, Suzanna and I do look alike," said Mr. Procter, "and I think I've
sold tacks to you." He rarely failed to speak of his work. He was so
exalted a being, Suzanna thought glowingly, that he lifted his daily
labor to the dignity of a fine art. People must think so too, because
they always looked closer at him when he spoke of weighing nails, or
wrapping wringers and washboards.
"We were going on to the drug store for some ice cream. Will you join
us?" asked Mr. Procter of Miss Smithson.
Suzanna's face went white as she waited Miss Smithson's answer.
Teachers, being purely ethereal she felt, never descended to the
discussion of materialities. She wondered at her father's overlooking
this truth.
But, "Thank you," said the teacher, very calmly.
So together they all entered the corner drug store, Suzanna still very
quiet. Mr. Procter found a table large enough to accommodate them all.
Suzanna sat next to Maizie.
"I'm going to have a chocolate ice cream soda," whispered Maizie.
"No, you can't, Maizie," Suzanna returned in an agony; "take lemon ice
cream soda."
"But I don't like it."
"Well, that doesn't matter, Maizie. Chocolate is too dark; and besides
you smear it all over your lips and it looks dreadful; pale lemon ice
cream soda is sweet looking. We must do something to honor Miss
Smithson, who's here just because she wouldn't hurt father's feelings."
But Maizie looked belligerent.
Suzanna's temper threatened to flame forth. With a mighty effort she
controlled it. She turned to her father. "Father, don't you think Maizie
had better have lemon ice cream soda?" she asked.
"Anything she wants; anything she wants," Mr. Procter answered and not
lowering his voice, even in Miss Smithson's presence: "What do you think
you'll have, Suzanna?"
"I'll have a lemon ice cream soda," said Suzanna primly. And she had
difficulty in restraining her tears when Maizie deliberately gave her
command for chocolate ice cream soda. When the orders came Suzanna
scarcely touched her glass. Covertly she watched Miss Smithson; she saw,
how daintily that lady ate her plain vanilla ice cream; perhaps, after
all, even teachers found it necessary to find some subsistence and Miss
Smithson had hit upon ice cream as the most aesthetic. At least Suzanna
was forced to believe this in her endeavor to keep intact her ideal of
Miss Smithson.
Then Miss Smithson said in a pleasant, every-day voice:
"I'm glad to have this opportunity, Mr. Procter, of asking you if
Suzanna may take part in an Indian Drill I expect to give at school next
month."
"Why, I can see no reason against her taking part," said Mr. Procter.
"You would enjoy such an occasion, would you not, Suzanna?"
"She will need an outfit," Miss Smithson went on, treading delicately,
since in part she guessed the state of the Procter finances and she
wished to be very sure before implicating Suzanna in any embarrassing
situation, "including dancing slippers, though I may be able to rent the
Indian costumes from a masquerader in the city, and then the cost will
be lessened."
"That will be all right," said Mr. Procter immediately. "Just tell us
the clothes she will need and her mother will get them."
"That's very nice," said Miss Smithson, though she felt still a little
uneasy.
"When will the affair take place?" Mr. Procter asked.
"On the fifteenth of October. We have ample time for rehearsals."
A little later Miss Smithson shook hands with Suzanna's father,
murmuring something conventional about his being fortunate in the
possession of such an interesting family. Then she was gone.
The children, bidding father good-bye, hastened on home. They burst into
the house, anxious to tell mother all about the meeting with Miss
Smithson.
Mrs. Procter listened interestedly. "And father said I might take part
in the Indian Drill," said Suzanna. "I shall have to have an outfit
perhaps and dancing shoes."
"What did father say about that?" asked Mrs. Procter, an anxious little
frown growing between her eyes.
"He said you would get them for me," Suzanna returned. She, too, looked
a little anxiously at her mother. "But Miss Smithson said perhaps she
could hire the Indian costumes."
Mrs. Procter's expression lightened.
"Well, perhaps she can," she said.
"And if she can't, mother?" Suzanna breathlessly awaited the answer.
"Well, we'll manage some way."
And Suzanna was satisfied.
A week later Mr. Procter returned home, carrying a mysterious looking
parcel.
"For you, Suzanna," he said, his eyes sparkling. "But let's not open it
until after supper."
Suzanna reluctantly put the package to one side. That supper would never
end that evening she had a firm conviction.
And yet the end was reached, and she was opening the package, attended
by the entire family. At last her eager eyes swept the contents, and her
little beating heart for the moment palpitated strangely in her throat,
for there lay a pair of shoes.
"Shoes," said Mr. Procter, "for you to wear in the Indian Drill. I saw
them thrown out in a little booth when I went into Lane's shoe shop for
a piece of leather to be made into washers. They really were marked at
so ridiculously low a figure that I thought at once we could surely
afford them for Suzanna. They are, I should judge, the very thing for
the Indian Drill."
To all of which Suzanna listened gravely. Her heart had gone back to its
normal rhythm, but her eyes could not leave the atrocities lying before
her. Truly, they were of fine leather, but with their high French heels,
and flat gilt buttons, they might have been in style when Suzanna's
mother was a very little girl, and, to be really candid, they would have
lain under the anathema of being out of date even then. But over and
beyond the painful vintage of the shoes was the fact that Miss Smithson
had announced that all the girls taking part in the Indian Drill should
wear the same kind of shoes. She had gone farther and told the children
that the right kind of shoes could be obtained at Bryson's for a dollar
and forty-eight cents a pair, a really reduced price because fourteen
pairs were to be purchased. She had finished by giving the children the
number to be called for, "A-14116." Suzanna knew the number well; she
had repeated it mentally over and over again.
Finally Suzanna found her voice. "They're very nice, daddy," she said.
"Yes, they are very nice," he said. "See, you can turn them up. They're
as soft as a kid glove."
"Well, since you've bought the shoes," said Mrs. Procter, "and probably
at a very reasonable figure--" she paused, and Mr. Procter finished:
"Yes, they were only forty-eight cents, a remarkable bargain, I think."
"Remarkable," said Mrs. Procter, picking them up. "Why, I believe
they're a handmade shoe! Well," she went on, "since the shoes are
accounted for, I think if I have to I can quite easily manage the rest
of the outfit."
Suzanna's heart sank lower. She only wondered miserably if her mother,
seeing a piece of inexpensive goods of almost any shade, and finding a
pattern easy to manage, would make up what she thought would do quite
well for the Indian Drill costume. Then her thoughts returned to the
shoes. Perhaps after all they wouldn't fit! She was enabled by that
emancipating thought to turn a happier face to her father and again to
thank him.
But alas, the shoes fitted perfectly.
"I think," said Suzanna desperately, "that perhaps they're a little bit
too small--narrow, I mean."
"Do they hurt you?" asked her mother.
Suzanna had to confess that they didn't hurt.
"They certainly make your foot look very nice and slender," said her
father.
Well, Suzanna thought miserably, she should have to wear them, and in
that belief all interest in the Indian Drill left her. She simply
couldn't, she felt, take her lead on the eventful day wearing those
shoes. Every eye in the audience, she knew, would be fixed upon them, so
different from those of the other girls, so terribly old-fashioned, as
instinctively she sensed them to be.
Mrs. Procter carefully wrapped the bargains in the original tissue
paper. She was happy in the thought that her little daughter was
provided with a pretty and appropriate pair of dancing shoes.
But it was very perfunctorily that Suzanna went through the ensuing
rehearsals at school. Her spirits were not lifted even when Miss
Smithson announced that the costumes were to be obtained through a
masquerader at the small cost of twenty-five cents for each pupil. But
at length, the child's natural persevering force had its way, and she
set her mind to studying the question of how to avoid wearing the
unsuitable shoes and still preserve her father's confidence in his own
good judgment. Usually she asked no help, working alone on the problems
which assailed her, but suddenly the thought of her friend Drusilla came
to her. She would ask Drusilla what she thought about the matter.