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SARA CREWE
OR
WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN'S
[Illustration: "SHE LAID HER DOLL, EMILY, ACROSS HER KNEES, AND PUT HER
FACE DOWN UPON HER, AND HER ARMS AROUND HER, AND SAT THERE, NOT SAYING
ONE WORD, NOT MAKING ONE SOUND."]
SARA CREWE
OR
WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN'S
BY
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1891
COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
[_All rights reserved._]
Press of J. J. Little & Co.,
Astor Place, New York.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FROM DRAWINGS BY REGINALD B. BIRCH.
"She laid her doll, Emily, across her knees, and put her face down upon
her, and her arms around her, and sat there, not saying one word, not
making one sound." Frontispiece.
"She slowly advanced into the parlor, clutching her doll." Page 15
"Eat it," said Sara, "and you will not be so hungry." " 41
"He was waiting for his Master to come out to the carriage, and Sara
stopped and spoke a few words to him." " 49
"The monkey seemed much interested in her remarks." " 63
"He drew her small, dark head down upon his knee and stroked her
hair." " 79
[Illustration]
SARA CREWE;
OR,
WHAT HAPPENED AT MISS MINCHIN'S.
In the first place, Miss Minchin lived in London. Her home was a large,
dull, tall one, in a large, dull square, where all the houses were
alike, and all the sparrows were alike, and where all the door-knockers
made the same heavy sound, and on still days--and nearly all the days
were still--seemed to resound through the entire row in which the knock
was knocked. On Miss Minchin's door there was a brass plate. On the
brass plate there was inscribed in black letters,
+----------------------------------------+
| |
| MISS MINCHIN'S |
| |
| SELECT SEMINARY FOR YOUNG LADIES. |
| |
+----------------------------------------+
Little Sara Crewe never went in or out of the house without reading
that door-plate and reflecting upon it. By the time she was twelve, she
had decided that all her trouble arose because, in the first place, she
was not "Select," and in the second, she was not a "Young Lady." When
she was eight years old, she had been brought to Miss Minchin as a
pupil, and left with her. Her papa had brought her all the way from
India. Her mamma had died when she was a baby, and her papa had kept her
with him as long as he could. And then, finding the hot climate was
making her very delicate, he had brought her to England and left her
with Miss Minchin, to be part of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies.
Sara, who had always been a sharp little child, who remembered things,
recollected hearing him say that he had not a relative in the world whom
he knew of, and so he was obliged to place her at a boarding-school, and
he had heard Miss Minchin's establishment spoken of very highly. The
same day, he took Sara out and bought her a great many beautiful
clothes--clothes so grand and rich that only a very young and
inexperienced man would have bought them for a mite of a child who was
to be brought up in a boarding-school. But the fact was that he was a
rash, innocent young man, and very sad at the thought of parting with
his little girl, who was all he had left to remind him of her beautiful
mother, whom he had dearly loved. And he wished her to have everything
the most fortunate little girl could have; and so, when the polite
saleswomen in the shops said, "Here is our very latest thing in hats,
the plumes are exactly the same as those we sold to Lady Diana Sinclair
yesterday," he immediately bought what was offered to him, and paid
whatever was asked. The consequence was that Sara had a most
extraordinary wardrobe. Her dresses were silk and velvet and India
cashmere, her hats and bonnets were covered with bows and plumes, her
small undergarments were adorned with real lace, and she returned in the
cab to Miss Minchin's with a doll almost as large as herself, dressed
quite as grandly as herself, too.
Then her papa gave Miss Minchin some money and went away, and for
several days Sara would neither touch the doll, nor her breakfast, nor
her dinner, nor her tea, and would do nothing but crouch in a small
corner by the window and cry. She cried so much, indeed, that she made
herself ill. She was a queer little child, with old-fashioned ways and
strong feelings, and she had adored her papa, and could not be made to
think that India and an interesting bungalow were not better for her
than London and Miss Minchin's Select Seminary. The instant she had
entered the house, she had begun promptly to hate Miss Minchin, and to
think little of Miss Amelia Minchin, who was smooth and dumpy, and
lisped, and was evidently afraid of her older sister. Miss Minchin was
tall, and had large, cold, fishy eyes, and large, cold hands, which
seemed fishy, too, because they were damp and made chills run down
Sara's back when they touched her, as Miss Minchin pushed her hair off
her forehead and said:
"A most beautiful and promising little girl, Captain Crewe. She will be
a favorite pupil; _quite_ a favorite pupil, I see."
For the first year she was a favorite pupil; at least she was indulged
a great deal more than was good for her. And when the Select Seminary
went walking, two by two, she was always decked out in her grandest
clothes, and led by the hand, at the head of the genteel procession, by
Miss Minchin herself. And when the parents of any of the pupils came,
she was always dressed and called into the parlor with her doll; and she
used to hear Miss Minchin say that her father was a distinguished Indian
officer, and she would be heiress to a great fortune. That her father
had inherited a great deal of money, Sara had heard before; and also
that some day it would be hers, and that he would not remain long in the
army, but would come to live in London. And every time a letter came,
she hoped it would say he was coming, and they were to live together
again.
But about the middle of the third year a letter came bringing very
different news. Because he was not a business man himself, her papa had
given his affairs into the hands of a friend he trusted. The friend had
deceived and robbed him. All the money was gone, no one knew exactly
where, and the shock was so great to the poor, rash young officer, that,
being attacked by jungle fever shortly afterward, he had no strength to
rally, and so died, leaving Sara with no one to take care of her.
Miss Minchin's cold and fishy eyes had never looked so cold and fishy as
they did when Sara went into the parlor, on being sent for, a few days
after the letter was received.
No one had said anything to the child about mourning, so, in her
old-fashioned way, she had decided to find a black dress for herself,
and had picked out a black velvet she had outgrown, and came into the
room in it, looking the queerest little figure in the world, and a sad
little figure too. The dress was too short and too tight, her face was
white, her eyes had dark rings around them, and her doll, wrapped in a
piece of old black crape, was held under her arm. She was not a pretty
child. She was thin, and had a weird, interesting little face, short
black hair, and very large, green-gray eyes fringed all around with
heavy black lashes.
"I am the ugliest child in the school," she had said once, after staring
at herself in the glass for some minutes.
But there had been a clever, good-natured little French teacher who had
said to the music-master:
"Zat leetle Crewe. Vat a child! A so ogly beauty! Ze so large eyes! ze
so little spirituelle face. Waid till she grow up. You shall see!"
This morning, however, in the tight, small black frock, she looked
thinner and odder than ever, and her eyes were fixed on Miss Minchin
with a queer steadiness as she slowly advanced into the parlor,
clutching her doll.
[Illustration: "SHE SLOWLY ADVANCED INTO THE PARLOR, CLUTCHING HER
DOLL."]
"Put your doll down!" said Miss Minchin.
"No," said the child, "I won't put her down; I want her with me. She is
all I have. She has stayed with me all the time since my papa died."
She had never been an obedient child. She had had her own way ever since
she was born, and there was about her an air of silent determination
under which Miss Minchin had always felt secretly uncomfortable. And
that lady felt even now that perhaps it would be as well not to insist
on her point. So she looked at her as severely as possible.
"You will have no time for dolls in future," she said; "you will have to
work and improve yourself, and make yourself useful."
Sara kept the big odd eyes fixed on her teacher and said nothing.
"Everything will be very different now," Miss Minchin went on. "I sent
for you to talk to you and make you understand. Your father is dead. You
have no friends. You have no money. You have no home and no one to take
care of you."
The little pale olive face twitched nervously, but the green-gray eyes
did not move from Miss Minchin's, and still Sara said nothing.
"What are you staring at?" demanded Miss Minchin sharply. "Are you so
stupid you don't understand what I mean? I tell you that you are quite
alone in the world, and have no one to do anything for you, unless I
choose to keep you here."
The truth was, Miss Minchin was in her worst mood. To be suddenly
deprived of a large sum of money yearly and a show pupil, and to find
herself with a little beggar on her hands, was more than she could bear
with any degree of calmness.
"Now listen to me," she went on, "and remember what I say. If you work
hard and prepare to make yourself useful in a few years, I shall let you
stay here. You are only a child, but you are a sharp child, and you pick
up things almost without being taught. You speak French very well, and
in a year or so you can begin to help with the younger pupils. By the
time you are fifteen you ought to be able to do that much at least."
"I can speak French better than you, now," said Sara; "I always spoke it
with my papa in India." Which was not at all polite, but was painfully
true; because Miss Minchin could not speak French at all, and, indeed,
was not in the least a clever person. But she was a hard, grasping
business woman; and, after the first shock of disappointment, had seen
that at very little expense to herself she might prepare this clever,
determined child to be very useful to her and save her the necessity of
paying large salaries to teachers of languages.
"Don't be impudent, or you will be punished," she said. "You will have
to improve your manners if you expect to earn your bread. You are not a
parlor boarder now. Remember that if you don't please me, and I send you
away, you have no home but the street. You can go now."
Sara turned away.
"Stay," commanded Miss Minchin, "don't you intend to thank me?"
Sara turned toward her. The nervous twitch was to be seen again in her
face, and she seemed to be trying to control it.
"What for?" she said.
"For my kindness to you," replied Miss Minchin. "For my kindness in
giving you a home."
Sara went two or three steps nearer to her. Her thin little chest was
heaving up and down, and she spoke in a strange, unchildish voice.
"You are not kind," she said. "You are not kind." And she turned again
and went out of the room, leaving Miss Minchin staring after her
strange, small figure in stony anger.
The child walked up the staircase, holding tightly to her doll; she
meant to go to her bedroom, but at the door she was met by Miss Amelia.
"You are not to go in there," she said. "That is not your room now."
"Where is my room?" asked Sara.
"You are to sleep in the attic next to the cook."
Sara walked on. She mounted two flights more, and reached the door of
the attic room, opened it and went in, shutting it behind her. She stood
against it and looked about her. The room was slanting-roofed and
whitewashed; there was a rusty grate, an iron bedstead, and some odd
articles of furniture, sent up from better rooms below, where they had
been used until they were considered to be worn out. Under the skylight
in the roof, which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky,
there was a battered old red footstool.
Sara went to it and sat down. She was a queer child, as I have said
before, and quite unlike other children. She seldom cried. She did not
cry now. She laid her doll, Emily, across her knees, and put her face
down upon her, and her arms around her, and sat there, her little black
head resting on the black crape, not saying one word, not making one
sound.
* * * * *
From that day her life changed entirely. Sometimes she used to feel as
if it must be another life altogether, the life of some other child. She
was a little drudge and outcast; she was given her lessons at odd times
and expected to learn without being taught; she was sent on errands by
Miss Minchin, Miss Amelia and the cook. Nobody took any notice of her
except when they ordered her about. She was often kept busy all day and
then sent into the deserted school-room with a pile of books to learn
her lessons or practise at night. She had never been intimate with the
other pupils, and soon she became so shabby that, taking her queer
clothes together with her queer little ways, they began to look upon her
as a being of another world than their own. The fact was that, as a
rule, Miss Minchin's pupils were rather dull, matter-of-fact young
people, accustomed to being rich and comfortable; and Sara, with her
elfish cleverness, her desolate life, and her odd habit of fixing her
eyes upon them and staring them out of countenance, was too much for
them.
"She always looks as if she was finding you out," said one girl, who was
sly and given to making mischief. "I am," said Sara promptly, when she
heard of it. "That's what I look at them for. I like to know about
people. I think them over afterward."
She never made any mischief herself or interfered with any one. She
talked very little, did as she was told, and thought a great deal.
Nobody knew, and in fact nobody cared, whether she was unhappy or happy,
unless, perhaps, it was Emily, who lived in the attic and slept on the
iron bedstead at night. Sara thought Emily understood her feelings,
though she was only wax and had a habit of staring herself. Sara used to
talk to her at night.
"You are the only friend I have in the world," she would say to her.
"Why don't you say something? Why don't you speak? Sometimes I am sure
you could, if you would try. It ought to make you try, to know you are
the only thing I have. If I were you, I should try. Why don't you try?"
It really was a very strange feeling she had about Emily. It arose from
her being so desolate. She did not like to own to herself that her only
friend, her only companion, could feel and hear nothing. She wanted to
believe, or to pretend to believe, that Emily understood and sympathized
with her, that she heard her even though she did not speak in answer.
She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to her on the
old red footstool, and stare at her and think and pretend about her
until her own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like
fear, particularly at night, when the garret was so still, when the only
sound that was to be heard was the occasional squeak and scurry of rats
in the wainscot. There were rat-holes in the garret, and Sara detested
rats, and was always glad Emily was with her when she heard their
hateful squeak and rush and scratching. One of her "pretends" was that
Emily was a kind of good witch and could protect her. Poor little Sara!
everything was "pretend" with her. She had a strong imagination; there
was almost more imagination than there was Sara, and her whole forlorn,
uncared-for child-life was made up of imaginings. She imagined and
pretended things until she almost believed them, and she would scarcely
have been surprised at any remarkable thing that could have happened. So
she insisted to herself that Emily understood all about her troubles and
was really her friend.
"As to answering," she used to say, "I don't answer very often. I never
answer when I can help it. When people are insulting you, there is
nothing so good for them as not to say a word--just to look at them and
_think_. Miss Minchin turns pale with rage when I do it. Miss Amelia
looks frightened, so do the girls. They know you are stronger than they
are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage and they are
not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward.
There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it
in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies. I
scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is more like me than I am like myself.
Perhaps she would rather not answer her friends, even. She keeps it all
in her heart."
But though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments, Sara did
not find it easy. When, after a long, hard day, in which she had been
sent here and there, sometimes on long errands, through wind and cold
and rain; and, when she came in wet and hungry, had been sent out again
because nobody chose to remember that she was only a child, and that her
thin little legs might be tired, and her small body, clad in its
forlorn, too small finery, all too short and too tight, might be
chilled; when she had been given only harsh words and cold, slighting
looks for thanks; when the cook had been vulgar and insolent; when Miss
Minchin had been in her worst moods, and when she had seen the girls
sneering at her among themselves and making fun of her poor, outgrown
clothes--then Sara did not find Emily quite all that her sore, proud,
desolate little heart needed as the doll sat in her little old chair and
stared.
One of these nights, when she came up to the garret cold, hungry, tired,
and with a tempest raging in her small breast, Emily's stare seemed so
vacant, her sawdust legs and arms so limp and inexpressive, that Sara
lost all control over herself.
"I shall die presently!" she said at first.
Emily stared.
"I can't bear this!" said the poor child, trembling. "I know I shall
die. I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm starving to death. I've walked a thousand
miles to-day, and they have done nothing but scold me from morning until
night. And because I could not find that last thing they sent me for,
they would not give me any supper. Some men laughed at me because my old
shoes made me slip down in the mud. I'm covered with mud now. And they
laughed! Do you _hear_!"
She looked at the staring glass eyes and complacent wax face, and
suddenly a sort of heart-broken rage seized her. She lifted her little
savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of
sobbing.
"You are nothing but a doll!" she cried. "Nothing but a
doll--doll--doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust.
You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a
_doll_!"
Emily lay upon the floor, with her legs ignominiously doubled up over
her head, and a new flat place on the end of her nose; but she was still
calm, even dignified.
Sara hid her face on her arms and sobbed. Some rats in the wall began to
fight and bite each other, and squeak and scramble. But, as I have
already intimated, Sara was not in the habit of crying. After a while
she stopped, and when she stopped she looked at Emily, who seemed to be
gazing at her around the side of one ankle, and actually with a kind of
glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook her.
"You can't help being a doll," she said, with a resigned sigh, "any more
than those girls downstairs can help not having any sense. We are not
all alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best."
None of Miss Minchin's young ladies were very remarkable for being
brilliant; they were select, but some of them were very dull, and some
of them were fond of applying themselves to their lessons. Sara, who
snatched her lessons at all sorts of untimely hours from tattered and
discarded books, and who had a hungry craving for everything readable,
was often severe upon them in her small mind. They had books they never
read; she had no books at all. If she had always had something to read,
she would not have been so lonely. She liked romances and history and
poetry; she would read anything. There was a sentimental housemaid in
the establishment who bought the weekly penny papers, and subscribed to
a circulating library, from which she got greasy volumes containing
stories of marquises and dukes who invariably fell in love with
orange-girls and gypsies and servant-maids, and made them the proud
brides of coronets; and Sara often did parts of this maid's work so that
she might earn the privilege of reading these romantic histories. There
was also a fat, dull pupil, whose name was Ermengarde St. John, who was
one of her resources. Ermengarde had an intellectual father who, in his
despairing desire to encourage his daughter, constantly sent her
valuable and interesting books, which were a continual source of grief
to her. Sara had once actually found her crying over a big package of
them.
"What is the matter with you?" she asked her, perhaps rather
disdainfully.
And it is just possible she would not have spoken to her, if she had not
seen the books. The sight of books always gave Sara a hungry feeling,
and she could not help drawing near to them if only to read their
titles.
"What is the matter with you?" she asked.
"My papa has sent me some more books," answered Ermengarde woefully,
"and he expects me to read them."
"Don't you like reading?" said Sara.
"I hate it!" replied Miss Ermengarde St. John. "And he will ask me
questions when he sees me: he will want to know how much I remember; how
would _you_ like to have to read all those?"
"I'd like it better than anything else in the world," said Sara.
Ermengarde wiped her eyes to look at such a prodigy.
"Oh, gracious!" she exclaimed.
Sara returned the look with interest. A sudden plan formed itself in her
sharp mind.
"Look here!" she said. "If you'll lend me those books, I'll read them
and tell you everything that's in them afterward, and I'll tell it to
you so that you will remember it. I know I can. The A B C children
always remember what I tell them."
"Oh, goodness!" said Ermengarde. "Do you think you could?"
"I know I could," answered Sara. "I like to read, and I always remember.
I'll take care of the books, too; they will look just as new as they do
now, when I give them back to you."
Ermengarde put her handkerchief in her pocket.
"If you'll do that," she said, "and if you'll make me remember, I'll
give you--I'll give you some money."
"I don't want your money," said Sara. "I want your books--I want them."
And her eyes grew big and queer, and her chest heaved once.
"Take them, then," said Ermengarde; "I wish I wanted them, but I am not
clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought to be."
Sara picked up the books and marched off with them. But when she was at
the door, she stopped and turned around.
"What are you going to tell your father?" she asked.
"Oh," said Ermengarde, "he needn't know; he'll think I've read them."
Sara looked down at the books; her heart really began to beat fast.
"I won't do it," she said rather slowly, "if you are going to tell him
lies about it--I don't like lies. Why can't you tell him I read them and
then told you about them?"
"But he wants me to read them," said Ermengarde.
"He wants you to know what is in them," said Sara; "and if I can tell it
to you in an easy way and make you remember, I should think he would
like that."
"He would like it better if I read them myself," replied Ermengarde.
"He will like it, I dare say, if you learn anything in any way," said
Sara. "I should, if I were your father."
And though this was not a flattering way of stating the case, Ermengarde
was obliged to admit it was true, and, after a little more argument,
gave in. And so she used afterward always to hand over her books to
Sara, and Sara would carry them to her garret and devour them; and after
she had read each volume, she would return it and tell Ermengarde about
it in a way of her own. She had a gift for making things interesting.
Her imagination helped her to make everything rather like a story, and
she managed this matter so well that Miss St. John gained more
information from her books than she would have gained if she had read
them three times over by her poor stupid little self. When Sara sat down
by her and began to tell some story of travel or history, she made the
travellers and historical people seem real; and Ermengarde used to sit
and regard her dramatic gesticulations, her thin little flushed cheeks,
and her shining, odd eyes with amazement.
"It sounds nicer than it seems in the book," she would say. "I never
cared about Mary, Queen of Scots, before, and I always hated the French
Revolution, but you make it seem like a story."
"It is a story," Sara would answer. "They are all stories. Everything is
a story--everything in this world. You are a story--I am a story--Miss
Minchin is a story. You can make a story out of anything."
"I can't," said Ermengarde.
Sara stared at her a minute reflectively.
"No," she said at last. "I suppose you couldn't. You are a little like
Emily."
"Who is Emily?"
Sara recollected herself. She knew she was sometimes rather impolite in
the candor of her remarks, and she did not want to be impolite to a girl
who was not unkind--only stupid. Notwithstanding all her sharp little
ways she had the sense to wish to be just to everybody. In the hours she
spent alone, she used to argue out a great many curious questions with
herself. One thing she had decided upon was, that a person who was
clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust or deliberately unkind
to any one. Miss Minchin was unjust and cruel, Miss Amelia was unkind
and spiteful, the cook was malicious and hasty-tempered--they all were
stupid, and made her despise them, and she desired to be as unlike them
as possible. So she would be as polite as she could to people who in the
least deserved politeness.
"Emily is--a person--I know," she replied.
"Do you like her?" asked Ermengarde.
"Yes, I do," said Sara.
Ermengarde examined her queer little face and figure again. She did look
odd. She had on, that day, a faded blue plush skirt, which barely
covered her knees, a brown cloth sacque, and a pair of olive-green
stockings which Miss Minchin had made her piece out with black ones, so
that they would be long enough to be kept on. And yet Ermengarde was
beginning slowly to admire her. Such a forlorn, thin, neglected little
thing as that, who could read and read and remember and tell you things
so that they did not tire you all out! A child who could speak French,
and who had learned German, no one knew how! One could not help staring
at her and feeling interested, particularly one to whom the simplest
lesson was a trouble and a woe.
"Do you like _me_?" said Ermengarde, finally, at the end of her
scrutiny.
Sara hesitated one second, then she answered:
"I like you because you are not ill-natured--I like you for letting me
read your books--I like you because you don't make spiteful fun of me
for what I can't help. It's not your fault that----"
She pulled herself up quickly. She had been going to say, "that you are
stupid."
"That what?" asked Ermengarde.
"That you can't learn things quickly. If you can't, you can't. If I
can, why, I can--that's all." She paused a minute, looking at the plump
face before her, and then, rather slowly, one of her wise, old-fashioned
thoughts came to her.
"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't
everything. To be kind is worth a good deal to other people. If Miss
Minchin knew everything on earth, which she doesn't, and if she was like
what she is now, she'd still be a detestable thing, and everybody would
hate her. Lots of clever people have done harm and been wicked. Look at
Robespierre----"
She stopped again and examined her companion's countenance.
"Do you remember about him?" she demanded. "I believe you've forgotten."
"Well, I don't remember _all_ of it," admitted Ermengarde.
"Well," said Sara, with courage and determination, "I'll tell it to you
over again."
And she plunged once more into the gory records of the French
Revolution, and told such stories of it, and made such vivid pictures of
its horrors, that Miss St. John was afraid to go to bed afterward, and
hid her head under the blankets when she did go, and shivered until she
fell asleep. But afterward she preserved lively recollections of the
character of Robespierre, and did not even forget Marie Antoinette and
the Princess de Lamballe.
"You know they put her head on a pike and danced around it," Sara had
said; "and she had beautiful blonde hair; and when I think of her, I
never see her head on her body, but always on a pike, with those furious
people dancing and howling."
Yes, it was true; to this imaginative child everything was a story; and
the more books she read, the more imaginative she became. One of her
chief entertainments was to sit in her garret, or walk about it, and
"suppose" things. On a cold night, when she had not had enough to eat,
she would draw the red footstool up before the empty grate, and say in
the most intense voice:
"Suppose there was a great, wide steel grate here, and a great glowing
fire--a _glowing_ fire--with beds of red-hot coal and lots of little
dancing, flickering flames. Suppose there was a soft, deep rug, and this
was a comfortable chair, all cushions and crimson velvet; and suppose I
had a crimson velvet frock on, and a deep lace collar, like a child in a
picture; and suppose all the rest of the room was furnished in lovely
colors, and there were book-shelves full of books, which changed by
magic as soon as you had read them; and suppose there was a little table
here, with a snow-white cover on it, and little silver dishes, and in
one there was hot, hot soup, and in another a roast chicken, and in
another some raspberry-jam tarts with criss-cross on them, and in
another some grapes; and suppose Emily could speak, and we could sit and
eat our supper, and then talk and read; and then suppose there was a
soft, warm bed in the corner, and when we were tired we could go to
sleep, and sleep as long as we liked."
Sometimes, after she had supposed things like these for half an hour,
she would feel almost warm, and would creep into bed with Emily and fall
asleep with a smile on her face.
"What large, downy pillows!" she would whisper. "What white sheets and
fleecy blankets!" And she almost forgot that her real pillows had
scarcely any feathers in them at all, and smelled musty, and that her
blankets and coverlid were thin and full of holes.
At another time she would "suppose" she was a princess, and then she
would go about the house with an expression on her face which was a
source of great secret annoyance to Miss Minchin, because it seemed as
if the child scarcely heard the spiteful, insulting things said to her,
or, if she heard them, did not care for them at all. Sometimes, while
she was in the midst of some harsh and cruel speech, Miss Minchin would
find the odd, unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like a proud
smile in them. At such times she did not know that Sara was saying to
herself:
"You don't know that you are saying these things to a princess, and that
if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only spare
you because I _am_ a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, old, vulgar
thing, and don't know any better."
This used to please and amuse her more than anything else; and queer and
fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it, and it was not a bad thing
for her. It really kept her from being made rude and malicious by the
rudeness and malice of those about her.
"A princess must be polite," she said to herself. And so when the
servants, who took their tone from their mistress, were insolent and
ordered her about, she would hold her head erect, and reply to them
sometimes in a way which made them stare at her, it was so quaintly
civil.
"I am a princess in rags and tatters," she would think, "but I am a
princess, inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in
cloth-of-gold; it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the
time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette: when she was in
prison, and her throne was gone, and she had only a black gown on, and
her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her the Widow
Capet,--she was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so
gay and had everything grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs
of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were even
when they cut her head off."
Once when such thoughts were passing through her mind the look in her
eyes so enraged Miss Minchin that she flew at Sara and boxed her ears.
Sara awakened from her dream, started a little, and then broke into a
laugh.
"What are you laughing at, you bold, impudent child!" exclaimed Miss
Minchin.
It took Sara a few seconds to remember she was a princess. Her cheeks
were red and smarting from the blows she had received.
"I was thinking," she said.
"Beg my pardon immediately," said Miss Minchin.
"I will beg your pardon for laughing, if it was rude," said Sara; "but I
won't beg your pardon for thinking."
"What were you thinking?" demanded Miss Minchin. "How dare you think?
What were you thinking?"
This occurred in the school-room, and all the girls looked up from their
books to listen. It always interested them when Miss Minchin flew at
Sara, because Sara always said something queer, and never seemed in the
least frightened. She was not in the least frightened now, though her
boxed ears were scarlet, and her eyes were as bright as stars.
"I was thinking," she answered gravely and quite politely, "that you did
not know what you were doing."
"That I did not know what I was doing!" Miss Minchin fairly gasped.
"Yes," said Sara, "and I was thinking what would happen, if I were a
princess and you boxed my ears--what I should do to you. And I was
thinking that if I were one, you would never dare to do it, whatever I
said or did. And I was thinking how surprised and frightened you would
be if you suddenly found out----"
She had the imagined picture so clearly before her eyes, that she spoke
in a manner which had an effect even on Miss Minchin. It almost seemed
for the moment to her narrow, unimaginative mind that there must be some
real power behind this candid daring.
"What!" she exclaimed, "found out what?"
"That I really was a princess," said Sara, "and could do
anything--anything I liked."
"Go to your room," cried Miss Minchin breathlessly, "this instant. Leave
the school-room. Attend to your lessons, young ladies."
Sara made a little bow.
"Excuse me for laughing, if it was impolite," she said, and walked out
of the room, leaving Miss Minchin in a rage and the girls whispering
over their books.
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if she did turn out to be something,"
said one of them. "Suppose she should!"
* * * * *
That very afternoon Sara had an opportunity of proving to herself
whether she was really a princess or not. It was a dreadful afternoon.
For several days it had rained continuously, the streets were chilly and
sloppy; there was mud everywhere--sticky London mud--and over everything
a pall of fog and drizzle. Of course there were several long and
tiresome errands to be done,--there always were on days like this,--and
Sara was sent out again and again, until her shabby clothes were damp
through. The absurd old feathers on her forlorn hat were more draggled
and absurd than ever, and her down-trodden shoes were so wet they could
not hold any more water. Added to this, she had been deprived of her
dinner, because Miss Minchin wished to punish her. She was very hungry.
She was so cold and hungry and tired that her little face had a pinched
look, and now and then some kind-hearted person passing her in the
crowded street glanced at her with sympathy. But she did not know that.
She hurried on, trying to comfort herself in that queer way of hers by
pretending and "supposing,"--but really this time it was harder than she
had ever found it, and once or twice she thought it almost made her more
cold and hungry instead of less so. But she persevered obstinately.
"Suppose I had dry clothes on," she thought. "Suppose I had good shoes
and a long, thick coat and merino stockings and a whole umbrella. And
suppose--suppose, just when I was near a baker's where they sold hot
buns, I should find sixpence--which belonged to nobody. Suppose, if I
did, I should go into the shop and buy six of the hottest buns, and
should eat them all without stopping."
Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes. It certainly was an
odd thing which happened to Sara. She had to cross the street just as
she was saying this to herself--the mud was dreadful--she almost had to
wade. She picked her way as carefully as she could, but she could not
save herself much, only, in picking her way she had to look down at her
feet and the mud, and in looking down--just as she reached the
pavement--she saw something shining in the gutter. A piece of silver--a
tiny piece trodden upon by many feet, but still with spirit enough left
to shine a little. Not quite a sixpence, but the next thing to it--a
four-penny piece! In one second it was in her cold, little red and blue
hand.
"Oh!" she gasped. "It is true!"
And then, if you will believe me, she looked straight before her at the
shop directly facing her. And it was a baker's, and a cheerful, stout,
motherly woman, with rosy cheeks, was just putting into the window a
tray of delicious hot buns,--large, plump, shiny buns, with currants in
them.
It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds--the shock and the
sight of the buns and the delightful odors of warm bread floating up
through the baker's cellar-window.
She knew that she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money. It
had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its owner was
completely lost in the streams of passing people who crowded and jostled
each other all through the day.
"But I'll go and ask the baker's woman if she has lost a piece of
money," she said to herself, rather faintly.
So she crossed the pavement and put her wet foot on the step of the
shop; and as she did so she saw something which made her stop.
It was a little figure more forlorn than her own--a little figure which
was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare, red and
muddy feet peeped out--only because the rags with which the wearer was
trying to cover them were not long enough. Above the rags appeared a
shock head of tangled hair and a dirty face, with big, hollow, hungry
eyes.
Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she felt a
sudden sympathy.
"This," she said to herself, with a little sigh, "is one of the
Populace--and she is hungrier than I am."
The child--this "one of the Populace"--stared up at Sara, and shuffled
herself aside a little, so as to give her more room. She was used to
being made to give room to everybody. She knew that if a policeman
chanced to see her, he would tell her to "move on."
Sara clutched her little four-penny piece, and hesitated a few seconds.
Then she spoke to her.
"Are you hungry?" she asked.
The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more.
"Ain't I jist!" she said, in a hoarse voice. "Jist ain't I!"
"Haven't you had any dinner?" said Sara.
"No dinner," more hoarsely still and with more shuffling, "nor yet no
bre'fast--nor yet no supper--nor nothin'."
"Since when?" asked Sara.
"Dun'no. Never got nothin' to-day--nowhere. I've axed and axed."
Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those queer
little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to
herself though she was sick at heart.
"If I'm a princess," she was saying--"if I'm a princess--! When they
were poor and driven from their thrones--they always shared--with the
Populace--if they met one poorer and hungrier. They always shared. Buns
are a penny each. If it had been sixpence! I could have eaten six. It
won't be enough for either of us--but it will be better than nothing."
"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar-child. She went into the shop.
It was warm and smelled delightfully. The woman was just going to put
more hot buns in the window.
"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence--a silver
fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece of money out to her.
The woman looked at it and at her--at her intense little face and
draggled, once-fine clothes.
"Bless us--no," she answered. "Did you find it?"
"In the gutter," said Sara.
"Keep it, then," said the woman. "It may have been there a week, and
goodness knows who lost it. _You_ could never find out."
"I know that," said Sara, "but I thought 'd ask you."
"Not many would," said the woman, looking puzzled and interested and
good-natured all at once. "Do you want to buy something?" she added, as
she saw Sara glance toward the buns.
"Four buns, if you please," said Sara; "those at a penny each."
The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag. Sara noticed
that she put in six.
"I said four, if you please," she explained. "I have only the
fourpence."
"I'll throw in two for make-weight," said the woman, with her
good-natured look. "I dare say you can eat them some time. Aren't you
hungry?"
A mist rose before Sara's eyes.
"Yes," she answered. "I am very hungry, and I am much obliged to you for
your kindness, and," she was going to add, "there is a child outside who
is hungrier than I am." But just at that moment two or three customers
came in at once and each one seemed in a hurry, so she could only thank
the woman again and go out.
The child was still huddled up on the corner of the steps. She looked
frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring with a stupid look
of suffering straight before her, and Sara saw her suddenly draw the
back of her roughened, black hand across her eyes to rub away the tears
which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from under her
lids. She was muttering to herself.
Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had
already warmed her cold hands a little.
"See," she said, putting the bun on the ragged lap, "that is nice and
hot. Eat it, and you will not be so hungry."
[Illustration: "EAT IT," SAID SARA, "AND YOU WILL NOT BE SO HUNGRY."]
The child started and stared up at her; then she snatched up the bun
and began to cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites.
"Oh, my! Oh, my!" Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild delight.
"_Oh, my!_"
Sara took out three more buns and put them down.
"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving." But
her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not starving,"
she said--and she put down the fifth.
The little starving London savage was still snatching and devouring when
she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any thanks, even if she
had been taught politeness--which she had not. She was only a poor
little wild animal.
"Good-bye," said Sara.
When she reached the other side of the street she looked back. The child
had a bun in both hands, and had stopped in the middle of a bite to
watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the child, after another
stare,--a curious, longing stare,--jerked her shaggy head in response,
and until Sara was out of sight she did not take another bite or even
finish the one she had begun.
At that moment the baker-woman glanced out of her shop-window.
"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "If that young 'un hasn't given her buns
to a beggar-child! It wasn't because she didn't want them, either--well,
well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give something to know what she did
it for." She stood behind her window for a few moments and pondered.
Then her curiosity got the better of her. She went to the door and spoke
to the beggar-child.
"Who gave you those buns?" she asked her.
The child nodded her head toward Sara's vanishing figure.
"What did she say?" inquired the woman.
"Axed me if I was 'ungry," replied the hoarse voice.
"What did you say?"
"Said I was jist!"
"And then she came in and got buns and came out and gave them to you,
did she?"
The child nodded.
"How many?"
"Five."
The woman thought it over. "Left just one for herself," she said, in a
low voice. "And she could have eaten the whole six--I saw it in her
eyes."
She looked after the little, draggled, far-away figure, and felt more
disturbed in her usually comfortable mind than she had felt for many a
day.
"I wish she hadn't gone so quick," she said. "I'm blest if she shouldn't
have had a dozen."
Then she turned to the child.
"Are you hungry, yet?" she asked.
"I'm allus 'ungry," was the answer; "but 'tain't so bad as it was."
"Come in here," said the woman, and she held open the shop-door.
The child got up and shuffled in. To be invited into a warm place full
of bread seemed an incredible thing. She did not know what was going to
happen; she did not care, even.
"Get yourself warm," said the woman, pointing to a fire in a tiny back
room. "And, look here,--when you're hard up for a bite of bread, you can
come here and ask for it. I'm blest if I won't give it to you for that
young un's sake."
* * * * *
Sara found some comfort in her remaining bun. It was hot; and it was a
great deal better than nothing. She broke off small pieces and ate them
slowly to make it last longer.
"Suppose it was a magic bun," she said, "and a bite was as much as a
whole dinner. I should be over-eating myself if I went on like this."
It was dark when she reached the square in which Miss Minchin's Select
Seminary was situated; the lamps were lighted, and in most of the
windows gleams of light were to be seen. It always interested Sara to
catch glimpses of the rooms before the shutters were closed. She liked
to imagine things about people who sat before the fires in the houses,
or who bent over books at the tables. There was, for instance, the Large
Family opposite. She called these people the Large Family--not because
they were large, for indeed most of them were little,--but because there
were so many of them. There were eight children in the Large Family,
and a stout, rosy mother, and a stout, rosy father, and a stout, rosy
grandmamma, and any number of servants. The eight children were always
either being taken out to walk, or to ride in perambulators, by
comfortable nurses; or they were going to drive with their mamma; or
they were flying to the door in the evening to kiss their papa and dance
around him and drag off his overcoat and look for packages in the
pockets of it; or they were crowding about the nursery windows and
looking out and pushing each other and laughing,--in fact they were
always doing something which seemed enjoyable and suited to the tastes
of a large family. Sara was quite attached to them, and had given them
all names out of books. She called them the Montmorencys, when she did
not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace cap was
Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet Cholmondely
Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger, and who had such
round legs, was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then came Lilian
Evangeline, Guy Clarence, Maud Marian, Rosalind Gladys, Veronica
Eustacia, and Claude Harold Hector.
Next door to the Large Family lived the Maiden Lady, who had a
companion, and two parrots, and a King Charles spaniel; but Sara was not
so very fond of her, because she did nothing in particular but talk to
the parrots and drive out with the spaniel. The most interesting person
of all lived next door to Miss Minchin herself. Sara called him the
Indian Gentleman. He was an elderly gentleman who was said to have lived
in the East Indies, and to be immensely rich and to have something the
matter with his liver,--in fact, it had been rumored that he had no
liver at all, and was much inconvenienced by the fact. At any rate, he
was very yellow and he did not look happy; and when he went out to his
carriage, he was almost always wrapped up in shawls and overcoats, as if
he were cold. He had a native servant who looked even colder than
himself, and he had a monkey who looked colder than the native servant.
Sara had seen the monkey sitting on a table, in the sun, in the parlor
window, and he always wore such a mournful expression that she
sympathized with him deeply.
"I dare say," she used sometimes to remark to herself, "he is thinking
all the time of cocoanut trees and of swinging by his tail under a
tropical sun. He might have had a family dependent on him too, poor
thing!"
The native servant, whom she called the Lascar, looked mournful too, but
he was evidently very faithful to his master.
"Perhaps he saved his master's life in the Sepoy rebellion," she
thought. "They look as if they might have had all sorts of adventures. I
wish I could speak to the Lascar. I remember a little Hindustani."