"And then, you know, we shall be away from the others, so we sha'n't be
able to whisper. Truly, Miss Hulburt, we've turned over a new leaf."
Phebe neglected to state in which direction the leaf had been turned.
Miss Hulburt had eyed her distrustfully; then she had granted the favor.
Three days later, she had regretted her concession.
The seat was so near the front corner of the room that the
schoolmistress was obliged to turn her head to see the children. She was
a bloodless, thin-necked, lackadaisical young person, in little-eyed
spectacles, who, in her youth, had been compared to a drooping lily.
From that time onward, she had given all her thought to the cultivation
of slow, graceful, lily-like motions, until it had become second nature
for her to ogle and smirk and roll her head gently this way and that. It
had not only rendered her intolerable to the unprejudiced observer, but
it had made her physically incapable of turning about quickly enough to
catch the culprits in the corner. Every disturbance in the room, and
they were not few nor slight, appeared to come from the one source; yet
by the time Miss Hulburt could focus her little spectacles upon them,
Phebe and Isabel were swaying to and fro and whispering their lessons to
themselves with an intentness which was almost religious.
It was one of the warm, bright days of late October, and the children
had insisted on opening the window behind them, not so much for the sake
of the clear, soft air as for the furtherance of their nefarious
schemes. In the lap of each child lay a tiny china doll, a long string,
and a box of what, at first sight, appeared to be parti-colored rags. A
closer inspection, however, showed that the rags were all round and
pierced with three holes, one in the middle, the others slightly to one
side.
When the first geography lesson was called, the girls propped their open
books before them, and abandoned themselves to the task in hand.
Selecting a circle of cloth from the box, each one of them proceeded to
clothe her doll by the simple process of thrusting the head and arms
through the holes and tying a string about the waist. Isabel's doll was
a negro and was decked in scarlet. Phebe's was of Caucasian extraction,
and preferred blue. The dolls were robed and the long strings were made
fast to their necks. Stealthily and slowly the girls poked them through
the crack of the open window and let them down, swinging them back and
forth until they heard them click against the window of the room below.
Then they jerked the strings sharply upward, and Isabel giggled again.
Phebe coughed to smother the sound, and then gave her friend a warning
pinch.
Miss Hulburt was turning in their direction. Instantly Phebe raised her
hand, shaking it slightly and clearing her throat to attract attention.
"Well? What is it, Phebe?"
"Please, how do you pronounce p-h-t-h-i-s-i-c?"
"Phthisic. Where do you find anything about it, Phebe?" Miss Hulburt
felt that she was developing in craftiness.
"In my--geography."
Miss Hulburt's smile showed that she believed she had caught the young
sinner napping.
"But my book doesn't have any such word."
Isabel raised her hand in support of her friend.
"If you please, Miss Hulburt, we're reading in the back part, about the
South Sea Islands. It says it's very common there."
"Phebe," Isabel whispered, a little later; "what is it?"
"What's what?"
"P-h-t-h-You know."
"I d' know, something to eat, I guess. We had it in spelling, last term,
and I happened to think of it. Oh, Isabel!" For the door opened, and the
teacher of the room below came into the room.
An hour later, Hubert and Theodora sat on the edge of the piazza,
discussing a coming entertainment to be given by the pupils of the high
school. The piazza came to the side of the driveway, and now they curled
up their toes to allow the doctor to pass them, driving his new and
favorite horse, Vigil.
"What a beauty she is!" Hubert said, as the carriage passed them.
"Isn't she? I'm dying to ride her."
"Better not," Hubert cautioned her. "She wouldn't stand the things old
Prince does, and you wouldn't have any show at all, if you tried to
manage her."
"I don't believe it," Theodora returned. "Papa said I was a good
horsewoman, and I mean to try Vigil, some day. 'Tisn't strength that
counts with a horse, anyway; it's gumption."
"What'll you take for the word?" Hubert asked lazily. He was lounging in
the sun with his hands in his pockets and his back against a pillar, and
he felt too comfortable to be inclined for a discussion.
"The word's all right." Theodora tossed her book into a chair behind
her. "It means exactly what I want. It isn't common sense, nor
knowledge, nor reasonableness; it's just gumption and nothing else.
It's what Miss Hulburt hasn't," she added, as she glanced up the street.
"Here she comes, Hu. How we used to hate her, when we were in her room!
Why, she's stopped papa, and he's coming back with her. Babe must be in
some fresh scrape."
Hubert rose hastily.
"That settles it. If she's coming here, I'm off."
"Where going?"
"I don't know. Over to the Farringtons', maybe, or else to the library."
"Teddy," the doctor called; "I wish you'd come and see to Vigil. I
haven't any halter, and I sha'n't be long. Miss Hulburt wants to see me
about Phebe. Just let the reins lie loose on her back, and she'll be all
right."
"On Miss Hulburt's back?" Theodora questioned, with a giggle.
The doctor laughed, as he stepped out of the low, open buggy, handed the
lines to his daughter, and turned to speak to the teacher who stood
simpering at his side.
Within ten minutes, Theodora was heartily tired of her position as
amateur groom. Miss Hulburt, always garrulously confidential, was
pouring into the doctor's impatient ears all her theory of Phebe's
temper and training. She was absorbed in her subject, but to the others
the time crept heavily by. Allyn came around the corner of the house,
and Theodora hailed him.
"Come, Allyn; want to come and play go to ride with sister?"
With childish clumsiness Allyn clambered into the buggy. For a time, he
was content to jounce rapturously on the cushion and snap the buckle of
the reins. Then he too wearied for change.
"Make the horsey go, Teddy," he demanded.
"Oh, no, Allyn; sister mustn't. We must wait for papa."
"Make him go," Allyn persisted.
Theodora hesitated. Like the immortal Toddie, Allyn's strength lay in
his power of endless iteration. She foresaw a coming crisis in his
temper, and, moreover, his wishes coincided with her own to a remarkable
degree. Vigil was becoming uneasy, and a belated gadfly was making
continued attacks upon her sensitive skin. Why not drive down the street
and around the block, and shake off the annoying guest?
"Will you sit quite still, Allyn, if sister will drive just a little,
little way?"
Allyn smiled rapturously.
"Ess," he hissed.
Theodora gave a hasty glance at the house, as she tightened the lines.
"I know he'd think it was the best thing to do," she argued with her
conscience. "Vigil is so uneasy she wouldn't stand much longer, and this
will quiet her down. Besides, I've always been used to driving."
The gadfly went too. Vigil was fretted by standing, and she quickened
her pace. Before she quite realized the change, Theodora was being
whirled down the street at a round trot.
"Whoa!" she urged. "Whoa, Vigil! Sh-h-h!"
But Vigil refused to _sh-h-h_. She felt an unfamiliar hand on the lines,
and her sensitive mouth assured her that the hand was shaking a little.
Accordingly, she dropped her ears back, gave an odd little kick with her
hind legs, and swung round a corner with the carriage on two wheels
behind her.
"Allyn," Theodora said, when they had gone around another corner in the
same uncertain fashion; "now you must mind sister and do just what she
says." The girl's face was white to the lips; but her voice was steady
and brave. "Climb over the back of the seat, lie down flat in the bottom
of the carriage, and then roll out on the ground."
"I don't want to," whined the child. "I wants to ride."
"But you must, or sister won't take you again. You may be thrown out and
hurt, if you don't mind sister."
"It hurts to roll out," he argued.
"No; not a bit." Theodora felt herself a heartless liar; but she had
lost all control of Vigil, and she knew that this was the best chance of
safety for her baby brother. "Now hold on tight. I don't believe you can
climb over."
All the boy nature inherent in Allyn responded to the challenge. Lithe
as a little monkey, he scrambled over the seat, lay down and took the
fateful roll. Vigil shied, just then, and Allyn landed in a ball, in a
bed of burdocks. His wails followed the flying horse; but they were
wails of temper, more than of physical injury, and Theodora's main
anxiety was relieved.
[Illustration: THEODORA WENT FLYING ACROSS THE ROAD.]
Two blocks farther down the street, the buggy collided with a hay wagon.
There was a crash, the horse broke free, and Theodora went flying
across the road, landing in an indiscriminate, dusty pile just in front
of the Farringtons' carriage.
That evening, the doctor came into the library, where his wife sat alone
in the fire-light. He looked tired and worried, as he threw himself down
into an easy chair. His wife came forward to his side.
"You poor old boy!" she said tenderly, as she stroked his hair.
He smiled wearily.
"I wouldn't have had it happen for any amount of money, Bess," he said,
as he reached up and took her hand. "It's smashed the buggy, and
demoralized my favorite horse, and bumped Allyn, and given us all a
scare."
"How is Theodora?"
"Badly frightened and very meek. Her bruises don't count; but I don't
think she'll do it again. I gave her a plain talk, while I was looking
over her wounds, and I think she knows I mean what I say. It is a
miracle that both children weren't killed; but Allyn is all right now,
and Teddy will be, in a day or two. She will be rather stiff, to-morrow,
but I'm not sure that I'm sorry."
"Poor Teddy!" his wife said, laughing.
"Poor me!" he answered. "And poor you! You will think I have brought you
into an undisciplined horde of savages, Bess. I feel like Job, myself,
for one thing follows another. I shouldn't have left the horse with
Teddy, in the first place, if Miss Hulburt hadn't come to me with a tale
of woe about Phebe."
"What about Phebe?" In spite of herself, Mrs. McAlister laughed.
"Some school scrape or other. Phebe is naughty as she can be, and, worst
of all, she is sly. That's not like Teddy. Ted hasn't a dishonorable
pore in her skin. She is headstrong and impetuous; but when she has done
wrong, she comes forward and tells the whole story and takes the
consequences. She has made me more trouble, one time and another, than
all the rest of them put together, and yet--" he hesitated, then he went
on; "and yet, I honestly think she's the flower of the flock."
"A climbing rose, not a violet," Mrs. McAlister suggested.
"A snapdragon, if you will. She has character and force and brains
enough for a dozen; and if we can provide a safe outlet for her extra
vitality, I think she will make us proud of her yet."
"You're right, Jack," Mrs. McAlister answered heartily. "The girl has
splendid possibilities. As you say, she only needs some sort of an
outlet for her energy. She's a motherly, womanish child, too, as much so
as Hope, in her way. She's got to have something to love, and to fuss
over, and to fight for. I sometimes think that Will Farrington may
supply a certain something that she needs."
The doctor rose and stood on the rug, facing his wife. Little by little,
his face had lost its anxiety and now, at her last words, he laughed
jovially.
"Will Farrington! Then Heaven help him, Bess! 'Twill be six months at
least before the boy can walk to amount to anything, and helpless as he
is and energetic as Teddy is, she'll be sure to break his neck. If she
is going to devote herself to Will Farrington, I'll send for Dr. Parker
and a cord or two of extra splints."