DINING OUT.
MISS PIKE had “a kind of a _way_ with her,” as Mary expressed it, which
was charming alike to old and young and rich and poor. In the three
days she spent at Camp Comfort she won the hearts of the Pecks, who
lived half a mile at the left; also the hearts of the Browns, who lived
half a mile at the right. And across the river, in that benighted red
cottage, her presence was felt like a full beam of sunshine.
She was interested at once in poor, wretched, overworked little
Pecielena, who, she saw, was far superior to her vagabond brothers
and sisters. She told the Quintette she would like to become better
acquainted with the child, and suggested asking her over to the camp to
dinner. Pecielena had never even knocked at their door since the night
of the hailstorm; but Mary espied her at a distance with her milk-pail,
and ran up to her, saying, with beaming good will,—
“Pecy, we’ll let you come to our house to dinner to-morrow if you want
to!”
Some people might not have considered this a very cordial invitation,
but Pecy was more than satisfied with it, and, as her mother had been
won by Miss Pike, there was no objection made to her going.
“What, eat dinner at _that_ house! Would the girls let her sit down
with them at the table?” she wondered, feeling as if a star had dropped
at her feet.
Meanwhile Dr. and Mrs. Gray had arrived, their carriage fairly loaded
with eatables, a huge plum pudding riding between them, to make room
for which little Ethel had to be perched at their feet on a cricket.
It was Dr. Gray’s first vacation, and he would have preferred a day at
the seaside; but when he heard that the Quintette would “break camp” in
another week, he decided to visit Old Bluff and make Mary happy.
“How good you are, papa, and how I love you!” said she, springing into
his arms, while the girls rolled the dainties out of the carriage like
peas out of a pod.
“Oh, mamma!” said she, when she had her mother to herself at last in
her own hammock, “we are going to have that heathen I told you of to
dinner. And I haven’t said one word to Miss Pike about my giving her
my pin-money, not one word. There are three poor families,—Jack calls
them a ‘peck of brown pancakes;’ he means the Pecks, and Browns, and
Pancakes, you know. And the girls want to do something for all of them,
and I suppose they think I’m cold-hearted and stingy.”
“Well, you don’t like them to think that, do you?”
“Yes, I do, mamma; it’s no more than fair,” said Mary stoutly.
Mrs. Gray had never in her life felt so well pleased with her young
daughter as at this moment. It was very clear now that Mary had been
honestly disgusted with her own conduct, and had chosen this way to
punish herself for her false charity and love of display.
“And I’ll not spoil it all by praising her,” thought the discreet
mother.
When she went into the house with Mary the girls began to talk about
Pecielena. They were rather “in fancy” with her since Miss Pike had
taken her up.
“You don’t know how she has improved, auntie, since we came here,” said
Lucy. “She used to be saucy; but somehow she’s afraid of us now, and we
never see her unless we meet her, or go where she is.”
“And she doesn’t look the same in the new calico dress, does she, Miss
Pike?” said Sadie. “She isn’t handsome, but she has soft, graceful ways
like a kitten, and like a swan, and like a gazelle; and you ought to
see her row a boat! If mother’s willing, I’m going to give her my dark
green ladies-cloth dress to make over.”
“I’m going to show her how to bang her hair,” said Fanny. “And I have a
Kate Greenaway dress she may have.”
This, with a side-glance at Mary. “I’d as lief let her have my handbag
as not,” remarked Blanche Jones.
“Shan’t _you_ do anything, Flaxie? You have so much money of your own.”
Mrs. Gray could scarcely restrain an amused smile as Mary replied in a
low voice,
“Perhaps I’ll do something—I’ll see”—and then had to steal out of the
room for fear she might add,—
“Yes, indeed I’m going to do more than all the rest of you put
together. And if mamma’s willing, I shall teach Pecy her letters too!”
The young lady under discussion was now seen approaching the house.
“Why, this can’t be the little savage you’ve said so much about,”
exclaimed Mrs. Gray, looking out of the rainbow-window. “But what a
thin, old looking face!”
Pecy was in holiday attire. Miss Pike’s calico dress fitted her well,
and it seems she did possess a pair of whole shoes, and had borrowed
her mother’s pink sun-bonnet. To say she was modest and well-behaved
would be incorrect; but Mrs. Gray did not find her as bold and impudent
as had been at first represented.
Though twelve years old, she had never dined at a really civilized
table; so now, when she found herself seated before an array of brown
linen tablecloth, clean dishes, and tolerably bright silver, she was
obviously quite bewildered. In her eyes, Dr. Gray was a wonderful man,
while his wife and daughters were no less than queen and princesses. As
for Miss Pike, she would probably have classed her among angels, if she
had ever heard of such beings, which is hardly likely.
She could not manage a fork, and in attempting it, often dropped her
food upon the tablecloth. But it was worst of all when the pie was
served. Lucy, annoyed by her shocking manners, refrained from looking
at her, as she said with cool politeness,—
“Pecielena, will you have a piece of pie?”
Now Miss Pancake, painfully aware of her awkwardness, was resolved for
once to show her quickness and dexterity. Never stopping to see that
Lucy was about to put the pie into a little plate, she held out her
_hand_ for a piece! You can hardly believe it, but that was the fashion
at home. She _always_ held out her hand when she wanted a piece of pie,
and her mother flung it into her outstretched palm. How should she know
that this was not the custom that prevailed in polite society? But when
Lucy passed her a little plate with freezing dignity, she understood
her mistake in a moment. She saw, too, that Mary and Fanny were
exchanging glances of surprise and amusement. They would have laughed
aloud if they had dared.
All this was too much for poor little Pecy, who had tried to behave so
well. She sprang up suddenly, overturned her chair, and, never stopping
for her pink sun-bonnet, ran for dear life out of the house. She did
not cease running till she reached the bank; and then she sat down upon
some stones and cried. It was an immense relief to get away from such
overstrained gentility. Pie in little plates indeed! As if her own hand
were not clean enough to hold a piece of pie!
She looked up at dear Old Bluff, and thought what a grand thing it
is to be a mountain and not be expected to know anything about the
fashions. She was sure she should never wish to see anything more of
polite society.
But here was the strangest part of it; she had a secret longing for
this very thing! She had already begun to wash her face every day,
and, as far as possible, to comb her tangled hair. She was ashamed of
her uncouth language, which she now perceived was quite unlike that of
the young people at Camp Comfort. Oh, if she could talk like them! If
she could read, as they did, out of books! Above all, if she only knew
how to “behave!” There was a skill in carrying a fork to one’s mouth
with food on it, that passed her comprehension. How could people do it?
It seemed vastly harder to her than walking a tight-rope, which she had
seen done at a circus!
Oh dear, to think they had invited her to a grand dinner, and she
couldn’t “behave,” and they had laughed at her! There was something
_in_ this little girl, or she would not have been capable of so much
shame. She had naturally a shrewd, bright mind, which, of course, had
been running to waste. She had seen cities and villages whizzing by
her from car-windows in travelling, but her little life had all been
spent in backwoods places, and Camp Comfort was really almost her first
near view of civilized life. Now she was waking to a new world. If she
could only get to it, if she could only live in it! She had as many
eyes, ears, and fingers as anybody else: Why couldn’t she be a nice,
proper, polite little girl,—say, for instance, like that pretty Flaxie
Frizzle, who had treated her so kindly and offered to take her with her
to church?
Flaxie’s mother was so nice! Perhaps she had cows, and needed a little
girl to milk them? But, oh dear, she wouldn’t hire anybody that
couldn’t “behave!”
After this, Pecielena hovered about Camp Comfort longingly, but would
have got no farther than the door-stone, if Flaxie had not come out and
urged her to enter.
“Oh yes, come in, Pecy, come in, and have some raisins.”
It had been a bright day for Pecy when the Quintette came to Camp
Comfort, a brighter day than she knew. Miss Pike had a “plan” for
her. She meant to win the child away from her “queer” father and all
her miserable surroundings, and have her reared carefully in a good
Christian family. But Miss Pike did not speak of this at present. She
never talked much about her plans till they were well matured.
Pecielena nearly cried her eyes out on the day the Quintette “broke
camp.” They were obliged to go, for the Hunnicuts of Rosewood wanted
the house. There was a farewell dirge on the cornet and harmonica,
a touching farewell to Old Bluff and the River Dee, the big barn,
the front door-yard, the white rose-bush, the spreading elms, the
“broad-breasted old oak tree” in the corner; and the Quintette and the
Trio retired again to private life.
“Pecy,” said Mary, as the little waif stood at the gate with her milk
pail, looking mournfully at the grass, “Pecy, my mamma said I might ask
you to go to my house at Laurel Grove. Would you like to go?”
“O may I?” almost screamed Pecy. “But I hain’t got no gown and bunnit
to wear.”
“Don’t think about your clothes, dear; you look well enough; and when
you get to my house, I’ll make you have a good time; now see if I
don’t.”
Thus Pecy’s tears were happily dried. In a few weeks the “camping
out” had become “old times;” a dear and fragrant memory, which the
young people loved to recall. It had been a delight to the whole eight
while it lasted; but what it had been to the poor families about Old
Bluff,—the Pecks, Browns, and Pancakes,—who shall say?
And one day it occurred to busy Miss Pike that she hadn’t quite
enough to do, for she was only teaching school, studying French and
German, and getting up Christmas festivals for Laurel Grove and
Rosewood children; but she must try to manage a Christmas Tree for
the little outcasts of Old Bluff. There would be no leisure for it on
Christmas Eve, the twenty fourth; neither on the twenty-fifth; but the
twenty-sixth would answer every purpose.
And where could the tree be put? Where else but in the parlor of Camp
Comfort itself? The Hunnicuts were willing at once. They had but one
child, James, and he was ready to help. So were the Quintette and the
Trio of course, and so were all their relatives and friends.