SECRETS
"Did you see all the fort, and the guns, and the soldiers?" asked
Donald eagerly, running to meet his cousin as she came slowly into the
sitting-room. "Why, your hand is all scratched!" he added in a
surprised tone.
Faith tried to cover the scratched hand with a fold of her skirt. Aunt
Prissy noticed that the little girl wore her every-day dress.
"Didn't you wear your blue dress, Faithie?" and without waiting for an
answer said: "Well, perhaps this one was just as well, for you might
have hurt your blue dress."
Faith sat down on the big sofa thinking to herself that she could
never be happy again. First, and worst of all, was the ruined dress.
Then the remembrance of the way she had been treated by Caroline and
Catherine; and, last of all, her _secrets_!--every one a little more
important and dreadful than the other. First the blue beads; then
Nathan's knowledge of a hidden entrance to Fort Ticonderoga; and then
the dress. She was so taken up with her unhappy thoughts that she did
not realize she had not answered Donald, or spoken to her aunt, until
Donald, who was standing directly in front of her, demanded: "What's
the matter, Cousin Faith? Does your tooth ache?"
Faith shook her head. "I'm tired. I didn't have a good time at all. I
don't like those girls," and, greatly to Donald's alarm, she put her
head on the arm of the sofa and began to cry.
In an instant she felt Aunt Prissy's arm about her, and heard the kind
voice say: "Never mind, dear child. Don't think about them."
After a little Aunt Prissy persuaded Faith to lie down and rest until
supper time.
"I'll sit here with my sewing and keep you company," said Aunt Prissy.
"It's an hour to candle-light."
Donald tiptoed out of the room, but was back in a moment standing in
the doorway and beckoning his mother; and Mrs. Scott went quietly
toward him, closing the door softly behind her.
"It's those girls. The ones Faith went with to the fort," Donald
explained in a whisper. "They're on the door-step."
Caroline and Catherine were standing, very neat and demure, at the
front door.
"Has your little girl got home?" inquired Catherine in her most polite
manner; "she ran off and left us," added Caroline.
"Faith is safe at home," responded Mrs. Scott in a pleasant voice.
"Why didn't you ask them to supper, mother? You said you were going
to," demanded Donald, as he watched the sisters walk down the path.
"Your cousin is too tired for company," said his mother, who had
planned a little festivity for Faith and her friends on their return,
but had quickly decided that her little niece would be better pleased
not to see the sisters again that day.
"All the more cake for us then," said Donald cheerfully, for he
had seen a fine cake on the dining-room table; "there comes the
shoemaker's girl," he added. "Shall you ask her to stay, mother?"
"Yes, indeed," and Mrs. Scott turned to give Louise a cordial welcome.
"Faith is resting on the sofa, but you may go right in, Louise. I know
she will be glad to see you," she said, smiling down at the dark-eyed
little girl. "When are you coming to make us another visit?"
"Father said I might stay all night if you asked me," responded
Louise, who now felt sure that Mrs. Scott was her friend.
"We shall be glad indeed to have you, my dear. Let me take your cap
and cape. And go in and cheer up Faithie, for I fear she has had an
unhappy time," said Mrs. Scott.
Louise's smile faded. She had never had a friend until Faith Carew
came to Ticonderoga, and the thought that any one had made Faith
unhappy made her ready to inflict instant punishment on the offenders.
"Oh, Louise! I'm so glad it's you!" exclaimed Faith, as she heard the
sound of Louise's crutch stubbing across the floor.
Louise sat down beside the crumpled little figure on the sofa.
"What did they do, Faith?" she demanded.
Faith told the story of the walk to the fort; of the disagreeable
manner of both Caroline and Catherine toward her, and of their
disappearance as soon as they were inside the fort. But she did not
tell of her efforts to find them, nor of Nathan Beaman's appearance.
"They are hateful things!" Louise declared, "but it won't be long
before they'll go to Albany with their father. Oh!" she ended a little
fearfully. "I ought not to have told that. It's a secret," she added
quickly.
"No, it isn't. They told me," answered Faith, "and if it were a secret
I shouldn't want to know it. I hate and despise secrets."
Louise looked at her friend with a little nod of comprehension.
"That's because you have a secret," she said.
"How did you know, Louise?" and Faith wondered if it were possible
Louise could know about the blue dress.
"I know," said Louise. "It's dreadful to know secrets. I can stay all
night. My father has gone to the fort. Oh!" and again she put her hand
over her mouth. "I ought not to have told that. He doesn't want any
one to know."
Faith leaned back against the sofa with a little sigh of
discouragement. It seemed to her there was nothing but secrets. She
wished she was with her mother and father in her pleasant cabin home,
where everybody knew about everything.
"Where's 'Lady Amy'?" asked Louise, quite sure that such a beautiful
doll would comfort any trouble. And her question made Faith remember
that Louise was a guest.
"I'll get her," she said, and in a few moments "Lady Amy" was sitting
on the sofa between the two little friends, and Faith was displaying
the new dresses that Aunt Prissy had helped her make for the doll.
"Father says he will buy me a doll," Louise announced, "and he's going
to get me a fine string of beads, too, when he goes away again;" for
the shoemaker went away frequently on mysterious business. Many of the
settlers were quite sure that he carried messages for the British
officers to other forts; but he came and went so stealthily that as
yet no proof was held against him.
"I have some blue beads. My father is going to bring them when he
comes to see me," said Faith. "I hope yours will be just like them."
Louise shook her head a little doubtfully. "I may never get them,
after all. Father forgets things," she said.
Before supper time Faith was in a much happier state of mind. She had
helped Louise with her reading lesson; they had played that the sofa
was a throne and Lady Amy a queen, and that they were Lady Amy's
daughters; and the unpleasantness of the early afternoon had quite
vanished when the candles were lighted, and supper on the table.
The supper seemed a feast to the shoemaker's daughter. Every time she
came to visit Faith Louise tasted some new dish, so daintily prepared
that she was at once eager to learn to make it. Faith was hungry, too,
and, as no reference was made to her trip to the fort, she enjoyed her
supper; and not until it was finished was she reminded of her
troubles.
"To-morrow Louise may go to church with us, and you may wear your blue
dress that you are so careful of," Aunt Prissy said.
Faith made no response. She did not know what to do or say. She was so
quiet that her aunt was sure her little niece was overtired, and soon
after supper sent the little girls off to bed.
"What is the matter, Faith?" questioned Louise, when they were safely
in the big chamber, with its high white bed, curtained windows, and
comfortable chairs, and which to Louise seemed the finest bedroom in
all the world.
Faith threw herself face down on the bed. "I don't know what to do! I
don't know what to do! I've spoiled my blue dress!" she sobbed. There!
That was one secret the less, she thought. And Louise would never
tell. "I can't go to church. I don't dare tell Aunt Prissy about the
dress. It was to be my best dress all winter," she added. "What shall
I do, Louise?"
Louise shook her head. That Faith Carew, who seemed to her to be the
most fortunate girl in all the world, should be in trouble was a far
more dreadful thing to Louise than any trouble of her own.
"Let me see the dress," she said; "perhaps it isn't very bad."
Faith opened the trunk and pulled out the blue dress, which only that
morning had been so fresh and dainty. Now it was rumpled, soiled and
torn. Faith's tears flowed afresh as she held it out for Louise to
see.
"I guess you'd better tell your aunt," Louise said soberly. "Tell her
now, this minute," she added quickly; "the sooner the better."
Faith looked at her in surprise. She wondered at herself that she had
hidden the dress, or even thought of not telling Aunt Prissy.
"I'll go now," she said, and, still holding the dress, walked out of
the room. She no longer felt afraid. As she went down the stairs she
thought over all Aunt Prissy's goodness toward her. "I'll tell her
that I can wear my other dress for best," she decided.
The boys were already in bed; Mr. Scott was attending to the evening
chores, and Aunt Prissy was alone in the sitting-room when Faith
appeared in the doorway.
"Aunt Prissy, look! I tore my dress coming home to-day, and I was
afraid to tell you! Oh, Aunt Prissy!" for her aunt had taken Faith and
the blue dress into her arms, and held the little girl closely as she
said:
"Why, dear child! How could you ever be afraid of me? About a dress,
indeed! A torn dress is nothing. Nothing at all."
"Louise, you are my very best friend," Faith declared happily, as she
came running into the room a few minutes later. "I am so glad you
made me tell."
Louise looked at Faith with shining eyes. She wished there was some
wonderful thing that she could do for Faith as a return for all the
happiness her friendship had brought into her life.
The clouds had lifted. Faith had disposed of one secret, and felt the
others would not matter very much. The two little friends snuggled
down in the big feather bed and were soon fast asleep.