the boys came rushing up all out of breath from running. They were nearly
scared to death because they had seen the smoke and thought the cabin was
on fire.
“At first they wouldn’t believe we had a bear treed. Truman said,
‘Whoever heard of a bear climbing a tree like that?’ But Stanley said
nobody knew what a bear might do, and Charlie said that there was the
bear all right, they could see for themselves.
“Truman went home and got his gun and shot the bear. It turned out to be
a young bear. Father sold the pelt and divided the money between Charlie
and me.
“Now, let me see, what shall I tell you about tomorrow night? Oh, I know!
I’ve thought of something, but I won’t tell. No, indeed, not a word till
tomorrow night.”
THE NEW CHURCH ORGAN
Grandma had been to church Sunday morning and heard for the first time
the wonderful new pipe organ, and in the evening she was talking about
it—how beautiful the music was, how solemn, how sacred.
“And when I think,” she said, “of the opposition there was to the first
little organ we had in our church and of the trouble we had getting
it—well, well, times certainly have changed.
“It was like this. Some of our people were bitterly opposed to organ
music in church and right up till the last minute did everything they
could to keep us from getting an organ. This made it very hard to raise
money for the organ, but after a long time we got enough—all but about
forty dollars. It was decided to have a box social to raise this.
“At a box social each girl or woman took a box containing enough supper
for two people. Then the boxes were auctioned off, and the men and boys
bought them and ate supper with the girl whose box they got.
“Aggie and Belle trimmed their boxes with colored tissue paper and
flowers and ribbon, but Mother just wrapped hers in plain white tissue
paper and fastened a bunch of pinks out of the garden on top so Father
would know it when it was put up to be sold. Father was going to buy
Mother’s box, and I was going to eat with them. Charlie had money to buy
a box for himself, and he said he meant to buy Aunt Livvy Orbison’s box
because she always had so much to eat.
“Every one in the family was going, and there was a great rush and bustle
to get ready. Mother cut Charlie’s hair and oiled it and curled mine. She
scrubbed us till we shone, and at last, dressed in our best clothes, we
started.
“Father and Mother and Belle and Aggie and I went in the surrey. All
the boys walked over the hill, except Joe, who had gone to Clayville on
business for Father that morning and was to stop at the church on his way
home.
“It was a lovely warm evening, and there was a large crowd at the church
when we got there, though it was early. The girls took their boxes in and
then came right out again. Every one was having a splendid time, talking
and laughing and visiting around.
“I was with Father. After a while I got tired hearing the men talk about
the crops and the price of wool and the election, and I went to hunt
Mother. I looked all around and I couldn’t find her. I thought maybe she
had gone into the church, so I went in there to look for her, but there
was no one in the church at all. The boxes had been piled on the pulpit
and covered with a sheet so that no one could see them. Just as I was
going out the door I noticed that the sheet was lying on the floor and
the boxes were nowhere to be seen. I went on out and presently I found
sister Belle. She was talking to John and Isabel Strang and Will Orbison.
“I tugged at Belle’s dress and pulled her to one side.
“‘What did they do with the boxes?’ I asked her.
“‘Why, they put them in the church, and after a while they will sell
them,’ she said. ‘You run and find Mother now, like a good girl.’
“‘But the boxes aren’t on the pulpit,’ I whispered. ‘I was in the church
hunting Mother, and the boxes are all gone and the sheet is lying on the
floor.’
“Belle told the others, and they all went hurrying into the church, I
following after. The boxes were gone, sure enough. The pulpit windows,
which faced a strip of woods, were open. The boys said the boxes could
have been taken out that way as the crowd was in front of the church.
There was no place in the church to hide them. There was a loft, but it
was entered through a hole in the ceiling and there was no ladder. Belle
placed two chairs with their seats touching and covered them with the
sheet so that no one could tell the boxes were not there.
“‘It looks as if some of the people who don’t want the organ have spoiled
this box supper,’ said John Strang, ‘and they will keep us from having
our organ for a while, too.’
“‘But that isn’t the worst of it,’ put in Isabel. ‘It’ll cause no end of
trouble and hard feelings.’
“‘It may have been some of the boys who did it for a joke,’ said Belle.
‘Let us raise the money anyway and get ahead of them.’
“‘But how,’ Isabel asked anxiously, ‘with no boxes?’
“Then they thought out their plan. It was that John and Will were to
go out and explain quietly to the boys in favor of the organ what had
happened and get them to give the money they meant to spend on their
boxes to John. Brother Joe had bought a new pair of shoes in town. They
would put his shoe box up for sale just as if all the rest of the boxes
were still under the sheet. Will was to bid against John and run the box
up to the amount they had collected.
“Isabel stayed in the church to see that no one disturbed the sheet, and
John and Will and Belle went outside to carry out their plan. I found
Mother, and pretty soon we went into the church. The lamps had been
lit, and I thought how nice it looked. The girls had come up the day
before and swept the floor and dusted the benches and shined the tin
reflectors on the lamps, and put great bunches of flowers and ferns over
the doors and windows and covered the two big round stoves with boughs of
evergreen. There was a short program first, and then Stanley, who was to
auction off the boxes, stepped to the front of the pulpit and held up a
plain white box tied with stout string.
“‘How much am I offered for this box?’ he said.
“The bidding started at twenty-five cents. At first there were lots of
bids, but finally every one dropped out but John and Will. There wasn’t a
sound in the church as the bidding went higher and higher—thirty dollars
for that plain, white box, thirty-five dollars, forty dollars, forty-one
dollars. Will stopped bidding and the box went to John for forty-one
dollars.
“Some one called out, ‘Open the box!’ and that started things. ‘Open the
box!’ they shouted. ‘Open it!’ ‘Let’s see what’s in it!’ ‘Open, open,
open!’
“When they quieted down a little, Stanley explained about the boxes
disappearing and everything. Then he untied the string, took the lid off
the box, and held up a pair of men’s shoes number ten. Then that crowd
went wild. They clapped and shouted and yelled. Stanley said he thought
the boxes had been taken for a joke and suggested that they be returned.
[Illustration: _Stanley held up a pair of men’s shoes_]
“‘We have enough money for the organ,’ he said. ‘Now let us have our
suppers and some fun.’
“One of the boys on the side opposing the organ got up and said that the
boxes had been taken for a joke and would immediately be returned. And
you couldn’t guess where those boxes were hidden! Right in the big round
stoves there in the church! Of course everybody laughed again and laughed
and laughed. Such a good-humored crowd you never saw.
“They handed out the boxes first to the people who had paid in their
money, and sold the others. There weren’t enough boxes to go around, but
each had plenty in it for three or four people. Every one divided, and
there was not a person in the church who did not get something to eat.
People who had been in favor of the organ ate out of the same boxes with
those who had been against it and forgot that they had ever disagreed.
And when the organ came and sister Aggie played it that first Sunday,
why, it sounded sweeter to me than that beautiful big organ in your
church did this morning.
“And now, ‘’night, ’night,’ everybody, and next time I think—yes. I’m
pretty sure—next time we’ll have something about my school.”
SCHOOL DAYS
“All my brothers and sisters had liked to go to school,” Grandma began
the next evening, “and in the sitting room, after supper, Father would
hear their lessons while Mother knitted or sewed or darned. Father had
read books and papers aloud to us as long as I could remember, and he
always told us how important education was. So as soon as I got to be six
years old I was anxious to start to school.
“I was small for my age, and as we lived two miles from the schoolhouse
and the snow in winter was often two or three feet deep, Mother did not
want me to go until I was seven or eight years old. She said she and
Father could teach me at home for a couple of years yet, but I coaxed and
coaxed to go. At last Mother said I could go as long as the weather was
good.
“So on the very first day—it was along toward the last of October—I
started down the road with a brand new primer under my arm and a lunch
basket of my very own and shiny new shoes. Mother stood at the front
gate to watch me out of sight and wave when I came to the turn in the
road.
“Our schoolhouse wasn’t like yours. It was just a little frame building
painted red. There were no globes or books or maps or pictures to make
learning interesting. Just rough, scarred benches, a water bucket and a
dipper on a shelf in one corner, and a big round stove in the center of
the room, and of course the teacher’s desk and chair on the platform up
in front.
“The teacher was usually a man, but that winter it was a woman—Miss Amma
Morton. Miss Amma was a tall, bony woman with snapping, black eyes that
saw everything, and thin gray hair combed straight back from her face.
She wore a brown alpaca dress with a very full gathered skirt and black
and white calico aprons and a little black shoulder shawl fastened with a
gold brooch.
“She lived with a married sister who had a very large family. In those
days all the stockings and socks were knitted at home, and Miss Amma did
the knitting for her sister’s family. She did it in school. She would sit
at the stove or at her desk and knit and knit on long gray stockings or
on red mittens. She would knit all day while she heard our lessons. The
only time she couldn’t knit was when she set our copies. We had no copy
books, and the teacher had to write the copies out for us.
[Illustration: _Miss Amma would knit all day while she heard our lessons_]
“I liked to go to school. It was fun to peep into my lunch basket at
recess to see what Mother had put in and maybe slip out a piece of pie or
cake to eat. I liked to make playhouses on the big flat rocks with Annie
Brierly and the other little girls, and hunt soft, green moss to furnish
them with, and smooth pebbles down at the run. I loved to learn my A
B C’s and listen to the older children recite, and at noon and recess
to play ‘Prisoners’ Base’ and ‘Copenhagen.’ But school wasn’t always so
pleasant.
“One day not long after I started there was a heavy wind and rain storm.
We couldn’t recite our lessons, the rain made so much noise on the roof.
Through the windows we could see the trees swaying this way and that in
the wind.
“At afternoon recess Annie and I ran out to see if our playhouses had
been spoiled by the rain. When we came back the girls were standing
around in little excited groups. They told us that the roof had blown off
Bowser’s house—they lived about half a mile down the road—and that most
of the boys had gone to see it.
“‘Did Charlie go?’ I asked eagerly.
“‘I reckon he did,’ one of the girls answered. ‘He was with the other
boys and they went that way. I wouldn’t be in their boots for anything.
They won’t be back before books, and Teacher’ll whip them if they’re
late.’
“I drew Annie away. ‘I’m going after Charlie,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to
take the short cut across the hill and catch up to him and bring him
back.’
“Annie said she would go with me, and we started. The ground was wet and
it was hard walking. We slipped at every step. After I thought about it
a little, I was not at all sure that Charlie would thank me for coming.
Maybe he’d sooner take a whipping than miss seeing a house without a
roof. Boys are so different from girls that way.
“We got clear to Bowser’s without seeing a sign of a single boy, and the
roof wasn’t off at all—just a little corner of it. Mr. Bowser was nailing
it up as fast as ever he could. He said none of the boys had been there,
so we started back.
“That was the longest walk I ever took. I thought we’d never get to the
schoolhouse. My feet were wet and my legs ached and I was so tired I
could hardly move. When we got to the top of the hill and looked down at
the schoolhouse, there was no one in sight. Recess was over! We reached
the door at last and stood trembling outside, afraid to open it and go in
and afraid not to. Annie had been to school the winter before and was
not so scared as I was. She took my hand reassuringly.
“‘Don’t let on you’re frightened,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe Miss Amma hasn’t
missed us and we can slip into our seats without being seen.’
“Annie opened the door just as easy, and we slid in without a sound. But
alas! alas! Miss Amma was hearing the advanced arithmetic class and she
stood facing the door, so the second we stepped in she saw us.
“She stopped explaining a problem long enough to order Annie and me to
stand in opposite corners up on the platform where everybody could see us.
“No one had had to stand in the corner since I had started to school, so
instead of facing the corner as I should have done I stood with my face
toward the school. I looked to see if Charlie was in his place. When
he saw me looking at him, he began making motions. I thought he meant
for me to stand tight in the corner, so I pushed as close as I could to
the wall. All over the room pupils were smiling at me and pointing and
shaking their heads. I wondered what they meant. I looked across at
Annie. She was laughing and she made a motion, too. Then I thought of
what she had said—not to let on I was frightened. Maybe I looked scared.
I looked at Annie again. She stuck her head into the corner, looked at
me, frowned, put her head in the corner again. What did she mean? It was
too funny the way they were all acting. Then I laughed, too, right out
loud, before I knew it. I laughed and laughed. I couldn’t stop.
“Teacher gave me a long, severe look.
“‘Turn around and face the corner, Sarah,’ she said, ‘and you may remain
after school.’
“Then I knew what Charlie and Annie and the others had been trying to
tell me. I stood there in the corner until the scholars had all gone home
and Miss Amma had swept the floor and cleaned the blackboard and emptied
the water bucket.
“Finally she called me, and I went over to her desk. When she asked
me why I had run off at recess and then disturbed the whole school by
laughing, I told her all about it, and she said she would forgive me that
time and helped me on with my cape and hood.
“Charlie was waiting for me down the road a piece. He hadn’t even thought
of going to see Bowser’s house, but had been down in the meadow watching
the big boys dig out a woodchuck.
“And, now, an apple all around and good night.”
A BIRTHDAY PARTY
“Mm! Isn’t it beautiful?” exclaimed Grandma as she stood with Bobby and
Alice and Pink admiring the table decorated for Pink’s birthday party.
Everything was pink and white. The lovely white-frosted cake had pink
candles in pink rose-holders—seven, one for each year and one to grow on.
There were pink candies and pink flowers and pink caps for the little
girls and boys to wear.
“‘And the ice cream is to be pink,’ Alice explained, ‘pink ice cream
shaped like animals—dogs and bunnies and kittens.’
“My, but isn’t that fine!” said Grandma. “Now my first party wasn’t a bit
like this. Maybe tonight if you are not too tired I’ll tell you about my
party.”
And that night after they had told Grandma about Pink’s party she told
them about hers.
“We didn’t have many parties when I was little,” Grandma began, “and we
never had regular little girls’ parties. Everyone, big and little, came,
and they were generally surprise parties and the guests would bring the
refreshments with them. One evening going home from school, the girls
were wishing that some one would get up a surprise party, when suddenly
Annie Brierly said, ‘Why don’t we get up a party for Sarah, girls? Friday
is her birthday. Do you think your Mother would care, Sarah?’
“‘We’d both help her,’ Callie Orbison put in before I could answer. ‘You
don’t need to do much getting ready for a surprise party. We could have
it Friday night, and Saturday we’d both come over and help clean up the
house.’
“‘Not a soul but Callie and me would know you knew anything about it,’
urged Annie, ‘and we could have just loads of fun.’
“I promised to think about it, and the more I thought about it the
better I liked the idea of having a party of my very own. It didn’t take
much persuasion the next day to make me consent. Annie and Callie were
delighted and immediately fell to making plans, but they agreed that
nothing should be said to Mother until Thursday evening, the date set for
the party being Friday night.
“The days that followed were full of mingled pleasure and pain for me. I
was happy at the idea of having a real party, but it didn’t seem fair to
deceive Mother. Once I thought of telling her all about it just as I told
her about everything else. But I was afraid she would say I was too young
to have a party, and I had never been to a party in my life. Sister Aggie
was visiting Aunt Louisa in Clayville, and Mother had no one to help her
except for what I could do mornings and evenings. But I would be at home
all day Saturday, and Annie and Callie had said that they would help.
“Thursday morning Annie told me that she had baked a cake and put my
initials on top in little red candies, and Callie said her mother was
going to bake an election cake with spices and raisins in it. All day
Thursday I kept thinking about the party. It wasn’t off my mind a
minute. I couldn’t study for thinking about it, and I missed a word in
spelling—the first word I’d missed that term—and had to go to the foot of
the class.
“But by the time we had started home I had made up my mind to one thing,
that if I could not have a party with everything open and above board I
did not want one at all. And so I told the girls that I had changed my
mind and did not want them to have a surprise party for me. They coaxed
and argued and teased, but I was firm. I was sorry that Annie had baked
a cake and I hated to disappoint them, but I did not want a party. The
girls were cross with me, and I felt miserable when Annie turned in her
gate without saying good-by.
“Aggie had come home from Clayville that afternoon, and she was so busy
telling Mother the news and describing the latest fashions, and showing
the things she had bought, that no one noticed me much. Not a word was
said all evening about my birthday being so near. Even Charlie didn’t
tease me about what he would do, such as ducking me in the rain barrel,
as he always did, and I thought everyone had forgotten all about my
birthday.
“But Friday morning just before I started to school Aggie gave me a plain
little handkerchief that she had hemstitched before she went away, and
then I knew for sure that she had not brought me anything from Clayville.
And when Mother gave me a pair of common home-knit stockings, I thought
I should cry right out before everybody instead of waiting until I got
started to school.
“Annie and Callie were in a good humor again and as pleasant as could
be, but I felt so unhappy that day that I didn’t notice that the girls
at school seemed unusually happy and excited. When I finally did notice
it, I was afraid that Annie and Callie had gone ahead with plans for the
party. I accused them of this, but they denied it.
“‘No, no, we didn’t do another thing about the party,’ they declared. But
they looked at each other and laughed when they said it, and I didn’t
believe them.
“‘You did,’ I said, ‘you know you did.’
“‘Cross my heart and hope to die if we did,’ Callie insisted.
“‘Here’s some of the cake that I baked for your party that we didn’t
have,’ said Annie. ‘Now will you believe us? I brought you girls each a
piece, but it was a sin to cut that cake—it was such a beautiful cake.’
And she handed us each a slice of delicious, yellow sponge cake decorated
with red candies.
“Mother had given me an errand to do at the store on my way home, so it
was later than usual when, hungry and tired, I opened the kitchen door.
Mother met me and took my bundles and books.
[Illustration: _Out from the hall rushed Annie and Callie and seven other
little girls_]
“‘Take your wraps off here, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Aggie has company in the
sitting room.’ I didn’t hear anyone talking, but I took off my coat.
Then Aggie called me and I went into the sitting room, but I stopped in
amazement just inside the door.
“In the center of the room was a table set with Mother’s best linen and
china and silver, and while I gazed at it, out from the hall rushed Annie
and Callie and seven other little girls all near my own age dressed up in
their Sunday frocks and each one thrusting some sort of package toward
me.
“I couldn’t say a word—I just burst into tears. I went upstairs with
Mother to wash my face and put on my best dress. She told me Aggie had
written invitations on cards she had bought in Clayville, and Charlie had
carried them to the girls that morning. Then I told Mother all about the
party we had planned to have, and she said not to think any more about it
but that she was glad I had told her.
“We played games—‘Pussy wants a corner’ and ‘Button, button, who’s got
the button’ and ‘Hide the thimble’—and asked riddles and had a good time.
“Then we had supper. There were cold roast chicken, tiny hot biscuits and
peach preserves, three kinds of cake, and hot chocolate that Aggie had
learned to make in Clayville and none of us had ever tasted before.
“Mother and Aggie had given me those presents in the morning just to fool
me. Aggie had brought me a lovely story book, and Mother had a string of
pretty pink beads for me. Charlie gave me a little basket he had whittled
out of a peach seed, and from Father I got a silver dollar.
“And now good night, pleasant dreams.”
THE LOCUSTS
“Grandma,” said Bobby one evening, “did you ever see a locust—a
seventeen-year locust? And why are they called seventeen-year locusts?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen locusts and heard them, too,” answered Grandma,
taking up her knitting. “They are called seventeen-year locusts because
they come every seventeen years. They lay their eggs in a tree. These
eggs hatch tiny worms, called larvae, which fall to the ground and stay
there for seventeen years changing slowly until they have turned into
locusts. They live only about thirty days, but they often do a great deal
of damage in this time. One year when I was a little girl all our fruit
was eaten by the locusts and many of the trees were killed. They ate the
garden stuff, the potato tops, and even the flowers, so it must have been
somewhat as it was in Pharaoh’s time.
“You remember Pharaoh was the king of Egypt who refused to let the
children of Israel go. For this God sent the plagues on Pharaoh and the
people of Egypt. One of these plagues was the locusts. God caused a
strong east wind to blow all day and all night, and this wind brought the
locusts. They were every place—all over the ground, in Pharaoh’s house,
and in the houses of his people. They ate all the vegetables and fruits,
even the leaves on the trees, so there was nothing green left in all the
land. The noise they made must have been awful. When Pharaoh repented,
the Lord sent a strong west wind which blew the locusts away, and they
were drowned in the Red Sea. Ever since that time people have thought the
locusts say ‘Pharaoh.’
“I believe I’ll tell you tonight about the first time I ever heard
a locust. Mother wondered one day at dinner whether there were any
blackberries ripe yet. She said she wished she had enough for a few pies.
So that afternoon I took a pail and started for the blackberry field. I
didn’t tell anyone where I was going, for I wanted to surprise Mother.
I was afraid that if she knew she mightn’t let me go alone, for she was
timid about snakes. Sure enough, I saw a snake nearly the first thing,
but it was a harmless little garter snake and scuttled away into the
bushes as soon as it heard me.