SALLIE’S STORY
During the dark days when Marjory and Sallie were under a cloud of
suspicion; when Henrietta was worried and unhappy about her much loved
and missing father and when Maude was again in disgrace with Miss
Woodruff, it was natural that this little group of warm friends should
spend the leisure moments of the long afternoons together. And of course
Cora, Jane Pool, Jean, Mabel and Bettie, always loyal, no matter what
happened, stayed with them. But, in spite of the fact that these were
the unhappiest days that these particular girls had ever spent, they
were not without some brighter moments. And Maude Wilder, you may be
sure, managed to provide some of the brightest.
On one of these afternoons, Maude found it necessary to explain to
Sallie (who slept on the upper floor and had therefore missed the fun)
the cause of her present disgrace.
“Of course I ought not to have done it,” said Maude. “But you know they
took us to the movies Saturday afternoon to see ‘Treasure Island.’”
“Yes,” said Sallie. “I had to stay home to clean the silver—Annie had a
sore finger.”
“And you know how sad we all were over the hymns Sunday night?”
“We always are,” returned Sallie.
“Well, when we were all trailing sadly up the front stairs to bed,
afterwards, I had a lovely idea. I thought it would be fun to dress up
just like one of those lovely ‘Treasure Island’ pirates so I did
it—bloomers, sash, black eyebrows, whiskers, black hat with sweeping
plume and everything. I was a bold buccaneer all right, wasn’t I,
girls?”
“Yes,” assured Cora, “she looked the part, provided you didn’t examine
her too closely.”
“Of course, after I was all fixed up, I wanted other folks to enjoy the
fun too; so I started out in this corridor. I had a lovely time. I poked
my head in at one door after another and growled in a deep bass voice:
“‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!’
“Of course Isabelle shrieked and Augusta screamed and Lillian yelped
like a puppy and Marjory squealed; and altogether this corridor was full
of lovely noises when I slipped out of it. I got across the square hall
all right and into the North Corridor. I had a lovely time there, too.
Victoria just laughed, but Gladys gasped like a fish and pretended to
faint and the Miller girls fell into each other’s arms and bleated. It
was just heavenly. And then suddenly it was all over. The bell rang for
‘Lights Out,’ and there was I at the far end of the North Corridor. All
that long way from my own room.”
“What _did_ you do?” asked Sallie.
“Well, you know a swarthy pirate doesn’t light up very well in the dark;
so, knowing that I was no longer a fearsome sight, I started to sneak
back to my own room. I _started_ all right, but just then Mrs. Henry’s
door opened and Miss Woodruff came out. I’d have been all right even
then, but as luck would have it, the hairbrush that I had thrust into my
manly belt dropped with a horrid clatter on the hardwood floor.
“But I was right near the vacant room at the end of the North Corridor.
The door was open and I slipped in. And slid under the bed. And, my
goodness! You could hear my heart beat all over the place; and you know
what ears our dear Miss Woodruff has.
“What did she do but come into that room and sit on the very bed I was
under and _listen_. It was awful. She sat and sat and sat and listened.
And I knew that Mrs. Henry was standing just outside her own door
listening too. I didn’t dare breathe, but my heart kept right on
thumping like a brass knocker on a front door. It was moonlight outside,
the shade was up part way and she was sitting on the side next the
window. Her skirt was pulled up a little way at the back so I could see
her thick ankles very plainly and a little of her fatted calf above
them.
“Girls, I just couldn’t help it. I _had_ to pinch her leg. I _had_ to do
it. I know it was crazy. I know it was the very last thing I _should_
have done; but my thumb and finger went right out and did it.
“She let out the grandest shriek you ever _did_ hear, and streaked out
of there as if a whole regiment of pirates were at her heels. Mrs. Henry
switched on all the lights and came on a run; and all the North Corridor
girls popped out of their rooms and Miss Woodruff came back. And there
was I, a crushed and humiliated pirate, crawling out on all fours; but
Miss Woodruff looked so funny that I just looked up at her and said as
sadly as I could: ‘_Nous avons les raisins blancs et noirs mais pas de
cerises._’ And of course all the North Corridor girls roared. I knew
they would.”
“What _did_ she do to you?” asked Sallie, when the girls’ shrieks of
mirth had finally subsided. They loved Maude’s tales of her own dreadful
doings quite as well as Maude loved to tell them.
“She said I was a bad influence to you younger girls—”
“You’re not,” said Henrietta. “Not one of us would attempt to follow in
your wild footsteps. We wouldn’t dare.”
“And she said that I ought not to give way to my wicked impulses—”
“They’re, not really wicked,” said Jean. “At least you never do anything
sneaky and you always tell the truth.”
“And,” finished Maude, “I’m perfectly incorrigible and I shall never
grow up to be a lady.”
“I think you will,” laughed Henrietta. “The _good_ die young, you know.”
“Didn’t she punish you?” asked Sallie.
“_Didn’t_ she?” returned Maude. “I have to learn and recite a whole
Chapter of American History. Prose, mind you. And she picked out the
very dullest chapter in the whole book.”
“I’ll say this for Miss Woodruff,” laughed Henrietta. “Sometimes she
shows remarkable ingenuity in her punishments. That one will keep Maude
out of mischief for some time.”
“I wanted dreadfully to go to that movie,” confessed Sallie. “I read
that book last vacation and I loved it. But Mrs. Rhodes keeps finding
more and more things for me to do Saturdays and I just can’t get through
in time to go any place.”
“Tell us about your own people,” pleaded Jean. “You know you always
promised to.”
“Yes,” begged Bettie, “begin way back at the very beginning and tell us
how it all happened. Perhaps our friend Mr. Black might tell us what to
do in a case like that—we write to him every week you know. He might
know how to find some of your lost people.”
“I’m sure it’s too late to do any good,” said Sallie, soberly. “But I’ll
tell you about it. To begin with, I was about nine years old when my
mother died. We were living then in a little bit of a town in Wisconsin.
We had always moved about a great deal. You see, my father was always
trying new things and new places—he used to say that he was a rolling
stone; and then my mother would say: ‘Never mind, John, you’ll roll to
the right spot some day.’
“Well, after my mother was gone, we went to Chicago and lived for a
little while in a big apartment house. The only person that we knew very
well was an old man that everybody called ‘Grandpa’ but he wasn’t really
my grandfather—or anybody’s that I know of. He had a couple of rooms
next to ours. I think he must have done some sort of writing for a
living—copying perhaps—but I’m not very sure about that part of it.
Anyway, he used to carry written papers away in an old black portfolio
and come home with it empty. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was bent
over his desk writing. He was very absent minded—always hunting for his
spectacles when they were on top of his head and often putting his
teakettle on to boil and letting it go dry. Father used to remind him to
put his coat on when he was going out.
“I suppose my father found me a good deal of a nuisance daytimes.
Perhaps he was more tied down than he liked to be and there were no
relatives to look after me. I know that my mother’s people were dead and
my father said once that _he_ had nobody in the world but me.
“Anyway, he decided to put me into a girls’ school. He picked one out,
bought me some clothes and a small trunk and told me that I must keep my
new things nice and clean, because, in just about a week, I was going on
the cars to a good school for little girls, where there would be lots of
good women to take care of me while he was away at work.”
Sallie’s face wore a strange but very sweet expression while she was
telling her story. The girls gazed at her sympathetically and listened
intently. There was not a sound in the room but Sallie’s gentle voice.
“The very next day,” Sallie continued, “my father was taken sick. I
don’t know what ailed him, but he was _very_ sick. He gave Grandpa some
money and asked him to take me to that school when the time came and
Grandpa promised to do it. Of course I didn’t want to go when Father was
so sick; but Grandpa said I must be good and not worry my father, so I
_had_ to go. Well, I suppose it hadn’t occurred to my father to write to
that school to reserve a place for me—I know now that that is the proper
thing to do; but lots of parents don’t seem to know about it. Several
have turned up _here_ with an unexpected girl on opening day; but this
is a very large school and perhaps not one of the most popular ones so
it doesn’t make so much difference—there are always vacant rooms.
“But when Grandpa presented me at that other school—and I couldn’t tell
you where it was if you offered me a million dollars—it was full and
they couldn’t take me—or at least they wouldn’t. They gave Grandpa quite
a long list of other schools and some catalogues and we went to two
other schools before we found one that would take me.”
“Was it this one?” breathed Bettie.
“Yes, this very one. But, by the time we reached this place, we had been
getting on and off trains all day. I was so sleepy that I tumbled off my
chair and I guess poor old Grandpa was just about walking in his sleep.
We’d had a _dreadful_ day. Somebody, I don’t know who, led me off and
put me to bed. That’s the last I’ve ever seen of either my father or
that poor old Grandpa.”
“But didn’t you write?” queried Jean.
“Yes, indeed. So did Doctor Rhodes—not _this_ Doctor—hum—well, this
Doctor’s cousin. But our letters came back from the Dead Letter Office.”
“What does a dead letter look like?” demanded Mabel, with sudden
curiosity.
“Just like any other kind,” returned Sallie, “except that they come in a
special envelope.”
“Then,” said Jean, “for anything you know to the contrary, your father
and this grandfather person may still be living in that apartment, in
Chicago?”
“No,” returned Sallie. “They’re not. You see my tuition was paid for the
full school year. It was getting along toward the summer vacation when
Doctor Rhodes began to write to my father. Afterwards he went to that
apartment in Chicago to ask about him; but they could tell him nothing
more about him. Then Doctor Rhodes went to a number of hospitals and
learned that a John Dickinson had been discharged, after a long, long
illness; and that he was still very far from strong when he left the
hospital to look for work.”
“The apartment people told Doctor Rhodes that poor old Grandpa had had a
breakdown and had been placed in an asylum. Doctor Rhodes visited that
place but the poor old man had forgotten all that he had ever known of
either me or my father; and quite soon after that he died.”
“Then,” said Henrietta, “your father may still be living.”
“Yes,” returned Sallie. “But, if he were, wouldn’t he hunt for me until
he found me? There’s this about it. I’m sure that he thought that he was
putting me in a place where I’d be safer and better cared for than I
could be with him.”
“Did he have very much money?” asked practical Henrietta.
“I don’t think he had a great deal. He used to say that he was a poor
man; and the houses we lived in were always rather small and poor. My
mother, I think, had belonged to nice people. As nearly as I can
remember, she spoke nicely and wouldn’t let me use slang; and I _think_
her father was a clergyman—I can remember an old photograph; but I’m not
very sure about that.
“And here I am now, just like poor old Abbie—a boarding school orphan,
with not a relative in the world.”
“No, you’re _not_ like Abbie,” declared Jean. “We won’t _let_ you be
like Abbie. You’re smart enough to crawl out of your hole; but Abbie
never was.”
“Now,” pleaded Henrietta, “tell us the secret about the Rhodes family.
We’re dying of curiosity about that.”
“No,” replied Sallie, firmly. “If I were paying my way with real money I
_might_ break my promise and tell. But I don’t know that I would,
either; it would take a lot of courage to break a promise to Doctor
Rhodes. But, of course, as long as I owe him for my bread and butter, I
just couldn’t do it.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” agreed Maude. “It wouldn’t be honorable.”
“That’s just the way I feel about it,” sighed Sallie. “And there isn’t
really anything very dreadful about that secret after all.”
“Except our curiosity,” said Henrietta, “that’s just _eating_ us.”
“Pile off this bed, girls,” said Cora, who had looked at her watch.
“It’s ten minutes to dinner time and Sallie has left all your hair
standing right on end.”
“Say, Sallie, ring the old bell fifty-nine seconds late,” pleaded Maude.
“I have to change my dress and the other one buttons behind.”
“I’ll button it all the way downstairs,” promised Cora.