“THE SCREW-UP PENCIL.”
“Mother,” said Dotty, next morning, with eyes on the carpet, “I want to
tell you something. Mayn’t Prudy do it?”
“Do what, dear?”
“Talk to Miss Parker.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for you to make your own confession, my
daughter?”
Dotty twisted her front hair very rapidly.
“Why, mamma, I could talk to her, you know, if ’twas about Tate Penny,
how bad she is; but this is about _me_.”
Mrs. Parlin reflected a moment.
“I think it would be better for you to go to Miss Parker yourself,
and tell her you are sorry you have deceived her; still, if you are
not brave enough to do it, and your sister is willing, I shall make no
objection.”
Prudy said she was willing. Prudy was always expected to stand with a
little flask in her hand, ready to pour oil on Dotty’s troubled waters.
“Miss Parker,” whispered she, taking the teacher aside, “my little
sister has done a dreadful thing, and she can’t be happy till you
forgive her.”
“Why, what has she done?” asked Miss Parker. “She learns wonderfully
fast. I am pleased with Dotty. She gives me more trouble than my little
Prudy did; but I like her very much. What has she done?”
“She told you a wrong story last night, Miss Parker. She and Tate Penny
whisper the whole time; but Dotty held up her hand in the class, and
you praised her for being good; but she says your kiss ’burnt her
mouth,’ and the moment she got out of the school-room it seemed as if
her heart would break.”
“I remember I praised her,” said Miss Parker, thoughtfully. “I never
dreamed she had deceived me.”
“Will you forgive her, Miss Parker? She wants to know if you certainly
do.”
“O, yes; you may tell her I forgive her,” replied the teacher, still
looking thoughtful. “But do you say she and Tate Penny both whisper?
Tate has a very honest face; and I have never seen her whisper.”
Prudy did not wonder at this; she remembered what a way Miss Parker had
of _not_ seeing.
“I _believe_ Tate whispers,” said Prudy; “but I ought not to have told
of it. I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad you did,” returned Miss Parker. “I’m glad you did. It is just
possible there may be other little girls who act the lie. I thought I
could read faces, but the best of us are liable to mistakes.”
Prudy hurried away, lest she should forget herself so far as to smile.
After she had gone, Miss Parker called Dotty to her side.
“Your sister has been telling me all about it,” putting her arm around
the child. “I forgive you freely.”
Dotty raised her face joyfully to meet her teacher’s kiss, and this
time it did not feel like a coal of fire on her lips.
“But you never will do so again, Dotty?”
“No’m, I don’t think I’ll ever.”
“And you’ll try, like a good little girl, not to whisper?”
Dotty put a corner of her apron in her mouth.
“You want me to love you, dear?”
“Yes’m.”
“And can’t you try not to whisper?”
“I don’t dare to.”
“Don’t dare?”
“No’m; I’m afraid I’d break it.”
“O, I only asked you to _try_.”
“Yes’m; I know.”
“It can’t hurt you to try.”
“Only it gets me cross.”
“Cross, Dotty? What an idea!”
“Makes my neck ache, and face ache.”
Miss Parker was amused. She did not know what the child meant.
“Yes’m, I tried yesterday, and you didn’t like it--two hours--’most
three.”
“Didn’t like it?”
“No’m; you said you’s _’stonished_. I shook my head, and shook my head,
and you told me to stop.”
“To be sure I did. But what had that to do with trying not to whisper?”
“O, ’cause I kept saying, ‘No, no, no,’ to Tate, and wouldn’t answer
her.”
“Did she whisper to you?”
Dotty wanted to say, “Yes’m, awfully,” but checked herself.
“I’d rather not say. My mamma doesn’t wish me to tell things, Miss
Parker. When it’s sober true that people do things, she won’t let me
tell.”
Miss Parker pressed Dotty a little closer to her side.
“Very well, my dear. But it seems that, at any rate, you talk to Tate,
and it makes your neck and face ache if you don’t talk; so perhaps I
ought to separate you. What do you think?”
“Yes’m; no’m; I don’t know.”
“But I think _I_ know, Dotty. I shall let you sit with Lina Rosenberg.
She is a very quiet child, and if you shut your lips together very
tight, I think you may keep from whispering.”
Dotty longed to say that her mother would not approve, for Lina was a
naughty girl.
“Would that be telling a tale?” thought she. And just as she had
decided that it would not be “a tale,” and it was her duty to tell it,
and just as she had opened her lips to inform Miss Parker that the
little Jewess had _betwitched_ her, Miss Parker rang the bell, and
there was not a moment’s time for another word.
The exchange was made. Dice Prosser (her true name was Lodoiska--too
long for every day) was taken away from Lina, and placed with Tate,
and Dotty and Lina were to sit together. It was not a pleasant
arrangement. Tate forgot that Dotty had called her the “wickedest girl
in the world,” and as the child went away, books and all, she bade her
farewell with her eyes.
As for Dice, she was one of the dull ones, whom nobody either likes or
dislikes. She had a half-awake look, as if she had been taken out of
bed and sent to school in the middle of a nap.
“I’d rather sit alone if I was Tate,” thought Dotty; “it would make me
real _lonesome_ to sit with Dice Prosser.”
Lina gave Miss Dimple a sweet smile.
“There, now,” whispered she, “I’m glad I’ve got somebody to talk to.”
“But you musn’t talk much, Lina Rosenbug, and I shan’t never answer
’thout I’m a mind to.”
“Why not?”
“O, ’cause I’m going to be rather good; not _dreadful_ good, but
_rather_ good. I’ve whispered too much, and now I’m going to take my
screw-up pencil, and make pictures, most o’ the time.”
“Well, good by, Dotty Dimple.”
“What do you mean by good by?”
“’Sh! I mean, don’t talk any more now, ’cause Miss Parker’s getting
ready to walk up the aisle.”
Lina began to study with all her might. Her teacher regarded her
as a very good girl, because she did her mischief slyly. Lina was
greatly interested in Dotty’s “screw-up pencil,” which had been a
Christmas present, and in the afternoon tried to make Dotty use hers in
exchange--a short wooden one; whose lead kept breaking off.
“But what do I want of such a thing, Lina Rosenbug? It won’t mark.”
“O, just squeeze it in your fingers, close down to the tip, and that
will hold in the broken pieces,” said Lina, coolly. “You ought to
let me use yours a while, ’cause you never lent me your sled all day
yesterday.”
“Nor shan’t all day to-morrow! Lina Rosenbug, you take _French leave_
with my things, and you know it.”
The little Jewess humbled herself at once, and gave back the “screw-up
pencil,” which Dotty hastily dropped in her pocket, for her class was
called. She thought no more about it that afternoon, being busy with
her slate; and then Lina was so funny! She had a bottle in the desk
with “bitters” in it, which she said her mother called “pancake drops;”
very good for dropsy, if taken every five minutes, “regular.” So, while
they were busy drawing pictures, Lina would suddenly drop her slate and
her head, and behind the covers of the desk she and her patient, Miss
Dimple, would take the medicine “regular.”
“Best thing in the world to break up fevers,” said Lina, gravely, as
she passed the “pancake drops” to Dotty--sugar and water, with essence
of peppermint thrown in. “My oldest son had the _log-jaw_, and it cured
him so he died; and then my youngest, she had the whirlymajig--”
“O, Lina Rosenbug, you stop! Seems’s if I should scream right out,”
gurgled Dotty; and as she spoke, a “pancake drop” went the wrong way,
and choked her.
“Less noise in the third seat,” said Miss Parker; whereupon Dotty
giggled outright.
“She is growing troublesome,” thought Miss Parker; “putting mischief
into Lina’s head, I fear.”
“Do you think you’ve been a good girl to-day, Dotty?” asked Miss
Parker, in the spelling class. But she did not say a word to any one
about the whispering, and it was a great relief.
“No’m,” replied Dotty, with a discouraged sigh.
“I believe you mean well,” added Miss Parker, kindly; “but you must not
tempt Lina to do wrong. You are quite too full of mischief, dear.”
“Not so full as Lina Rosenbug,” was on Dotty’s lips, but she did not
let it come out.
It was at this very moment that she missed her pencil. Feeling a little
nervous, she had unconsciously put her hand in her pocket.
“Why, where was her screw-up pencil?”
Dotty explored the depths of her pocket; there was no pencil there, and
no hole either.
“I put it in, and I never took it out; and where _did_ it go to?”
Dotty’s mind went into a fog, but suddenly came out as bright as a
sunbeam.
“That’s why Lina wanted to keep me drinking, so I shouldn’t remember;
and that was when she put her hand in and took it.”
Dotty could hardly wait for school to be out.
“Lina,” she cried, the moment they were out of doors, “I know what you
meant when you kept me drinking your bitters, and now I’ve found you
out! Who’d you s’pose stole my screw-up pencil? _You_ did!”
“Me? Me? O, what a story!”
“Yes, _you_!”
“Why, it’s in your pocket, Dotty Dimple. I haven’t seen it.”
Dotty went on without pity.
“It was a present to me, you horrid Lina RosenBUG! Will you give it to
me, now, this minute? This minute, Lina Rosen_bug_!”
“How can I give it to you, Dotty, when I haven’t got it myself?”
“O, but you have! I almost felt you when you did it.”
Lina clasped her hands together.
“I never, and I never, and I’ll keep saying it forever,” cried she,
looking very pale.
“O, Lina Rosenbug, I knew, in the first place, I oughtn’t to sit with
you, when you haven’t any mother to read the Bible to you--I mean she
never does; but it’s wicked and against the rule to steal. I tell you
so if you never heard of it before, and you’re an awful girl! I always
knew it, ever since I went to your house and staid all night.”
“But, Dotty--”
“O, you needn’t say Dotty to me!”
“But I never.”
“Yes, you did, for I _know_! And I’ll tell my father the minute I see
him! He won’t ’low little girls to steal the screw-up pencils that
people give me on the Christmas tree.”
“O, do hear me, Dotty!”
“Yes, I hear; only you tell what isn’t true, and the more you don’t
talk, the better you’ll feel!”
“O, dear! O, dear!”
“Do you feel sorry, then, Miss Rosenbug?”
“No, I’m sure I don’t, Miss Dimple! Why should I be sorry, when I never
did a thing?”
By this time, Lina’s face, which had been very pale, was flushing
crimson.
“O, you naughty, horrid girl!” cried Dotty, so loud that some of the
other children could not help hearing. “You dreadful girl! When they
take you and put you in the lock-up, and swear you to the jury, and the
mayor says, ‘It wasn’t your screw-up pencil; little girl, what did you
take it for?’ _then_ what’ll you do, Lina Rosenbug? O, then I guess
you’ll be sorry!”
“Now, Dotty Dimple, do hush! Don’t you see the girls are hearing?”
“Well, they ought to hear, for it’s the sober, honest truth, as ever
was in all this world, Lina Rosenbug!”