Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jacqueline Jeremy and the
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[Illustration: She began her first letter to the father she did not know
or understand. (_Page 296._)]
TABITHA AT IVY HALL
BY
RUTH ALBERTA BROWN
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ALFRED RUSSELL
c
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK
_MADE IN U. S. A._
Copyright, 1911
by
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
To My Mother
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HATEFUL NAME 11
II. TABITHA CHOOSES A NEW NAME 33
III. TABITHA ADOPTS HER NEW NAME 45
IV. THE NEW NAME CAUSES TABITHA TROUBLE 63
V. TABITHA IS COMFORTED 81
VI. A DOG AND A CAT 93
VII. THE NEW BOY 105
VIII. TABITHA BEGS PARDON 127
IX. A BRAVE LITTLE CATT 137
X. CARRIE GOES AWAY TO SCHOOL 155
XI. A FIRE IN THE NIGHT 171
XII. DR. VANE HAS A VISITOR 185
XIII. AUNT MARIA DECIDES THE QUESTION 201
XIV. TABITHA'S ROOM-MATE 221
XV. THE FIRST NIGHT AT IVY HALL 239
XVI. MADAME'S ADVICE 253
XVII. HOLIDAY PLANS 269
XVIII. TABITHA'S CHRISTMAS 283
XIX. A STRIKE! 299
XX. A HAPPY HOME 309
TABITHA AT IVY HALL
CHAPTER I
THE HATEFUL NAME
"She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
'Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag,' she said."
The black eyes of the little speaker burned with fiery indignation as
she hurled these words of defiance at a ten-quart pail of blackberries
standing in the middle of the dusty road where she had set it when the
emotion of her recital had overcome her to such a degree that mere words
were no longer effective and gestures had become absolutely necessary.
She was living it herself. What did it matter that there was no rebel
army confronting her, what did it matter that the town of Frederick lay
hundreds of miles away, what did it matter that she was merely a slip of
a girl living fifty years after the terrible scenes of war which
inspired the words she was reciting?
The whole picture lay as vividly before her as if she had been Dame
Barbara herself, and she entered into the spirit of the production with
such vim that her actual surroundings were forgotten. Her thin, peaked
face, browned by sun and wind, was glorified with patriotism, and her
voice rang sharp with the intensity of feeling. Having no flag to shake
in the face of the approaching enemy, she pulled a mullein stalk growing
among the tall grass and flaunted it so vigorously that in leaning over
her imaginary window-sill she lost her balance and was nearly capsized
into her pail of luscious berries.
A rude laugh interrupted her and she was brought to earth with a
suddenness that left her breathless and crimson with embarrassment
beside the road, digging her bare toes into the gray dust and waiting
for the jeers she knew were to follow.
Then her face changed and the defiance flashed back into the big black
eyes. Her tormentor was not the person she had evidently expected it to
be, and her courage rose accordingly. Again the boy laughed insolently
and the girl's fists clenched involuntarily as she looked up into the
sneering face above her and realized that after all she could do him no
harm for he was perched in the branches of a tree just out of reach over
her head. His bare legs dangled tantalizingly among the green leaves,
and all she could do to show her fierce hatred was to grimace at him.
The effect was most startling. Her tormentor lost his hold on the upper
bough and slid from his seat. There was a lively scratching and clawing
among the branches; while below, the black-eyed girl held her breath in
expectancy. Oh, if only he would tumble! But he did not fall, and her
expression of jubilation changed to disappointment.
Carefully he righted himself on the limb where he had landed, and,
peering down at the child in the road, tauntingly cried,
"Don't we think we are smart, Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt? Don't we think we
are smart?"
The girl's lips curved scornfully, but her hard fists tightened until
her knuckles stood out like white balls.
"How's Thomas Catt today?" continued the boy, swinging his feet
dangerously near the tattered sunbonnet, which half concealed the angry
little face below.
Still she deigned no reply, though her eyes blazed furiously and her
breath came quick and short. She took a step nearer the tree and he
cautiously drew his feet up to the branch on which he sat; but
apparently she did not notice this move, as she stood measuring the
distance from the ground to the limbs above and wondering whether or not
she could reach him and give him the drubbing he deserved before he had
a chance to escape or call for help. She could climb like a squirrel and
run like a deer, but in the pasture beyond this fringe of trees was the
boy's big brother, and she had no desire to meet him, having once had a
taste of his great whip.
Perhaps the boy in the tree guessed her thoughts, for once more he
lowered his feet and kicked viciously at her as he chanted:
"Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt,
Drink some milk and make you fat,
Skinny, scrawny Tabby Catt."
The faded calico bonnet caught on his toes and he tossed it high in the
air, letting it fall far out in the dust of the road. Never pausing to
see what was the fate of her possessions, the child let out one scream
of animal rage, and with a tiger-like spring caught the feet of her
enemy and jerked the coward off his perch.
Taken off his guard, he fell heavily into the road, crushing her beneath
him, and raising such a cloud of dust that both were nearly smothered;
but with a dexterous twist she freed herself, and, unconscious of the
dust, the boy's screams or the sound of answering shouts in the pasture
nearby, she fell to pummelling her helpless victim with relentless
fists, all the while screaming at the top of her voice,
"I am a Tabby Catt, am I? I am scrawny and skinny, am I? Well, you're a
coward, a good-for-nothing coward, and so is your big brother. He
wouldn't dare fight Tom, and you wouldn't dare say such things to me if
Tom was anywhere near. You're a bully, an overgrown baby, a 'fraid-cat!
Yes, that's what you are! _I_ may be a Tabby Catt, but I'm _not_ a
'fraid-cat. I may be skinny and scrawny now, but I reckon you will be,
too, when I get through with you, Joe Pomeroy! You're the sneakin'est
sneak that ever lived--except your brother. 'Fraid-cat, sneak, sneak,
sneak, s-n-e-a-k--"
Words failed her. What could she say mean enough to express her contempt
for the howling coward almost twice her size pinned under her knees,
making no attempt to defend himself against the rain of blows falling
wherever the avenging fists could strike?
Suddenly she felt herself snatched from the back of her victim, held
high in the air so her feet did not touch the ground, and shaken to and
fro as a terrier shakes a rat. She twisted and turned and writhed and
squirmed to free herself, thinking this must be the big brother
punishing her for the drubbing she had given hapless Joe, and expecting
any instant to feel the lash of his heavy herder's whip. But no whip
struck her, and with one great tug she broke loose from the hand that
gripped her shoulder, and confronted--not Sneed Pomeroy, the bully, but
a tall, swarthy-faced man with a long beard and snapping black eyes,
very much like her own, had she taken the time to notice it, who held
her transfixed for a moment with his angry gaze. Amazed to find Joe's
rescuer--for such he appeared to her--some one other than the big
brother Sneed, and angered at the vigorous shaking he had given her, the
child found vent for her outraged feelings in a horrible grimace at the
stalwart man in front of her. With an exclamation of anger the stranger
raised his hand as if to strike the girl, but she dodged the blow, and
screamed in disdainful defiance:
"Slap, if you dare, you old gray head,
I'll scratch like a--cat--till you'll wish you were dead."
She hesitated a moment before choosing that word, and as it fell from
her lips, she glanced apprehensively at the blubbering Joe still lying
in the dust, and saw for the first time that this rescuer, whoever he
might be, was evidently unknown to Joe, for the coward's bloody face was
even more scared than when she had been pounding it, and he looked as if
he, too, expected to receive some punishment from the hands of the
mysterious stranger.
"Tabitha Catt!"
She whirled toward the man in frightened silence, and her clenched hands
dropped nerveless at her side. It was her father! What a change the
heavy beard made in his appearance; and then besides, it was almost a
year since she had seen him. No wonder she had failed to recognize him
in her anger. It would have taken more than one glance had she met him
under ordinary circumstances.
"Put on your bonnet and march home. We will settle matters there."
His words sounded so ominous that she hastily did as he bid, wondering
dully whether at last her day of reckoning had come.
"Here, boy, take your berries and be off, but if I ever catch you hec--"
"Those are my berries," Tabitha found courage to say, suddenly
remembering the pail heaped full of the fruit she had toiled all the
morning to pick; and the man, glancing down at her bony hands, scratched
and scarred by blackberry thorns, thrust the heavy pail into her arms
and without a word followed her in the dusty march toward the house a
quarter of a mile distant; nor did he once offer to help her with her
load, though the way was rough, the day intensely hot, and the weight
too much for the slender shoulders of the child. Once she stubbed her
toe, and he pulled her roughly to her feet, but released his hold on her
arm when she fixed her black eyes full of scorn and anger upon his face;
and a grim smile played an instant about his lips, but was gone again
before the child could see it.
The house was reached at last, and with a sigh of relief Tabitha dropped
her burden in the doorway and sank down beside it.
At the sound of steps on the gravel walk, a fussy, fidgety little woman
appeared from the room beyond, and stopped in astonishment at sight of
the giant coming up the steps. Before she had a chance to express her
surprise, however, he spoke, addressing the panting child fanning
herself with her bonnet:
"Close that screen. Can't you see those flies coming in? Go to my room,
I want to have an understanding with you. Maria, Tabitha isn't to have a
taste of those berries. I just found her in the middle of the road down
here fighting with a boy, like the rowdy she is."
Accustomed to obey this stern father, Tabitha had withdrawn into the
house, and started for the room where punishment awaited her. At his
command in regard to the berries, however, she paused; then turned to
where the pail stood just inside the screen, seized it, and before
either of the two spectators understood what she was about, she flung
bucket, berries and all into the dooryard and ground the shining fruit
into the sand with her bare feet.
"There, Manx Catt," she exclaimed, "I reckon you won't have a taste of
them either!"
A gasp of dismay escaped the frightened woman, but again the grim smile
flitted across the face of the father, though he looked like a thunder
cloud as he roared at the child, "Go straight to your room and to bed!
You shall not have a thing to eat today!"
With her feet stained a dirty purple, Tabitha marched into the house and
upstairs, rushed to her little bed in the corner, and threw herself full
length on the counterpane, regardless of the fact that drops of berry
juice still dripped from her brown legs. For fully ten minutes she lay
there, fighting back the angry tears and battling with the fierce rage
against her father.
"I hate him, I hate him!" she told herself over and over again. "It's
bad enough to have him name me Tabitha without his acting so hateful
every time he comes home. I wish he would go off to the mines and stay
forever. He might take Aunt Maria, too, though she ain't so bad. We
could get along with her all right; sometimes she is splendid, even if
she is so fussy. Oh, dear, why can't we have a nice mother like other
children have? I reckon ours wouldn't have died if she had known Aunt
Maria would have to take care of us and Dad would be so horrid."
Her list of woes was fast increasing, and the tears were very near the
bubbling-over point, when she heard heavy steps on the stairs.
"Oh, my sakes! that's Dad. Wonder if he will lick me this time. I 'spect
he will some day, and Tom says he licks awful hard. Wonder if he will
use a whip like sneaky Sneed Pomeroy. Wisht I was as big as Tom; he
don't get licked any more, he's too big. Dad told me to go to bed and I
ain't undressed. Maybe it's just as well if he's going to lick me."
The steps had reached the upper floor now, and she cowered in a
trembling heap in the middle of her bed waiting for the door to open and
let her father enter. But they continued down the hall without so much
as pausing before her door, and now as her heart began to beat normally
again, she heard Aunt Maria's voice saying, "There's a dreadful clutter
to move if we take everything. Some of those boxes we brought from Dover
have never been opened though we've been here two years now. Doesn't
seem as if we had to take all that truck with us wherever we go. There
hasn't been a thing in the stuff that we've needed."
"Then don't take it," cut in the man's heavy voice. "Where is it?"
Cautiously creeping off the bed, Tabitha pressed her ear to the keyhole
to catch the rest of this interesting conversation, but as she listened,
her face paled and a rebellious look came into the expressive black
eyes.
So they were going to move away! Where would they go this time? It
seemed to her that moving was all they ever did. Not that she minded the
moving part of it--that was fun--but--. Here the tears came in earnest.
It was her dreadful name that she minded. It didn't make any difference
where they went, everyone made fun of her name, and folks no sooner got
used to seeing her odd little figure and hearing her still odder name
than they moved to some other town, and the same thing had to be lived
over. Oh, it was too bad!
All the hot afternoon father and aunt busied themselves in the adjoining
rooms, tearing open boxes, sorting, re-packing, and bundling things
around generally, until finally the noise became so great that only an
occasional word of the conversation could be heard by the little
listener at the keyhole. As the day waned, however, and the supper hour
approached, both workers ceased their pounding and went downstairs,
leaving Tabitha alone with her tearful reflections in the gathering
dusk. Here Tom found her, still huddled in a heap beside the door.
"Oh, Tom," she greeted him, "I thought you would never come. What made
you so late? Did you know Dad had come home again? Haven't you something
in your pocket to eat? I'm hungry as a wolf."
"Hush!" he said, slipping inside the door and closing it softly behind
him. "Dad would be awfully mad if he knew I was here. I just got home.
Had an errand across the pond after the store was closed. Here's a
biscuit and some cheese. Why aren't you in bed? Aunt Maria said Dad sent
you there at noon." As he spoke, the boy lifted the little sister to her
feet, brushed out her crumpled dress, smoothed back her tangled hair and
slipped the biscuit saved from his own supper into her eager hands.
"I did go to bed," mumbled Tabitha, with her mouth full of bread.
"You aren't undressed."
"Dad didn't say I had to undress, and he didn't say I had to _stay_ in
bed, either."
Tom grinned at her understanding of the law, but the darkness hid his
face, so his amusement was lost to the small sister eating so
ravenously.
"Did he lick you, Puss?"
"Nope. I thought he was going to, for he looked right mad, but I reckon
I was so mad it wouldn't have hurt much."
"But it does hurt to have him whip. At least, it used to hurt me. Do be
careful, Puss. I don't want him to begin whipping you. How did you make
him so mad?"
The child briefly recounted the story of the morning's tribulations
between bites of biscuit and cheese, growing so angry over her recital
that the flood gates were opened again and she sobbed aloud in her
tempest of grief.
"It's all on account of my horrid name," she told him. "I just can't be
good when folks say such mean things. Joe Pomeroy is a sneak anyway, and
I've been itching to lick him for a long, long time--ever since Sneed
hit me with the whip he uses to drive the cows with."
"Did Sneed hit you with a whip?"
"Yes. Oh, Tom, I never meant to tell you that! Now you'll go and fight
him and he will hurt you, 'cause he's so much bigger than you are, and
then Dad will whale you for fighting. Thrash Joe, but don't tackle
Sneed. Oh, please!"
Tom laughed ironically. "Hm, what satisfaction would it be to me to
thrash someone that _you_ have licked, Puss?" he asked.
"Please, Tom, don't touch Sneed," she begged, crying harder than ever;
and to still her sobs, he promised, though in his heart he vowed
vengeance.
"How did you happen to go blackberrying without me?" he asked to divert
her attention from her anxiety over him. "I thought you wanted me to go
with you."
"Why, you're so busy at the store that we don't have time to get more
than a handful at night when you can go, and the bushes were just loaded
with them just below Pomeroy's pasture. I never thought about Joe's
being there to tease me. I did want the berries so much, for Aunt Maria
said she would make some jelly and some jam if I would pick the berries.
She won't gather 'em 'cause the thorns tear her hands so. I got the pail
full--heaped up so they kept tumbling off--and now they are all spoiled
and I've scratched my hands to pieces all for nothing."
Tom expected a fresh wail would follow this statement, for though
Tabitha was not ordinarily a cry-baby, the day of trials had been too
much for her; but he was surprised when after a moment of silence in
which he was vainly trying to think of something consoling to say, she
remarked, "Well, I don't know's I care much about the berries, 'cause
we're going to move, and I s'pose if we had a lot of jelly put up, Dad
would say it wasn't any use to take it with us, and we would have to
leave it along with the rest of the truck they've been sorting out
today."
"Move?" the boy interrupted, as the realization of what she was saying
dawned upon him. "Who says we're going to move? What do you mean? They
never told me!"
"I heard Dad tell Aunt Maria we would leave the last of the week for the
place where he has just come from, and they have been packing all the
afternoon."
Tom was silent and in the darkness Tabitha could not see his face, but
she seemed to understand how he felt about it, and after a moment she
slipped a thorn-scratched little hand into his, as she said,
"You don't like it, do you, Tommy? I'm sorry, too. I wanted to stay
here. The people who have moved in the big red house by the pond have
two of the nicest children. They are cousins and have the prettiest
names--Rosalie Meywood and Rosslyn Fennimore--and they are almost my
age. I hated to tell them my name, but they didn't laugh a bit, Tom.
They didn't even _look_ queer at each other, and Rosslyn said they had a
kitten they called Tabby and it was the smartest cat they ever saw. They
have taught it tricks and Rosalie invited me over to see it. I met them
down in the blackberry patch. They were picking just for fun and they
helped me a little--not much, 'cause they were so slow. Neither of them
knows how to pick berries and they took only those out in sight, while
the very best ones are most always way in under the vines. We are all in
the same classes in school and we planned such nice times together when
lessons begin again. I never get to knowing any nice people but we move
away. Do you s'pose we will ever have any friends, Tom?"
Tom's thoughts were very busy, and he only half heard the child's lively
chatter. In the dim long ago, when he was only six years old, one
morning a white-aproned woman with a gentle face had called him to her
and led him into a room where lay his own dear mother with a little
white bundle on her arm, and when the covers were turned down he had
looked into a tiny, red, wrinkled face with blinking, black eyes and
was told that this was a baby sister come to be a playmate for him. Then
the nurse went away and left them for a little while and his mother
talked to him in her soft voice that he could remember best in the
little lullaby she used to sing to him:
"I'm tired now, and sleepy, too,
Come put me in my little bed."
She had laid the baby's little fisting hands into his and told him that
he must always take good care of little sister. He never saw the mother
again, but after days of hushed voices and light steps in the big house,
Aunt Maria had come to take care of them, and they moved away to another
town.
The baby lived and had grown from year to year until she was now past
eight years old, and he had tried his best to take care of her. But she
had never known a mother's love nor a father's. Oh yes, the father was
living. Tom could remember the tall, dark man having once seized him in
his arms and pressed passionate kisses upon his lips, but he had never
seen him caress the little helpless bundle the mother had left when the
angels carried her away. Sometimes it seemed as if he could faintly
recall having heard the father say bitterly to that unconscious babe,
"You have killed your mother." And then it seemed as if a woman's voice
answered him accusingly, "You killed her yourself when you named the
child Tabitha." Tom was fourteen years old now, but some of these
memories were so dim that he could not be sure they were really memories
and not dreams that had come to him in the night and clung, as so often
such fancies do.
There had been no one to ask, for Aunt Maria had not come until later,
and even then, she did not talk to the children very much, so he had
grown accustomed to thinking of these things just to himself. Tabitha
was too young to be made his confidante in such matters; indeed, he
could never tell her some things. They would only make her hate the
austere father more than ever. So he sighed. This was the fifth time
they had moved from one town to another since the mother had died, and
each place was worse than the last. No sooner were they well established
in one city than the restless spirit seized the father and they moved
again. How would it end?
"Do you, Tom? This is the third time I have asked you that."
"I'm sorry, Puss. I was thinking about something else just then. What is
it?"
"Do you s'pose we will ever have any friends? Rosalie says next week
three of her little friends where they used to live are coming to stay
with her until school begins in September; and when she asked me if I
ever had any friends come to visit me, I had to tell her I never had any
friends. She seemed ever so surprised, and I did want to stay in one
place long enough to have some friends. But I s'pose it is my name that
keeps folks from being friends with me. No one would want to say, 'My
chum's name is Tabitha Catt.' Would they? Everybody would laugh and
maybe they would sing:
'Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt,
Drink some milk and make you fat,
Skinny, scrawny Tabby Catt.'
Wouldn't that make the friend feel awful? Am I very skinny, Tom?"
Poor Tom! How could he answer the avalanche of questions? At fourteen
one is not very wise, but Tom squeezed the rough hand still holding
his, and answered hopefully, "Some day we will have some friends, Pussy.
And some day when I get big and can work for you, we will settle down
and live in one town, and people will come to see us, and they won't
care anything about our names."
Something in his tone made Tabitha say questioningly, "Do you still mind
your name, Tom?"
"Not as much as I used to, Puss. Now you must go to bed. It's getting
late and pretty soon Dad and Aunt Maria will be coming upstairs.
Good-night." With another gentle squeeze of her hand he was gone.