DOING RIGHT
Ladybird hated school. Not the lessons, they were learned quickly enough,
and with but little study; but the out-of-doors child grew very restive
in the restraint and confinement of the school-room, and her whole
touch-and-go nature rebelled at the enforced routine.
Many battles were fought before she consented to go at all; but though
Ladybird was strong-willed, Miss Priscilla Flint was also of no pliable
nature, and she finally succeeded in convincing her fractious niece that
education was desirable as well as inevitable.
So Ladybird went to school--to a small and not far distant district
school--whenever she could not get up a successful excuse for staying at
home.
With her sun-dial-like capability of marking the bright hours only, she
eliminated as much as was possible of the ugly side of school life.
She enjoyed the walks to and from the school-house, across the fields and
through the lanes, and she enjoyed them so leisurely that she was a
half-hour late nearly every morning, thus escaping the detestable
"opening exercises."
During school hours, when not studying or reciting her lessons she read
fairy-tales or else worked out puzzles. Though this was not exactly in
line with the teacher's methods of discipline, yet it was overlooked
after several experimental endeavors which showed unmistakably what was
the better part of valor.
Also, Ladybird always kept fresh flowers on her desk, and kept lying in
her sight any new toy or trinket which she might have recently acquired.
She would have been fairly happy during school hours if she could have
had her dog with her; but the teacher's discretion did not extend as far
as this, and so Cloppy was left at home each day to add to the gaiety of
Primrose Hall.
One day after he had added gaiety with especial assiduity, Miss Priscilla
announced that she was at the end of her rope, and the dog must go.
It happened that Ladybird came in from school that day in an unusually
docile frame of mind. To begin with, it was Friday afternoon and the next
day was a holiday. Furthermore, she had wrested a good half-hour from the
long school afternoon, with its horrid "general exercises," by the simple
method of rising from her seat and walking out at the door. The teacher
saw her do this, but allowed her feeling of relief to blunt her sense of
duty. Not but what she liked Ladybird: no one could know the child and
not like her; but when one is teaching a district school it is easier if
the disturbing element be conspicuous by its absence.
And so, with her course unimpeded, Ladybird marched out of school into
the fields, and drawing a long breath, sauntered slowly and indirectly
home.
"I had a beautiful time," she announced to her aunts. "There's the
loveliest afternoon outdoors you ever saw, and I've walked all around it.
Such a big, fair, soft afternoon, and the sunlight is raining down all
over it, and it's full of trees, and sticks, and fences, and dry leaves;
and where's Cloppy? I'm going out in the orchard."
"Wait a moment, Lavinia," said Miss Flint, "I wish to talk to you; sit
down in your chair."
"Yes, 'm," said Ladybird, dropping into a chair suddenly,
"And hurry up your talking
For I want to go a-walking."
"That will do, Lavinia, I'm in no mood for foolishness; I want to say
that that wretched dog of yours can_not_ stay here any longer."
"Is that so, aunty?" said Ladybird, with her most exasperating air of
polite interest. "Well, now I wonder where we _can_ stay? Would they take
us to board down at the hotel? I don't know. Or perhaps Mrs. Jacobs would
take us, if I helped her with the housework and sewing."
"That is enough nonsense, Lavinia. I tell you that dog is to be put
away."
"I understand that, Aunt Priscilla; I'm not stupid, you know; I'm only
wondering where we can go, for whithersoever Cloppy goest, I'm going, and
there will I be buried."
"Very well, you may go if you choose; but that dog shall not remain in
this house another day."
"You don't like him, do you aunty?" said Ladybird, leaning her chin on
her hand and gazing thoughtfully at her aunt. "Now I wonder why."
"He's always under foot," said Miss Priscilla, "and he's such a moppy,
untidy-looking affair!"
"He's a smart dog," said Ladybird, meditatively.
"That's just it," said Miss Flint, "he's too smart: he looks at you just
like a human. Why, when I scold him for anything, he sits up and stares
at me, and those brown eyes of his blink through that ridiculous fringe
of hair, and he never says a word, but sits there, and looks and looks at
me until I feel as if I should just perfectly fly."
"Aunt Priscilla," said Ladybird, looking at Miss Flint very steadily,
"you haven't been doing anything wrong, have you?"
"What do you mean?" said her aunt, angrily.
"Oh, nothing, but when _I_ think Cloppy's looking at me like that, it's
really my conscience inside of me telling me I've done wrong, when I
think it's only a little dog blinking."
Miss Flint sat quiet for a moment. Then the fact that there was a modicum
of truth in her niece's remarks caused her annoyance to find vent in
sarcasm.
"I did not know, Lavinia, that you ever thought you had done wrong."
"Oh, aunty, what a foolishness! Of course I know when I've done wrong,
and you know I know it; and you know I'm as sorry as sorry as sorry! But
sometimes I don't know it until I see that Cloppy-dog staring at me, and
then I realize what's up; and so you see, aunty, I have to keep my little
blinky doggy as a sort of a conscience. And now we'll consider that
matter settled."
"_You_ may consider what you choose," said Miss Priscilla, looking at her
niece very sternly; "_I_ consider it is not settled, and will not be
until the dog is disposed of permanently, and if you don't attend to it,
I shall."
"Aunt Priscilla," said Ladybird, rising from her chair with great
dignity, "I will go to my room and think this matter over."
"Do," said Miss Priscilla, dryly, "and take your conscience with you."
"Come on, Conscience," said Ladybird to Cloppy, and swinging the dog up
to her shoulder, she went to her room.
She was not in one of her stormy moods; she closed her chamber door
quietly behind her and gently deposited Cloppy on his favorite cushioned
chair. She then seated herself on a low ottoman directly in front of him,
and resting her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, she gazed
intently at the dog.
"It seems to me, Cloppy," she began, "that something is going to happen.
You heard what Aunt Priscilla said, and I have learned my Aunt Priscilla
well enough to know that when she clicks her teeth and waggles her head
over her glasses like that she's made up her mind most especial firmly,
and it is ours but to do or die. Now, Clops, the whole question is, shall
we do or die?"
Save for an occasional blink, the dog's brown eyes gazed straight through
his wispy locks of hair at Ladybird, who gazed steadily back at him also
through stray, straight wisps of hair, and also blinking now and then.
"You see, Cloppy-dog, it's a crisis; like the heroes in the history book,
you've got to cross the Rubicon or cut the Gordian knot, or something. Of
course I sha'n't let you go away from me; you know that as well as I do.
Why, I'd rather have _you_ than all the aunts in the world, yes, or
uncles either, or man-servants, or maid-servants, or cattles or strangers
within our gates. Why, Cloppy, if they tried to take you away from me,
I'd--I'd kill them! Yes, I would! I'd kill them all, and burn the house
down, and I'd--oh, I'd even break the buds off of Aunt Priscilla's Lady
Washington geranium! Cloppy, don't sit there staring at me like that!
Don't you think so too? Wouldn't you kill and murder and massacre anybody
that tried to take me away from you? Stop it, Cloppy; _stop_ looking at
me in that reproachful way! I'm not naughty; Aunt Priscilla is naughty:
she says you've got to go--_go_, do you understand, GO!"
By this time Ladybird was on her knees in front of the dog, alternately
caressing and shaking him to emphasize her remarks; but Cloppy, being
used to his emotional mistress, continued to gaze at her without sharing
her excitement.
"Dog! if you don't stop looking at me like that I'll tie a bandage over
your eyes. I know perfectly well what you mean, but I won't pay a bit of
attention to it: you mean that I ought not to let my angry passions rise;
but I guess you would too if you had an Aunt Priscilla like mine! Suppose
you had an old aunt dog with gray hair and spectacles, who wouldn't let
you have _anything_ you wanted, wouldn't you get mad at her, I'd like to
know?
"Oh, I understand you; don't trouble yourself to put it into words: you
mean that aunty does let me have some things that I want,--most things,
in fact,--and you mean I'm a bad, ungrateful girl to act like this, and
you mean that no decent dog would act so. Well, I suppose they wouldn't;
I suppose I _am_ worse than a dog, or a cat, or a hyena. But I'm sorry,
Cloppy, I _am_ sorry, and I guess I'll be good. Yes, I believe I will be
good!"
As this high and noble resolve formed itself in Ladybird's mind, the
glory of it appealed to her, and she began at once to elaborate upon it.
"Now will you stop piercing me with those daggery eyes of yours? I'm
going to do right; I'm going to honor and obey my Aunt Priscilla Flint;
and though I shall be a martyr in the cause, I sha'n't mention that,
because it would spoil all the goodness of my deed. Of course my duty is
to my aunt--my dear aunt who feeds and clothes me, and lends me her roof
to keep off the rain; and though she has asked me for the apple of my eye
and the apple-core of my heart, I will give them. I will sacrifice them
on the altar of duty, even though they are my dear little dog. And now I
shall go right straight down and tell my aunt before I change my mind."
Buoyed up by the elation of her noble resolve, and enveloped in an
atmosphere of conscious rectitude, Ladybird gathered up Cloppy and
marched down-stairs, with her head erect and her eyes shining.
"Aunty," she announced, "I am ready to obey you; I'm going to take Cloppy
away, and you will never see him again."
"What's that, child?" said Miss Priscilla, looking up from an article she
was reading, and in which she was deeply absorbed.
"I say," repeated Ladybird, with dignity, "that since you say Cloppy must
go, he is going."
"That's a good girl," said Miss Priscilla, half absent-mindedly, and she
returned to her reading.
"I _am_ a good girl," said Ladybird; "but this is the goodest thing I
have ever done, and I wish you appreciated it more."
But Miss Flint was again deep in her book, and made no reply.
Ladybird left the house, her enthusiasm somewhat impaired, but her
purpose strengthened by a certain contrary stubbornness which her aunt's
indifference had aroused.
"I'm a martyr, Cloppy," she said--"a perfectly awful martyr; but I'm not
going to show it, for I detest people who act martyrish outside. Of
course you can't help what you feel inside.
"And, anyway, if I'm the martyr, Aunt Priscilla is the tyrant and the
oppressor and the Spanish Inquisitor, and all those dreadful things, and
that's a great deal worse! I'm ground under her iron heel, and crushed
beneath her yoke, and chastised with her scorpions; but I'll bear it all
cheerfully, and never even mention it. Because you see, Cloppy, we're
doing right; and it's a great thing to do right, and _very_ exciting."