Directly the squeak increased to an agonizing degree, the rattle of
small wheels accompanied it, and Fidelia came trudging around the
corner of the house. She was a chubby little girl, and her blue tier
seemed rather tight for her. She had a round, rosy face, and innocent
and honest black eyes. She wore a small Shaker bonnet with a green cape,
and she stubbed her toes into the grass every step she took.
"Don't stub your toes so," said her mother, admonishingly. "You'll wear
your shoes all out."
Fidelia immediately advanced with soft pats like a kitten. When she got
into the kitchen her mother took off her Shaker bonnet and looked at her
critically. "You'll have to have your hair brushed," said she. "Fidelia,
do you remember how you went with mother down to Mis' Rose's three or
four weeks ago?"
Fidelia nodded and winked.
"There was a big pussy cat there, do you remember? and Mis' Rose gave
you a cooky."
Fidelia's affirmative wink seemed to give out sparkles.
"Well, you remember how we went to the _side_ door and knocked--the door
with some roses over the top of it--and Mis' Rose came--the _side_
door?"
Fidelia, intensely attentive, standing before her mother and Aunt Maria,
remembered about the side door.
"Well, you remember how there was a piazza across the front of the
house, don't you? Father hitched the horse to a post there. Well,
there's another door there opening on the piazza, don't you remember--a
door with panes of glass in it like a window?"
Fidelia remembered.
"Well, now, Fidelia, do you suppose you can go down to the store and buy
some raisins for mother to put in sister Cynthy's weddin'-cake, all
yourself?"
"An' be a real smart little girl," put in Aunt Maria.
Fidelia gave one ecstatic roll of her black eyes at them, then she broke
into a shout, "Lemme go! lemme go!" She oscillated on her small stubbed
toes like a bird preparing to fly, and she tugged energetically at her
mother's apron.
"I'll give you a penny, an' you can buy you a nice stick of
red-and-white twisted candy," added her mother.
Fidelia actually made a little dash for the door then, but her mother
caught her. "Stop!" she said, in an admonitory voice which was quieting
to Fidelia, and made her realize that the red-and-white candy was still
in the future. "Now you just wait a minute, an' not be in such a pucker.
You ain't goin' this way, with your apron just as dirty as poison, and
your hair all in a snarl. You've got to have on your clean apron, and
have your hair brushed and your face washed."
So Fidelia climbed obediently into her high chair, and sat with her eyes
screwed up and her fists clinched, while her mother polished her face
faithfully with a wet, soapy end of a towel, and combed the snarls out
of her hair. When it was all done, her cheeks being very red and shiny,
and her hair very damp and smooth, when she was arrayed in her clean
starched white tier, and had her Shaker tied on with an emphatic square
bow, she stood in the door and drank in the parting instructions. Her
eyes were wide and intent, and her mouth drooped soberly at the corners.
The importance of the occasion had begun to impress her. She held a
penny tight in her hand; the raisins were to be charged, it not being
judged advisable to trust Fidelia with so much money.
"I don't believe that little thing can carry three pounds of raisins,"
Mrs. Lennox said to Aunt Maria. She was becoming more and more uneasy
about Fidelia's going.
"Let her take her little wagon an' drag 'em; that'll be just the thing,"
said Aunt Maria, complacently.
So Fidelia started down the road, trundling behind her the little
squeaking cart. It was a warm July day, and it was very dusty. Directly
Fidelia started she forgot her mother's injunctions about stubbing her
toes; she disappeared in a small cloud of dust, for she walked in the
middle of the road, and flirted it up with great delight.
[Illustration: "'WHOSE LITTLE GAL AIR YOU?'"]
In the course of the mile Fidelia met one team. It was an old rocking
chaise and a white horse, and an old farmer was driving. He drove slower
when he came alongside of Fidelia. When he had fairly passed her he
stopped entirely, twisted about in his seat, and raised his voice.
"Whose little gal air you?" he asked.
Fidelia was a little frightened. Instead of giving her father's name,
she gave her own with shy precision--"Fidelia Ames Lennox," she said,
retiring into her Shaker bonnet.
"You ain't runnin' away, be you?"
Fidelia's pride was touched. "I'm going to the store for my mother," she
announced, in quite a shrill tone. Then she took to her heels, and the
little wagon trundled after, with a wilder squeak than ever.
Fidelia kept saying over to herself, "Three pounds of your best raisins,
and Mr. Lennox will come in and pay you." Her mother and Aunt Maria
wished after she had gone that they had written it out on a piece of
paper; they had not thought of that. But Aunt Maria said she knew that
such a bright child as Fidelia would remember three pounds of raisins
when she had been told over and over, and charged not to come home
without them.
Fidelia had started about ten o'clock in the morning, and her mother and
Aunt Maria had agreed that they would not worry if she should not return
until one o'clock in the afternoon. That would allow more than an hour
for the mile walk each way, and give plenty of time for a rest between;
for Fidelia had been instructed to go into the store and sit down on a
stool and rest a while before starting upon her return trip. "Likely as
not Mis' Rose will give her a cooky or something," Aunt Maria had
whispered to Mrs. Lennox.
So when noon came the two women pictured Fidelia sitting perched upon a
stool in the store, being fed with candy and cookies, and made much of,
or even eating dinner with the Rose family. "Mis' Rose made so much of
her when you took her there before that I shouldn't wonder a mite if
she'd kept her to dinner," said Aunt Maria. She promulgated this theory
the more strenuously when one o'clock came and Fidelia had not appeared.
"Of course that's what 'tis," she kept repeating. "It would take 'em a
good hour to eat dinner. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she didn't
get here before two o'clock. I think you're dreadful silly to worry,
Jane."
For poor Mrs. Lennox was pushing her chair every few minutes over to the
door, where she would stand, her face all one anxious frown, straining
her eyes for a glimpse of the small figure trudging up the road. She had
made the blueberry dumpling that Fidelia loved for dinner, and it was
keeping warm on the back of the stove. Neither she nor Aunt Maria had
eaten a mouthful.
When two o'clock came Mrs. Lennox broke down entirely. "Oh dear!" she
wailed; "oh dear! I ought to have known better than to let her go."
Aunt Maria was now pacing heavily between her chair and the door, but
she still maintained a brave front. "For goodness' sake, Jane, don't
give up so," said she. "I don't see anything to worry about, for my
part; they're keepin' her."
At half-past two Mrs. Lennox stood up with a determined air. "I ain't
goin' to wait here another minute," said she. "I'm goin' to find her. I
don't know but she's fell into the brook, or got run over." Mrs.
Lennox's face was all drawn with anxiety.
"I'd like to know how you're goin'," said Aunt Maria.
"I guess I can push this chair along the road just as well as in a
room."
"Pretty-lookin' sight you'd be goin' a mile with one knee in a wooden
chair."
"I guess I don't care much how I look if I only find--her." Mrs.
Lennox's voice broke into a wail.
"You just sit down and keep calm," said Aunt Maria. "If anybody's goin',
I am."
"Oh, you can't."
"Yes, I can, too. I ain't quite so far gone that I can't walk a mile.
You ain't goin' a step on that scalt foot an' get laid up, with that
weddin' comin' off, not if I know it. I'm just goin' to slip on my
gaiter-shoes an' my sun-bonnet, an' take the big green umbrella to keep
the sun off."
When Aunt Maria was equipped and started, Mrs. Lennox watched her
progress down the road with frantic impatience. It seemed to her that
she could have gone faster with her chair. Truth was, that poor Aunt
Maria, plodding heavily along in her gaiter-shoes, holding the green
umbrella over her flaming face, made but slow and painful progress, and
it was well that Mr. Lennox and Cynthia Lennox came home two hours
before they were expected. It was three o'clock when Mr. Lennox came
driving into the yard in the open buggy. Cynthia, erect and blooming,
with her big bandbox in her lap, sat beside him, and the new Jersey cow,
fastened by a rope to the tail of the buggy, came on behind with
melancholy moos. Cynthia had bought her wedding-bonnet sooner than she
had expected, so she had come home on the three o'clock train instead of
the five; and her father had bought the cow sooner than he had expected,
and had come to the railroad crossing just about the time that Cynthia's
train arrived. So he had stopped and taken in her and her bandbox, and
they had all ridden home together.
Mrs. Lennox stood in the kitchen door when they drove in.
"Oh, mother," Cynthia cried out, "I've had splendid luck! I've got the
handsomest bonnet!"
"I guess you won't care much about bonnets," answered her mother;
"_Fidelia's lost_." She spoke quite slowly and calmly, then she began to
weep wildly and lament. It was quite a time before she could make the
case plain to them, and Cynthia and her bandbox, and Mr. Lennox and the
horse and buggy and cow, all remained before her in a petrified halt.
As soon as Mr. Lennox fairly understood, he sprang out of the buggy,
untied the cow, led her into the barn, turned the team around, with a
sharp grate of the wheels, jumped in again, and gathered up the reins.
Cynthia, her rosy cheeks quite pale, still sat in her place, and the
tears splashed on her new bandbox cover. Mrs. Lennox had set her chair
outside the door, and followed it, with a painful effort. "Stop,
father!" she cried; "I'm goin' too!"
"Oh, mother, you can't!" said Mr. Lennox and Cynthia, together.
"I'm goin'. You needn't say a word. Father, you get out an' help me in."
Mr. Lennox got out and lifted, while Cynthia pulled. Mrs. Lennox's
injured foot suffered, but she set her mouth hard, and said nothing.
They started at a good pace, three on a seat, with Mr. Lennox in the
middle, driving.
They had got about half-way to the store when they overtook Aunt Maria.
Aunt Maria, with the green umbrella overhead, was proceeding steadily,
with a sideways motion that seemed more effective than the forward one.
"I'll get out, and let her get in," said Cynthia.
"No," said her father; "it won't do; it 'ill break the springs. We can't
ride three on a seat with Aunt Maria, anyhow, and I've got to drive."
So they passed Aunt Maria.
"Don't go any farther, Aunt Maria," Cynthia called, sobbingly, back to
her. "You sit down on the wall and rest."
But Aunt Maria shook her head, she could not speak, and kept on.
It was quarter-past three when they reached the Rose house and the
store. The store was in the front of the house, and the Rose family
occupied the rear portion. The house stood on a street corner, so a good
deal of it was visible, and the whole establishment had a shut-up air;
not a single farmer's wagon stood before the store. However, as Mr.
Lennox drove up, a woman's head appeared at a window; then a side door
opened, and she stood there. She had on a big apron, and her face was
flushed as if she had been over the stove; she held a great wooden
spoon, too. She began talking to the Lennoxes, but they paid no
attention to her--their eyes were riveted upon the store door. There was
a speck of white against its dark front, and suddenly it moved. It was
Fidelia's white tier.
"Why, there's Fidelia!" gasped Cynthia. She jumped out, not waiting for
her father to turn the wheel, and ran to the store door. The bandbox
rolled out and the lid came off, and there was her wedding-bonnet in the
dust, but she did not mind that. She caught Fidelia. "Oh, you naughty
little girl, where have you been all this time?" cried she.
Fidelia's eyes took on a bewildered stare, her mouth puckered more and
more. She clung to her sister, and sobbed something that was quite
inaudible. It was quite a time before her father and mother and Cynthia
and Mrs. Rose, surrounding her with attention, could gather that the
import of it all was that she had knocked and knocked and nobody had
come to the door.
"_Knocked!_" gasped Mrs. Rose; "why, the poor little lamb! Here Mr. Rose
and Sam have been away all day, an' I've been makin' currant-jell' out
in the kitchen. An' there's the bell on the counter, that customers
always ring when there ain't anybody round. I've been listenin' for
_that_ all day. It's been so hot, an' everybody hayin', that I don't
suppose a soul but her has been near the store since nine o'clock this
mornin', and there she's stood an' knocked. I never heard anything like
it in my life. See here, Pussy, haven't you been asleep?"
Fidelia shook her head in a sulky and down-cast manner, but there was a
suspiciously flushed and creasy look about her, and they agreed that it
was more than probable that a nap on the store steps had softened and
shortened her vigil.
Mrs. Lennox had her up in the wagon on her lap. She took her Shaker
bonnet off, and smoothed her hair and kissed her. "She thought she'd got
to knock, I s'pose," said she. "I ought to have told her she didn't have
to when she went to a store. Poor little soul! mother won't send her to
the store again till she's bigger."
"I knocked an' knocked," wailed Fidelia, piteously.
She looked cross and worn out. Mrs. Rose ran into the house, and brought
out a plate of cookies and a mug of milk, and then Fidelia sat in her
mother's lap and ate and drank and felt comforted. But after the raisins
had been finally purchased, Cynthia's bonnet picked up out of the dust
and shaken, the little squeaking wagon stowed under the seat of the
buggy, and the team turned around, Fidelia set up a grievous and injured
cry: "My candy! my candy! I 'ain't--got my candy!" And she held up to
view the copper cent still clutched in her moist little fist.
"Poor little lamb, she shall have her candy!" cried Mrs. Rose. Fidelia
had never seen such a handful of candy as Mrs. Rose brought out from the
store. There was a twisted red-and-white stick of peppermint, pink
checkerberry, clear barley--a stick of every kind in the glass jars in
Mr. Rose's store window. And Mrs. Rose would not take Fidelia's one
penny at all; she bade her keep it until she came to the store again.
Aunt Maria was almost up to the store when they left it, and it was
decided that she should remain and make a call upon Mrs. Rose while Mr.
Lennox carried the others home, then he would return for her. Aunt Maria
folded her green umbrella and sank down on the door-step, and Mrs. Rose
brought her a palm-leaf fan and a glass of ginger water. "I 'ain't
walked a mile before for ten year," gasped Aunt Maria; "but I'm so
thankful that child's safe that I can't think of anything else." There
were tears in her eyes as she watched the wagon-load disappearing under
the green branches of the elm-trees. And Fidelia, in her mother's lap,
rode along and sucked a stick of barley candy in silent bliss. Griefs in
childhood soon turn to memories; straightway, as she sucked her barley
candy, Fidelia's long and painful vigil at the store door became a thing
of the past.