MISCHIEF MAKERS
Tabitha retired late that night, weary but triumphant, congratulating
herself that Billiard was conquered; but she had reckoned without her
host. Two little heathen such as Williard and Theodore McKittrick are
not to be converted in one day, nor are they apt to be forced into
reforming. Brought up with utter disregard for other people's rights,
by a mother who bore them no particular love, but who surrounded them
with every luxury money could buy simply because she found it less
trouble to indulge than to deny them, it is scarcely to be wondered at
that they had no idea of honor or obedience.
Their father, Dennis McKittrick, had been more successful than his
brothers in his struggle for wealth. After amassing a comfortable
fortune, he had not lived to enjoy it, and before his oldest son had
seen his sixth birthday, the father was laid to rest in the shadow of a
resplendent monument in an Eastern cemetery; and the rearing of the two
boys was left wholly to their fashion-plate mother, whose only gods
were dress and personal pleasure. Tabitha had heard many stories of
the selfish, heartless woman, who found her motherhood a burden rather
than a blessing, but she did not understand the difficulties one must
contend with in attempting to reform such lawless youths, and being
little more than a child herself, it was only natural that she should
make mistakes.
But she did not at once realize this fact, for Billiard, completely
surprised by the unusual treatment accorded him, was a model of
obedience and politeness for the next two days, and Tabitha was
deceived into thinking his reformation was genuine and lasting; while
in reality, the young scapegrace was merely studying the unique
situation and plotting how to "get even" with the girl who already had
mastered him twice. A coward at heart, he knew he could not come out
openly and fight her, so he slyly planned little annoyances to hinder
her work and try her patience. Yet so adroitly did he manoeuvre that
Tabitha was some time in finding out the real culprit.
"My brefus food ain't nice," wailed Janie, the third morning of her
cousins' stay.
"Nor mine, either," protested Rosslyn, tasting his critically, and
wrinkling his nose in disgust.
"You've salted it something fierce," said Billiard, winking solemnly at
Toady while Tabitha was busy sampling her dish of porridge.
"It's so salt that sugar doesn't sweeten it," added Susie, making a wry
face at the first mouthful and taking a hasty swallow of water.
Tabitha's mystified face quickly cleared. Seizing the sugar-bowl, she
cautiously tasted its contents, and turning toward Inez, said
accusingly, "You filled it with salt instead of sugar!"
"Then someone put the salt cup in the sugar barrel," cried Inez
indignantly, "'cause I just poured one cupful into the sugar-bowl."
"Well, be more careful the next time," admonished the black-eyed girl,
retreating to the pantry for a fresh supply of sweetening; and
Billiard, elated at the success of his first attempt, determined to try
again.
"What in the world did you put in that salad dressing, Glory?" cried
Tabitha, snatching up her glass of water with eager hands.
"What's the matter with it?" demanded the second cook, whose turn it
was to wait upon the table that day.
"You used ginger 'stead of mustard," scolded Toady, who had a
particular aversion for red hair, and took little pains to conceal it.
Gloriana had her suspicions as to how such an accident could have
happened, but a hurried visit to the pantry disclosed the spice cans in
their proper places, all correctly labelled; so she reluctantly
admitted her mistake, but decided to keep her eyes open.
"There's soap in my glass of water," complained Irene at the next meal.
"Soap!" echoed Mercedes. "I washed those glasses myself, and never
used a bit of soap on them! That's the way mamma told us to wash them."
But the fact still remained that not only was Irene's glass soapy, but
more than half the dishes on the table tasted of Fels Naptha. Tabitha
looked concerned, but Billiard and Toady were so innocent appearing
that she never suspected them of having had a hand in the affair.
The next time it was Tabitha's biscuits. When they appeared on the
table they were as thin as wafers and as hard as bricks. In some way
she had substituted corn starch for baking powder; but as another
hurried visit to the pantry showed both articles where they belonged on
their respective shelves, she concluded that carelessness on her part
had caused the trouble, and let the matter drop.
Then the house began to be infested with all sorts of obnoxious insects
and reptiles. Mercedes found two huge grasshoppers in the soup one
day; a long, wriggling centipede fell out of the cook-book as Tabitha
turned its pages in search of a favorite recipe; a scorpion dropped off
the cake plate which Gloriana was in the act of passing, so frightening
the girl that she dashed cake, dish and all onto the floor, and
promptly had hysterics. Horned toads, ugly lizards, and worms of every
description made their appearance by the dozen, until even Tabitha grew
alarmed; but still she did not suspect the cause of such an invasion,
as the two brothers were apparently as docile and obedient as their
gentler cousins.
Even when they found a dead rattler coiled up in the middle of the
kitchen floor, Tabitha attributed it to Carrie's dog, General, who
still spent much of his time at the McKittrick cottage. Nor did she
notice that the reptile was coiled in a most impossible manner, with
its head propped up by two tiny wires. She merely hustled the thing
out of doors, hacked it into pieces with the axe, and buried the
remnants under a pile of rocks to make sure no harm came of them. It
never occurred to her to wonder how General, who was not allowed in the
house, could have dragged the snake inside without someone seeing or
hearing him, for he was proud of his snake-killing accomplishment and
always made a big commotion when he succeeded in trapping one. So the
culprits enjoyed the girls' scare, and retired to the water-tank behind
the assayer's office to hatch up some new scheme.
Only Gloriana, whose cordial dislike for boys, caused by her unhappy
experiences in Manchester, made her suspicious of all that species of
humanity, seemed aware of what was going on, but she could not catch
them red-handed. And knowing that she suspected them, the brothers
made life miserable for her in a hundred ways. They hid her crutch in
the most out-of-way places, adroitly misplaced her cooking utensils, or
whatever article she was about to use, causing her many a long and
annoying search when she was in a hurry. They stopped the clock or set
it ahead with aggravating frequency; and discovering that the plucky
girl grimly bore their tormenting in silence, they grew bolder, jumping
out at her from unexpected corners, tweaking her long braids, tripping
her up, and calling her "Carrots," or "Red-top," when Tabitha was out
of hearing, for they still entertained a wholesome fear of that
strong-armed, hot-tempered little housekeeper, who demanded instant
obedience from her charges, and was able to enforce her authority by
main strength if necessary.
Also, they felt a certain boyish admiration for the tall, lithe girl
who bore such a record for bravery, though not for the world would they
have admitted the fact, even to each other; and they could not resist
plaguing her on the sly whenever a chance presented itself. But to
tease her openly was out of the question; so Gloriana received a double
share of tormenting, which she bore with such uncomplaining fortitude
that the boys forgot to be cautious, and one afternoon while Tabitha
was in town on an errand, Mercedes came upon them as they were limping
about the kitchen in an exaggerated fashion chanting with tuneless
voices,
"Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full;
One for the master, one for the dame,
And one for the 'gory head' who limps awful lame."
Tears were standing in the tired gray eyes, but Gloriana, with her back
resolutely turned toward her tormentors, scrubbed her pan of vegetables
more vigorously, and tried not to hear the taunting words, though she
knew from the sound of their steps that the boys were circling nearer
and ever nearer, and would soon jerk off her hair-ribbon or poke her in
the back.
"Cowards!" exploded Mercedes wrathfully. "You'd never dare do that if
Tabitha was here! I'm going to tell her just how mean you are!"
"Tattletale, tattletale!" jeered Billiard, taking a rapid survey of the
yard as he limped past the door, to see if the other housekeeper had by
any chance returned from the post-office.
"You wait and see what you get when Tabby finds out what you have been
doing," threatened the girl; and the little name slipping inadvertently
from her tongue gave the boys another inspiration.
"Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt," they began in
unison, "where have you been?
I've been to Silver Bow to buy me a bean.
Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt, what saw you there?
I saw 'Gory Hanner' with her fearful red hair."
So intent were they upon rendering their new song, that neither boy
heard the screen open and close softly behind him, but Mercedes caught
a glimpse of the set, white face and flashing eyes through the doorway,
and held her breath in mingled fear and expectation.
"Billy goat, Billy goat, where have you been?" a low, ominous voice
interrupted; and the two tormentors came to an abrupt halt in the
middle of the floor, paralyzed at the unexpected appearance of the
black-haired girl.
"A-chewing the whiskers, that grow under my chin," the voice calmly
finished, and seizing the pan of dirty water from which Gloriana had
just rescued the last potato, Tabitha dashed its contents over the
astonished duet. Then realizing that once more she had let go of her
fiery temper, she fled from the house up the trail to a great boulder
on the summit of the mountain, and threw herself face down in an
abandon of shame, remorse and despair.
"Oh, dear, why can't I be good?" she sobbed. "Just when I think I can
hold onto myself and be ladylike no matter how mad I get, something
comes up to show me that I'm mistaken. I'm just as hateful as
Billiard! Oh, dear! And I thought he was being so good, and all the
while he was doing mean things behind my back. I make a miserable
fizzle of everything I undertake. What would Mrs. McKittrick say if
she could have seen me a few minutes ago? Now I've lost all the hold I
had on the boys. They can't respect anyone who doesn't control her
temper any better than I.
"How I wish I had never offered to take care of the tribe of
McKittrick! No, that isn't so, either, for then the mother couldn't
have gone inside with Mr. McKittrick, and perhaps the operation would
have killed him. I'm glad he had his chance, bad boys or no bad boys!
But oh, I am so thankful that Miss Davis will soon be home. I will
never play housekeeper again, never! But now,--how can I make it right
with Billiard and Toady? What a world this is to live in! Always
stepping on someone's toes and then having to beg pardon. The trouble
of it is I--I don't believe I am very sorry that I doused the boys. I
am sorry I got so mad and did such a hateful thing, of course, but they
deserved more than they got. And yet they aren't to blame, either,
after the bringing up they have had. I suppose--it's up to me--to do
the apologizing act--myself--this trip."
Drying her eyes and taking a firm grip on herself, she descended from
her refuge and sought out the boys in their room.
"Come in," Billiard called gruffly in response to her knock, though
inwardly he was quaking with fear lest it might be the sheriff or Uncle
Hogan, whose authority he had never but once dared to defy. So he was
visibly relieved when he saw Tabitha standing alone on the threshold,
but waited uncertainly for her to state her errand.
She was as anxious as they to have the ordeal over with, and plunged
into the middle of her carefully framed speech, saying briefly, "I came
to ask your pardon for my rudeness of a few minutes ago. I forgot
myself. It was wrong of me to speak and act as I did, no matter how
great the provocation."
Her wandering gaze suddenly fell upon Billiard's face, just in time to
see him wink wickedly at Toady, and her good resolutions abruptly took
wing. "But you deserved every bit you got," she finished fiercely,
"and the next time I'll _souse you in the rain barrel_!"
Slamming the door in their surprised faces, she marched majestically
away to the kitchen, and furiously began beating up a cake, so
chagrined over this new defeat of her plans that she could not keep the
tears from her eyes.
Suddenly a meek voice at her elbow spoke hesitatingly, "Say, Tabitha,
we've apologized to Gory Anne--Gloriana, I mean. Will you--excuse--me
for what we said about you, too?"
Toady's big, beseeching, brown eyes met hers unflinchingly--he
certainly knew how to look angelic when occasion demanded it--and
Tabitha relented.
"Yes, Toady, I'll excuse _you_," she said with meaning emphasis, which
was not lost on the older brother, keeping well in the background.
"I--I'm ready to be excused, too," Billiard gulped at length, shuffling
forward a few steps, but not raising his eyes from the floor.
"Very well," she answered coldly. "But don't you dare bother Gloriana
again. I won't stand for it!"
"No, ma'am," Billiard responded meekly; and the two boys made good
their escape, feeling very virtuous indeed.