A FAIR ENCOUNTER
For poor little Caroline the moment was tragic.
Quite sincerely she expected Jacqueline to step up to her and say in a
loud voice:
"_I_ am Jacqueline, and you are Caroline. Take off that dress of mine,
and go away with this horrid little staring red-haired boy. _I_ shall go
home with Cousin Penelope in the limousine."
What else could Caroline expect? Why _should_ any living child continue
to wear clumsy, hateful Peggy Janes, with patches, too, when she could
have a beautiful muslin, with yellow roses? No, Jacqueline surely would
never go on with the deception, now that she saw with her own eyes the
glories of which she had deprived herself!
But to Jacqueline the encounter that to Caroline was tragic seemed
downright funny. To think of her, standing there in Caroline's Peggy
Janes, and Caroline in her muslin, and that prim-looking Cousin Penelope
(whom Jacqueline disliked at sight!) innocently lavishing attention on
the wrong child. So good a joke it was that Jacqueline wanted it to last
a little longer, and she was afraid that Caroline, with her shocked
face, was going to give it all away.
So the moment Cousin Penelope spoke to Miss Crevey--and she spoke to her
almost instantly, for the two children had taken stock of each other in
far less time than it has taken to tell--Jacqueline edged up alongside
Caroline.
"Hello!" she spoke softly, like a child who wanted to scrape
acquaintance.
Caroline stared at her dumbly. Her lips quivered. If she should begin to
bawl, she certainly _would_ spill the beans, thought Jacqueline, and
acted with a wisdom that was almost inspired.
"My name is Caroline Tait," said Jacqueline, slowly and emphatically.
Like the Ancient Mariner, she held Caroline with a glittering eye.
Caroline drew a fluttering breath--the first she had drawn since her
eyes fell on the Peggy Janes. If Jacqueline said that, why, perhaps
Jacqueline meant still to keep on being Caroline!
"I live at my aunt's farm, down to the Meadows," went on Jacqueline
calmly. "What's your name?"
"C-C----" clucked Caroline helplessly, and quailed before Jacqueline's
furious eye. "C--Jacqueline," she achieved the name with something like
a sneeze.
Cousin Penelope suddenly became aware of the by-play going on at her
elbow. She turned and looked coldly at the dusty little girl in the
uncouth, shabby clothes, who had been so rude as to address her darling.
Caroline trembled, just as she had trembled when she first saw Cousin
Penelope. But Jacqueline looked up at Cousin Penelope coolly and without
terror, and even with her chin slightly tilted.
"Hello!" she addressed the august lady.
Cousin Penelope's violet eyes looked through Jacqueline, quite as if she
hadn't been there. Then she turned with a smile to Caroline.
"Come, Jacqueline," she addressed Jacqueline's substitute. "You must
help me buy this thread."
Deliberately she turned her back on Jacqueline, and made Caroline turn
with her, as if she snatched her little charge from contamination.
Jacqueline laughed outright. It was rude and horrid of her, although
Cousin Penelope had herself been rude. But Jacqueline really hadn't
meant to laugh. Only Cousin Penelope struck her as funny, and the whole
situation, too, was funny.
A slight flush rose to Cousin Penelope's cheeks. Of course it was
foolish to let one's self be annoyed by the bad manners of a country
child.
"Who is that bold little girl?" she asked Miss Crevey.
Her voice was louder than she meant it to be, or Jacqueline's ears were
sharper. Jacqueline overheard, and hugged herself for joy, the naughty
thing!
"It's one of the Conway children from down in the Meadows," lisped Miss
Crevey, as she tied up the little parcel of thread and pins. "Call
again, Miss Gildersleeve. Sorry I didn't have no shoelaces, but people
buy 'em off me so fast I jes' give up keepin' 'em."
Cousin Penelope nodded graciously, and with the parcel in one hand and
Caroline's limp fingers clasped in the other, walked out of the shop.
When they were once more shut in the limousine, away from the vulgar
herd, she turned to Caroline and saw that she was quite pale and
trembling.
"You don't like strangers, do you, any more than I," Cousin Penelope
said sympathetically.
Caroline nodded. She really didn't know what else to do.
"That was a very rude, coarse, pushing little girl," Cousin Penelope
spoke with more heat than she realized. "I don't want you to have
anything to do with such people. She belongs to a quite ordinary family
down in the Meadows--and blood, you know, will always tell."
She smiled as she said the words. How blood _had_ told in this charming
little quiet girl beside her, who was all Gildersleeve! Cousin Penelope
smiled and was glad when she saw Caroline smile at last in answer.
"You know there are some nice little girls, here in town," said Cousin
Penelope. "As soon as you feel at home with us, I'll give a little party
for you and ask them to meet you."
"Oh-h!" cried Caroline softly, a real little trill of rapture. She had
never had a party in her life, nor expected to have one. How good Cousin
Penelope was to her, and Jacqueline, too, who was going to keep on with
this precious play! The world was beautiful once more, as beautiful as
it had been when she went into Miss Crevey's shop. All the way home she
chattered again, almost volubly, with kind Cousin Penelope.
While Caroline was rolling homeward to The Chimnies in the limousine,
Jacqueline was trudging along the same road on foot. She and Neil had
made their purchases. The little red and white candies, in the bag that
Jacqueline had insisted upon having, in spite of Miss Crevey's
grumbling, were in the breast pocket of the Peggy Janes. The stick of
candy was in the stomachs of Jacqueline and Neil, all except that
portion of the moist chocolate that was round their mouths. Neil went in
manful silence, lost in pleasant memories of the departed sweet. But
Jacqueline now and again chuckled to herself.
"What you snickering at?" Neil challenged at last.
"Aw, nothing," said Jacqueline.
"Only fools laugh at nothing."
"Well," said Jacqueline unabashed, "_I_ was laughing at a fool. Where
does she live?"
"Who?"
"That stuck up old thing, Miss Gildersleeve, that we saw in the shop.
Gee! I'd hate to have her bossing me."
"She's an old hen," said Neil. "You'd ought to 'a' heard her bawl me
out, time I run acrost her old lawn with the cream Mother forgot to
leave. Mother won't like it though if you sass her."
"I will if I like," Jacqueline answered calmly. "Where does she hang
out?"
"We're most there now," said Neil. "It's that big white house with the
hedge."
"Shucks!" said Jacqueline. (She had added to her vocabulary already at
the farm.) "That isn't half as big as Buena Vista."
"What's Boona Vister?"
To herself Jacqueline said: "You most put your foot in it that time!"
Aloud she told Neil airily: "Oh, it's a place where I was once."
"Is it like the amusement park at the Pines with the puzzle-house?" Neil
asked hopefully. "I was there once."
"Something like, I guess," Jacqueline answered vaguely.
She was busy staring at the Gildersleeve place, as they skirted the tall
hedge. The sort of place where you mustn't step on the lawn or pick the
flowers. The sort of house where there wouldn't be enough sunshine, and
you must walk softly. She thought of Cousin Penelope, who had snubbed
her, and she made the sort of face she was going to practice now for
Cousin Penelope's benefit. Then she thought of Caroline, the dear little
silly, and she chuckled again.
"Aw, say," said Neil, "you got bats in your belfry?"
"I'll say I have--not," Jacqueline threw off, with cheerful unconcern.
Wasn't it funny that Caroline should have put on the muslin with the
yellow roses? Jacqueline hated that dress above all dresses. She had
only brought it in her trunk because Aunt Edith, who had selected the
dress, had made her. She hated the floppy hat, too, and those nasty old
green and blue and yellow beads of Cousin Penelope's that it always made
her feel seasick just to look at. If she had claimed her rightful place
that Caroline was filling, she might have had to wear those odious
clothes. Hateful clothes and bossy old Cousin Penelope, against dish
washing and bed making. On the whole she preferred the latter--for a
time.
"Hey! Hey!" Neil suddenly broke in upon her reverie with a mighty yell.
A bronzed raggedy man in a little truck, which was creeping past them on
a flat tire in a scuff of dust, heard the call and checked his clumsy
vehicle.
"Come on!" Neil cried to Jacqueline.
She didn't pause to ask any questions. She flew at his heels across the
wide green sward that skirted the sidewalk, and into the dust of the
road. She swarmed after him in the accommodating Peggy Janes, up into
the body of the truck. Here was a heap of dusty sacks on which she
dropped herself at his side.
"Gee! This is luck," Neil panted. "It's John Zabriski that used to work
for Father. He's got the farm the other side of ours. He'll take us all
the way home."
Jacqueline stretched herself upon the dirty sacks. The dust was rising
round them in a golden cloud as the truck rolled down Longmeadow Street.
The branches of the elms met overhead, and through them, as she lay on
her back, she gazed into the unfathomable cobalt of the sky. There would
be creamed codfish for supper, and Johnny-cake, and dried-apple pie. She
had heard Grandma and Aunt Martha planning the meal. She could scuffle
in the hammock with Neil and Dickie, in the warm, star-set evening, and
tomorrow she meant to walk the highest beam in the barn. No one to
forbid her--no one to remind her to be a lady--no starched and stuck up
Cousin Penelope to give her orders.
"Gee!" murmured Jacqueline. "This sure is the life!"