THE PRICE OF TEMPER
But all the days at the Conway farm were not like the day that ended in
a blaze of glory, with praises and hot Johnny-cake. No more than a week
later there came a day when everything went crooked.
Perhaps Jacqueline got out of bed on the wrong foot. Perhaps she was
thinking too much of a pile of story papers, which she had unearthed in
the shed chamber, and too little of her work. Perhaps it was simply that
she had grown tired of the rôle of Caroline--even of a virtuous
Caroline, who was a help and comfort in the house, and bossed the
younger children.
At any rate Jacqueline dawdled and shuffled through her work, and
complained constantly of the heat. It was a hot day, true enough, but as
Grandma said, talking about the weather only made a bad matter ten times
worse. Let _it_ alone, and likely it would let _you_ alone!
But Jacqueline groaned and grumbled, and finally lay down on the dining
room couch (with a story paper!) and gave herself up to being
uncomfortable. Presently she fell to thinking of the Gildersleeve place,
and the big, cool, dim rooms that she knew such a roof must cover, and
the white porcelain tub, with lots of hot water, and a maid to wash the
tub when you stepped out of it. She began to think that she had treated
Caroline very generously, and treated herself very badly.
Dinner was a horrid meal--pickled codfish in white sauce, cold peas from
last night's supper, slabs of home-made bread, molasses cookies, and
cottage cheese. The room was hot, and the boys were sweaty and tired.
Freddie upset a mug of milk, and Neil fussed about the heat, and said
his head ached. Jacqueline was quite disgusted that he should be so
babyish.
After dinner Aunt Martha insisted upon Grandma's lying down in her room.
Grandma looked "tuckered out," and no wonder, for she had been
step-stepping all the morning, while Jacqueline loafed. Of course,
Jacqueline told her uneasy conscience, she would have helped, if Grandma
had asked her. But you know, it is easier sometimes for a tired old
woman to do things herself than to ask a sulky and unwilling little girl
to do them for her.
Aunt Martha sent Nellie off into the barn with the babies. She was to be
sure that they did not disturb Grandma. Ralph and Dickie went back to
the fields, and Aunt Martha herself drove off to Northford, to see a man
who owed her money that she very much needed. Jacqueline was left face
to face with the dinner dishes.
"Come on, Neil," she said bossily. "I'm not going to wrassle these
alone."
"I gotta headache," Neil answered, from the couch that Jacqueline
coveted. "I don't have to work this afternoon. Mother said so."
"She meant work in the fields. She didn't mean the dishes."
"She did, too."
"She didn't, neither. Get up, you great, lazy boy, and help me. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself, making such a fuss about the weather.
You let _it_ alone, and likely it'll let _you_ alone. Come on now!"
"Won't!" said Neil.
Jacqueline's face flamed.
"Then the dishes will stay right there till Aunt Martha comes," she
said. "I won't touch 'em."
"Don't!" mocked Neil, and settled himself more comfortably.
Well, Jacqueline didn't touch those dishes! If you'll believe it, she
took her story papers and went out and read in the hammock for two
mortal hours, while the dinner table stood just as the family had left
it, and the stockings in Grandma's basket cried: "Come darn me!" and
patient little Nellie struggled all alone to keep two hot and fussy
babies amused and quiet.
In the old papers Jacqueline found a continued story of the sort she
liked, about a girl who went to a boarding school, where most of the
teachers were mean and malicious and incredibly stupid; about the pranks
that she and her friends played, and the mystery of a buried treasure
that she solved. Jacqueline was so deep in the mystery that she scarcely
heeded when Aunt Martha drove into the yard. She came out of the
treasure vault with a jump, only when she heard her name called. Then
she looked, and saw Aunt Martha standing in the kitchen doorway.
Full of the spirit of her heroine, who put tyrannical teachers in their
place, Jacqueline rose and went into the kitchen. She was almost eager
for "a scene."
"Why aren't those dishes done?" Aunt Martha asked directly. Her shrewd
gray eyes went right through Jacqueline.
This was drama with a vengeance. Jacqueline's heart began to beat fast.
"There were so many of 'em, and the day was so hot, and I had a
headache, and Neil wouldn't help," she poured out all her reasons
glibly.
"You leave Neil out. I'll attend to him. It was your job to clear up the
dining room, and wash those dishes. Go about it now."
Jacqueline turned slowly toward the dining room door, but as she turned
she said aloud, with a toss of her head:
"I don't _have_ to!"
She looked round to make sure that Aunt Martha heard her, for Aunt
Martha had a way of not always hearing saucy and hateful speeches.
"If you stay in this house," said Aunt Martha, as she unpinned her cheap
hat, "you'll have to do your share, like all the rest of us."
"Well, maybe I won't stay in your old house," Jacqueline told her
superbly. "There are better places I can go to."
"All right," said Aunt Martha easily. "Trot along--only get those dishes
done before you start."
That was too bad of Aunt Martha, for in the rôle of tyrant, which
Jacqueline had thoughtfully assigned her, she ought to have lost her
temper at Jacqueline's threat, instead of turning it into a kind of
joke. Since Aunt Martha kept her temper, Jacqueline lost hers. She
snatched the tray from its shelf with unnecessary clatter, and she went
into the dining room, and banged it down hard on the table. She began to
pile the soiled dishes upon it, helter-skelter, with as much noise as if
she were a raw Polish girl, just out of the onion fields.
Neil turned a flushed face toward her, where he lay on the couch.
"Tell-tale!" he softly sang.
The justice of the taunt made it sting.
"You're a slacker," Jacqueline retorted promptly. "Everybody hates a
slacker. I was going to give you a birthday present, and something
perfectly scrumptious at Christmas, but I never will now--never--never!"
To emphasize the threat, she banged down the heavy milk pitcher on the
tray, without noticing that the tray overhung the edge of the table
perilously. There was a tilt--a sickening slide and crash--then plates,
glasses, broken food, spilled milk lay all in a mess at Jacqueline's
feet, and among the débris, shattered to bits, were the two green-dragon
cups and saucers of thin china.
Jacqueline felt the anger ooze out of her. She stared at the wreckage,
conscience-smitten. Neil sat up and looked at her.
"You've done it now!" he said.
"I don't care!" Jacqueline flung at him the first words that came. She
had to say something, or she would have burst out crying.
"Caroline!" spoke Aunt Martha's voice. She stood there in the room, with
her tanned face really white round the lips. "Don't tell me you've gone
and broken Grandma's cups!"
"Nothing but two old cups!" Jacqueline almost sobbed.
Aunt Martha did not seem to hear her. She went down on her knees and
groped among the fragments for bits of the shattered green-dragon china.
Her hands fairly shook as she gathered them up.
"They are all that was left of her wedding china," she said, more to
herself than to the startled children. "We ought not to have used them
common--but she didn't relish her tea in a thick cup--and she wouldn't
drink from china while I drank out of kitchen ware. No, I can't mend
'em, ever. They're smashed to smithereens."
"I don't care--I don't care!" Jacqueline screamed across the awful lump
in her throat that was choking her. "I hate this house--and I hate you
all--and I'm never coming back again!"
She called back the last words from the kitchen doorway, and next moment
she was out in the yard, headed for the road, and running, as if for her
very life, to the Gildersleeve place, and the Gildersleeve relations,
and the identity of Jacqueline that now, with all her heart, she wanted
to get back again.