Keeping Christmas Our Way
"I remember, I remember
How my childhood fleeted by,--
The mirth of its December,
And the warmth of its July."
When dusk closed in it would be Christmas eve. All day I had three
points--a chair beside the kitchen table, a lookout melted through the
frost on the front window, and the big sitting-room fireplace.
All the perfumes of Araby floated from our kitchen that day. There was
that delicious smell of baking flour from big snowy loaves of bread,
light biscuit, golden coffee cake, and cinnamon rolls dripping a waxy
mixture of sugar, butter, and spice, much better than the finest
butterscotch ever brought from the city. There was the tempting odour
of boiling ham and baking pies. The air was filled with the smell of
more herbs and spices than I knew the names of, that went into
mincemeat, fruit cake, plum pudding, and pies. There was a teasing
fragrance in the spiced vinegar heating for pickles, a reminder of
winesap and rambo in the boiling cider, while the newly opened bottles
of grape juice filled the house with the tang of Concord and muscadine.
It seemed to me I never got nicely fixed where I could take a sly dip
in the cake dough or snipe a fat raisin from the mincemeat but Candace
would say: "Don't you suppose the backlog is halfway down the lane?"
Then I hurried to the front window, where I could see through my melted
outlook on the frosted pane, across the west eighty to the woods, where
father and Laddie were getting out the Christmas backlog. It was too
bitterly cold to keep me there while they worked, but Laddie said that
if I would watch, and come to meet them, he would take me up, and I
might ride home among the Christmas greens on the log.
So I flattened my nose against the pane and danced and fidgeted until
those odours teased me back to the kitchen; and no more did I get
nicely located beside a jar of pudding sauce than Candace would object
to the place I had hung her stocking. It was my task, my delightful
all-day task, to hang the stockings. Father had made me a peg for each
one, and I had ten feet of mantel front along which to arrange them.
But it was no small job to do this to every one's satisfaction. No
matter what happened to any one else, Candace had to be pleased: for
did not she so manage that most fowls served on mother's table went
gizzardless to the carving? She knew and acknowledged the great
importance of trying cookies, pies, and cake while they were hot. She
was forever overworked and tired, yet she always found time to make
gingerbread women with currant buttons on their frocks, and pudgy
doughnut men with clove eyes and cigars of cinnamon. If my own
stocking lay on the hearth, Candace's had to go in a place that
satisfied her--that was one sure thing. Besides, I had to make up to
her for what Leon did, because she was crying into the corner of her
apron about that.
He slipped in and stole her stocking, hung it over the broomstick, and
marched around the breakfast table singing to the tune of--
"Ha, ha, ha, who wouldn't go--
Up on the housetop click, click, click?
Down through the chimney,
With good Saint Nick----"
words he made up himself. He walked just fast enough that she couldn't
catch him, and sang as he went:
"Ha, ha, ha, good Saint Nick,
Come and look at this stocking, quick!
If you undertake its length to fill,
You'll have to bust a ten-dollar bill.
Who does it belong to? Candace Swartz.
Bring extra candy,--seven quarts----"
She got so angry she just roared, so father made Leon stop it, but I
couldn't help laughing myself. Then we had to pet her all day, so
she'd cheer up, and not salt the Christmas dinner with her tears. I
never saw such a monkey as Leon! I trotted out to comfort her, and
snipped bites, until I wore a triangle on the carpet between the
kitchen and the mantel, the mantel and the window, and the window and
the kitchen, while every hour things grew more exciting.
There never had been such a flurry at our house since I could remember;
for to-morrow would be Christmas and bring home all the children, and a
house full of guests. My big brother, Jerry, who was a lawyer in the
city, was coming with his family, and so were Frank, Elizabeth, and
Lucy with theirs, and of course Sally and Peter--I wondered if she
would still be fixing his tie--and Shelley came yesterday, blushing
like a rose, and she laughed if you pointed your finger at her.
Something had happened to her in Chicago. I wasn't so sure as I had
been about a city being such a dreadful place of noise, bad air, and
wicked people. Nothing had hurt Shelley. She had grown so much that
you could see she was larger. Her hair and face--all of Shelley just
shone. Her eyes danced, she talked and laughed all the time, and she
hugged every one who passed her. She never loved us so before. Leon
said she must have been homesick and coming back had given her a spell.
I did hope it would be a bad one, and last forever. I would have liked
for all our family to have had a spell if it would have made them act
and look like Shelley. The Princess was not a speck lovelier, and she
didn't act any nicer.
If I could have painted, I'd have made a picture of Shelley with a
circle of light above her head like the one of the boy Jesus where He
talked with the wise men in the temple. I asked father if he noticed
how much prettier and nicer she was, and he said he did. Then I asked
him if he thought now, that a city was such a bad place to live in, and
he said where she was had nothing to do with it, the same thing would
happen here, or anywhere, when life's greatest experience came to a
girl. That was all he would say, but figuring it out was easy. The
greatest experience that happened to our girls was when they married,
like Sally, so it meant that Shelley had gone and fallen in love with
that lawyer man, and she liked sitting on the sofa with him, and no
doubt she fixed his ties. But if any one thought I would tell anything
I saw when he came they were badly mistaken.
All of us rushed around like we were crazy. If father and mother
hadn't held steady and kept us down, we might have raised the roof. We
were all so glad about getting Leon and the money back; mother hadn't
been sick since the fish cured her; the new blue goose was so like the
one that had burst, even father never noticed any difference; all the
children were either home or coming, and after we had our gifts and the
biggest dinner we ever had, Christmas night all of us would go to the
schoolhouse to see our school try to spell down three others to whom
they had sent saucy invitations to come and be beaten.
Mother sat in the dining-room beside the kitchen door, so that she
could watch the baking, brewing, pickling, and spicing. It took four
men to handle the backlog, which I noticed father pronounced every year
"just a little the finest we ever had," and Laddie strung the house
with bittersweet, evergreens, and the most beautiful sprays of myrtle
that he raked from under the snow. Father drove to town in the sleigh,
and the list of things to be purchased mother gave him as a reminder
was almost a yard long.
The minute they finished the outdoor work Laddie and Leon began
bringing in baskets of apples, golden bellflowers, green pippins, white
winter pearmains, Rhode Island greenings, and striped rambos all
covered with hoarfrost, yet not frozen, and so full of juice you had to
bite into them carefully or they dripped and offended mother. These
they washed and carried to the cellar ready for use.
Then they cracked big dishes of nuts; and popped corn that popped with
the most resounding pops in all my experience--popped a tubful, and
Laddie melted maple sugar and poured over it and made big balls of
fluff and sweetness. He took a pan and filled it with grains, selected
one at a time, the very largest and whitest, and made an especial ball,
in the middle of which he put a lovely pink candy heart on which was
printed in red letters: "How can this heart be mine, yet yours, unless
our hearts are one?" He wouldn't let any of them see it except me, and
he only let me because he knew I'd be delighted.
It was almost dusk when father came through the kitchen loaded with
bundles and found Candace and the girls still cooking.
We were so excited we could scarcely be gathered around the supper
table, and mother said we chattered until she couldn't hear herself
think. After a while Laddie laid down his fork and looked at our
father.
"Have you any objection to my using the sleigh to-morrow night?" he
asked.
Father looked at mother.
"Had you planned to use it, mother?"
Mother said: "No. If I go, I'll ride in the big sled with all of us.
It is such a little way, and the roads are like glass."
So father said politely, as he always spoke to us: "Then it will give
me great pleasure for you to take it, my son."
That made Leon bang his fork loudly as he dared and squirm in his
chair, for well he knew that if he had asked, the answer would have
been different. If Laddie took the sleigh he would harness carefully,
drive fast, but reasonably, blanket his horse, come home at the right
time, and put everything exactly where he found it. But Leon would
pitch the harness on some way, race every step, never think of his
steaming horse, come home when there was no one so wild as he left to
play pranks with, and scatter the harness everywhere. He knew our
father would love to trust him the same as he did Laddie. He wouldn't
always prove himself trustworthy, but he envied Laddie.
"You think you'll take the Princess to the spelling bee, don't you?" he
sneered.
"I mean to ask her," replied Laddie.
"Maybe you think she'll ride in our old homemade, hickory cheesebox,
when she can sail all over the country like a bird in a velvet-lined
cutter with a real buffalo robe."
There was a quick catch in mother's breath and I felt her hand on my
chair tremble. Father's lips tightened and a frown settled on his
face, while Laddie fairly jumped. He went white to the lips, and one
hand dropped on the table, palm up, the fingers closing and unclosing,
while his eyes turned first to mother, and then to father, in dumb
appeal. We all knew that he was suffering. No one spoke, and Leon
having shot his arrow straight home, saw as people so often do in this
world that the damage of unkind words could not easily be repaired; so
he grew red in the face and squirmed uncomfortably.
At last Laddie drew a deep, quivering breath. "I never thought of
that," he said. "She has seemed happy to go with me several times when
I asked her, but of course she might not care to ride in ours, when she
has such a fine sleigh of her own."
Father's voice fairly boomed down the length of the table.
"Your mother always has found our sleigh suitable," he said.
The fact was, father was rarely proud of it. He had selected the
hickory in our woods, cut it and hauled it to the mill, cured the
lumber, and used all his spare time for two winters making it. With
the exception of having the runners turned at a factory and iron-bound
at a smithy, he had completed it alone with great care, even to
staining it a beautiful cherry colour, and fitting white sheepskins
into the bed. We had all watched him and been so proud of it, and now
Leon was sneering at it. He might just as well have undertaken to
laugh at father's wedding suit or to make fun of "Clark's Commentaries."
Laddie appealed to mother: "Do you think I'd better not ask her?"
He spoke with an effort.
"Laddie, that is the first time I ever heard you propose to do any one
an injustice," she said.
"I don't see how," said Laddie.
"It isn't giving the Princess any chance at all," replied mother
"You've just said that she has seemed pleased to accompany you before,
now you are proposing to cut her out of what promises to be the most
delightful evening of the winter, without even giving her the chance to
say whether she'd go with you or not. Has she ever made you feel that
anything you offered her or wanted to do for her was not good enough?"
"Never!" exclaimed Laddie fervently.
"Until she does, then, do you think it would be quite manly and
honourable to make decisions for her? You say you never thought of
anything except a pleasant time with her; possibly she feels the same.
Unless she changes, I would scarcely let a boy's foolish tongue disturb
her pleasure. Moreover, as to the matter of wealth, your father may be
as rich as hers; but they have one, we have many. If what we spend on
all our brood could be confined to one child, we could easily duplicate
all her luxuries, and I think she has the good sense to realize the
fact as quickly as any one. I've no doubt she would gladly exchange
half she has for the companionship of a sister or a brother in her
lonely life."
Laddie turned to father, and father's smile was happy again. Mother
was little but she was mighty. With only a few words she had made Leon
feel how unkind and foolish he had been, quieted Laddie's alarm, and
soothed the hurt father's pride had felt in that he had not been able
to furnish her with so fine a turnout as Pryors had.
Next morning when the excitement of gifts and greetings was over, and
Laddie's morning work was all finished, he took a beautiful volume of
poems and his popcorn ball and started across the fields due west; all
of us knew that he was going to call on and offer them to the Princess,
and ask to take her to the spelling bee. I suppose Laddie thought he
was taking that trip alone, but really he was surrounded. I watched
him from the window, and my heart went with him. Presently father went
and sat beside mother's chair, and stroking her hand, whispered softly:
"Please don't worry, little mother. It will be all right. Your boy
will come home happy."
"I hope so," she answered, "but I can't help feeling dreadfully
nervous. If things go wrong with Laddie, it will spoil the day."
"I have much faith in the Princess' good common sense," replied father,
"and considering what it means to Laddie, it would hurt me sore to lose
it."
Mother sat still, but her lips moved so that I knew she was making soft
little whispered prayers for her best loved son. But Laddie, plowing
through the drift, never dreamed that all of us were with him. He was
always better looking than any other man I ever had seen, but when, two
hours later, he stamped into the kitchen he was so much handsomer than
usual, that I knew from the flush on his cheek and the light in his
eye, that the Princess had been kind, and by the package in his hand,
that she had made him a present. He really had two, a beautiful book
and a necktie. I wondered to my soul if she gave him that, so she
could fix it! I didn't believe she had begun on his ties at that time;
but of course when he loved her as he did, he wished she would.
It was the very jolliest Christmas we ever had, but the day seemed
long. When night came we were in a precious bustle. The wagon bed on
bobs, filled with hay and covers, drawn by Ned and Jo, was brought up
for the family, and the sleigh made spick-and-span and drawn by
Laddie's thoroughbred, stood beside it. Laddie had filled the kitchen
oven with bricks and hung up a comfort at four o'clock to keep the
Princess warm.
Because he had to drive out of the way to bring her, Laddie wanted to
start early; and when he came down dressed in his college clothes, and
looking the manliest of men, some of the folks thought it funny to see
him carefully rake his hot bricks from the oven, and pin them in an old
red breakfast shawl. I thought it was fine, and I whispered to mother:
"Do you suppose that if Laddie ever marries the Princess he will be
good to her as he is to you?"
Mother nodded with tear-dimmed eyes, but Shelley said: "I'll wager a
strong young girl like the Princess will laugh at you for babying over
her."
"Why?" inquired Laddie. "It is a long drive and a bitter night, and if
you fancy the Princess will laugh at anything I do, when I am doing the
best I know for her comfort, you are mistaken. At least, that is the
impression she gave me this morning."
I saw the swift glance mother shot at father, and father laid down his
paper and said, while he pretended his glasses needed polishing: "Now
there is the right sort of a girl for you. No foolishness about her,
when she has every chance. Hurrah for the Princess!"
It was easy to see that she wasn't going to have nearly so hard a time
changing father's opinion as she would mother's. It was not nearly a
year yet, and here he was changed already. Laddie said good-bye to
mother--he never forgot--gathered up his comfort and bricks, and
started for Pryors' downright happy. We went to the schoolhouse a
little later, all of us scoured, curled, starched, and wearing our very
best clothes. My! but it was fine. There were many lights in the room
and it was hung with greens. There was a crowd even though it was
early. On Miss Amelia's table was a volume of history that was the
prize, and every one was looking and acting the very best he knew how,
although there were cases where they didn't know so very much.
Our Shelley was the handsomest girl there, until the Princess came, and
then they both were. Shelley wore one of her city frocks and a quilted
red silk hood that was one of her Christmas gifts, and she looked just
like a handsome doll. She made every male creature in that room feel
that she was pining for him alone. May had a gay plaid frock and curls
nearly a yard long, and so had I, but both our frocks and curls were
homemade; mother would have them once in a while; father and I couldn't
stop her.
But there was not a soul there who didn't have some sort of gift to
rejoice over, and laughter and shouts of "Merry Christmas!" filled the
room. It was growing late and there was some talk of choosers, when
the door opened and in a rush of frosty air the Princess and Laddie
entered. Every one stopped short and stared.
There was good reason. The Princess looked as if she had accidentally
stepped from a frame. She was always lovely and beautifully dressed,
but to-night she was prettier and finer than ever before. You could
fairly hear their teeth click as some of the most envious of those
girls caught sight of her, for she was wearing a new hat!--a black
velvet store hat, fitting closely over her crown, with a rim of twisted
velvet, a scarlet bird's wing, and a big silver buckle. Her dress was
of scarlet cloth cut in forms, and it fitted as if she had been melted
and poured into it. It was edged around the throat, wrists, and skirt
with narrow bands of fur, and she wore a loose, long, silk-lined coat
of the same material, and worst of all, furs--furs such as we had heard
wealthy and stylish city ladies were wearing. A golden brown cape that
reached to her elbows, with ends falling to the knees, finished in the
tails of some animal, and for her hands a muff as big as a nail keg.
Now, there was not a girl in that room, except the Princess, an she had
those clothes, who wouldn't have flirted like a peacock, almost
bursting with pride; but because the Princess had them, and they
didn't, they sat stolid and sullen, and cast glances at each other as
if they were saying: "The stuck-up thing!" "Thinks she's smart, don't
she?"
Many of them should have gone to meet her and made her welcome, for she
was not of our district and really their guest. Shelley did go, but I
noticed she didn't hurry.
The choosers began at once, and Laddie was the first person called for
our side, and the Princess for the visitors'. Every one in the room
was chosen on one side or the other; even my name was called, but I
only sat still and shook my head, for I very well knew that no one
except father would remember to pronounce easy ones for me, and besides
I was so bitterly disappointed I could scarcely have stood up. They
had put me in a seat near the fire; the spellers lined either wall, and
a goodly number that refused to spell occupied the middle seats. I
couldn't get a glimpse of Laddie or the home folks, or worst of all, of
my idolized Princess.
I never could bear to find a fault with Laddie, but I sadly reflected
that he might as well have left me at home, if I were to be buried
where I could neither hear nor see a thing. I was just wishing it was
summer so I could steal out to the cemetery, and have a good visit with
the butterflies that always swarmed around Georgiana Jane Titcomb's
grave at the corner of the church. I never knew Georgiana Jane, but
her people must have been very fond of her, for her grave was scarlet
with geraniums, and pink with roses from earliest spring until frost,
and the bright colours attracted swarms of butterflies. I had learned
that if I stuck a few blossoms in my hair, rubbed some sweet smelling
ones over my hands, and knelt and kept so quiet that I fitted into the
landscape, the butterflies would think me a flower too, and alight on
my hair, dress, and my hands, even. God never made anything more
beautiful than those butterflies, with their wings of brightly painted
velvet down, their bright eyes, their curious antennae, and their
queer, tickly feet. Laddie had promised me a book telling all about
every kind there was, the first time he went to a city, so I was
wishing I had it, and was among my pet beauties with it, when I
discovered him bending over me.
He took my arm, and marching back to his place, helped me to the deep
window seat beside him, where with my head on a level, and within a
foot of his, I could see everything in the whole room. I don't know
why I ever spent any time pining for the beauties of Georgiana Jane
Titcomb's grave, even with its handsome headstone on which was carved a
lamb standing on three feet and holding a banner over its shoulder with
the fourth, and the geraniums, roses, and the weeping willow that grew
over it, thrown in. I might have trusted Laddie. He never had
forgotten me; until he did, I should have kept unwavering faith.
Now, I had the best place of any one in the room, and I smoothed my new
plaid frock and shook my handmade curls just as near like Shelley as
ever I could. But it seems that most of the ointment in this world has
a fly in it, like in the Bible, for fine as my location was, I soon
knew that I should ask Laddie to put me down, because the window behind
me didn't fit its frame, and the night was bitter. Before half an hour
I was stiff with cold; but I doubt if I would have given up that
location if I had known I would freeze, because this was the most fun I
had ever seen.
Miss Amelia began with McGuffey's spelling book, and whenever some poor
unfortunate made a bad break the crowd roared with laughter. Peter
Justice stood up to spell and before three rounds he was nodding on his
feet, so she pronounced "sleepy" to him. Some one nudged Pete and he
waked up and spelled it, s-l-e, sle, p-e, pe, and because he really was
so sleepy it made every one laugh. James Whittaker spelled compromise
with a k, and Isaac Thomas spelled soap, s-o-a-p-e, and it was all the
funnier that he couldn't spell it, for from his looks you could tell
that he had no acquaintance with it in any shape. Then Miss Amelia
gave out "marriage" to the spooniest young man in the district, and
"stepfather" to a man who was courting a widow with nine children; and
"coquette" to our Shelley, who had been making sheep's eyes at Johnny
Myers, so it took her by surprise and she joined the majority, which by
that time occupied seats.
There was much laughing and clapping of hands for a time, but when Miss
Amelia had let them have their fun and thinned the lines to half a
dozen on each side who could really spell, she began business, and
pronounced the hardest words she could find in the book, and the
spellers caught them up and rattled them off like machines.
"Incompatibility," she gave out, and before the sound of her voice died
away the Princess was spelling: "I-n, in, c-o-m, com, in com, p-a-t,
pat, incompat, i, incompati, b-i-l, bil, incompatibil, i,
incompatibili, t-y, ty, incompatibility."
Then Laddie spelled "incomprehensibility," and they finished up the
"bilities" and the "alities" with a rush and changed McGuffey's for
Webster, with five on Laddie's side and three on the Princess', and
when they quit with it, the Princess was alone, and Laddie and our
little May facing her.
From that on you could call it real spelling. They spelled from the
grammars, hyperbole, synecdoche, and epizeuxis. They spelled from the
physiology, chlorophyll, coccyx, arytenoid, and the names of the bones
and nerves, and all the hard words inside you.
They tried the diseases and spelled jaundice, neurasthenia, and
tongue-tied. They tried all the occupations and professions, and went
through the stores and spelled all sorts of hardware, china and dry
goods. Each side kept cheering its own and urging them to do their
best, and every few minutes some man in the back of the house said
something that was too funny. When Miss Amelia pronounced "bombazine"
to Laddie our side cried, "Careful, Laddie, careful! you're out of your
element!"
And when she gave "swivel-tree" to the Princess, her side whispered,
"Go easy! Do you know what it is? Make her define it."
They branched over the country. May met her Jonah on the mountains.
Katahdin was too much for her, and Laddie and the Princess were left to
fight it out alone. I didn't think Laddie liked it. I'm sure he never
expected it to turn out that way. He must have been certain he could
beat her, for after he finished English there were two or three other
languages he knew, and every one in the district felt that he could
win, and expected him to do it. It was an awful place to put him in, I
could see that. He stood a little more erect than usual, with his eyes
toward the Princess, and when his side kept crying, "Keep the prize,
Laddie! Hold up the glory of the district!" he ground out the words as
if he had a spite at them for not being so hard that he would have an
excuse for going down.
The Princess was poised lightly on her feet, her thick curls, just
touching her shoulders, shining in the light; her eyes like stars, her
perfect, dark oval face flushed a rich red, and her deep bosom rising
and falling with excitement. Many times in later years I have tried to
remember when the Princess was loveliest of all, and that night always
stands first.
I was thinking fast. Laddie was a big man. Men were strong on purpose
so they could bear things. He loved the Princess so, and he didn't
know whether she loved him or not; and every marriageable man in three
counties was just aching for the chance to court her, and I didn't feel
that he dared risk hurting her feelings.
Laddie said, to be the man who conquered the Princess and to whom she
lifted her lips for a first kiss was worth life itself. I made up my
mind that night that he knew just exactly what he was talking about. I
thought so too. And I seemed to understand why Laddie--Laddie in his
youth, strength, and manly beauty, Laddie, who boasted that there was
not a nerve in his body--trembled before the Princess.
It looked as if she had set herself against him and was working for the
honours, and if she wanted them, I didn't feel that he should chance
beating her, and then, too, it was beginning to be plain that it was
none too sure he could. Laddie didn't seem to be the only one who had
been well drilled in spelling.
I held my jaws set a minute, so that I could speak without Laddie
knowing how I was shivering, and then I whispered: "Except her eyes
are softer, she looks just like a cardinal."
Laddie nodded emphatically and moving a step nearer laid his elbow
across my knees. Heavens, how they spelled! They finished all the
words I ever heard and spelled like lightning through a lot of others
the meaning of which I couldn't imagine. Father never gave them out at
home. They spelled epiphany, gaberdine, ichthyology, gewgaw,
kaleidoscope, and troubadour. Then Laddie spelled one word two
different ways; and the Princess went him one better, for she spelled
another three.
They spelled from the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar, Potiphar, Peleg,
Belshazzar, Abimelech, and a host of others I never heard the minister
preach about. Then they did the most dreadful thing of all. "Broom,"
pronounced the teacher, and I began mentally, b-r-o-o-m, but Laddie
spelled "b-r-o-u-g-h-a-m," and I stared at him in a daze. A second
later Miss Amelia gave out "Beecham" to the Princess, and again I tried
it, b-e-e-c-h, but the Princess was spelling "B-e-a-u-c-h-a-m-p," and I
almost fell from the window.
They kept that up until I was nearly crazy with nervousness; I forgot I
was half frozen. I pulled Laddie's sleeve and whispered in his ear:
"Do you think she'll cry if you beat her?"
I was half crying myself, the strain had been awful. I was torn
between these dearest loves of mine.
"Seen me have any chance to beat her?" retorted Laddie.
Miss Amelia seemed to have used most of her books, and at last picked
up an old geography and began giving out points around the coast, while
Laddie and the Princess took turns snatching the words from her mouth
and spelling them. Father often did that, so Laddie was safe there.
They were just going it when Miss Amelia pronounced, "Terra del Fuego,"
to the Princess. "T-e-r-r-a, Terra, d-e-l, del, F-i-e-u-g-o," spelled
the Princess, and sat down suddenly in the midst of a mighty groan from
her side, swelled by a wail from one little home district deserter.
"Next!" called Miss Amelia.
"T-e-r-r-a, Terra, d-e-l, del, F-e-u-g-o," spelled Laddie.
"Wrong!" wailed Miss Amelia, and our side breathed one big groan in
concert, and I lifted up my voice in that also. Then every one laughed
and pretended they didn't care, and the Princess came over and shook
hands with Laddie, and Laddie said to Miss Amelia:
"Just let me take that book a minute until I see how the thing really
does go." It was well done and satisfied the crowd, which clapped and
cheered; but as I had heard him spell it many, many times for father,
he didn't fool me.
Laddie and the Princess drew slips for the book and it fell to her. He
was so pleased he kissed me as he lifted me down and never noticed I
was so stiff I could scarcely stand--and I did fall twice going to the
sleigh. My bed was warm and my room was warm, but I chilled the night
through and until the next afternoon, when I grew so faint and sleepy I
crept to Miss Amelia's desk, half dead with fright--it was my first
trip to ask an excuse--and begged: "Oh teacher, I'm so sick. Please
let me go home."
I think one glance must have satisfied her that it was true, for she
said very kindly that I might, and she would send Leon along to take
care of me. But my troubles were only half over when I had her
consent. It was very probable I would be called a baby and sent back
when I reached home, so I refused company and started alone. It seemed
a mile past the cemetery. I was so tired I stopped, and leaning
against the fence, peeped through at the white stones and the whiter
mounds they covered, and wondered how my mother would feel if she were
compelled to lay me beside the two little whooping cough and fever
sisters already sleeping there. I decided that it would be so very
dreadful, that the tears began to roll down my cheeks and freeze before
they fell.
Down the Big Hill slowly I went. How bare it looked then! Only
leafless trees and dried seed pods rattling on the bushes, the sand
frozen, and not a rush to be seen for the thick blanket of snow. A few
rods above the bridge was a footpath, smooth and well worn, that led
down to the creek, beaten by the feet of children who raced it every
day and took a running slide across the ice. I struck into the path as
always; but I was too stiff to run, for I tried. I walked on the ice,
and being almost worn out, sat on the bridge and fell to watching the
water bubbling under the glassy crust. I was so dull a horse's feet
struck the bridge before I heard the bells--for I had bells in my ears
that day--and when I looked up it was the Princess--the Princess in her
red dress and furs, with a silk hood instead of her hat, her sleigh
like a picture, with a buffalo robe, that it was whispered about the
country, cost over a hundred dollars, and her thoroughbred mare Maud
dancing and prancing. "Bless me! Is it you, Little Sister?" she
asked. "Shall I give you a ride home?"
Before I could scarcely realize she was there, I was beside her and she
was tucking the fine warm robe over me. I lifted a pair of dull eyes
to her face.
"Oh Princess, I am so glad you came," I said. "I don't think I could
have gone another step if I had frozen on the bridge."
The Princess bent to look in my face. "Why, you poor child!" She
exclaimed, "you're white as death! Where are you ill?"
I leaned on her shoulder, though ordinarily I would not have offered to
touch her first, and murmured: "I am not ill, outdoors, only dull,
sleepy, and freezing with the cold."
"It was that window!" she exclaimed. "I thought of it, but I trusted
Laddie."
That roused me a little.
"Oh Princess," I cried, "you mustn't blame Laddie! I knew it was too
cold, but I wouldn't tell him, because if he put me down I couldn't see
you, and we thought, but for your eyes being softer, you looked just
like a cardinal."
The Princess hugged me close and laughed merrily. "You darling!" she
cried.
Then she shook me up sharply: "Don't you dare go to sleep!" she said.
"I must take you home first."
Once there she quieted my mother's alarm, put me to bed, drove three
miles for Dr. Fenner and had me started nicely on the road to a month
of lung fever, before she left. In my delirium I spelled volumes; and
the miracle of it was I never missed a word until I came to "Terra del
Fuego," and there I covered my lips and stoutly insisted that it was
the Princess' secret.
To keep me from that danger sleep on the road, she shook me up and
asked about the spelling bee. I thought it was the grandest thing I
had ever seen in my life, and I told her so. She gathered me close and
whispered: "Tell me something, Little Sister, please."
The minx! She knew I thought that a far finer title than hers.
"Would Laddie care?" I questioned.
"Not in the least!"
"Well then, I will."
"Can Laddie spell 'Terra del Fuego?'" she whispered.
I nodded.
"Are you sure?"
"I have heard him do it over and over for father."
The Princess forgot I was so sick, forgot her horse, forgot everything.
She threw her head back and her hands up, until her horse stopped in
answer to the loosened line, and she laughed and laughed. She laughed
until peal on peal re-echoed from our Big Woods clear across the west
eighty. She laughed until her ringing notes set my slow pulses on
fire, and started my numbed brain in one last effort. I stood up and
took her lovely face between my palms, turning it until I could see
whether the thought that had come to me showed in her eyes, and it did.
"Oh you darling, splendid Princess!" I cried. "You missed it on
purpose to let Laddie beat! You can spell it too!"