MAIDA’S MOOD
“What are you so quiet about, Maida?” Dicky asked at breakfast a few
mornings later. “I don’t think you’ve said a word since you’ve got up.”
“Haven’t I?” Maida replied. But she added nothing.
At first because of the noise which prevailed at breakfasts in the
Little House, nobody noticed Maida’s continued silence. Then finally
Rosie Brine made comment on it. “Sleepy-head! Sleepy-head!” she teased.
“Wake up and talk. You’re not in bed asleep. You’re sitting at the
table.”
Maida opened her lips to speak but closed them quickly on something
which it was apparent, she even repented thinking. She shut her lips
firmly and maintained her silence.
“S’eepy-head! S’eepy-head!” the little mimic, Delia, prattled. “Wate up
and tot. Not in bed as’eep. Sitting at table.”
Everybody laughed. Everybody always laughed at Delia’s strenuous
efforts to produce as copious a stream of conversation as the
grown-ups. But Maida only bit her lips.
The talk drifted among the older children to plans for the day.
“Perhaps you will give us your views, Miss Westabrook,” Laura said
after some discussion, with a touch of purely friendly sarcasm. “That
is if you will condescend to talk with us.”
“Oh can’t I be quiet once in a while,” Maida exclaimed pettishly,
“without everybody speaking of it!” She rose from the table. “I’m tired
of talking!” She walked quickly out of the dining room and ran upstairs
to her own chamber. The children stared for a moment petrified.
“Why I never saw Maida cross before,” Rosie said in almost an awed
tone. “I wonder what can be the matter. I hope I didn’t say anything--”
“No, of course you didn’t,” Arthur answered. “Maida got out of the
wrong side of her bed this morning--that’s all.”
“Well,” Laura concluded generously, “if anybody’s got a right to be
cross once in a while, it’s Maida. She’s always so sweet.”
After breakfast, the children separated, as was the custom of the
Little House, to the early morning tasks. But Rosie and Laura lingered
about, talking in low tones, before one went to the library and the
other into the living room to do her daily stint of dusting. After this
work was finished, they proceeded to the garden and plucked flowers
together.
It was phlox season and Laura cut great bunches of blossoms that ran
all the shades from white to a deep magenta through pink, vermilion,
lavender and purple-blue. But Rosie chose caligulas--changelessly
orange; zinnias--purple, garnet, crimson; marigolds--yellow and gold.
“Oh how lovely they look,” Laura exclaimed burying her face in the
delicately-perfumed mass of phlox. She put her harvest on a rock and
helped Rosie with the more difficult work of gathering nasturtiums. The
vines and plants were now full of blossoms. It was impossible to keep
ahead of them. They picked all they could.
“I hope Maida isn’t sick,” Laura said after a while.
“I don’t believe she is,” Rosie reassured her.
“I wonder if we ought not to go up to her room,” Laura mused. “Let’s!”
Rosie reflected. “No, I think we’d better wait until after we’ve come
back from the errands. Maida wants to be alone so seldom that I guess
we’d better not interrupt her. Besides I heard her slam her door hard
and then lock it. I guess that means she doesn’t want anybody around
for a time.”
“I guess it does too,” Laura agreed. “It isn’t my turn to go to market,
but I’m going with you this morning, Rosie. It’ll give Maida a chance
to be alone for a while.”
The little girls trundled their bicycles out of the barn; mounted them
and speeded down the long trail which led to the road.
In the meantime, Maida still remained in her room. She made her bed
with fierce determined motions, as though it were a work of destruction
rather than construction. She dusted her bureau with swift slapping
strokes. Then she sat down by the window. Why was she cross, she didn’t
know; but undoubtedly she _was_ cross. She didn’t want to go anywhere;
she didn’t want to play games; to see anybody; least of all to talk.
Why--when ordinarily she was so sociable, she should have this feeling
she had no idea. Nevertheless it was there.
From various directions, sound of voices came to her; Rosie’s and
Laura’s from the garden; the boys from the barn; the little children
from House Rock. Rosie and Laura were nearer, but she could not hear
what they were saying. And of course she made no attempt to listen.
Later she heard them go around to the barn--she knew they were off on
the morning marketing. Still Maida continued to sit listlessly looking
out of the window.
A long time seemed to go by.
Presently she heard in the distance, the sound of Laura and Rosie
returning. They were evidently in a great state of excitement. She
could hear them chattering about something as they came up the trail to
the house. She did not feel like talking, but she knew it was her duty
to meet them, to apologize for her rudeness, to go on with the usual
games of the day. She caught the rattle with which the two girls put
their bicycles in place; then their swift rush to the kitchen. At the
door she got in Rosie’s high excited tones, “Where’s Maida, Granny?”
“Still upstairs,” Granny answered. “I haven’t heard her stir.”
“We’ve got something to tell her,” Rosie went on swiftly.
“And the most dreadful thing has happened,” Laura put in
simultaneously. Then talking together in phrases that broke one against
the other or overlapped, “A dreadful accident ... Silva Burle ... this
morning ... she was on her bicycle ... man just learning to run an
automobile ... knocked her off ... picked up senseless.... It happened
in front of Fosdick house ... took her in ... there now....”
“How is the poor choild?” Maida heard Granny ask compassionately.
“Nothing broken,” Laura answered eagerly, “but it was a long time
before she came to.”
“She’s not unconscious any longer,” Rosie concluded the story. “She’s
asleep, but she moans and mutters all the time.”
Maida listened, horrified. She felt that she ought to go downstairs and
talk with the girls. She felt that she ought to get on her bicycle, go
at once to see Silva.
Apparently Mrs. Dore said something to that effect; for Rosie answered
promptly, “Oh no, nobody’s allowed to see her yet.”
Somehow if she could not go to Silva, Maida did not feel like talking.
Not yet at any rate. Why not get away from the house until her strange
mood passed?