_SARAH._
FANNY went back to her room feeling very much vexed and a good deal
ashamed. She did not at all like to be conquered, and she had certainly
had very much the worst of it in her contest with her grandmother. She
had not only failed in getting her own way, but she had made herself
ridiculous. Then, too, she had lost a very good dinner, a circumstance
to which she was by no means indifferent.
"How I wish I had just gone down at first!" she thought. "But then who
would have supposed she would take one up so? Oh dear, I wish I had
never come here. It is all the fault of that hateful old nurse and
doctor. I know mamma would have taken me only for them, and I should
be having a nice time in London this very day, instead of being poked
up in this lonesome place with nobody to play with but Sarah Leyman.
And now grandma says I must not go with her. But I don't care, I 'will'
play with her. Mamma always let me play with anybody I pleased, and I
guess she knows. I am not going to be made a slave of just because my
mother is sick—so there!"
"Fanny," called Mrs. Lilly from the foot of the stairs, "do you want to
go to the meeting to-night?"
Now Fanny liked very well to go to the meetings in the schoolhouse,
though she had called them stupid. The walk was a very pleasant one
through the woods and along the banks of the beautiful little river.
They were sure to see squirrels and chipmucks and perhaps a wild
rabbit, and the lambs in the pastures were so full of their pretty
plays that Fanny was never tired watching them. Then the old ladies
who came to the meeting took a great deal of notice of her, so that
though she did not care for the services, she rather liked to go to the
Sunday and Thursday meetings. But to-night she was just in the humour
to "quarrel with her bread and butter," as Oney said. So when her
grandmother asked her, she answered shortly that she did not want to go.
"You will be left alone in the house," said her grandmother.
"I would just as soon be alone as not," returned Fanny.
"To be sure, there is nothing to hurt you," said her grandmother, "but
I thought you might be afraid. However, you can do just as you please."
"I mean to do as I please, thank you," said Fanny, under her breath.
Mrs. Lilly, seeing that Fanny was still out of humour, said no more,
but shut the door, and presently went out with Oney. Fanny watched them
across the fields. And when they were quite out of sight, she went down
stairs into the pantry.
"I don't care; I mean to have some of that raspberry pie, anyhow," said
she.
But in vain did she search; she could find neither pie nor cake.
Mrs. Lilly was not in the habit of locking up such things, but she had
reason to think that Fanny helped herself slyly to a good deal more
than was good for her, and she had taken the precaution before she went
out to lock the door of the milkroom.
Fanny stamped her foot with vexation.
"Just like her, the stingy old thing! I don't care; I will have some in
spite of her."
"Some of what?" asked a voice behind her.
Fanny started violently, and turned round in a hurry to see Sarah
Leyman standing in the kitchen door.
"How you frightened me!" exclaimed Fanny, in an angry tone.
"Yes, you jumped as if you had been shot," returned Sarah, laughing.
"I saw your folks going to meeting, and I knew you would be alone. But
what is the matter? What have you been crying about?"
Fanny poured out the story of her wrongs with many exaggerations.
"What a shame!" said Sarah. "Folks think Mrs. Lilly is such a good
woman, too!"
"Well, I suppose she is," said Fanny, "but I think she is too bad to
treat me so. I know there are plenty of nice things in the milkroom,
but the door is locked and I can't find the key anywhere."
"Isn't there any other key that will fit the door?" asked Sarah.
Fanny brought all the keys of the house, but none of them fitted.
"Can't we climb in at the window?" asked Sarah. "'I' can, I know."
"You can't, bemuse there are bars across it."
"Bother!" Sarah stood considering for a minute, and then, as if struck
with a sudden thought, she ran out at the kitchen door.
Fanny followed her, and found her standing at the side of the milkroom.
This room was a "lean-to" built on the north side of the house, and two
or three of the clapboards were so arranged as to turn edgewise like
window-blinds to let the cool air in on the milk. Sarah was peeping
through these boards.
"Just look there!" said she as Fanny came up.
Fanny peeped in, in her turn, and saw a whole raspberry pie standing on
the broad shelf.
While she was looking, Sarah slipped off the jacket she wore, and
thrusting her bare arm through the slats, she pulled out the pie and
held it up in triumph.
"Well, I declare!" said Fanny, half pleased and half scared.
"I am going to have more than that, now I am about it," said Sarah.
And again putting her hand through the slats, she pulled out a large
cake of gingerbread. As she drew back her hand, however, she hit the
gingerbread against the edge of the slat and broke off a bit, which
fell into the milk.
"That was smart!" exclaimed Fanny. "What will you do now?"
"Let it alone, to be sure," replied Sarah. "But grandma will find it
when she skims the milk."
"Well, let her. She won't know how it came there, will she? Here, hold
the things while I put on my jacket."
Fanny did not quite relish Sarah's tone of command, but she did not
know how to object, and she did as she was told.
"Come now!" said Sarah, when she had put on her jacket and closed up
the slats again. "Let's go up to the spring and have a good time."
"But suppose grandma comes and catches us before we get through; what
shall we do then?" asked Fanny.
"She won't come home this hour and more, goosey. Meeting is not out
till six, and it is only five now. Besides, she always stops to talk to
every one. Come along!"
"I wish you would not call me names, Sarah Leyman," said Fanny,
angrily. "I am not used to it."
"Nonsense, child! Who minds being called a goose? Come along, and don't
waste all the time."
"I won't go up to the spring; it is too far," said Fanny. "You can go
if you like, and I will eat my piece here."
"'Your' piece!" returned Sarah, in a taunting tone. "Your piece,
indeed! I should like to know how it comes to be yours. Do you think I
am going to steal pies and cakes for 'you'?"
"Sarah Leyman, if you don't give me a piece of pie this minute, I will
tell grandma the instant she comes home."
"Oh, you will? And tell her too how you told me where all the things
were, and how you got all the keys to try the door, and how you ran
away and went down to the village the other day, and then said you had
been playing down by the brook all the time. Oh," said Sarah, "you will
make a fine figure telling of me. Suppose I tell of you; what then?"
Fanny burst into tears.
"Oh, come, don't cry," said Sarah, changing her tone. "I was only in
fun—only you see, Fanny, I don't like to hear you talk of telling of
me as if I had been the only one to blame. Come, let us go up to the
spring and have a nice time, and I will tell you what I heard Miss
Clarke tell mother about the Brandons."
Fanny did not feel at all satisfied, but she dried her tears and
followed Sarah through the garden and a small field beyond it, and then
a little way up the path which ascended the mountain, till they came to
the spring.
It was a beautiful place. Just at the foot of a high, steep ledge of
rocks was a little mossy dell shaded by great pine and spruce trees,
mixed with graceful white-stemmed birches. The ground was covered with
moss and ferns, and scattered over its surface lay several large rocks
covered with lovely green and brown mosses. The spring came running out
of the very heart of the mountain, as it seemed, about four feet from
the ground, in a stream as large as a man's wrist. And making a pretty
little cascade as it fell down the stones, it slipped away among the
roots of the great trees to join the river below. Almost all day long
this little glen was in shadow, but as the sun got low in the sky, it
shone in and lighted everything beautifully.
The girls sat down on a stone side by side, and Sarah divided the pie
with a knife which she took out of her pocket.
"Take care! Don't drop the juice on your dress," said she. "Here, wait
till I make you a dish."
"How will you make a dish?" asked Fanny.
"You'll see," said Sarah.
And going to the nearest birch tree, she cut round the bark and peeled
it off in a broad sheet. Then turning up the edges, she made of it a
very nice square dish and handed it to Fanny.
"How pretty!" exclaimed Fanny. "But won't it hurt the tree to take the
bark off so?"
"Oh no; it won't hurt the tree so long as you don't cut down through
the soft wood," replied Sarah. "I have heard Aunt Sally say that when
the country was new the school children used to learn to write on birch
bark."
"How funny! Won't any other bark do as well?"
"No; other trees won't peel as the birch does."
"How much you do know about such things!" remarked Fanny.
"Well, I ought to know. I don't know anything else." There was a
bitterness in Sarah's tone which made Fanny look up in surprise.
"It does make me mad," continued Sarah, "to see how other girls can go
to school and have books at home, and all—such fools as some of them
are too—and I never have a chance. It is too bad!"
"But you might go to school," said Fanny.
"Yes, I look like it, don't I?" returned Sarah, scornfully. "My clothes
are so nice! I think I see myself going down to the Union school among
all the young ladies, and being put into the baby-room to spell along
with the little ones. I did use to go sometimes when we had the old
district school up at the Corners, but it is altogether another thing
now."
Fanny did not know what to say to this, so she was silent, and went on
eating her pie.
"I tell you what," said Sarah: "if I had your chance, Fanny Lilly, I
wouldn't be such a dunce as you are."
"What do you mean?" asked Fanny, surprised.
"I mean just what I say. Here you have been to school all your life and
had good people to bring you up, and you have had, I dare say, hundreds
of dollars spent on your schooling already, and what do you amount to?
I don't see that you know much more than I do, and you are just as
ready to get into any sort of mischief as I am. I suppose your folks
are pious and believe in the Bible, and you have been to Sunday-school
all your life and learned the commandments, and everything, haven't
you?"
"Of course," replied Fanny; "I began to go to the infant school before
I can remember, and I could say all the catechism before I went into
the intermediate room. We have such splendid Sunday-school rooms at our
church in Boston—larger than the church is here, with a gallery all
round it for the Bible classes, and the walls all hung with pictures,
and with painted texts and with cushioned seats that turn like those in
the cars." And Fanny went on describing the beauties and glories of her
Sunday-school room, and, I am sorry to say, stretching the truth a good
deal in order to show Sarah how much superior was everything in Boston
to everything anywhere else.
Sarah listened silently, but with evident interest. And when Fanny had
concluded, she said, simply,—
"And after all that, you are not one bit better than I am."
Fanny was very much "taken aback." She had not expected any such answer.
"It just shows what all that stuff is worth," continued Sarah, breaking
the gingerbread in two and giving Fanny half. "After all that teaching
and preaching and reading the Bible and praying, here you are 'breaking
the Sabbath,' as old Mrs. Crane says, running away to eat stolen goods
on Sunday evening when your grandmother is at meeting. It just shows
that you don't believe one word of it, any more than pa does, for all
your talk. I wonder if anybody does?"
"Does what?" asked Fanny.
"Believe really in the Bible and all the minister preaches."
"Of course," said Fanny. "My father and mother do, and so do I."
"Oh, you do! Then, what are you here for?"
Fanny had no answer ready. She had never regarded the matter in that
way before.
"Well, never mind," said Sarah. "Here we are, and the pie is eaten up,
and there is no help for it now. I wonder how they are getting on at
the schoolhouse? I think I can hear Deacon Crane starting the tune this
minute."
And Sarah began to imitate first the deacon's way of singing, and then
stammering Mr. Wilson trying to make a prayer, and so on, till she had
Fanny in a fit of laughter, though something told her all the time that
Sarah was doing wrong, and that she was equally wrong to laugh at her.
"It is getting late, Fanny," said Sarah, checking herself suddenly.
"Hadn't you better be going home? Your folks will be back from meeting
by this time. Look at the sun."
Fanny looked, and was startled to see how low it was in the sky. "They
must have been home ever so long," said she. "What shall we do?"
"Oh, you needn't say 'we,'" returned Sarah, coolly. "It is nothing to
me. I've had my supper, and I mean to stay up here till the moon rises,
but I think you had better run along."
"But grandma will see me," said Fanny. "She will have missed me by this
time, and what shall I say?"
"Say you got tired of staying alone and went out for a walk, and that
you didn't know how late it was," returned Sarah, readily. "She won't
think anything of that. I have known her walk up here herself on a
Sunday evening."
"But what shall we do with the plate?"
"Hide it here," returned Sarah, putting the plate away in a kind of
little cavern under the rock on which they had been sitting. "There it
is safe enough, and we can have it to use again some time."
"But what shall I say when they miss the pie?"
"What you please," returned Sarah. "I guess you are as well able to
make up lies as I am to make them for you. Oh, you needn't look at me!
Didn't you tell me how you ran away from school at Boston, and all
the rest of it? Come, do run along! You won't make it any better by
waiting."
There was no help for it, and Fanny went on her way, wishing a hundred
times that she had stayed quietly at home. As she entered the garden,
she met Oney coming to look for her.
"Why, Fanny, where have you been?" asked Oney.
"I got tired of staying at home and went out for a walk," replied
Fanny. "I didn't know it was so late. How long have you been at home?"
"About half an hour. But come, supper is almost ready."
Mrs. Lilly was standing at the back door when they came in.
Fanny repeated her story, adding, "I am sorry I stayed so long,
grandma. I never thought how late it was till I looked at the sun, and
then I hurried home as fast as I could. There was no harm in my going
far a walk, was there?"
Fanny spoke in such a natural tone that Mrs. Lilly was quite deceived.
"Why, no, perhaps not, though you should not have left the house all
open. And besides, you know I like to know where you are. There is no
harm done, but I would rather you would not do so again."
"I won't," said Fanny, feeling a little self-reproach at the kind tone
in which her grandmother spoke. "And, grandma, I am sorry I was so
naughty this noon, but I will never do so again if you will forgive me
this time."
Mrs. Lilly was pleased that Fanny should thus confess her fault and ask
pardon of her own accord.
"I am sure I forgive you, my dear," said she, kissing Fanny. "I thought
you would think better of it. Go, now, and get ready for supper."
"Oh dear! I wish I hadn't done so!" said Fanny as she went up stairs.
"I wish I was good like grandma. I believe she is good, for all Sarah
says. Anyhow, it was all Sarah's fault. She made me do it."