Susan and Gentilla were at play in the garden, walking Indian fashion up
one path and down the other between the rows of summer vegetables. The
little girls held their arms outstretched to keep their balance, and,
now and then, with shrill little screams, one or the other would almost,
but not quite, topple over.
Occasionally Gentilla, unsteady on her feet, made a misstep among the
beets and peas, and once she sat down upon a cabbage. But, as she was as
light as a feather, it certainly did the cabbage no harm, and perhaps a
great deal of good for all we know to the contrary.
"Gentilla," said Susan, struck with a happy thought, "let's go play on
the schoolhouse steps."
"Yes, let's," said Gentilla agreeably. She did not know where the
schoolhouse steps were, but she would have gone as willingly to the
North Pole if Susan had suggested it.
She and Susan had become warm friends. Gentilla spent almost every day
at the house on Featherbed Lane, and Grandmother and Grandfather and
even Miss Liza had grown fond of the little gypsy girl because of her
happy disposition and loving little ways. Gentilla was not a great
talker, but she made smiles and a dimple and funny little bobs of her
head take the place of speech. She liked to steal up behind you and
place a kiss as soft as thistledown in the palm of your hand. She rubbed
gently up against one as a little kitten would, and by her pats and what
Susan called "smoothings" told you how much she loved you without a
single word.
"She is a good child," said Grandmother. "I can hardly believe that she
is a real gypsy child. She doesn't seem like one to me."
"She does wind herself round your heart," confided Miss Liza. "If I
lived alone I would almost think of adopting her, though I don't know
whether her people would be willing to part with her."
"Mr. Whiting says they are a little jealous because we do so much for
Gentilla, and not for their own little girls. He thinks we haven't been
very wise," answered Mrs. Whiting. "And now that you have made Gentilla
these aprons, I don't know what they will say."
From the shady back porch, where Grandmother and Miss Liza sat rocking
and sewing together, it looked as if two Susans, one large and one
small, were walking down the path toward them. For Gentilla wore, fitted
to her small person, a dress Susan had outgrown, and on her feet a pair
of Susan's shoes, the toes well stuffed with cotton.
"Grandmother, we are going to play," called Susan. "And I want to
whisper in your ear."
"Can't you say it out loud?" inquired Grandmother mildly. "It isn't
polite to whisper, Susan."
"I only wanted to ask if I might pack a lunch in my little basket for
us," said Susan. "It isn't a secret. I just as lief have Miss Liza
hear."
Susan reappeared in a moment, basket in hand, carrying Snowball and
Flip.
"Let me see what you took, Susan," said Grandmother.
In the basket were two molasses peppermints and two lumps of sugar.
"Just enough for Gentilla and me," said Susan contentedly. "Phil has
gone to Green Valley with his mother."
Down the lane they started, Gentilla carrying Snowball, Susan with Flip
and the basket of lunch.
"There is no use looking in there to-day," announced Susan, waving her
hand toward the office. "Grandfather has gone fishing, and Snuff has
gone with him. This is good weather for fishing. Grandfather said so,
and he knows everything."
"Everything," echoed Gentilla loyally.
"Yes, he does," Susan chattered on. "When I was little, I used to wonder
why he wasn't a king. There are always plenty of kings in fairy stories,
but there don't seem to be any round here. Did you ever see a king?"
Gentilla shook her head solemnly, but Susan was not looking at her.
"Gentilla," said Susan, staring at the schoolhouse door, "it's open!"
Never before had Susan seen the schoolhouse door unlocked. Many times
had she shaken it and rattled the knob, and all of no avail. But now the
door actually stood ajar, and, with a push that sent it wide open,
Susan, followed by Gentilla, stepped over the threshold.
The air in the schoolroom was close and warm, and dust lay thick upon
the floor and danced in the beams of sunlight that filtered through the
grimy window-panes.
Susan walked about, surveying the battered desks covered with scratches
and ink-spots and ornamented with initials cut into the wood. The door
of the rusty stove stood open, and within lay a heap of torn papers. The
faded maps were not interesting, and Susan began to think the schoolroom
more attractive when peeped at from the porch than when actually within
it.
"Let's go outside," said she to Gentilla, who had followed her about
like Mary's lamb. "Then we'll sit down and eat our lunch." The lunch
basket, guarded by Flip and Snowball, had been left on the porch steps.
Susan turned the knob of the schoolhouse door, which had swung shut
behind them, and pulled. The door wouldn't open. Susan tugged until she
grew red in the face.
"You try, Gentilla," said she.
Gentilla obligingly gave a pull, and toppled over backward upon the
floor.
"Don't cry," said Susan, helping her to her feet. "We will just climb
out of the window."
But the windows, swollen and stiff, were no more accommodating than the
door.
Susan climbed up on the window-sill, and, covered with dust and dirt,
pushed and pulled until she was quite out of breath.
"I can't," she gasped. "I can't open it. What shall we do?"
Gentilla's face puckered up at sight of Susan's distress. She ran back
to the door and beat upon it with her soft little fists.
"You open, you open," called Gentilla, in a pitiful little pipe that
would have moved a heart of stone.
Susan wanted to cry. There was a big lump in her throat, and it was only
vigorous winking and blinking that kept the tears from falling down her
cheeks.
But Susan was repeating to herself something she had overheard
Grandmother say to Miss Liza that very afternoon.
"Susan is a real little mother to Gentilla," Grandmother had said.
And, at the time, Susan had thought, "If Gentilla ever falls into the
fire or tumbles down the well, I must be the one to pull her out."
And she had almost hoped that something of the kind might happen, so
that she might show how brave she was, and how devoted to her little
friend.
Surely now the time had come. Perhaps they would have to stay forever in
the schoolhouse. Without anything to eat they would grow thinner and
thinner and thinner until there would be nothing left of them at all. At
this doleful thought, one tear rolled down Susan's nose and splashed on
the dusty boards. But only one! For she swallowed hard, gave herself a
little shake, and then took Gentilla by the hand.
"Come," said she, drawing her gently away from the door. "We will stay
by the window, and when anybody goes by, we will knock and shout and
call, and some one will let us out, I know."
So the two little girls stationed themselves by the front window and
looked longingly out at the sunny road, the dancing leaves, and oh,
cruelest of all, the lunch basket on the porch steps, still guarded by
the faithful Flip and Snowball.
Susan, her face streaked with dirt, polished off the window-glass as
best she could with her pocket handkerchief.
"Grandmother will find us," said she hopefully. "Or else Grandfather
will. Don't you be afraid, Gentilla."
But in her heart she thought:
"Grandfather has gone fishing, and perhaps he won't be home till black
night. And I didn't tell Grandmother where we were going; I know I
didn't tell her where we were going."
These sad thoughts were interrupted by the welcome sound of wheels.
"Knock and scream, knock and scream!" called Susan excitedly.
And they fell to work with a will, Susan redoubling her efforts when she
saw that it was Mr. Drew, hastening home behind little brown Molly.
But the _clip_, _clap_, _clip_, _clap_, of Molly's hoofs drowned all the
noise they made, and Mr. Drew, with not a glance toward the schoolhouse,
drove out of sight.
Susan looked blankly at Gentilla.
"Oh, what a long time we've been here," said she forlornly. "It must be
nearly night."
"Nearly night," echoed Gentilla.
She sat down on the floor with her back against the wall, leaving Susan
alone on guard. She shut her eyes, her head nodded once or twice, and
when Susan next glanced at her she lay on the floor sound asleep.
"Oh, Gentilla, wake up! I'm afraid to stay here alone. Wake up!" began
poor Susan, who at that moment would have welcomed the company of even a
fly buzzing on the window-pane. But the thought of Grandmother's speech
silenced her.
"I won't wake her up, and I won't cry either," thought she. And pressing
her face against the window, she bravely watched the empty road for a
five minutes that actually seemed to her two hours long.
All kinds of dreadful thoughts began to come to Susan's mind. Were there
bears in the woods, and at nightfall would they come lumbering out, and,
pushing the door open, squeeze her and Gentilla to death in a mighty
bear hug? What if Grandfather had made a mistake and the Indians had not
all gone away years ago! Suppose they should carry her off and stain her
brown with berry juice, like the little girl in her story book, so that,
even if Grandfather should see her, he would never know that it was his
black-eyed Susan, but would think she was a real true little Indian
girl.
Susan gave a start of horror and almost screamed out loud. Up the road
this moment there came prowling a big dark animal.
"Gentilla, Gentilla, here's a bear!" called Susan in a frenzy. "Wake up
and help me! Here's a bear! Oh! Oh! He's coming after us! Gentilla!
Gentilla!--Why, it's Snuffy! Snuffy! Snuffy! save me!"
And Susan's cries of fright changed into those of joy and hope as soon
as she saw that the great brown bear was none other than shaggy,
comfortable, homelike Snuff.
Snuffy's bright eyes caught sight of his familiars, Snowball and Flip,
seated in lonely state upon the schoolhouse steps. The little basket,
which, in days gone by, had often held goodies, as he well knew, excited
his curiosity. Up the steps tripped Master Snuff to sniff delicately at
the refreshments, and then, to the joy of the prisoners, he saw their
faces and heard their knocks and calls.
He barked furiously, and leaped up at the window. He ran to the door,
scratching and whining to be let in, then back to the window where he
echoed their cries for help by barkings so frantic that Grandfather,
trudging leisurely along with his string of fish, wondered what Snuff
had cornered on the old school porch.
Snuff was wise enough to know that something was wrong, and that
Grandfather was needed to set it right.
Susan held her breath for fear he was leaving them to their fate as he
galloped down the walk, but it was only to circle round Grandfather and
back again to the steps, where he halted, waiting for his master to join
him.
"You rascal," called Grandfather. "I suppose you think I ought to carry
those dolls up to the house for Susan. Come along with me, sir."
But when Snuff recommenced barking and leaping at the window,
Grandfather Whiting followed him up the walk, and a second later the
treacherous door was flung open and Susan was in his arms.
"My own Susan, what is it? What are you doing in here?" asked
Grandfather tenderly, as a very dirty little girl clasped him tight, and
sent a hot shower of tears down the back of his neck.
"The door wouldn't open, and I didn't wake her up, and I was afraid of
bears and Indians," sobbed Susan. "But I knew you'd come, I knew you'd
come! And Snuff shall have all the lunch, every bit, because he saved
us."
And breathing hard, and winking fast, and holding tight to Grandfather's
hand, Susan gladly rewarded Snuff, who devoured his treat in two bites,
and then, waving his tail jauntily, ran on ahead to prepare Grandmother
for their coming.
Halfway up the lane, the party met Miss Liza, homeward bound.
"Let me take Gentilla," said she, when she had heard the story. "I'll
leave her at the camp. She is too little to understand, but Susan has
had quite a fright. They weren't gone from home an hour, though," she
added, "but I suppose it seemed long to them."
Of course it did. Susan could never be made to believe that she and
Gentilla had not been imprisoned in the schoolhouse for hours and hours,
perhaps half a day.
When she reached home, she enjoyed telling the story over and over.
Grandmother was sympathetic, and gave Susan a lecture upon going into
strange places and shutting the door behind her. Grandfather was
concerned with the fact that the door was open at all, and wanted to
know who had been tampering with town property.
Phil was the most satisfactory audience of all, for he bitterly
regretted having missed the adventure, and listened again and again to
Susan's account of it with undiminished interest. She was able to brag
and boast to him as she could to no one else, and before they separated
for the night neither one was quite sure whether or not real bears and
Indians had come out of the woods and been driven away by Susan
single-handed.
"We'll play about it," said Phil, rising slowly from the steps as he
heard his mother for the third time call him to come home. "We'll take
turns being bears and Indians. We can play in my woodshed and we'll play
it the first thing--"
"Phil!" came his father's voice.
Phil skipped down the path toward home with the speed of a grasshopper.
"To-morrow!" he called back as he hopped over the stone wall.
Something so exciting was to happen "to-morrow" that, for the time
being, this adventure was to be cast in the shade. But Susan went to bed
that night feeling quite a heroine, and knowing there was no one in the
world Phil envied so much as herself.