One Saturday afternoon in July, while the other girls were playing and
chattering on a shady porch, Anne slipped with Honey-Sweet through a
hole in the hedge and sauntered toward an old brown-stone house set in
spacious grounds near the 'Home.' Anne had long been wanting to explore
the place. She had never seen any one there--the house was closed for
the summer--and in her stories it figured as an enchanted castle. As she
walked ankle-deep in the unclipped grass under the catalpa and
elm-trees, she looked around with eager interest.
She liked everything about the place, even the clump of great rough dock
which had grown up around the back door. A frog hopped under the broad
leaves as she passed. She almost expected to see it come forth changed
to a fairy. Of course she didn't believe in fairies now, but this looked
like a place where they would stay if there were any.
At last she wandered toward a great clump of boxwood near a side gate.
It made such a mass of greenery that Anne pulled aside a branch to see
if it were green inside too. She gave a gasp of delight. The tall,
close-growing stems were thickly leaved on the outside and bare within;
in the centre there was a hollow space, like a little room. There must
be fairies, after all, to make such a beautiful place as this.
Anne pulled aside a branch and crept in. One might have passed a yard
away and never suspected that she was there. After a while, she put
Honey-Sweet down and set to work as a tidy housekeeper should. With a
broom of twigs, she swept up the dead leaves. Then she went out and
pulled handfuls of grass to make a carpet, which she patterned over
with blue stars of periwinkle. For chairs she brought two or three flat
stones. How time flew! While she was looking for green moss to cover
these stones, she was startled to see the sun setting, a red ball on the
horizon. She hurried back to the 'Home.' As she slipped through the
hedge, Emma, the pupil-teacher in charge, hurried across the yard.
"Where on earth have you been, Anne?" she asked crossly. "The
supper-bell rang long ago. I've looked for you everywhere. Where've you
been, I say?"
"Over there," Anne answered, nodding vaguely toward the lawn.
"Out of bounds!" exclaimed Emma. "You knew better, Anne. That you did.
You come straight to Miss Farlow. She was dreadful worried when I told
her I couldn't find you."
Miss Farlow, too, reproved Anne sharply. She was to have a
bread-and-water supper, and then go straight to bed. And she must never
again go out of bounds alone--never. That was strictly forbidden.
Anne ate her bread and drank her water with a downcast air. She was not
thinking about the scolding and her punishment. She was troubled because
Miss Farlow had forbidden her to go off the 'Home' grounds again. Must
she give up her dear secret playhouse? She and Honey-Sweet had had such
a good time! And they were planning to spend all their Saturday
afternoons there. Finally she asked Emma what would be done if she
disobeyed Miss Farlow and went outside bounds again.
Emma knew and answered promptly and cheerfully. She would be whipped,
and that severely.
Anne turned this over in her mind. She was very much afraid of the rod
which had seldom been used to correct her--but a whipping did not last
long, after all, and it would be far worse to give up her beautiful new
playhouse. If Miss Farlow wished to whip her for going there, why, Miss
Farlow would have to do it. Grown-up people had to have their way. But
she wondered if Miss Farlow would not just as lief whip her before she
went as after she came back. It would be a pity to spoil the beautiful
afternoon with expectation of punishment.
After prayers next Saturday morning, Anne lingered near Miss Farlow's
desk.
"Do you wish to speak to me, Anne Lewis?" asked that lady, frowning over
a handful of bills.
"If you please--wouldn't you as soon--won't you please whip me before I
go out of bounds?" she requested.
"What's that you're saying, Anne Lewis? What do you mean?" asked Miss
Farlow.
Anne explained.
"Pity sake!" the bewildered lady exclaimed. She looked at Anne over her
spectacles, then took them off and stared as if trying to find out what
kind of a queer little creature this was. "Do you mean," she inquired
solemnly, "that you'd rather be a bad girl and go out of bounds and be
whipped--rather than be good and stay in bounds?"
"If you please, Miss Farlow." Anne stood her ground bravely though her
knees were shaking.
"Anne Lewis, if whipping will not make you obey, we must--must try
something else," Miss Farlow said severely. She considered awhile, then
she asked: "Why are you so anxious to go out of bounds?"
Anne went a step nearer. "It isn't far," she said. "Just across the
hedge. It's a secret. A beautiful place. I take Honey-Sweet--she's my
doll--and we play stories. It's just my private property." Anne used the
words she heard often from the larger girls.
"You mean that you play it is," Miss Farlow corrected gravely. "You
don't get in mischief--or go where it's unsafe?"
"Indeed I don't, Miss Farlow," said Anne, earnestly. "I just sit there
and play with Honey-Sweet."
"It's safe and near, and the Marshalls are away--they wouldn't care,"
considered Miss Farlow. "I'll allow you to go there this one afternoon.
Tell Emma I say you may play beyond the hedge."
Anne skipped away with a radiant face. On hearing her message, Emma
scowled and said: "I think you oughtn't to have any holiday at all for
making so much trouble last Saturday. I could have crocheted dozens of
rows on my mat while I was looking for you. I tell you what, missy, if
you're naughty and disobedient, you'll be sent away from here."
"Sent where, Miss Emma?" asked Anne.
"Oh, away. Back where you came from," answered Emma.
Anne ran away, happier than ever. Being sent away, then, was the
"something else" that Miss Farlow said they must try if she were naughty
and disobedient. "Back where she came from!" That meant to Miss Drayton
and Pat. Anne resolved that she would be very naughty so they would send
her away as soon as possible. That evening she began to carry out her
plan and let a cup fall while she was washing dishes. Jane, who was
helping her, looked frightened, but Anne only smiled. That was one step
toward Miss Drayton. During the days that followed, Anne was a very
naughty girl. She came late to breakfast, with rough hair and dangling
ribbons; she tore her aprons; she rumpled her frocks; her usually tidy
bed was in valleys and mountains; her tasks were neglected or ill done.
She was reproved; she was punished. But she accepted each reproof and
punishment calmly.
"Next time," she thought, "they will think I am bad enough to send me
away--back to dear Miss Drayton."
The punishment she disliked most was that on Saturday afternoon, instead
of being allowed to go out, she was sent to her room in disgrace. She
was sitting doleful by a window, neglecting the task assigned her, when
Milly came in. Milly was one of the larger girls who went out as a
seamstress.
"You kept in, ain't you?" she said, sitting down and beginning to make
buttonholes.
Anne nodded.
"What's come over you?" Milly asked. "You don't act like the same girl
you used to be. Why, you're downright bad."
Anne smiled knowingly. "That I am," she agreed.
"How come?" Milly inquired.
Anne hesitated, then she poured out the whole story. 'She wanted so much
to go back to Miss Drayton. And didn't Milly think she was 'most bad
enough now?'
Milly threw back her head and laughed till she cried.
"Oh, you Anne! you Anne!" she exclaimed. At last she got breath enough
to explain that Emma had only said that because she was provoked. It was
not true. Anne would not be sent away. Indeed, there was nowhere to send
her. Miss Farlow took charge of her and would keep her because there was
no one else to care for her. She would stay there till she was large
enough to go out and work for herself, as Milly did.
Anne was much disappointed. She had set her heart on going back to Miss
Drayton. Still it was disagreeable to be naughty and in disgrace all the
time. Louise used to say, too, that no one loved naughty girls, and Anne
loved to be loved. She didn't care to be large if she had to make
dresses like Milly, when she went away from the 'Home.' She did hate to
sew! She cried a little while, then she washed her face, brushed her
hair, learned the hymn set her as an afternoon task, and went downstairs
to tea, a meek, well-behaved girl again.