PRUDY'S WHITE TEA
"Blessings on the blessed children!" said aunt Madge, one morning soon
after this. "So we little folks are going out to spend the day, are
we?"
"Yes'm," replied Grace, "all but Horace."
"Yes," said Prudy, dancing in high glee, "grandma wants _me_ to go,
and I'm goin'. I mean to do every single thing grandma wants me to."
"I wish you could go with us, aunt Madge," said Grace, almost pouting;
"we don't have half so good times with aunt Louise."
"No, we don't," cried Prudy; "she wants us to 'take care' all the
time. She don't love little girls when she has 'the nervous.'"
Almost while they were talking, their aunt Louise came into the room,
looking prettier than ever in her new pink dress. She was a very young
lady, hardly fifteen years old.
"Come, Prudy," said she, smiling, "please run up stairs and get my
parasol--there's a darling."
But Prudy was picking a pebble out of her shoe, and did not start at
once.
"Ah!" said aunt Louise, drawing on her gloves, "I see Prudy isn't
going to mind me."
"Well, don't you see me getting up out of my chair?" said Prudy.
"There now, don't you see me got clear to the door?"
"O dear," said poor aunt Louise to her sister, "what shall I do all
this long day with three noisy children? I'm afraid some of them will
get drowned, or run over, or break their necks. You see if something
awful doesn't happen before we get back."
"O, I hope not," replied sister Madge, laughing. "I think there is
nothing so very wicked about our little nieces."
"Here is your parasol, auntie," said Prudy, coming back. "I know who I
love best of any body in this house, and it ain't the one that's got
her bonnet on--it's a-r-n-t, aunt, M-i-g, Madge."
"Well, you ought to love your aunt _Mig_, all of you," said aunt
Louise, laughing, "for I do believe she thinks you children are as
lovely as little white rose-buds.--Come, are you all ready? Then run
along, and I'll follow after."
"O, I'm so glad I'm alive!" cried little Prudy, hoping on one foot; "I
do hope I shall never die!"
"I just mean to be careful, and not get a speck of dirt on my clean
apron," whispered Susy to Grace. "Aunt Madge ironed it this morning."
They had such a pleasant walk through the streets of the beautiful
village, in the "sunshine, calm and sweet!" Grace thought the trees
met overhead just as if they were clasping hands, and playing a game
of "King's Cruise" for every body to "march through."
When they had almost reached aunt Martha's house, aunt Louise stopped
them, saying,--
"Now, tell me if you are going to be good children, so I shan't be
ashamed of you?"
"Why, yes, auntie," said Grace, looking quite grieved and surprised.
"O, auntie," said Susy, "did you think we were going to be naughty?"
"No, you'll mean to be good, I dare say," answered aunt Louise,
speaking more kindly,--"if you don't forget it. And you'll be a nice,
dear little girl, won't you, Prudy?"
"I don't know," said Prudy, coolly.
"Don't _know_? Why, do you think I should have taken you visiting if I
hadn't supposed you'd try to be good?"
"Well, I didn't say I wouldn't," said Prudy, with some dignity, "I
said 'I don't know,' and when I say that, I mean '_yes_.'"
"Well, I'm sure I hope you'll do the very best you can," sighed aunt
Louise, "and not make any body crazy."
By this time they had gone up the nice gravel walk, and aunt Martha
had come to the door, opening her arms as if she wanted to embrace
them all at once.
"Dear little souls," said she, "come right into the house, and let me
take off your things. I've been looking for you these two hours. This
is my little nephew, Lonnie Adams.--Shake hands with the little girls,
my dear."
Lonnie was a fair-haired, sickly little boy, seven years old. The
children very soon felt at ease with him.
It was so pleasant in aunt Martha's shaded parlor, and the children
took such delight in looking at the books and pictures, that they were
all sorry when aunt Louise "got nervous," and thought it was time
they went off somewhere to play.
"Very well," said dear aunt Martha; "they may go all over the house
and grounds, if they like, with Lonnie."
So all over the house and grounds they went in a very few minutes, and
at last came to a stand-still in Bridget's chamber over the kitchen,
tired enough to sit down a while--all but Prudy, who "didn't have any
kind of _tiredness_ about her."
"Look here, Prudy Parlin," said Grace, "you mustn't open that drawer."
"Who owns it?" said Prudy, putting in both hands.
"Why, Bridget does, of course."
"No, she doesn't," said Prudy, "God owns this drawer, and he's willing
I should look into it as long as I'm a mind to."
"Well, I'll tell aunt Louise, you see if I don't. That's the way
little Paddy girls act that steal things."
"I ain't a stealer," cried Prudy. "Now, Gracie Clifford, I saw you
once, and you was a-nippin' cream out of the cream-pot. _You're_ a
Paddy!--O, here's _a ink-stand_!"
"Put it right back," said Susy, "and come away."
"Let me take it," cried Lonnie, seizing it out of Prudy's hand, "I'm
going to put it up at auction. I'm Mr. Nelson, riding horseback," said
he, jumping up on a stand. "I'm ringin' a bell. 'O yes! O yes! O yes!
Auction at two o'clock! Who'll buy my fine, fresh ink?'"
"Please give it to me," cried Grace; "it isn't yours."
"'Fresh ink, red as a lobster!'"
"This minute!" cried Grace.
"'As green as a pea! Who'll bid? Going! Going!'"
"Now, do give it to me, Lonnie," said Susy, climbing into a chair, and
reaching after it; "you ain't fair a bit."
"'Do you say you bid a _bit_? That's a ninepence, ma'am. It's yours;
going, gone for a ninepence. Knocked off to Miss Parlin.'"
Somehow, in "knocking it off," out came the stopper, and over went the
ink on Susy's fair white apron. Lonnie was dreadfully frightened.
"Don't tell that I did it!" cried he. "You know I didn't mean any
harm. Won't you promise not to tell?"
"Yes, I will," said Susy; but she ought not to have promised any such
thing.
"O, dear, O dear! What is to be done?"
Little black streams were trickling down the apron on to the dress.
Grace pulled Susy to the washing-stand, and Prudy thought she meant to
lift her into it, and tried to help.
"I guess this honey soap will take it out," said Susy; but with all
their washing and rinsing they could not make black white any more
than the poor negro who scoured his face.
"Stop a minute!" cried Grace. "Soap makes it worse--ma puts on milk."
"O dear! I wish we had some," said Susy; "how can we get it?"
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Grace; "we'll send Prudy down
stairs to Bridget, to ask for some milk to drink."
"I like milk and water the best," said Prudy, "with sugar in."
"Well, get that," said Grace, "it's just as good; and come right back
with it, and don't tell about the ink."
Aunt Martha and Bridget were taking up the dinner when Prudy went down
into the kitchen, calling out,--
"O, Bridget, may I have some white tea?"
"White _tay_!" said Bridget; "and what may that be now?"
"O, some white tea, in a cup, you know, with sugar. They let me have
it every little once in a while."
"Milk and water, I suppose," said aunt Martha. "Can't you wait till
dinner, my dear?"
"But the girls _can't_ wait," replied Prudy; "they want it now."
"O, it's for the girls, is it?"
"Yes, but when they've washed the apron I can drink the rest--with
white sugar in."
"The apron!" said aunt Martha, "_what_ apron?"
"O, nothing but Susy's. I told grandma I'd be good, and I did be good;
it wasn't _me_ spilled the ink."
"Ink spilled?" cried aunt Martha, and she stopped beating the turnip.
"O, I ain't goin' to tell!" cried Prudy, beginning to tremble; "I
didn't, did I? they won't '_low_ me to tell."
Aunt Louise, passing through the kitchen, caught some of the last
words, and rushed up stairs, two steps at a time.
"O, Susy Parlin, you naughty, naughty child, what _have_ you been
into? Who spilled that ink?"
"It got tipped over," answered Susy, in a fright, but not forgetting
her promise.
"Of course it got tipped over--but not without hands, you careless
girl! Do you get your shaker, and march home as quick as ever you can!
I must go with you, I suppose."
Lonnie ought to have come forward now, like a little gentleman, and
told the whole story; but he had run away.
"O, auntie," said Grace, "she wasn't to blame. It----"
"Don't say a word," said aunt Louise, briskly. "If she was my little
girl I'd have her sent to bed. That dress and apron ought to be
soaking this very minute."
Bridget listened at the foot of the stairs in a very angry mood,
muttering,--
"It's not much like the child's mother she is. A mother can pass it by
when the childers does such capers, and wait till they get more
sinse."
Poor little Susy had to go home in the noonday sun, hanging down her
head like a guilty child, and crying all the way. Some of the tears
were for her soiled clothes, some for her auntie's sharp words, and
some for the nice dinner she had left.
"O, aunt Madge," sobbed she, when they had got home, "I kept as far
behind aunt Louise as I could, so nobody would think I was her little
girl. She was ashamed of me, I looked so!"
"There, there! try not to cry," said aunt Madge, as she took off
Susy's soiled clothes.
"But I can't stop crying, I feel so bad. If there's any body gets into
a fuss it's always _me_! I'm all the time making some kind of trouble.
Sometimes I wish there wasn't any such girl as me!"
Tears came into aunt Madge's kind gray eyes, and she made up her mind
that the poor child should be comforted. So she quietly put away the
silk dress she was so anxious to finish, and after dinner took the
fresh, tidy, happy little Susy across the fields to aunt Martha's
again, where the unlucky day was finished very happily after all.
"The truth is, Louise," said aunt Madge that night, after their
return, "_Lonnie_ spilled that ink, and Susy was not at all to blame.
You scolded her without mercy for being careless, and she bore it all
because she would not break her promise to that cowardly boy."
"O, how unjust I have been!" said aunt Louise, who did not mean to be
unkind, in spite of her hasty way of speaking.
"You _have_ been unjust," said aunt Madge. "Only think what a trifling
thing it is for a little child to soil her dress! and what a great
thing to have her keep her word! Susy has a tender heart, and it
grieves her to be unjustly scolded; but she would bear it all rather
than tell a falsehood. For my part I am proud of such a noble,
truthful little niece."