IN KATIE’S ROOM.
The poor girl had followed Lily at a word from Mrs. Abbott, who felt,
perhaps, that the ordeal of meeting some more of her fellow-scholars
had better be over at once. Unnoticed, and not knowing exactly how she
ought to make her presence known, the poor thing had stood motionless
in the door-way hearing the cruel words, like a target into which all
the arrows of scorn were being fired, till the sound of Lily’s sobs
broke down her stony composure.
Katie, who was always good-natured, was really shocked at the cruel
wounds the stranger had received, and, going up to her, attempted to
apologize and soothe her. But the case seemed too dreadful to admit of
palliation, and every thing Katie could think of to say seemed to make
the matter worse. There was a sort of pathetic dignity in the way Mary
Ann dried her tears after a few moments and said in a tone which showed
the difficulty of commanding her voice:
“I do not want to trouble Mrs. Abbott, so please, ma’am, will you show
me some place I can stay where I’ll be out of people’s way?”
“Come in here,” said Lily, thoroughly ashamed of herself. “I know Mrs.
Abbott meant you to come here.”
“If I could be useful to you, ma’am,” the girl said, hesitatingly, yet
looking as if she longed to get away.
“I wish you’d come into my room and help me unpack,” said Katie, having
tact and good-natured enough to think the proposal would be pleasing.
She led the way through the back hall and up-stairs to the dormitories,
which were a row of small rooms on each side of a long hall with a
large bath-room at each end. There were a double bed and two small
bureaus in each room.
It was a great comfort to the unhappy stranger to find something to
do, and lazy Katie found herself well paid for her kindness by the
energetic way in which the contents of her trunk were all laid with
orderly arrangement in the bureau-drawers while she, not to embarrass
her visitor by watching her, sat on the bed looking over her photograph
album, occasionally calling the attention of Miss Stubbs to a picture
with some explanatory remarks.
“This is my married sister, and this gentleman over the leaf is my
married brother,” she said, calling attention to two very handsome
faces.
“O, aint they splendid, ma’am!” ejaculated Mary Ann, looking
enraptured. “And have you really got growed-up brothers and sisters?”
“Yes, plenty of them. I’m the youngest of seven.”
“Dear me, suz! And I’m the oldest of seven!” said Miss Stubbs, in
rather a self-congratulatory manner.
“O, how awful!” replied Katie. “Why, I shouldn’t think you’d have any
presents and things. Now, all my brothers and sisters, except the two
next to me, give me all sorts of treats and make a regular pet of me.”
Mary Ann looked at her with wondering eyes, but made no answer. She was
thinking of a poor little home in the mountains, where there was so
much hard work, poverty, and sickness that petting and presents were
not things to be understood. She felt a sudden desire to say so, but
something seemed to tell her that such a home as hers would be despised
by her companion. She was glad of all she did not say when, a moment
after, Katie exclaimed:
“O, see this one! It’s my own room at home. Mamma had it photographed
and sent it to me last term, so I might see how the new furniture
looked.”
Mary Ann studied the picture long and closely.
“How beautiful! How beautiful!” she said, at last, in breathless
admiration. “The best parlor at the Peconough House is jest nothin’ to
it! My lands! how rich your folks must be! and aint it awful work to
dust all them ornaments?”
“I suppose so,” said Katie, indifferently. “I never dust the room
myself, but mamma says the housemaid complains of all our rooms.”
Mary Ann looked at Katie curiously, then attentively at the picture
again; then, rather irrelevantly it would seem to any one not following
her thoughts, said with a heavy sigh:
“My, aint you got white hands, though!”
They were white, and Katie enjoyed being told of it; in fact, the
admiration she and her belongings, as they were taken from the trunk,
excited was very refreshing to this young lady, who had her full share
of vanity. Her complacency made her quite tolerant of her companion’s
uncouth ways, and she propped herself comfortably against a pillow
and proceeded to astonish her auditor by an extended account of her
luxuries and privileges in her beautiful home.
Her descriptions were assisted and confirmed by two photographs that
were too large to go in the album. The views showed the house to be
very elegant, but the girls were rather tired of Katie’s “bragging,”
and it was seldom she could get an opportunity of expending so much
eloquence upon her favorite theme.
While Mary Ann listened with entranced interest to the description
of home-life which seemed to her like a piece out of a fairy-tale
her rough, red hands were not idle. Having emptied the trunk of all
excepting its heaviest contents she dragged it into the hall for Duffy
to carry into the store-room, and, pulling a spool and tatting-shuttle
out of her pocket, made the latter fly as if its motor were steam.
By and by Lily put her head in the half-closed door, flushing at the
sight of Miss Stubbs, but otherwise taking no notice of her.
“Please come to Mrs. Abbott’s room, Katie; she wants us for a few
minutes,” she said, disappearing as suddenly as she came.
Katie smoothed her hair at the glass and turned to obey the request.
At the same instant small flying feet were heard and a little voice
counting the doors, “One, two, three, four, five, same’s my little
finger; this is the one, I know;” and with a little knock that she
didn’t wait to hear answered Ethel danced into the room.
“I’ve come back for you,” she exclaimed, running up to Mary Ann, “and
Mrs. Abbott says you may come with us to see the peacocks, and we are
going to feed them, too. Candace is getting your hat, and she’ll wait
on the piazza for us. Come, hurry! hurry! The big one’s got his tail
lifted all up like a big, big feather fan.”