ELFIE TELLS A STORY.
Six of the girls were spending the Saturday mending-hour in Lily’s
room. All the girls in the school were required to spend that one hour
in sewing, and as rents and holes were subject to fines and bad marks
it became an unwritten law that the hour was to be spent in mending.
The little girls were expected to do their mending in the smaller
recitation-room, with one of the teachers to direct and assist them,
but the larger ones were allowed to work in their rooms.
“It is not a hilarious pursuit,” said Lily, looking solemnly at a
three-sided tear above the hem of a clean white skirt, “and I am very
sorry that there seems to be such a deep-seated prejudice against the
Chinese.”
“And what earthly connection is there between mending and Chinese?”
“The connection, my inquisitive Bertha, is not with mending, but
abolishing the necessity for the practice, which I regard as a most
disagreeable one. I have understood that the gentle creatures with the
peanut-colored complexions and the blinking, bias eyes are acquainted
with a process for making paper undergarments, which are taken off
when soiled and used for lighting fires. I suppose if my lovely figure
were draped in paper I should make a cheerful rattling as I walked
about, and toward the close of a paper garment’s career I might even
have to tie it about me with twine, like any other paper-wrapped
package. Still, I should prefer it to mending cotton materials, and so
I wish they would offer the Chinese inducements to stay here and begin
manufacturing.”
The girls were convulsed with laughter, for Lily had an overwhelmingly
droll way of making her highly original remarks.
“I have no mending to do,” said Katie; “so if you want me to read aloud
I am quite at your service.”
Lily laid down her work and looked reproachfully at the speaker. “Have
you stolen a march on me, uncandid Katherine, with a K, and supplied
yourself with a full line of paper garments while I am still groveling
in cotton cloth?”
“No; I wear as much muslin as you do, and wear and tear it into twice
as many holes. I laid a frightful pile of clothes that wanted mending
on my table yesterday, but when I went to bed I found them all mended.”
“That sounds supernatural,” said Lily, using her chest tones and
speaking sepulchrally; “I am afraid it was the work of no mortal
fingers. Perhaps you have a ghostly double who sits and sews while you
otherwise amuse yourself.”
“O, stop talking that way,” said Katie; “you make me feel creepy; I
know well enough who did it. It was Mary Ann.”
“How very nice!” said Edna, airily; “I believe I will hire her services
too. I have plenty of pocket-money to spare, for there’s no way of
spending it here.”
“But she didn’t do it for pay,” protested Katie; “it’s because she
likes me.”
“And because you are always so nice to her,” said Lily, with an
approving nod which greatly pleased Katie.
Edna drew up her lip scornfully. “I should not accept unpaid services,”
she said, loftily.
“Do excuse my forgetfulness,” exclaimed Lily, hurriedly fumbling in her
little purse. “O, can any one change a half-dollar; never mind, here’s
some pennies, one, two, three, four, five. Here, Edna, is this about
right for gluing my photo-case so nicely the other day?”
“Why, Lily Dart! How dare you offer me money!” exclaimed Edna,
springing up and scattering the pennies Lily had tossed into her lap in
every direction.
The other girls looked shocked too; but Lily serenely said, “I must be
stupid, but I thought you said you wouldn’t accept unpaid services, and
I felt reproached at once for not having as good a rule of conduct as
yours.”
Edna looked violently angry, but before she could express her indignant
sentiments there was a little tap on the door, and Mrs. Abbott and
Elfie came in.
Perhaps Mrs. Abbott could tell by Edna’s flushed cheeks and the
angry tears which filled her eyes that something disagreeable was in
progress, but she gave no sign of noticing any thing, and after a few
minutes of pleasant chat asked if she might leave Elfie with them till
the sewing-hour was up.
Bertha, with a fear that Edna and Lily might recommence the interrupted
conversation, invited Elfie to tell them a story while they sewed.
“I can’t tell a book story,” said the child, “but I’ll tell you one
that Mammy Candace tells, or I’ll tell you one of Marion’s history
stories.”
“Which would you rather tell, Elfie?”
“I sink I’d rather tell one of mammy’s stories, ’cause I forget the
history names.”
“Very well, do as you like.”
“Well, once dere was a little girl, ’bout so big as me, and her mother
telled her to go over the field and take some nice custard in a bowl to
a poor sick woman in a little bit o’ cabin. So she put on her little
hat an’ comed an’ comed an’ comed till she ’most come to de little
cabin. Den she sat down under a bush an’ she look in de bowl, an’ de
custard look yellow like gole, an’ smooth like silk, an’ den she took a
holly-leaf an’ she ate de nice custard all up. An’ den she lie down an’
go sleep. Pretty soon dere comes big bumble-bee, buzz-buzz-buzz, an’
she wakes up an’ says, ‘Go ’way, bad bee.’ But de bee say, ‘No, no; I
goin’ ter sting a bad chile doan’ mine ’er mudder.’”
The girls were noticing with much amusement that Elfie was
unconsciously imitating the Southern accent Candace used.
“Den a lil’ chipmunk come an’ say, ‘Cha-cha-cha-cha, I goin’ bite her
lil’ toes, ’cause she doan’ mine ’er mudder.’ Den a lil’ owl comes an’
says, ‘Who-a-who-a-who, I goin’ pull ’er har, ’cause she doan’ mine ’er
mudder.’ Den dere comes a lil’ chink-bug, tick-a-tick-a-tick-a, an’
says, ‘I goin’ pinch ’er, ’cause she doan’ mine ’er mudder.’ Den dey
all say, ‘Sting ’er, bite ’er, pull ’er, pinch ’er, ’cause she doan’
mine ’er mudder.’ So she cry an’ holler, an’ de poor sick woman crawls
outer bed an’ sends ’em all off. Den she says, ‘You got somefin’ nice
for me in dat blue bowl?--somefin’ you mudder send me, yellow as gole
an’ smooth as silk? Gib it to me, ’cause I got nuffin’ to eat.’
“Dat was the worse of all, an’ de lil’ girl runs out de door an’ runs
home an’ says, ‘Mudder, mudder, gib me all de supper I can have;’ an’
de mudder gibs her bread an’ milk an’ jam-tart, an’ she takes ’em an’
runs ’way, ’way off to de cabin, to gib ’em to de sick woman, an’ de
bee, an’ de chipmunk, and de lil’ owl, and de chink-bug, dey all comed
too, an’ dey didn’t sting ’er, nor bite ’er, nor pull ’er, nor pinch
’er, ’cause she was sorry she was bad an’ didn’t mine ’er mudder.
“I can tell you better stories when I know how to read,” said Elfie,
modestly, as she received their thanks for the one she had just told
in a highly dramatic manner. “I have a beautiful big book of stories
called _The Raving Nights_, but Auntie Abbott wont let me have the
stories read to me, because I heard her tell Miss Blake I was too--too
magical now.”
“Imaginative, wasn’t it?”
“O, yes; dat was it.”
“Well,” said Lily, who had seen the big storybook, “‘magical’ isn’t a
bad word for the _Arabian Nights_.”
“And ‘Raving’ is as forcible as the real title,” added Edna, who seemed
to have recovered her temper.