A BLUE MONDAY
There was a noisy scrambling in the vines outside of Anne's window
early on Monday morning, and the little maid opened her eyes to see
Belinda's white head peeping over the sill, and Belinda's white paws
holding on like grim death to the ledge.
"You darling," cried Anne, sitting up, "come here," and Belinda with a
plaintive mew made one last effort, pulled herself into the room, and
flew to her mistress' arms.
"Where's Becky?" asked Anne, wondering why the tame crow did not
follow, for in spite of their constant feuds, the two pets were
inseparable.
Belinda blinked sagely, while from a shadowy corner of the room came a
sepulchral croak.
"Are you there, Becky?" called Anne, peering into the darkness, and
with a flap and a flutter, Becky swooped from the top of the bookcase,
where she had been perched for a half-hour, waiting for Anne to wake.
Anne's bookcase was the one thing of value in the little house. It was
of rich old mahogany, with diamond-shaped panes in its leaded doors,
and behind the doors were books--not many of them, but very choice
ones, culled from a fine library which had been sold when ruin came to
Anne's grandfather and father one disastrous year.
It happened, therefore, that Anne had read much of poetry and history,
and the lives of famous people, to say nothing of fairy-tales and
legends, so that in the companionship of her books and pets, she had
missed little in spite of her poverty and solitary life.
"How good it is to be at home," she said, as the sunlight, creeping
around the room, shone on the green cover of a much-thumbed book of
French fairy-tales, and then slanted off to touch the edge of a blue
and gold Tennyson; "how good it is to be at home."
"How good it is to be at home," she said again, as followed by Belinda
and Becky, she came, a half-hour later, into the sunlit kitchen, where
the little grandmother, smiling and rosy, was pouring the steaming
breakfast food into a blue bowl.
"I was afraid you might find it dull," said the little grandmother, as
she kissed her, "after the good times at the Judge's."
"Oh, I did have such lovely times," sighed Anne, blissfully. She had
sat up late in the moonlight the night before, telling her grandmother
of them. "But they didn't make up for you and Becky and Belinda and
the little gray house," and she hugged the little grandmother tightly
while Belinda and Becky circled around them in great excitement,
mingled with certain apprehensions for the waiting breakfast.
"But I do hate to start to school again," said Anne, when she finished
breakfast, and had given Belinda a saucer of milk and Becky a generous
piece of corn bread.
"Are the children going to speak their pieces this week?" asked Mrs.
Batcheller, as Anne tied on her hat and went out into the garden to
gather some roses for the teacher.
"Yes, on Saturday," said Anne; "it's going to be awfully nice. I have
asked Launcelot and Judy to come to the entertainment, and they have
promised to."
"I am going to be 'Cinderella' in the tableaux," she went on, as her
grandmother brought out the tiny lunch-basket and handed it to her,
"and Nannie and Amelia are to be the haughty sisters. We haven't found
any boy yet for the prince. I wish Launcelot went to school."
"He knows all that Miss Mary could teach him now," said the little
grandmother; "his father is preparing him for college, if they ever get
money enough to send him there."
"Well, if Launcelot's violets sell as well next winter as they did
this, he can go, 'specially if his mother keeps her boarders all
summer. He told me so the other day, grandmother."
"But he would make a lovely prince," she sighed. "Judy is going to
lend me a dress. She has a trunk full of fancy costumes."
"I hope you know your lessons," said the old lady, as Anne, escorted by
her faithful pets, started off.
"Oh, I studied them on Friday, before Judy came--how long ago that
seems--" and with a rapturous sigh in memory of her three happy days,
and with a wave of her hand to the little grandmother, Anne went on her
way.
Tommy Tolliver came to school that morning in a chastened spirit. He
had been lectured by his father, and cried over by his mother, and in
the darkness of the night he had resolved many things.
But it is not easy to preserve an attitude of humility when one becomes
suddenly the center of adoring interest to twenty-five children in a
district school. From the babies of the A, B, C, class to the big boys
in algebra, Tommy's return was an exciting event, and he was received
with acclaim.
Hence he boasted and swaggered for them as on Saturday he had boasted
and swaggered for Judy's admiration.
"You ought to go," he was saying to a small boy, as Anne came up, but
when he caught her reproachful eye on him, he backed down, "but not
until you are a man, Jimmie," he temporized.
During the morning session he was a worry and an aggravation to Miss
Mary. The little girls could look at nothing else, for had not Tommy
been a sailor, and had he not had experiences which would set him apart
from the commonplace boys of Fairfax? And the boys, a little jealous,
perhaps, were yet burning with a desire to be the bosom friend of this
bold, bad boy, while the luster of his daring lasted.
And so they were all restless and inattentive, until finally Miss Mary,
who had a headache, lost patience.
"You are very noisy," she said, "and I am ashamed of you. I am going
to put a list of words on the board, and I want you to copy them five
times, while I take the little folks out into the yard for their
recess. The rest of you don't deserve any, and will have to wait until
noon."
That was the first piece of injustice to Anne. She had been as quiet
as a mouse all the morning, and Miss Mary should have seen it and not
have punished the innocent with the guilty. But Anne was a cheery
little soul and never thought of questioning Miss Mary's mandates, and
so she went on patiently writing with the rest.
Miss Mary stopped in the door long enough to issue an ultimatum.
"I shall put you on your honor," she said, "not to talk. And any one
who disobeys will be punished."
And she went out.
For a little while there was perfect decorum. Then Tommy grew
restless. Six weeks out of school had made sitting still almost
impossible. He wiggled around in his seat, and began to whistle, "A
Life on an Ocean Wave."
That was a signal for general disorder among the boys. Without
speaking a word, and so preserving the letter of the rule, if not the
spirit, they, with Tommy as leader, went through various pantomimic
performances. They hitched up their trousers in seamanlike fashion,
they pretended to row boats, they spit on their hands and hauled in
imaginary ropes, and as a climax, Tommy danced a hornpipe on his toes.
And then Anne spoke right out--"Oh, Tommy, _don't_," she said, in an
agony of fear lest Miss Mary should come in and catch him at it.
But Miss Mary did not come, and the little girls giggled and the boys
capered, and Anne in despair went on writing her words.
When Miss Mary came back finally, with the little people trooping in a
rosy row behind her, twenty-five virtuous heads were bent over
twenty-five papers.
"Did any one speak while I was out?" asked the teacher.
A wave of horror swept over Anne. She had not meant to do it, but she
had spoken, and to try to explain would be to condemn Tommy and the
rest of the school.
"Did any one speak?" asked Miss Mary again.
Anne stood up, her face flaming.
"I--I--did--" she faltered.
"Oh, Anne--" said Miss Mary, while the girls and boys dropped their
eyes for very shame. "Oh, Anne, why did you do it--"
"I just did it--" stammered Anne, who would rather have died than have
blamed Tommy, and Nannie, and Amelia, and the rest of her friends.
"Well, then," said Miss Mary, firmly, "I'm sorry, but you will have to
sit on the platform the rest of the morning, and I can't let you take
part in the Saturday's entertainment. I must have order and I will
have it."
And that was Miss Mary's second piece of injustice. But then she had a
headache, and children on Monday mornings are troublesome.
For one hour Anne sat with her head held high and her fair little face
flushed and burning. But she did not cry. And Tommy, bowed to the
ground by his sense of guilt in the matter, did not dare to look at the
patient, suffering martyr.
It was thus that Launcelot Bart, coming in just before twelve o'clock
to see Tommy, found her.
As soon as he got Tommy outside of the schoolroom he collared him.
"What's the matter with Anne?" he demanded.
"She talked in school," said Tommy, doggedly.
"I don't believe it."
"Well, she did, anyhow."
"Whose fault was it?"
"Hers, I suppose."
"You don't suppose anything of the kind. Anne Batcheller never broke a
rule in her life willingly, and you know it, Tommy Tolliver."
The children were coming out of the schoolroom in little groups of twos
and threes--the girls discussing Anne's martyrdom sympathetically, the
boys with hangdog self-consciousness.
Inside the room, Anne, released from her ordeal, had gone to her desk
and was sitting there with her head up. Her face was white now, the
little lunch-basket was open before her, but the cookie and the apple
were untouched.
Launcelot looked in through the window.
"Poor little soul," he murmured.
And then Tommy blubbered.
"It was really my fault, Launcelot," he confessed.
"What!"
Tommy explained.
"And you let Anne bear it--you let Anne be punished--oh, you
miserable--little--little--cur," said the indignant squire of dames, in
a white heat.
"Aw, what could I do?" whimpered Tommy.
"Go in and tell Miss Mary," said Launcelot.
"Aw--Launcelot--"
"_Go in and tell Miss Mary!_"
Tommy went.
But Miss Mary did not wish to be bothered.
"I made a rule and Anne broke it," she said, when Tommy tried to
straighten things out, "and that is all there is to it. Don't talk
about it any more, Tommy," and she dismissed him peremptorily.
When Tommy told Launcelot the result of the interview, the big boy set
his lips in a firm line, and started off down the dusty road.
He went straight to town and to Judy.
"Oh, oh," said Judy, when she had listened to his tale of woe, "what a
mean old thing she is--I hate her--" and her dark eyes flashed.
"I don't think Miss Mary is mean," said Launcelot, "but the children
_are_ restless, and she isn't very strong, and when she feels badly she
takes it out on the scholars."
"But to punish Anne," said Judy, and her voice trembled, "dear little
Anne--"
"She might at least have listened to Tommy's explanation," said
Launcelot.
After a pause he said: "I came to you because I thought you might go
and see Anne after school. It would do her a lot of good. She will be
all broken up."
"I will go to school and get her," cried Judy, eagerly. "Is it very
far?"
"I am afraid you couldn't walk," said Launcelot, doubtfully.
"I'll drive over in the trap," said Judy. "Grandfather says I can use
Vic whenever I want to."
"It was pretty mean of Miss Mary to pile it on, I must say," said
Launcelot, as he rose to go. "She might have let Anne be in the
entertainment."
"What?"
"She isn't going to let Anne be in it."
"Not be 'Cinderella'?" Judy's tone was ominous.
"No."
"Oh, oh, oh." Judy's hands were clenched fiercely. "I'll get even
with her, Launcelot. I'll get even with that teacher yet."
Launcelot smiled at her vehemence.
"But you can't," he said.
"Can't I?" with a shrug of her shoulders.
"No."
"Wait," said Judy, and not another word could he get out of her on the
subject.
The afternoon dragged along its interminable length, and Anne, with
bursting head, thought that it would never end.
"Tick, tock," proclaimed the old school clock, as the hands crept
slowly to one, to two, to three.
"In five minutes I can go," thought poor little Anne wildly, and just
then the school-room door opened, and on the threshold appeared a
self-contained young lady in pale violet gingham, and the young lady
was asking for Anne Batcheller!
"Judy!" said Anne's heart, with a bound, but her lips were still.
Miss Mary had seen the Judge's grand-daughter at church the day before,
and had been much impressed, and now when Judy asked sweetly if Anne
could go, she gave immediate consent.
"Of course she may," she said. "Anne, you are dismissed."
But her eyes did not meet Anne's eyes as she said it, for Miss Mary's
head was better, and she was beginning to wonder if she should not have
investigated before she condemned Anne so harshly.
Twenty-four heads turned towards the window as Anne and Judy climbed
into the fascinating trap with the fawn cloth cushions, and twenty-four
pairs of lungs breathed sighs of envy, as Judy picked up the reins, and
the two little girls drove away together in the sunshine.