CISSY CARTER, BOYS' GIRL.
Now Prissy Smith was a girls' girl, while Cissy Carter was a boys'
girl. That was mainly the difference between them. Not that Prissy did
not love boys' play upon occasion, for which indeed her fleetness of
foot particularly fitted her. Also if Hugh John teased her she never
cried nor told on him, but waited till he was looking the other way
and then gave him something for himself on the ear. But on the whole
she was a girls' girl, and her idea of the way to fight was slapping
her dolls when they were naughty.
Now, Mr. Picton Smith said that most religion was summed up in two
maxims, "Don't tell lies," and "Don't tell tales." To these Hugh John
added a third, at least equal in canonicity, "Don't be dasht-mean." In
these you have briefly comprehended all the Law and the Prophets of
the house of Windy Standard.
Cissy Carter, however, was a tom-boy: you could not get over that.
There was no other word for her. She never played with girls if she
could better herself. She despised dolls; she hated botany and the
piano. Her governess had a hard but lively time of it, and had it not
been for her brother Sammy coaching her in short cuts to knowledge,
she would have been left far behind in the exact sciences of spelling
and the multiplication-table. As it was, between a tendency to
scramble for scraps of information and the run of a pretty wide
library, Cissy knew more than any one gave her credit for.
On one memorable occasion it was Cissy's duty to take her grandmother
for a walk. Now the Dowager Mrs. Davenant Carter was the dearest and
most fairy-like old lady in the world, and Cissy was very proud to
walk into Edam with her. For her grandmother had not forgotten how
good confections tasted to girls of thirteen, and there was quite a
nice shop in the High Street. Their rose-drops especially were almost
as good as doing-what-you-were-told-not-to, and their peppermints for
use in church had quite the force of a religious observance.
But Mrs. Davenant Carter had a weak eye, and whenever she went out,
she put a large green shade over it. So one day it happened that Cissy
was walking abroad with her grandmother, with a vision of
rose-drop-shop in the offing. As they were passing one of the villas
nearest to their house, a certain rude boy, Wedgwood Baker the name of
him, seeing the lame old lady tripping by on her stick like a fairy
godmother, called out loudly "Go it, old blind patch!"
He was sorry the minute after, for in one moment Cissy Carter had
pulled off her white thread gloves, climbed the fence, and had landed
what Hugh John would have called "One, two, three--and a tiger" upon
the person of Master Wedgwood Baker.
I do not say that all Cissy Carter's blows were strictly according to
Queensberry rules. But at any rate the ungallant youth was promptly
doubled up, and retreated yelling into the house, as it were falling
back upon his reserves.
That same evening the card of Mrs. Baker, Laurel Villa, Edam, was
brought to the diningtable of Mrs. Davenant Carter.
"The lady declines to come in, m'am. She says she must see you
immediately at the door," said the scandalised housemaid.
Cissy's mother went into the hall with the card in her hand, and a
look of gentle surprised inquiry on her face. There, on the doorstep
was Mrs. Baker, with a young and hopeful but sadly damaged Wedgwood
tagging behind her, like a weak-minded punt in tow of an ancient
threedecker.
[Illustration: "'LOOK AT HIM, MADAM,' SAID MRS. BAKER."]
The injured lady began at once a voluble complaint.
"Look at him, madam. That is the handiwork of your daughter. The poor
boy was quietly digging in the garden, cultivating a few unpretending
flowers, when your daughter, madam, suddenly flew at him over the
railings and struck him on the face so furiously that, if I had not
come to the rescue, the dear boy might have lost the use of both his
eyes. But most happily I heard the disturbance and went out and
stopped her."
"Dear me, this is _very_ sad," faltered little Mrs. Carter; "I'm sure
I don't know what can have come over Cissy. Are you sure there is no
mistake?"
"Mistake! No, indeed, madam, there is no mistake, I saw her with my
own eyes--a great girl twice Wedgwood's size."
At this point Mr. Davenant Carter came to the door with his
table-napkin in his hand.
"What's this--what's this?" he demanded in his quick way--"Cissy and
your son been fighting?"
"No indeed, sir," said the complainant indignantly; "this dear boy
never so much as lifted a hand to her. Ah, here she comes--the
very--ahem, young lady herself."
All ignorant of the trouble in store for her, Cissy came whistling
through the laurels with half-a-dozen dogs at her heels. At sight of
her Mrs. Baker bridled and perked her chin with indignation till all
her black bugles clashed and twinkled.
"Come here, Cissy," said her father sternly. "Did you strike this boy
to-day in front of his mother's gate?"
"Yes, I did," quoth the undaunted Cissy, "and what's more, I'll do it
again, and give him twice as much, if he ever dares to call _my_
grandmother 'Old Blind Patch' again--I don't care if he is two years
and three months older than me!"
"Did you call names at my mother?" demanded Cissy's father, towering
up very big, and looking remarkably stern.
Master Wedgwood had no denial ready; but he had his best boots on and
he looked very hard at them.
"Come, Wedgwood dear, tell them that you did not call names. You know
you could not!"
"I never called nobody names. It was her that hit me!" snivelled
Wedgwood.
"Now, you hear," said his mother, as if that settled the question.
"Oh, you little liar! Wait till I catch you out!" said Cissy, going a
step nearer as if she would like to begin again. "I'll teach you to
tell lies on me."
Mrs. Baker of Laurel Villa held up her hands so that the lace mitts
came together like the fingers of a figure of grief upon a tomb. "What
a dreadful girl!" she said, looking up as if to ask Heaven to support
her.
Mr. Davenant Carter remembered his position as a county magistrate.
Also he desired to stand well with all his neighbours.
"Madam," he said to Mrs. Baker, in the impressive tone in which he
addressed public meetings, "I regret exceedingly that you should have
been put to this trouble. I think that for the future you will have no
reason to complain of my daughter. Will you allow me to conduct you
across the policies by the shorter way? Cissy, go to bed _at once_,
and stop there till I bid you get up! That will teach you to take the
law into you own hands when your father is a Justice of the Peace!"
This he said in such a stern voice that Mrs. Baker was much flattered
and quite appeased. He walked with the lady to the small gate in the
boundary wall, opened it with his private key, and last of all shook
hands with his visitor with the most distinguished courtesy. Some day
he meant to stand for the burgh and her brothers were well-to-do
grocers in the town.
"Sir," she said in parting, "I hope you will not be too severe with
the young lady. Perhaps after all she was only a trifle impulsive!"
"Discipline must be maintained," said Mr. Davenant Carter sternly,
closing, however, at the same time the eyelid most remote from Mrs.
Baker of Laurel Villa.
"It shows what a humbug pa is," muttered Cissy, as she went upstairs;
"he knows very well it is bed-time anyway. I don't believe he is angry
one bit!"
When her father came in, he looked over at his wife. I am afraid he
deliberately winked, though in the interests of morality I trust I
may be mistaken. For how could a Justice of the Peace and a future
Member of Parliament demean himself to wink?
"Jane," he said to Mrs. Carter, "what does Cissy like most of all for
supper?"
"A little bit of chicken and bread-sauce done with broiled bacon--at
least I think so, dear--why do you ask?"
He called the tablemaid.
"Walbridge," he said sternly, "take that disgraceful girl up the
breast and both wings of a chicken, also three nice pieces of crisp
bacon, four new potatoes with butter-sauce, some raspberrytart with
thick cream and plenty of sugar--and a whole bottle of zoedone. But
mind you, _nothing else_, as you value your place--not another bite
for such a bold bad girl. This will teach her to go about the country
thrashing boys two years older than herself!"
He looked over across the table at his son.
"Let this be a lesson to you, sir," he said, frowning sternly at him.
"Yes, sir," said Sammy meekly, winking in his turn very confidentially
at a fly which was having a free wash and brush-up on the edge of the
fingerbowl, after completing the round of the dishes on the dinner
table.