SURPRISES.
When Ruby went to bed that night her last thought was of the
caterpillars and of the pleasure they would give her teacher, and she
was impatient for the morning to come that she might have Miss Ketchum
tell her how much she had enjoyed them.
Miss Ketchum did not go up to her room after study hour, but after
supper she went up for something, intending to return to the
sitting-room at once, as she had charge of the girls that evening. It
was almost dark in her room, but she did not stop to light the lamp, as
she knew where to get her work-basket in the dark. In passing the
bureau she put out her hand and knocked something off, but stooping
down on the floor and picking it up again, she concluded that it was
merely an empty paper-box, such as Mrs. Boardman often put in her room
when she found one, to use as a home for her pets. The cover rolled
away, but Miss Ketchum did not stop to look for it, and went down to
the sitting room again.
Of course you can guess what happened. Whether the caterpillars were
asleep or not when the box fell, I could not tell you, but after that
they were certainly very wide-awake, for they travelled out of the box
and all over the room. Before Miss Ketchum had come up to go to bed
they had made their way all over the room. There were some of them on
the ceiling, some crawling over the white counter-pane on Miss
Ketchum's bed, some upon her pillow, and a very fat, large caterpillar,
that Ruby had found upon a tomato-plant, had crept up on the
looking-glass and had gone to sleep there.
[Illustration: MISS KETCHUM AND THE CATERPILLARS (missing from book)]
Miss Ketchum was very much interested in caterpillars, but of course
she did not want to have them walking all about her room in this way;
so you can imagine how surprised and perhaps a little frightened she
was when she came upstairs to bed, and struck a light, and saw the
caterpillars making themselves quite at home all about her room. She
could not understand it at first, and then it occurred to her that
perhaps some of the girls had been playing a trick upon her, and had
put them in the room to annoy her. Some of the scholars were unkind
enough to tease Miss Ketchum sometimes, and it would not have surprised
her if this had been the case to-night.
At last she remembered the box, and picking up the cover, she saw
written carefully upon it, "With Ruby's love," and then she knew how it
had happened.
Ruby had put them there to please her, and if the cover had stayed on
the box, the caterpillars would have been quite safe, and would have
been in their prison yet; but she remembered having knocked the box
down, and it was undoubtedly then that they strayed out and wandered
about the room.
Poor Miss Ketchum! She sighed as she looked about the room. She could
not go to bed and perhaps have the caterpillars creeping all over her
in the night, and yet it seemed like a hopeless task to catch them, and
she had no idea how many there were.
But Ruby had meant to be so kind that she thought more of her little
scholar's affection for her than she did of the work she had so
unintentionally given her.
One by one she patiently captured them and returned them to their box.
She was not quite sure that she had got them all when she put the last
one in, but there were so many that she felt tolerably certain that
Ruby could not possibly have found more in one day.
It was quite late before she finally got to bed, and while Ruby was
sound asleep and dreaming of Miss Ketchum's delight when she should
find the addition to her pets, Miss Ketchum was smiling to herself as
she thought of Ruby's intended kindness, and how it had turned out.
She made up her mind that Ruby should not know that the caterpillars
had escaped, but that she should think that her gift had given all the
pleasure that it was intended to, and so Ruby never knew of poor Miss
Ketchum's caterpillar hunt at bed-time.
The next day Miss Ketchum thanked her for them, and explained to her
that she would have to set some of them at liberty again, since she had
some of a good many of the varieties, and two of each were all that she
could take care of; but Ruby was delighted to hear that Miss Ketchum
had never had some of the specimens before, and that she was quite sure
that they would make beautiful butterflies.
After this Ruby and Miss Ketchum were as good friends as Agnes had
always been with her teacher, and Miss Ketchum found it a great help to
have two little girls, instead of one, upon whom she could always rely
for good behavior, and who could be trusted never to wilfully annoy her.
She had a great many treasures in her room that had been brought to her
from China by a brother who had been a missionary there, and she was
always glad to have Agnes and Ruby come and pay her a little visit, and
look at whatever they wished. She knew they could be trusted to handle
things carefully and not be meddlesome, and many a happy hour the two
girls spent there. Miss Ketchum's room was a very large room, as it
was the only one over the school-house, so she had plenty of space to
keep all her curiosities and her pets.
There was a little cupboard that stood in a corner, just as if it had
been built for that particular space, and in this corner closet Miss
Ketchum kept a little tin of delicious seed-cakes, and some cups and
saucers, and pretty little plates with butterflies, and mandarins, and
pagodas, and Chinese beauties upon them; and very often when the girls
came to see her she would open this cupboard and they would have a
little treat, which seemed all the more delightful because the plates
were so odd. There was an open fireplace in the room, and when the
days were cold and there was a snapping, blazing wood-fire, they used
to ask Miss Ketchum if they might not bring their chestnuts and roast
them in the hot ashes.
Miss Ketchum knew a great many stories, too, and sometimes, on Saturday
afternoon, when the children had plenty of time, and would surely not
have to hurry away in the most interesting part of the story, she would
lean back in her big rocking-chair, and with the little girls sitting
on ottomans, one each side of her, she would tell them delightful
stories about when she was a little girl and went to school. Ruby and
Agnes were glad that they did not live then, when there was no whole
holiday on Saturday, but they were very much interested in hearing all
that Miss Ketchum had to tell them, and in comparing the things that
she did when she went to school with what they did themselves.
Altogether Miss Ketchum was a very delightful friend to have, if, she
was a little forgetful sometimes, and did like caterpillars; but Ruby
and Agnes grew almost as fond of her pets as she was herself, as they
learned how much there was of interest about them. They looked forward
quite eagerly to the time when, instead of the ugly worm that had woven
a chrysalis about himself and gone to sleep for the winter, there
should burst forth a beautiful butterfly. It made them more careful
not to hurt creeping things, and if they found a brown worm crawling
about where he might be stepped upon, the girls would always pick him
up carefully upon a stick or leaf and put him in a safe place where he
might keep out of danger.