HANNAH'S PINK DRESS
Summer came, and the Mulvaneys prospered. Their garden grew and the
neglected fruit-trees flourished. Mr. Hodgkins gave Stubbins two pigs,
and the twins were given a flock of hens, whereupon Chinky earned some
money, bought two turkeys, and by the time three of the hens were ready
to set, his turkeys did the same thing; and the curious part of it is
that each one of the eggs hatched, and every little chicken and little
turkey lived.
Often when Chinky was tired of weeding the garden or hoeing corn,
he sat upon the fence and counted the money he hoped to possess in
the autumn when he took his turkeys to market. If his mother saw him
wasting his time, he was obliged to continue his thinking while he
worked.
"Ma's getting so she won't let a feller stop to wink," Johnnie
grumbled one morning, when he was Chairman of the Committee on Potato
Bugs.
"She's a regular general," added Chinky, hoeing corn with all his
might, "and you young ones'll get cured of being so lazy."
"Lazy, is it?" retorted Mike. "You go look at the front yard, mister,
and say lazy if you dare, and you ain't afraid of getting your nose
punched."
"That's what," agreed Johnnie, "the minute we get home from school,
it's 'have you done this,' and 'have you done that,' and 'start your
boots!'"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Johnnie Mulvaney!" began Hannah,
but she stopped for a minute because seeing her open mouth, Mike threw
a potato bug into the cavern.
"You horrid boy," she sputtered, "I'd make you work harder'n ma does if
I could, and you'll be sorry next week when I ain't here!"
"Why, thay, Hannah, where you going?" asked Stubbins.
"I'm going away, and you boys'll have to make the beds and tidy up,
and wash the dishes, and I'm glad of it. Wish I was never coming back.
You're such a ungrateful set."
At the end of this speech Hannah was so pelted with potato bugs she
fled from the field. The next day the little girl left home to earn
fifty cents a week for two months helping in Mrs. Randall's kitchen.
As a matter of fact the Randalls had all the help they needed, but from
the first day of school, Cornelia Mary had taken a fancy to Hannah,
and had begged her mother to give the child a chance to learn how
their neighbours lived. So, while Hannah washed dishes for fifty cents
a week, she learned how to wash dishes properly. When she helped set
the table and get the meals, she saw how such things should be done.
When she made the beds with Cornelia Mary, she began to understand how
sheets were used.
As the days went by, even the five little Mulvaneys who met Hannah
in school every day, noticed a change in their sister. She outgrew
her rude way of speaking, and looked and acted like a different girl.
She kept her hair combed prettily, proud of the bright ribbons given
her by Cornelia Mary. She learned to sew on buttons, and to keep her
clothes in order.
"Straight, plain dresses aren't meant for thin little girls," observed
Mrs. Randall, "so we'll make over some of Cornelia Mary's old ones for
Hannah."
The first Sunday Hannah wore one of the new dresses she blossomed out
like a full blown rose.
"Run home and show your mother, child," said Mrs. Randall.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Mulvaney, as the pink blossom joined
her family beneath an apple-tree. "If she don't look like a posy with
the pink bow on her hair, and such a splendiferous dress. Well, there
now! I suppose you won't never want to come back to live with your poor
old ma."
"Won't I, though?" For the first time in her life Hannah Mulvaney threw
both arms around her mother's neck, giving her a regular bear hug.
At that moment Welcome Hodgkins was returning across the fields to his
lonely home. "A happy family," he muttered, knocking blooms from the
clover with his stick.
[Illustration]
"When are you coming home, Hannah?" asked Chinky. "It's awful lonesome
without you."
"Well I geth it ith," added Stubbins.
"I'm going to stay three weeks more," Hannah replied, "and, oh, ma,
does table clothing cost much?"
"There's some that's dear, and some that ain't,—why?"
"Can't we buy some, ma, and do things the way other folks do?"
Mrs. Mulvaney sighed. "When I was a girl at home," she said, "we had
things right, and after I married your pa I tried to do as my mother
did, but children, it was no use. Your pa was out of work so much, and
his health wasn't good,"—Mrs. Mulvaney never referred to the fact
that Mr. Mulvaney was a drunkard,—"and somehow I got discouraged, and
I ain't brought you young ones up right. Now I feel glad and thankful
we've got enough to eat and wear and a good house to live in, but it's
too late for tablecloths."
"Why?"
"Because, Hannah, Stubbins wouldn't know no more how to act up against
a tablecloth than one of his own pigs."
"We could learn," ventured Chinky.
Hannah took courage. "Listen, ma," said she, "Miss Randall says she
never saw such bright children as we are. She says it's 'mazing the
way we learn, only she hopes that when Stubbins gets old enough to go
to school he won't keep his pockets loaded full of frogs and toads,
the way he does now. Well, if we can learn geography and figures and
history things and birds, why can't we learn tablecloths?"
Mrs. Mulvaney shook her head. "You have to be born to tablecloths,"
said she.
"Hannah wasn't born to big, wide, pink dresses and bows on her hair,"
announced Chinky, "but look at her, ma, you'd think she'd worn 'em all
her life. Not as you need to think you're so smart, Hannah, but I'm
talking about tablecloths and being like other folks. Guess I use my
eyes when I take home washings, and go after 'em."
"Now, ma, look here. Let's vote about it with grass. All that wants
to be pigs and never know nothing go and put a long blade of grass in
ma's lap. All what wants to learn manners, put a little, teenty, weenty
piece of grass in her lap."
The voting began before Mrs. Mulvaney had time to say a word.
"It's for tablecloths and manners," said Mrs. Mulvaney, pretending that
the bits of grass were too small to be seen. "And if we use tablecloths
the first one that spills anything may get his head knocked off."
Mrs. Mulvaney had seen her neighbour go home across the fields. Turning
to Hannah she changed the subject. "Since you're all dressed up," she
said, "I suppose you wouldn't mind going over to Mr. Hodgkins's on an
errand. I bet he'd like a loaf of gingerbread. I made some yesterday
for the boys. Now remember, Hannah, be nice and polite, and you, too,
Stubbins, for you can go along seeing's you are all fixed up for
Sunday. That man could turn us out of our good home if he wanted to,
and you young ones must get on the right side of him. Mind that."