We have had a dreadful time at our house, and I have done very wrong.
Oh, I always admit it when I've done wrong. There's nothing meaner than
to pretend that you haven't done wrong when everybody knows you have. I
didn't mean anything by it, though, and Sue ought to have stood by me,
when I did it all on her account, and just because I pitied her, if she
was my own sister, and it was more her fault, I really think, than it
was mine.
Mr. Withers is Sue's new young man, as I have told you already. He comes
to see her every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening, and Mr. Travers
comes all the other evenings, and Mr. Martin is liable to come any time,
and generally does--that is, if he doesn't have the rheumatism. Though
he hasn't but one real leg, he has twice as much rheumatism as father,
with all his legs, and there is something very queer about it; and if I
was he, I'd get a leg of something better than cork, and perhaps he'd
have less pain in it.
It all happened last Tuesday night. Just as it was getting dark, and
Sue was expecting Mr. Travers every minute, who should come in but Mr.
Martin! Now Mr. Martin is such an old acquaintance, and father thinks so
much of him, that Sue had to ask him in, though she didn't want him to
meet Mr. Travers. So when she heard somebody open the front gate, she
said, "Oh, Mr. Martin I'm so thirsty and the servant has gone out, and
you know just where the milk is for you went down cellar to get some the
last time you were here do you think you would mind getting some for
me?" Mr. Martin had often gone down cellar to help himself to milk, and
I don't see what makes him so fond of it, so he said, "Certainly with
great pleasure," and started down the cellar stairs.
It wasn't Mr. Travers, but Mr. Withers, who had come on the wrong night.
He had not much more than got into the parlor when Sue came rushing out
to me, for I was swinging in the hammock on the front piazza, and said,
"My goodness gracious Jimmy what shall I do here's Mr. Withers and Mr.
Travers will be here in a few minutes and there's Mr. Martin down cellar
and I feel as if I should fly what shall I do?"
I was real sorry for her, and thought I'd help her, for girls are not
like us. They never know what to do when they are in a scrape, and they
are full of absence of mind when they ought to have lots of presence of
mind. So I said: "I'll fix it for you, Sue. Just leave it all to me.
You stay here and meet Mr. Travers, who is just coming around the
corner, and I'll manage Mr. Withers." Sue said, "You darling little
fellow there don't muss my hair;" and I went in, and said to Mr.
Withers, in an awfully mysterious way, "Mr. Withers, I hear a noise in
the cellar. Don't tell Sue, for she's dreadfully nervous. Won't you go
down and see what it is?" Of course I knew it was Mr. Martin who was
making the noise, though I didn't say so.
"Oh, it's nothing but rats, Jimmy," said he, "or else the cat, or maybe
it's the cook."
"No, it isn't," said I. "If I was you, I'd go and see into it. Sue
thinks you're awfully brave."
Well, after a little more talk, Mr. Withers said he'd go, and I showed
him the cellar-door, and got him started down-stairs, and then I locked
the door, and went back to the hammock, and Sue and Mr. Travers they sat
in the front parlor.
Pretty soon I heard a heavy crash down cellar; as if something heavy had
dropped, and then there was such a yelling and howling, just as if the
cellar was full of murderers. Mr. Travers jumped up, and was starting
for the cellar, when Sue fainted away, and hung tight to him, and
wouldn't let him go.
I stayed in the hammock, and wouldn't have left it if father hadn't
come down-stairs, but when I saw him going down cellar, I went after him
to see what could possibly be the matter.
[Illustration: THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH BURGLARS.]
Father had a candle in one hand and a big club in another. You ought to
have been there to see Mr. Martin and Mr. Withers. One of them had run
against the other in the dark, and they thought they were both burglars.
So they got hold of each other, and fell over the milk-pans and upset
the soap-barrel, and then rolled round the cellar floor, holding on to
each other, and yelling help murder thieves, and when we found them,
they were both in the ash-bin, and the ashes were choking them.
Father would have pounded them with the club if I hadn't told him who
they were. He was awfully astonished, and though he wouldn't say
anything to hurt Mr. Martin's feelings, he didn't seem to care much for
mine or Mr. Withers's, and when Mr. Travers finally came down, father
told him that he was a nice young man, and that the whole house might
have been murdered by burglars while he was enjoying himself in the
front parlor.
Mr. Martin went home after he got a little of the milk and soap and
ashes and things off of him, but he was too angry to speak. Mr. Withers
said he would never enter the house again, and Mr. Travers didn't even
wait to speak to Sue, he was in such a rage with Mr. Withers. After
they were all gone, Sue told father that it was all my fault, and father
said he would attend to my case in the morning: only, when the morning
came, he told me not to do it again, and that was all.
I admit that I did do wrong, but I didn't mean it, and my only desire
was to help my dear sister. You won't catch me helping her again very
soon.