CAUGHT
Nettie Meyers was there--Joe Badger's buxom friend. She stared hard at
'Phemie and her sister, and then tossed her head. But Mr. Badger came over
particularly to speak to the girls.
Sairy Pritchett was very much in evidence. She sat with half a dozen
other young women and by their looks and laughter they were evidently
commenting unfavorably upon the Bray girls' appearance and character.
Lyddy bowed pleasantly to Mr. Badger and the other young men who spoke
to her; but she gave her main attention to Harris. But 'Phemie noted all
the sidelong glances, the secret whispering, the bold and harsh words.
She was very sorry they had come.
Alone, 'Phemie could have given these girls "as good as they sent." Young
as she was, her experience among common-minded girls like these had
prepared her to hold her own with them. There had been many unpleasant
happenings in the millinery shop where she had worked, of which she
had told Lyddy nothing.
Mr. Somers came down from the desk to speak to the party from Hillcrest
before the meeting opened. But everybody turned around to stare when he
did so, and the teacher grew red to his very ears and remained but a
moment under fire.
"Hul-_lo_!" exclaimed Harris Colesworth, under his breath, and 'Phemie
knew that he immediately realized the situation. The whole membership--at
least, the female portion of it--was hostile to the party from Hillcrest.
While the entertainment was proceeding, however, the Bray girls and their
escorts were left in peace. Sairy Pritchett sat where she could stare at
Lyddy and 'Phemie, and they were conscious of her antagonistic gaze all
the time.
But Lucas was quite undisturbed by his sister's ogling and when there came
a break in the program he leaned over and demanded of her in a perfectly
audible voice:
"I say, Sairy! You keep on starin' like that and you'll git suthin' wuss'n
a squint--you'll git cross-eyed, and it'll stay fixed! Anything about _me_
you don't like the look of? Is my necktie crooked?"
Some of the others laughed--and at Sairy. It made the spinster furious.
"You're a perfect fool, Lucas Pritchett!" she snapped. "If you ever _did_
have any brains, you've addled 'em now over certain folks that I might
mention."
"Go it, old gal!" said the slangy Lucas. "Ev'ry knock's a boost--don't
forgit that!"
"Hush!" commanded 'Phemie, in a whisper.
"Huh! that cat's goin' to do somethin' mean. I can see it," growled Lucas.
"She is your sister," admonished 'Phemie.
"That's how I come to know her so well," returned Lucas, calmly. "If she'd
only been a boy I'd licked her aout o' this afore naow!"
"About _what_?" asked the troubled 'Phemie.
"Oh, just over her 'tarnal meanness. And maw's so foolish, too; _she_
could stop her."
"I'm sorry we came here to-night, Lucas," 'Phemie whispered.
And at the same moment Lyddy was saying exactly the same thing to Harris
Colesworth.
"Pshaw!" said the young chemist, in return, "don't give 'em the
satisfaction of seeing we're disturbed. They know no better. I can't
understand why they should be so nasty to us."
"It's Lucas's sister," sighed Lyddy. "She thinks she has reason for being
offended with me. But I _did_ hope that feeling had died out by this time."
"You say the word and we'll get out of here, Miss Lydia," urged Harris.
"Sh! No," she whispered, for somebody was painfully playing a march on
the tin-panny old piano, and Mr. Somers was scowling directly down upon
the Hillcrest party to obtain silence.
"Say! what's the matter with that Somers chap, too?" muttered Harris.
But Lyddy feared that the teacher felt he had cause for offence, and she
certainly _was_ uncomfortable.
The recess--or intermission--between the two halves of the literary and
musical program, was announced. This was a time always given to social
intercourse. The company broke up into groups and chattered and laughed
in a friendly--if somewhat boisterous--way.
Newcomers and visitors were made welcome at this time. Nobody now came
near the Bray girls--not even Mr. Somers. Whether this was intentional
neglect on his part or not they did not know, for the teacher seemed busy
at the desk with first one and then another.
Sairy Pritchett and the club historian had their heads together, and the
latter, Mayme Lowry, was evidently adding several items to her "Club
Chronicles," which amused the two immensely. And there was a deal of
nudging and tittering over this among the other girls who gathered about
the arch-plotters.
"I'm glad they've got something besides us to giggle about," Lyddy
confided to her sister.
But 'Phemie was not sure that the ill-natured girls were not hatching up
some scheme to offend the Hillcrest party.
"I believe I'd like to go home," ventured 'Phemie.
"Aw! don't let 'em chase you away," exclaimed the young farmer.
"Oh, I know: 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never
hurt me!' But being called names--or, even having names _looked_ at
one--isn't pleasant."
Lyddy heard her and said quickly, her expression very decided indeed:
"We're not going--yet. Let us stay until the finish."
"Yes, by jove!" muttered Harris. "I'd just like to see what these Rubes
would dare do!"
But girls are not like boys--at least, some girls are not. They won't
fight fair.
The Hillcrest party need not have expected an attack in any way that could
be openly answered--no, indeed. But they did not escape.
Mr. Somers rang his desk bell at last and called the company to order.
After a song from the school song-book, in which everybody joined, the
"Club Chronicles" were announced.
This "history"--being mainly hits on what had happened in the community
since the last meeting of the Temperance Club--was very popular. Mayme
Lowry was a more than ordinarily bright girl, and had a gift for
composition. It was whispered that she wrote the "Pounder's Brook Items"
for the Bridleburg _Weekly Clarion_.
Miss Lowry rose and unfolded her manuscript. It was written in a somewhat
irreverent imitation of the scriptural "Chronicles;" but that seemed to
please the young folks here gathered all the more. She began:
"And it came to pass in the reign of King Westerville Somers, who was
likewise a seer and a prophet, and in the fourth month of the second year
of his reign over the Pounder's School District, that a certain youth
whose name rhymes with 'hitch it,' hitched himself to the apron-strings
of a maid, who was at that time sojourning at the top of the hill--and
was hitched so tight that you couldn't have pried the two apart with a
crowbar!"
"Oh, by cracky!" gasped the suddenly ruddy-faced Lucas. "What a wallop!"
The paragraph was punctuated with a general titter from the girls all over
the room, while some of the boys hooted at Lucas in vast joy.
Lyddy turned pale; 'Phemie's countenance for once rivalled Lucas's own
in hue. But Miss Lowry went on to the next paragraph, which was quite as
severe a slap at somebody else.
"Don't get mad with _me_, Miss 'Phemie," begged Lucas, in a whisper.
"Oh, you can't help it, Lucas," she said. "But I'll never come to this
place with you again. Don't expect it!"
The amusing but sometimes merely foolish paragraphs were reeled off, one
after the other. Sometimes the crowd shouted with laughter; sometimes
there was almost dead silence as Miss Lowry delivered a particularly hard
hit, or one that was not entirely understood at first.
"And it came to pass in those days that certain damsels of the Pounder's
Brook Temperance Club gathered themselves together in one place, and
saith, the one to the other:
"Is it not so that the young men of Pounder's Brook are no longer
attracted by our girls? They no longer care to listen to our songs, or
when we play upon the harp or psaltery. They pass us by with unseeing
vision. Verily an Easter bonnet no longer catcheth the eye of the wayward
youth, and holdeth his attention. Selah.
"Therefore spake one damsel to the others gathered together, and sayeth:
'Surely we are not wise. The young men of our tribe goeth after strange
gods. Therefore, let us awake, and go forth, and show the wisdom of
serpents and--each and every one of us--start a boarding house!'"
The young men, who had begun to look exceedingly foolish during this
harangue, suddenly broke into a chorus of laughter. Even Lucas and Harris
Colesworth could not hide a grin, and the school teacher hid his face
from the company.
The whole room was a-roar. Lyddy and 'Phemie suffered under the
indignity--and yet 'Phemie could scarcely forbear a grin. It was a
coarse joke, but laughter is contagious--even when the joke is against
oneself.
Miss Lowry gave them no time to recover from this _bon mot_. She went on
with:
"And it was said of a certain young man, as he rode on the way to
Bridleburg, that he was met by another youth, who halted and asked a
question of the traveler. But the traveler was strangely smitten at
that moment, and all he could do was to _bray_."
There were no more shots at the Hillcrest folk after that--at least, if
there were, the Bray girls did not hear them. The "Chronicles" came to
an end at last. Somehow the sisters got away from the hateful place with
their escorts.
"But don't ever ask me to go to that schoolhouse again," said Lyddy,
who was infrequently angry and so, when she displayed wrath, was the
more impressive. "I think, Lucas, the people around here are the most
ill-mannered and brutal folk who ever lived. They are in the stone age.
They should be living in caves in the hillside and be wearing skins of
wild animals instead of civilized clothing."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Lucas, gently. "I reckon it looks so to you. But
they have all got used to Mayme Lowry's shots--it's give an' take with
most of 'em."
"There is no excuse--there _can_ be no excuse for such cruelty,"
reiterated Lyddy. "And we never have done a single thing knowingly to
hurt them."
Harris Colesworth was silent, but 'Phemie saw that his eyes danced. He
only said, soothingly:
"They are a different class from your own, Miss Lydia. They look on life
differently. You cannot understand them any more than they can understand
you. Forget it!"
But that was more easily said than done. Forget it, indeed! Lydia declared
when she went to bed with 'Phemie that she still "burned all over" at the
recollection of the impudence of that Lowry girl!
Of course, common sense should have come to the aid of the Bray sisters
and aided them to scorn the matter. "Overlook it" was the wise thing
to do. But a tiny thorn in the thumb may irritate more than a much more
serious injury.
Lyddy considered Mr. Somers quite as much at fault for what had happened
at the meeting as anybody else. He was nominally in charge of the
temperance meeting. On the other hand 'Phemie decided that she would not
be seen so much in Lucas's company--although Lucas was a loyal friend.
The morrow was the first Sunday of the month of May, and its dawn promised
as perfect a day as the month ever produced. Now the girls' flower
gardens were made, the vines 'Phemie had planted were growing, the
old lawns about the big farmhouse were a vernal green and the garden
displayed many promising rows of spring vegetables.
The girls were up early and swept the great porch all the way around the
house, and set several comfortable old chairs out where they would catch
the morning sun for the early risers.
The earliest of the boarders to appear was Harris Colesworth, wrapped in
a long raincoat and carrying a couple of bath towels over his arm.
"I found a fine swimming hole up yonder in the brook where it comes
through the back of the farm," he declared to the sisters. "It's going to
be pretty cold, I know; but nothing like a beginning. I hope to get a
plunge in that brook every morning that I am up here."
And he went away cheerfully whistling. A moment later 'Phemie saw
Professor Spink dart out of the side door and peer after the departing
Harris, around a corner of the house. The professor did not know that
he was observed. He shook his head, scowled, stamped his foot, and
finally ran in for his hat and followed upon Harris's track.
"He's suspicious of everybody who goes up there to the rocks," thought
'Phemie. "What under the sun is it Spink's got up there?"
Later in the day--it was an hour or more before their usual Sunday dinner
time--something else happened which quite chased the professor's odd
actions out of 'Phemie's mind--and it gave the rest of the household
plenty to talk about, too.
The procession of carriages going to Cornell Chapel had passed some time
since when another vehicle was spied far down the road toward Bridleburg.
A faint throbbing in the air soon assured the watchers on Hillcrest that
this was an automobile.
Not many autos climbed this stiff hill to Adams; there was a longer
and better road which did not touch Bridleburg and the Pounder's Brook
District at all. But this big touring car came pluckily up the hill,
and it did not slow down until it reached the bottom of the Hillcrest lane.
There were several people in the car, and one, a lithe and active youth,
leaped out and ran up the lane. Plainly he came to ask a question, for
he dashed across the front yard toward where the family party were sitting
on the porch.
"Oh, I say," he began, doffing his cap to the girls, "can you tell a
fellow----"
His gaze had wandered, and now his speech trailed off into silence and his
eyes grew as large as saucers. He was staring at the placidly-knitting
Mrs. Castle, who sat listening to the Professor's booming voice.
"Grandma! Great--jumping--horse--chestnuts!" the youth yelled.
Mrs. Castle dropped her ball of yarn, and it went rolling down the steps
into the grass. She laid down her knitting, took off the spectacles and
wiped them, and them put them on again the better to see the amazed youth
below her.
"Well," she said, at length, "I guess I'm caught."