MISS MELISSA DROPS A FEW HINTS
When Bluebell waked in the morning she heard the cherry-tree whispering
in her ear, and saw Liza’s dresses hanging on the opposite wall. But
the windows were misplaced, and everything swam after she got her eyes
open, until the change in her habitation occurred to her. Then the
Rocky Fork receded and this new home came forward with half-painful
reality.
Before the child was dressed a tap at the door announced Aunt Melissa.
Aunt Melissa came in, looking delicate in a white trailing wrapper, and
kissed her namesake good-morning. Then she unpacked the trunk, putting
everything in its place, and pushed the small inconvenient thing
outside the door for Archibald to carry up garret.
She left out Bluebell’s best calico dress, and the little girl put
it on, feeling that a perpetual but very serious holiday had come.
That dress was good enough to wear to Sunday-school at the Rocky Fork.
Tildy and Teeny’s best dotted robes did not look any better. She liked
it much better than her white. That white was such an unlucky dress.
When she had it on she felt so extremely dressed that it distracted
her attention from all the pleasant things in life. The first time she
wore it she felt her importance expanding to the horizon all around;
Tildy and Teeny in their dotted calicoes were mere maids of honor on
her royal progress to church. But a man came along the deep-rutted road
in his farm-wagon, and as Bluebell stepped out of his way, the wheel
sank with a chug into a hole filled with mud preserved especially for
bespattering the proud. Bluebell was splashed from head to foot; even
her open-work stockings shared the eruption. The saddest part of such a
humiliation is, that nobody in the least shares the heartbreak of it.
Teeny said she was sorry, but there was no time to stop to scrape the
mud off. It would dry as they went along. Her manner plainly implied
that in the case of very little girls like Bluebell, it made no
difference at all if they looked like frights at church.
“You better run back home,” said Tildy, holding her parasol-handle
across her shoulder, much as a woodman carries an axe, though the sun
was making her wrinkle her freckled nose frightfully. Tildy considered
that she knew the proper poise for parasols, and if the sun did not
accommodate himself to that, it was his fault and not hers. Bluebell
stood crying.
“You better run back home,” said Tildy again, patronizingly.
“Won’t you go back with me?” begged the victim.
But Tildy remembered her stiff-necked and conscious demeanor at the
outset. Besides, _she_ was not spattered, and she wanted to go to
meeting. She declined going back. Doctor Garde’s little girl was
smitten with consternation that her own familiar friend refused to
share her affliction. She went crying alone through the pine lane. And
though the white dress came immediately to the wash-tub, still that
recollection clung to it like a stain, and she liked the blue calico
much better. It “dressed her up,” but raised no wall of separation
between her and her fellow-mortals. It simply relieved her of all
anxiety about the appearance of Bluebell Garde, and left her the free
use of her muscles. The blue dress had a broad belt and a very short
skirt, a low neck and short puffed sleeves. Miss Melissa made it more
ornamental by a fine mull ruffle around the neck.
“Shall I put on my black-silk apron too?” inquired Bluebell, as she
stood to be hooked up, full of desire to bring herself up to her
surroundings.
“I don’t think I should,” said Miss Melissa gently. Her hands were very
soft and cool. She unfastened the pig-tails of auburn hair. “I have
some pieces of old blue silk which I think we can turn into a very
pretty bodice that you will like to wear better than an apron. Libbie
Biggar has a pink silk bodice which is very becoming. I notice there is
very good velvet on the apron. With some lace I have, it will make you
lovely bretelles.”
Bluebell’s head swam. If she could be spoiled by clothes, Miss Melissa
was in a fair way to spoil her. A seamstress was to come that very
day to fit the child out, and Miss Melissa looked forward with gentle
excitement to this dressing of a living doll. Blue silk bodices and
bretelles! But with that ready acceptance of beautiful things as a
right which characterizes all children, and grown people too, until
their fairy-faith is broken by accumulated loads of care, this little
girl was able in a few moments to contemplate her prospects with
serenity.
“But what are bretelles, Auntie?”
“Ornamental straps or ladders which little girls wear over light
dresses.”
With a happy sigh. Bluebell gave up the black-silk apron; it occurred
to her to regret she had not worn it more. We do not realize that
our good things in this world are all transitory, and to be enjoyed
promptly, each in its season.
They went down-stairs to breakfast. The table was laid as exquisitely
as the night before; in fact, the best things about the house seemed to
be used every day, without any reference to company.
“I am going to give you”--here Aunt Melissa paused in pouring coffee to
adjust something about the service, and Bluebell waited with a bit of
buttered roll poised half-way to her mouth--“a little party, in a few
days, to introduce you to your little associates.”
“Me?” said Bluebell, stretching up her thin neck and opening her eyes
quite wide.
“Yes, my dear.”
“I never had a party! The little girl that came in last evening, Miss
Libbie Biggar, said she’d had lots of ’em. I don’t know any more about
havin’ parties than about playin’ music.”
“You may begin your music soon. The seminary vacation lasts some weeks
yet. I noticed they had the seminary lighted up last evening for
trustees’ reception. But you need not wait until school opens, Melissa,
my dear.”
Miss Calder lifted a bit of steak very delicately with her fork: the
forks were sterling silver, and very different from those to which this
little girl had been accustomed.
“You are forgetting to eat with your fork, my dear.”
Bluebell crimsoned. “Why, Liza always told me to eat with my knife!”
“But that is not the custom in good--here. I mention it,” said Miss
Melissa delicately, “because your little associates would probably
notice it; and besides, you want to form your manners, don’t you, my
dear?”
Bluebell was so anxious to form her manners that she longed for a fairy
wand to change herself into just what she ought to be. With native
diffidence, however, she concealed this intense desire for perfection,
and merely nodded her blushing face, saying, “Yes, ma’am.”
“I notice that you are very observing. If you watch others and do
as they do, your manners may be formed easily. And Melissa, my
dear,”--again Auntie paused, and altered the arrangement of something
on the table with her sensitive hands--“when little boys or girls are
introduced to you--”
“O my! do they introduce little boys in Sharon?”
“Why, certainly; little gentlemen and ladies should be presented to
each other as such. I was suggesting, when you are introduced to any
one in fact, it has become the fashion to bow instead of to curtsy.”
Bluebell wondered if she could do anything so boyish. But remembering
Miss Libbie Biggar’s model bow, her mind was fired with emulation.