IN INKY PLIGHT
"It's perfectly fine, Glad; I think it will be the most fun ever. How
many are you going to have?"
"About thirty, Mother says. I can't ask Kitty, and Dorothy Adams. All on
the list are about as old as we are."
"Kitty'll be sorry, of course; but I don't believe mother would let her
go in the evening, anyway. She's only nine, you know."
The two friends, Marjorie and Gladys, were on their way to school, and
Gladys was telling about a Hallowe'en party she was to have the
following week. The party was to be in the evening, from seven till
nine, and, as it was unusual for the girls to have evening parties, they
looked forward to this as a great occasion. Nearly all of the children
who were to be invited went to the same school that Gladys did, so she
carried the invitations with her, and gave them around before school
began.
The invitations were written on cards which bore comical little pictures
of witches, black cats, or jack-o'-lanterns, and this was the wording:
Though the weather's bad or pleasant,
You're invited to be present
At Miss Gladys Fulton's home
On Hallowe'en. Be sure to come.
Please accept, and don't decline;
Come at seven and stay till nine.
Needless to say these cards caused great excitement among the favored
ones who received them.
Boys and girls chattered like magpies until the school-bell rang, and
then it was very hard to turn their attention to lessons.
But Marjorie was trying in earnest to be good in school, and not get
into mischief, so she resolutely put her card away in her desk, and
studied diligently at her lessons.
Indeed, so well did she study that her lesson was learned before it was
time to recite, and she had a few moments' leisure.
She took out her pretty card to admire it further, and she scrutinized
closely the funny old witch riding on a broomstick, after the approved
habit of witches.
The witch wore a high-peaked black hat, and her nose and chin were long
and pointed.
Suddenly the impulse seized Marjorie to make for herself a witch's hat.
She took from her desk a sheet of foolscap paper. But she thought a
white hat would be absurd for a witch. It must be black. How to make the
paper black was the question, but her ingenuity soon suggested a way.
She took her slate sponge, and dipping it in the ink, smeared it over
the white paper.
This produced a grayish smudge, but a second and third application made
a good black.
The process, however, of covering the whole sheet of paper with ink was
extremely messy, and before it was finished, Marjorie's fingers were
dyed black, and her desk was smudged from one end to the other.
But so interested was she in making a sheet of black paper that she paid
no heed to the untidiness.
Gladys, who had turned her back on Marjorie, in order to study her
lesson without distraction, turned round suddenly and gave an
exclamation of dismay. This startled Marjorie, and she dropped her
sponge full of ink on her white apron.
She straightened herself up, with a bewildered air, aghast at the state
of things, and as her curls tumbled over her forehead, she brushed them
back with her inky hands.
This decorated her face with black fingermarks, and several of the
pupils, looking round at her, burst into incontrollable laughter.
Midget was usually very dainty, and neatly dressed, and this besmeared
maiden was a shock to all beholders.
Miss Lawrence turned sharply to see what the commotion might be, and,
when she saw the inky child, she had hard work to control her own
merriment.
"What _is_ that all over you, Marjorie?" she said, in as stern tones as
she could command.
"Ink, Miss Lawrence," said Midget, demurely, her simple straightforward
gaze fixed on her teacher's face. This calm announcement of a fact also
struck Miss Lawrence ludicrously, but she managed to preserve a grave
countenance.
"Yes, I see it's ink. But why do you put it on your face and hands and
apron?"
"I don't know, Miss Lawrence. You see, I was using it, and somehow it
put itself all over me."
"What were you doing with it?" Miss Lawrence was really stern now, for
she had advanced to Marjorie's desk, and noted the sponge and paper.
"Why, I was just making some white paper black."
"Marjorie, you have been extremely naughty. What possessed you to ink
that large sheet of paper?"
"I wanted to be a witch," said Marjorie, so ruefully that Miss Lawrence
had to laugh after all.
"You _are_ one, my child. You needn't ever make any effort in that
direction!"
"And so," went on Midget, cheered by Miss Lawrence's laughing face, "I
thought I'd make me a witch's hat, to wear at recess. Truly, I wasn't
going to put it on in school. But I had my lessons all done, and so----"
But by this time the whole class was in a gale.
The inky little girl, so earnestly explaining why she was inky, was a
funny sight, indeed. And, as they laughed at her, some big tears of
mortification rolled down her cheeks.
These she furtively wiped away with her hand, and it is needless to say
that this added the finishing touch to the smudgy black and white
countenance.
Miss Lawrence gave up. She laughed until the tears ran down her own
cheeks, for Marjorie was really crying now, and her little handkerchief
only served to spread the inky area around her features.
"My dear child," said the teacher, at last, "I don't know exactly what
to do with you. I can't wash that ink from your face, because it won't
come off with only cold water. You must go home, and yet you can't go
through the streets that way. But I have a brown veil I will lend you.
It is fairly thick, and will at least shield you from observation."
So Miss Lawrence took Marjorie to the cloak-room, arrayed her in her own
hat and her teacher's veil, and then went with the little girl
downstairs to the front door. On the way she talked to her kindly, but
she did not attempt to gloss over her naughty deed.
"I am sending you home, Marjorie," she said, "because you are not fit to
stay here. If you were, I should keep you in, and punish you. You surely
knew it was wrong to spill ink all over everything. You have ruined your
desk, to say nothing of your clothes and your own belongings."
"I'm so sorry, Miss Lawrence," said penitent Midget. "I just tried to be
good this morning. But I happened to think what fun it would be to have
a big, high-peaked witch's hat to prance around in at recess; and I
thought I could make the paper black without such a fuss."
"Well," said Miss Lawrence, with a sigh, "I don't know what to say to
you. Go home now, and tell your mother all about it. I'll leave the
matter of punishment in her hands. I'm sure you didn't mean to do
wrong,--you never do,--but, oh, Marjorie, it _was_ wrong!"
"Yes, it was, Miss Lawrence, and I'm awful sorry. I do hope Mother will
punish me."
Marjorie's hope was so funny that Miss Lawrence smiled, as she kissed
the stained little face through the sheltering veil, and then Midget
trudged off home, thinking that as Miss Lawrence had kissed her, she
hadn't been so very bad, after all.
"What _is_ the matter, child?" exclaimed Mrs. Maynard, as Marjorie
marched into her mother's room. "Why have you that thing on your head,
and why are you home from school at this hour?"
Midget couldn't resist this dramatic situation.
"Guess," she said, blithely. Her inky hands were in her coat pockets,
her apron was covered by her outer garment, and her face was obscured by
the thick brown veil.
"I can't guess just what's the trouble," said her mother, "but I do
guess you've been getting into some mischief."
Marjorie was disappointed.
"Oh," she said, "I thought you'd guess that I've broken out with
smallpox or measles or something!"
Mrs. Maynard was preoccupied with some intricate sewing, and did not
quite catch the first part of Marjorie's remark. But the last words sent
a shock to her mother-heart.
"What!" she cried. "What do you mean? Smallpox! Measles! Has it broken
out in the school? Take off that veil!" As she spoke, Mrs. Maynard
jumped up from her chair, and ran to her daughter with outstretched
arms.
This was more interesting, and Midget danced about as she turned her
back to her mother to have the veil untied.
With trembling fingers Mrs. Maynard loosened the knot Miss Lawrence had
tied, and hastily pulled off the veil. Meantime, Midget had thrown off
her coat, and stood revealed in all her dreadful inkiness.
The saucy, blackened face was so roguishly smiling, and Mrs. Maynard was
so grateful not to see a red, feverish countenance, that she sat down in
a chair and shook with laughter.
This was just what Marjorie wanted, and, running to her mother's side,
she laughed, too.
"Get away from me, you disreputable individual," said Mrs. Maynard,
drawing her pretty morning dress away from possible contamination.
"Oh, Mothery, it's all dry now; it can't hurt you a bit! But isn't it
awful?"
"Awful! You scamp, what does it mean?"
"Why, it's ink, Mother, dear; and do you s'pose it will ever come off?"
"No, I don't! I think it's there for the rest of your life. Is that what
you wanted?"
"No. Not for my whole life. Oh, Mother, can't you get it off with milk,
or something?"
Marjorie had seen her mother try to take ink-stains out of white linen
with milk, and, though the operation was rarely entirely successful, she
hoped it would work better on her own skin.
"Milk! No, indeed. Pumice stone might do it, but it would take your skin
off, too. Tell me all about it."
So the inky little girl cuddled into her mother's arms, which somehow
opened to receive the culprit, and she told the whole dreadful story.
Mrs. Maynard was truly shocked.
"I don't wonder Miss Lawrence didn't know what to do with you," she
said; "for I'm sure I don't, either. Marjorie, you _must_ have known you
were doing wrong when you began that performance. Now, listen! If
somebody had told you of another little girl who cut up just such a
prank, what would you have said?"
"I'd have said she ought to know better than to fool with ink, anyway.
It's the most get-all-overy stuff."
"Well, why did you fool with it, then?"
"Well, you see, Mother, I did know it was awful messy, but that know was
in the back of my head, and somehow it slipped away from my memory when
the thought that I wanted a witch hat came and pushed it out."
"Now, you're trying to be funny, and I want you to talk sensibly."
"Yes'm, I am sensible. Honest, the thought about the witch hat was so
quick it pushed everything else out of my mind."
"Even your sense of duty, and your determination to be a good little
girl."
"Yes'm; they all flew away, and my whole head was full of how to make
the white paper black. And that was the only way I could think of."
"Well, have your thoughts that were pushed out come back yet?"
"Oh, yes, Mother; they came back as soon as I found myself all inky."
"Then, if they've come back, you know you did wrong?"
"Yes, I do know it now."
"And you know that little girls who do wrong have to be punished?"
"Ye-es; I s'pose I know that. How are you going to punish me?"
"We must discuss that. _I_ think you deserve a rather severe punishment,
for this was really, truly mischief. What do you think of staying home
from Gladys' Hallowe'en party as a punishment?"
"Oh, Moth-er May-nard! You just _can't_ mean _that_!"
"I'm not sure but I do. You _must_ learn, somehow, Midget, that if you
do these awful things, you must have awful punishments."
"Yes, but to stay home from Gladys' party! Why, those horrid, cruel
people in the history book couldn't get up a worse punishment than that!
Mother, say you don't mean it!"
"I won't decide just now; I'll think it over. Meantime, let's see what
we can do toward cleaning you up."
The process was an uncomfortable one, and, after Marjorie's poor little
face and hands had gone through a course of lemon juice, pumice stone,
and other ineffectual obliterators, she felt as if she had had
punishment enough.
And the final result was a grayish, smeared-looking complexion, very
different from her own usual healthy pink and white.
Greatly subdued, and fearful of the impending punishment, Marjorie lay
on a couch in her mother's room, resting after the strenuous exertions
of her scrubbing and scouring.
"I do think I'm the very worst child in the whole world," she said, at
last. "Isn't it surprising, Mother, that I should be so bad, when you're
so sweet and good? Do you think I take after Father?"
Mrs. Maynard suppressed a smile.
"Wait till Father comes home, and ask him that question," she said.