Produced by Judy Boss
THE COPY-CAT
AND OTHER STORIES
By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
CONTENTS
THE COPY-CAT
THE COCK OF THE WALK
JOHNNY-IN-THE-WOODS
DANIEL AND LITTLE DAN'L
BIG SISTER SOLLY
LITTLE LUCY ROSE
NOBLESSE
CORONATION
THE AMETHYST COMB
THE UMBRELLA MAN
THE BALKING OF CHRISTOPHER
DEAR ANNIE
THE COPY-CAT
THAT affair of Jim Simmons's cats never became known. Two little boys
and a little girl can keep a secret--that is, sometimes. The two little
boys had the advantage of the little girl because they could talk over
the affair together, and the little girl, Lily Jennings, had no intimate
girl friend to tempt her to confidence. She had only little Amelia
Wheeler, commonly called by the pupils of Madame's school “The
Copy-Cat.”
Amelia was an odd little girl--that is, everybody called her odd. She
was that rather unusual creature, a child with a definite ideal; and
that ideal was Lily Jennings. However, nobody knew that. If Amelia's
mother, who was a woman of strong character, had suspected, she would
have taken strenuous measures to prevent such a peculiar state of
affairs; the more so because she herself did not in the least approve of
Lily Jennings. Mrs. Diantha Wheeler (Amelia's father had died when she
was a baby) often remarked to her own mother, Mrs. Stark, and to her
mother-in-law, Mrs. Samuel Wheeler, that she did not feel that Mrs.
Jennings was bringing up Lily exactly as she should. “That child thinks
entirely too much of her looks,” said Mrs. Diantha. “When she walks past
here she switches those ridiculous frilled frocks of hers as if she were
entering a ballroom, and she tosses her head and looks about to see if
anybody is watching her. If I were to see Amelia doing such things I
should be very firm with her.”
“Lily Jennings is a very pretty child,” said Mother-in-law Wheeler, with
an under-meaning, and Mrs. Diantha flushed. Amelia did not in the least
resemble the Wheelers, who were a handsome set. She looked remarkably
like her mother, who was a plain woman, only little Amelia did not have
a square chin. Her chin was pretty and round, with a little dimple in
it. In fact, Amelia's chin was the prettiest feature she had. Her hair
was phenomenally straight. It would not even yield to hot curling-irons,
which her grandmother Wheeler had tried surreptitiously several times
when there was a little girls' party. “I never saw such hair as that
poor child has in all my life,” she told the other grandmother, Mrs.
Stark. “Have the Starks always had such very straight hair?”
Mrs. Stark stiffened her chin. Her own hair was very straight. “I don't
know,” said she, “that the Starks have had any straighter hair than
other people. If Amelia does not have anything worse to contend with
than straight hair I rather think she will get along in the world as
well as most people.”
“It's thin, too,” said Grandmother Wheeler, with a sigh, “and it hasn't
a mite of color. Oh, well, Amelia is a good child, and beauty isn't
everything.” Grandmother Wheeler said that as if beauty were a great
deal, and Grandmother Stark arose and shook out her black silk skirts.
She had money, and loved to dress in rich black silks and laces.
“It is very little, very little indeed,” said she, and she eyed
Grandmother Wheeler's lovely old face, like a wrinkled old rose as to
color, faultless as to feature, and swept about by the loveliest waves
of shining silver hair.
Then she went out of the room, and Grandmother Wheeler, left alone,
smiled. She knew the worth of beauty for those who possess it and those
who do not. She had never been quite reconciled to her son's marrying
such a plain girl as Diantha Stark, although she had money. She
considered beauty on the whole as a more valuable asset than mere gold.
She regretted always that poor little Amelia, her only grandchild, was
so very plain-looking. She always knew that Amelia was very plain, and
yet sometimes the child puzzled her. She seemed to see reflections
of beauty, if not beauty itself, in the little colorless face, in the
figure, with its too-large joints and utter absence of curves. She
sometimes even wondered privately if some subtle resemblance to the
handsome Wheelers might not be in the child and yet appear. But she was
mistaken. What she saw was pure mimicry of a beautiful ideal.
Little Amelia tried to stand like Lily Jennings; she tried to walk like
her; she tried to smile like her; she made endeavors, very often
futile, to dress like her. Mrs. Wheeler did not in the least approve
of furbelows for children. Poor little Amelia went clad in severe
simplicity; durable woolen frocks in winter, and washable, unfadable,
and non-soil-showing frocks in summer. She, although her mother had
perhaps more money wherewith to dress her than had any of the other
mothers, was the plainest-clad little girl in school. Amelia, moreover,
never tore a frock, and, as she did not grow rapidly, one lasted several
seasons. Lily Jennings was destructive, although dainty. Her pretty
clothes were renewed every year. Amelia was helpless before that
problem. For a little girl burning with aspirations to be and look like
another little girl who was beautiful and wore beautiful clothes, to be
obliged to set forth for Madame's on a lovely spring morning, when thin
attire was in evidence, dressed in dark-blue-andwhite-checked gingham,
which she had worn for three summers, and with sleeves which, even to
childish eyes, were anachronisms, was a trial. Then to see Lily flutter
in a frock like a perfectly new white flower was torture; not because
of jealousy--Amelia was not jealous; but she so admired the other little
girl, and so loved her, and so wanted to be like her.
As for Lily, she hardly ever noticed Amelia. She was not aware that
she herself was an object of adoration; for she was a little girl who
searched for admiration in the eyes of little boys rather than little
girls, although very innocently. She always glanced slyly at Johnny
Trumbull when she wore a pretty new frock, to see if he noticed. He
never did, and she was sharp enough to know it. She was also child
enough not to care a bit, but to take a queer pleasure in the sensation
of scorn which she felt in consequence. She would eye Johnny from head
to foot, his boy's clothing somewhat spotted, his bulging pockets, his
always dusty shoes, and when he twisted uneasily, not understanding why,
she had a thrill of purely feminine delight. It was on one such occasion
that she first noticed Amelia Wheeler particularly.
It was a lovely warm morning in May, and Lily was a darling to
behold--in a big hat with a wreath of blue flowers, her hair tied
with enormous blue silk bows, her short skirts frilled with eyelet
embroidery, her slender silk legs, her little white sandals. Madame's
maid had not yet struck the Japanese gong, and all the pupils were out
on the lawn, Amelia, in her clean, ugly gingham and her serviceable
brown sailor hat, hovering near Lily, as usual, like a common, very
plain butterfly near a particularly resplendent blossom. Lily really
noticed her. She spoke to her confidentially; she recognized her fully
as another of her own sex, and presumably of similar opinions.
“Ain't boys ugly, anyway?” inquired Lily of Amelia, and a wonderful
change came over Amelia. Her sallow cheeks bloomed; her eyes showed blue
glitters; her little skinny figure became instinct with nervous life.
She smiled charmingly, with such eagerness that it smote with pathos and
bewitched.
“Oh yes, oh yes,” she agreed, in a voice like a quick flute obbligato.
“Boys are ugly.”
“Such clothes!” said Lily.
“Yes, such clothes!” said Amelia.
“Always spotted,” said Lily.
“Always covered all over with spots,” said Amelia.
“And their pockets always full of horrid things,” said Lily.
“Yes,” said Amelia.
Amelia glanced openly at Johnny Trumbull; Lily with a sidewise effect.
Johnny had heard every word. Suddenly he arose to action and knocked
down Lee Westminster, and sat on him.
“Lemme up!” said Lee.
Johnny had no quarrel whatever with Lee. He grinned, but he sat still.
Lee, the sat-upon, was a sharp little boy. “Showing off before the
gals!” he said, in a thin whisper.
“Hush up!” returned Johnny.
“Will you give me a writing-pad--I lost mine, and mother said I couldn't
have another for a week if I did--if I don't holler?” inquired Lee.
“Yes. Hush up!”
Lee lay still, and Johnny continued to sit upon his prostrate form.
Both were out of sight of Madame's windows, behind a clump of the cedars
which graced her lawn.
“Always fighting,” said Lily, with a fine crescendo of scorn. She lifted
her chin high, and also her nose.
“Always fighting,” said Amelia, and also lifted her chin and nose.
Amelia was a born mimic. She actually looked like Lily, and she spoke
like her.
Then Lily did a wonderful thing. She doubled her soft little arm into an
inviting loop for Amelia's little claw of a hand.
“Come along, Amelia Wheeler,” said she. “We don't want to stay near
horrid, fighting boys. We will go by ourselves.”
And they went. Madame had a headache that morning, and the Japanese
gong did not ring for fifteen minutes longer. During that time Lily and
Amelia sat together on a little rustic bench under a twinkling poplar,
and they talked, and a sort of miniature sun-and-satellite relation was
established between them, although neither was aware of it. Lily, being
on the whole a very normal little girl, and not disposed to even a full
estimate of herself as compared with others of her own sex, did not
dream of Amelia's adoration, and Amelia, being rarely destitute of
self-consciousness, did not understand the whole scope of her own
sentiments. It was quite sufficient that she was seated close to this
wonderful Lily, and agreeing with her to the verge of immolation.
“Of course,” said Lily, “girls are pretty, and boys are just as ugly as
they can be.”
“Oh yes,” said Amelia, fervently.
“But,” said Lily, thoughtfully, “it is queer how Johnny Trumbull always
comes out ahead in a fight, and he is not so very large, either.”
“Yes,” said Amelia, but she realized a pang of jealousy. “Girls could
fight, I suppose,” said she.
“Oh yes, and get their clothes all torn and messy,” said Lily.
“I shouldn't care,” said Amelia. Then she added, with a little toss, “I
almost know I could fight.” The thought even floated through her wicked
little mind that fighting might be a method of wearing out obnoxious and
durable clothes.
“You!” said Lily, and the scorn in her voice wilted Amelia.
“Maybe I couldn't,” said she.
“Of course you couldn't, and if you could, what a sight you'd be. Of
course it wouldn't hurt your clothes as much as some, because your
mother dresses you in strong things, but you'd be sure to get black and
blue, and what would be the use, anyway? You couldn't be a boy, if you
did fight.”
“No. I know I couldn't.”
“Then what is the use? We are a good deal prettier than boys, and
cleaner, and have nicer manners, and we must be satisfied.”
“You are prettier,” said Amelia, with a look of worshipful admiration at
Lily's sweet little face.
“You are prettier,” said Lily. Then she added, equivocally, “Even the
very homeliest girl is prettier than a boy.”
Poor Amelia, it was a good deal for her to be called prettier than a
very dusty boy in a fight. She fairly dimpled with delight, and again
she smiled charmingly. Lily eyed her critically.
“You aren't so very homely, after all, Amelia,” she said. “You needn't
think you are.”
Amelia smiled again.
“When you look like you do now you are real pretty,” said Lily, not
knowing or even suspecting the truth, that she was regarding in the face
of this little ardent soul her own, as in a mirror.
However, it was after that episode that Amelia Wheeler was called
“Copy-Cat.” The two little girls entered Madame's select school arm in
arm, when the musical gong sounded, and behind them came Lee Westminster
and Johnny Trumbull, surreptitiously dusting their garments, and ever
after the fact of Amelia's adoration and imitation of Lily Jennings was
evident to all. Even Madame became aware of it, and held conferences
with two of the under teachers.
“It is not at all healthy for one child to model herself so entirely
upon the pattern of another,” said Miss Parmalee.
“Most certainly it is not,” agreed Miss Acton, the music-teacher.
“Why, that poor little Amelia Wheeler had the rudiments of a fairly good
contralto. I had begun to wonder if the poor child might not be able at
least to sing a little, and so make up for--other things; and now she
tries to sing high like Lily Jennings, and I simply cannot prevent it.
She has heard Lily play, too, and has lost her own touch, and now it is
neither one thing nor the other.”
“I might speak to her mother,” said Madame, thoughtfully. Madame was
American born, but she married a French gentleman, long since deceased,
and his name sounded well on her circulars. She and her two under
teachers were drinking tea in her library.
Miss Parmalee, who was a true lover of her pupils, gasped at Madame's
proposition. “Whatever you do, please do not tell that poor child's
mother,” said she.
“I do not think it would be quite wise, if I may venture to express an
opinion,” said Miss Acton, who was a timid soul, and always inclined to
shy at her own ideas.
“But why?” asked Madame.
“Her mother,” said Miss Parmalee, “is a quite remarkable woman, with
great strength of character, but she would utterly fail to grasp the
situation.”
“I must confess,” said Madame, sipping her tea, “that I fail to
understand it. Why any child not an absolute idiot should so lose her
own identity in another's absolutely bewilders me. I never heard of such
a case.”
Miss Parmalee, who had a sense of humor, laughed a little. “It is
bewildering,” she admitted. “And now the other children see how it is,
and call her 'Copy-Cat' to her face, but she does not mind. I doubt if
she understands, and neither does Lily, for that matter. Lily Jennings
is full of mischief, but she moves in straight lines; she is not
conceited or self-conscious, and she really likes Amelia, without
knowing why.”
“I fear Lily will lead Amelia into mischief,” said Madame, “and Amelia
has always been such a good child.”
“Lily will never MEAN to lead Amelia into mischief,” said loyal Miss
Parmalee.
“But she will,” said Madame.
“If Lily goes, I cannot answer for Amelia's not following,” admitted
Miss Parmalee.
“I regret it all very much indeed,” sighed Madame, “but it does seem to
me still that Amelia's mother--”
“Amelia's mother would not even believe it, in the first place,” said
Miss Parmalee.
“Well, there is something in that,” admitted Madame. “I myself could not
even imagine such a situation. I would not know of it now, if you and
Miss Acton had not told me.”
“There is not the slightest use in telling Amelia not to imitate
Lily, because she does not know that she is imitating her,” said Miss
Parmalee. “If she were to be punished for it, she could never comprehend
the reason.”
“That is true,” said Miss Acton. “I realize that when the poor child
squeaks instead of singing. All I could think of this morning was a
little mouse caught in a trap which she could not see. She does actually
squeak!--and some of her low notes, although, of course, she is only a
child, and has never attempted much, promised to be very good.”
“She will have to squeak, for all I can see,” said Miss Parmalee. “It
looks to me like one of those situations that no human being can change
for better or worse.”
“I suppose you are right,” said Madame, “but it is most unfortunate, and
Mrs. Wheeler is such a superior woman, and Amelia is her only child,
and this is such a very subtle and regrettable affair. Well, we have to
leave a great deal to Providence.”
“If,” said Miss Parmalee, “she could only get angry when she is called
'Copy-Cat.'” Miss Parmalee laughed, and so did Miss Acton. Then all the
ladies had their cups refilled, and left Providence to look out for poor
little Amelia Wheeler, in her mad pursuit of her ideal in the shape of
another little girl possessed of the exterior graces which she had not.
Meantime the little “Copy-Cat” had never been so happy. She began to
improve in her looks also. Her grandmother Wheeler noticed it first, and
spoke of it to Grandmother Stark. “That child may not be so plain,
after all,” said she. “I looked at her this morning when she started
for school, and I thought for the first time that there was a little
resemblance to the Wheelers.”
Grandmother Stark sniffed, but she looked gratified. “I have been
noticing it for some time,” said she, “but as for looking like the
Wheelers, I thought this morning for a minute that I actually saw my
poor dear husband looking at me out of that blessed child's eyes.”
Grandmother Wheeler smiled her little, aggravating, curved, pink smile.
But even Mrs. Diantha began to notice the change for the better in
Amelia. She, however, attributed it to an increase of appetite and a
system of deep breathing which she had herself taken up and enjoined
Amelia to follow. Amelia was following Lily Jennings instead, but that
her mother did not know. Still, she was gratified to see Amelia's little
sallow cheeks taking on pretty curves and a soft bloom, and she was more
inclined to listen when Grandmother Wheeler ventured to approach the
subject of Amelia's attire.
“Amelia would not be so bad-looking if she were better dressed,
Diantha,” said she.
Diantha lifted her chin, but she paid heed. “Why, does not Amelia dress
perfectly well, mother?” she inquired.
“She dresses well enough, but she needs more ribbons and ruffles.”
“I do not approve of so many ribbons and ruffles,” said Mrs. Diantha.
“Amelia has perfectly neat, fresh black or brown ribbons for her hair,
and ruffles are not sanitary.”
“Ruffles are pretty,” said Grandmother Wheeler, “and blue and pink are
pretty colors. Now, that Jennings girl looks like a little picture.”
But that last speech of Grandmother Wheeler's undid all the previous
good. Mrs. Diantha had an unacknowledged--even to herself--disapproval
of Mrs. Jennings which dated far back in the past, for a reason which
was quite unworthy of her and of her strong mind. When she and Lily's
mother had been girls, she had seen Mrs. Jennings look like a picture,
and had been perfectly well aware that she herself fell far short of
an artist's ideal. Perhaps if Mrs. Stark had believed in ruffles and
ribbons, her daughter might have had a different mind when Grandmother
Wheeler had finished her little speech.
As it was, Mrs. Diantha surveyed her small, pretty mother-in-law with
dignified serenity, which savored only delicately of a snub. “I do not
myself approve of the way in which Mrs. Jennings dresses her daughter,”
said she, “and I do not consider that the child presents to a practical
observer as good an appearance as my Amelia.”
Grandmother Wheeler had a temper. It was a childish temper and soon
over--still, a temper. “Lord,” said she, “if you mean to say that
you think your poor little snipe of a daughter, dressed like a little
maid-of-all-work, can compare with that lovely little Lily Jennings, who
is dressed like a doll!--”
“I do not wish that my daughter should be dressed like a doll,” said
Mrs. Diantha, coolly.
“Well, she certainly isn't,” said Grandmother Wheeler. “Nobody would
ever take her for a doll as far as looks or dress are concerned. She may
be GOOD enough. I don't deny that Amelia is a good little girl, but her
looks could be improved on.”
“Looks matter very little,” said Mrs. Diantha.
“They matter very much,” said Grandmother Wheeler, pugnaciously, her
blue eyes taking on a peculiar opaque glint, as always when she lost
her temper, “very much indeed. But looks can't be helped. If poor little
Amelia wasn't born with pretty looks, she wasn't. But she wasn't born
with such ugly clothes. She might be better dressed.”
“I dress my daughter as I consider best,” said Mrs. Diantha. Then she
left the room.
Grandmother Wheeler sat for a few minutes, her blue eyes opaque, her
little pink lips a straight line; then suddenly her eyes lit, and she
smiled. “Poor Diantha,” said she, “I remember how Henry used to like
Lily Jennings's mother before he married Diantha. Sour grapes hang
high.” But Grandmother Wheeler's beautiful old face was quite soft and
gentle. From her heart she pitied the reacher after those high-hanging
sour grapes, for Mrs. Diantha had been very good to her.
Then Grandmother Wheeler, who had a mild persistency not evident to a
casual observer, began to make plans and lay plots. She was resolved,
Diantha or not, that her granddaughter, her son's child, should have
some fine feathers. The little conference had taken place in her own
room, a large, sunny one, with a little storeroom opening from it.
Presently Grandmother Wheeler rose, entered the storeroom, and began
rummaging in some old trunks. Then followed days of secret work.
Grandmother Wheeler had been noted as a fine needlewoman, and her
hand had not yet lost its cunning. She had one of Amelia's ugly little
ginghams, purloined from a closet, for size, and she worked two or
three dainty wonders. She took Grandmother Stark into her confidence.
Sometimes the two ladies, by reason of their age, found it possible to
combine with good results.
“Your daughter Diantha is one woman in a thousand,” said Grandmother
Wheeler, diplomatically, one day, “but she never did care much for
clothes.”
“Diantha,” returned Grandmother Stark, with a suspicious glance, “always
realized that clothes were not the things that mattered.”
“And, of course, she is right,” said Grandmother Wheeler, piously.
“Your Diantha is one woman in a thousand. If she cared as much for fine
clothes as some women, I don't know where we should all be. It would
spoil poor little Amelia.”
“Yes, it would,” assented Grandmother Stark. “Nothing spoils a little
girl more than always to be thinking about her clothes.”
“Yes, I was looking at Amelia the other day, and thinking how much more
sensible she appeared in her plain gingham than Lily Jennings in all her
ruffles and ribbons. Even if people were all noticing Lily, and praising
her, thinks I to myself, 'How little difference such things really make.
Even if our dear Amelia does stand to one side, and nobody notices her,
what real matter is it?'” Grandmother Wheeler was inwardly chuckling as
she spoke.
Grandmother Stark was at once alert. “Do you mean to say that Amelia is
really not taken so much notice of because she dresses plainly?” said
she.
“You don't mean that you don't know it, as observant as you are?”
replied Grandmother Wheeler.
“Diantha ought not to let it go as far as that,” said Grandmother Stark.
Grandmother Wheeler looked at her queerly. “Why do you look at me like
that?”
“Well, I did something I feared I ought not to have done. And I didn't
know what to do, but your speaking so makes me wonder--”
“Wonder what?”
Then Grandmother Wheeler went to her little storeroom and emerged
bearing a box. She displayed the contents--three charming little white
frocks fluffy with lace and embroidery.
“Did you make them?”
“Yes, I did. I couldn't help it. I thought if the dear child never wore
them, it would be some comfort to know they were in the house.”
“That one needs a broad blue sash,” said Grandmother Stark.
Grandmother Wheeler laughed. She took her impecuniosity easily. “I had
to use what I had,” said she.
“I will get a blue sash for that one,” said Grandmother Stark, “and a
pink sash for that, and a flowered one for that.”
“Of course they will make all the difference,” said Grandmother Wheeler.
“Those beautiful sashes will really make the dresses.”
“I will get them,” said Grandmother Stark, with decision. “I will go
right down to Mann Brothers' store now and get them.”
“Then I will make the bows, and sew them on,” replied Grandmother
Wheeler, happily.
It thus happened that little Amelia Wheeler was possessed of three
beautiful dresses, although she did not know it.
For a long time neither of the two conspiring grandmothers dared divulge
the secret. Mrs. Diantha was a very determined woman, and even her own
mother stood somewhat in awe of her. Therefore, little Amelia went to
school during the spring term soberly clad as ever, and even on the
festive last day wore nothing better than a new blue gingham, made
too long, to allow for shrinkage, and new blue hair-ribbons. The two
grandmothers almost wept in secret conclave over the lovely frocks which
were not worn.
“I respect Diantha,” said Grandmother Wheeler. “You know that. She is
one woman in a thousand, but I do hate to have that poor child go to
school to-day with so many to look at her, and she dressed so unlike all
the other little girls.”
“Diantha has got so much sense, it makes her blind and deaf,” declared
Grandmother Stark. “I call it a shame, if she is my daughter.”
“Then you don't venture--”
Grandmother Stark reddened. She did not like to own to awe of her
daughter. “I VENTURE, if that is all,” said she, tartly. “You don't
suppose I am afraid of Diantha?--but she would not let Amelia wear one
of the dresses, anyway, and I don't want the child made any unhappier
than she is.”
“Well, I will admit,” replied Grandmother Wheeler, “if poor Amelia knew
she had these beautiful dresses and could not wear them she might feel
worse about wearing that homely gingham.”
“Gingham!” fairly snorted Grandmother Stark. “I cannot see why Diantha
thinks so much of gingham. It shrinks, anyway.”
Poor little Amelia did undoubtedly suffer on that last day, when she sat
among the others gaily clad, and looked down at her own common little
skirts. She was very glad, however, that she had not been chosen to do
any of the special things which would have necessitated her appearance
upon the little flower-decorated platform. She did not know of the
conversation between Madame and her two assistants.
“I would have Amelia recite a little verse or two,” said Madame, “but
how can I?” Madame adored dress, and had a lovely new one of sheer
dull-blue stuff, with touches of silver, for the last day.
“Yes,” agreed Miss Parmalee, “that poor child is sensitive, and for her
to stand on the platform in one of those plain ginghams would be too
cruel.”
“Then, too,” said Miss Acton, “she would recite her verses exactly like
Lily Jennings. She can make her voice exactly like Lily's now. Then
everybody would laugh, and Amelia would not know why. She would think
they were laughing at her dress, and that would be dreadful.”
If Amelia's mother could have heard that conversation everything would
have been different, although it is puzzling to decide in what way.
It was the last of the summer vacation in early September, just before
school began, that a climax came to Amelia's idolatry and imitation of
Lily. The Jenningses had not gone away that summer, so the two little
girls had been thrown together a good deal. Mrs. Diantha never went away
during a summer. She considered it her duty to remain at home, and she
was quite pitiless to herself when it came to a matter of duty.
However, as a result she was quite ill during the last of August and the
first of September. The season had been unusually hot, and Mrs. Diantha
had not spared herself from her duty on account of the heat. She
would have scorned herself if she had done so. But she could not,
strong-minded as she was, avert something like a heat prostration after
a long walk under a burning sun, nor weeks of confinement and idleness
in her room afterward.
When September came, and a night or two of comparative coolness, she
felt stronger; still she was compelled by most unusual weakness to
refrain from her energetic trot in her duty-path; and then it was that
something happened.
One afternoon Lily fluttered over to Amelia's, and Amelia, ever on the
watch, spied her.
“May I go out and see Lily?” she asked Grandmother Stark.
“Yes, but don't talk under the windows; your mother is asleep.”
Amelia ran out.
“I declare,” said Grandmother Stark to Grandmother Wheeler, “I was half
a mind to tell that child to wait a minute and slip on one of those
pretty dresses. I hate to have her go on the street in that old gingham,
with that Jennings girl dressed up like a wax doll.”
“I know it.”
“And now poor Diantha is so weak--and asleep--it would not have annoyed
her.”
“I know it.”
Grandmother Stark looked at Grandmother Wheeler. Of the two she
possessed a greater share of original sin compared with the size of
her soul. Moreover, she felt herself at liberty to circumvent her
own daughter. Whispering, she unfolded a daring scheme to the other
grandmother, who stared at her aghast a second out of her lovely blue
eyes, then laughed softly.
“Very well,” said she, “if you dare.”
“I rather think I dare!” said Grandmother Stark. “Isn't Diantha Wheeler
my own daughter?” Grandmother Stark had grown much bolder since Mrs.
Diantha had been ill.
Meantime Lily and Amelia walked down the street until they came to a
certain vacant lot intersected by a foot-path between tall, feathery
grasses and goldenrod and asters and milkweed. They entered the
foot-path, and swarms of little butterflies rose around them, and once
in a while a protesting bumblebee.
“I am afraid we will be stung by the bees,” said Amelia.
“Bumblebees never sting,” said Lily; and Amelia believed her.
When the foot-path ended, there was the riverbank. The two little girls
sat down under a clump of brook willows and talked, while the river,
full of green and blue and golden lights, slipped past them and never
stopped.
Then Lily proceeded to unfold a plan, which was not philosophical,
but naughtily ingenious. By this time Lily knew very well that Amelia
admired her, and imitated her as successfully as possible, considering
the drawback of dress and looks.
When she had finished Amelia was quite pale. “I am afraid, I am afraid,
Lily,” said she.
“What of?”
“My mother will find out; besides, I am afraid it isn't right.”
“Who ever told you it was wrong?”
“Nobody ever did,” admitted Amelia.
“Well, then you haven't any reason to think it is,” said Lily,
triumphantly. “And how is your mother ever going to find it out?”
“I don't know.”
“Isn't she ill in her room? And does she ever come to kiss you good
night, the way my mother does, when she is well?”
“No,” admitted Amelia.
“And neither of your grandmothers?”
“Grandmother Stark would think it was silly, like mother, and
Grandmother Wheeler can't go up and down stairs very well.”
“I can't see but you are perfectly safe. I am the only one that runs any
risk at all. I run a great deal of risk, but I am willing to take it,”
said Lily with a virtuous air. Lily had a small but rather involved
scheme simply for her own ends, which did not seem to call for much
virtue, but rather the contrary.
Lily had overheard Arnold Carruth and Johnny Trumbull and Lee
Westminster and another boy, Jim Patterson, planning a most delightful
affair, which even in the cases of the boys was fraught with danger,
secrecy, and doubtful rectitude. Not one of the four boys had had a
vacation from the village that summer, and their young minds had become
charged, as it were, with the seeds of revolution and rebellion. Jim
Patterson, the son of the rector, and of them all the most venturesome,
had planned to take--he called it “take”; he meant to pay for it,
anyway, he said, as soon as he could shake enough money out of his
nickel savings-bank--one of his father's Plymouth Rock chickens and have
a chickenroast in the woods back of Dr. Trumbull's. He had planned for
Johnny to take some ears of corn suitable for roasting from his father's
garden; for Lee to take some cookies out of a stone jar in his mother's
pantry; and for Arnold to take some potatoes. Then they four would steal
forth under cover of night, build a camp-fire, roast their spoils, and
feast.
Lily had resolved to be of the party. She resorted to no open methods;
the stones of the fighting suffragettes were not for her, little
honey-sweet, curled, and ruffled darling; rather the time-worn, if not
time-sanctified, weapons of her sex, little instruments of wiles, and
tiny dodges, and tiny subterfuges, which would serve her best.
“You know,” she said to Amelia, “you don't look like me. Of course you
know that, and that can't be helped; but you do walk like me, and talk
like me, you know that, because they call you 'CopyCat.'”
“Yes, I know,” said poor Amelia.
“I don't mind if they do call you 'Copy-Cat,'” said Lily, magnanimously.
“I don't mind a bit. But, you see, my mother always comes up-stairs to
kiss me good night after I have gone to bed, and tomorrow night she has
a dinner-party, and she will surely be a little late, and I can't manage
unless you help me. I will get one of my white dresses for you, and all
you have to do is to climb out of your window into that cedar-tree--you
know you can climb down that, because you are so afraid of burglars
climbing up--and you can slip on my dress; you had better throw it out
of the window and not try to climb in it, because my dresses tear awful
easy, and we might get caught that way. Then you just sneak down to our
house, and I shall be outdoors; and when you go up-stairs, if the doors
should be open, and anybody should call, you can answer just like me;
and I have found that light curly wig Aunt Laura wore when she had her
head shaved after she had a fever, and you just put that on and go to
bed, and mother will never know when she kisses you good night. Then
after the roast I will go to your house, and climb up that tree, and
go to bed in your room. And I will have one of your gingham dresses to
wear, and very early in the morning I will get up, and you get up, and
we both of us can get down the back stairs without being seen, and run
home.”
Amelia was almost weeping. It was her worshiped Lily's plan, but she was
horribly scared. “I don't know,” she faltered.
“Don't know! You've got to! You don't love me one single bit or you
wouldn't stop to think about whether you didn't know.” It was the
world-old argument which floors love. Amelia succumbed.
The next evening a frightened little girl clad in one of Lily Jennings's
white embroidered frocks was racing to the Jenningses' house, and
another little girl, not at all frightened, but enjoying the stimulus of
mischief and unwontedness, was racing to the wood behind Dr. Trumbull's
house, and that little girl was clad in one of Amelia Wheeler's
ginghams. But the plan went all awry.
Lily waited, snuggled up behind an alder-bush, and the boys came, one by
one, and she heard this whispered, although there was no necessity for
whispering, “Jim Patterson, where's that hen?”
“Couldn't get her. Grabbed her, and all her tail-feathers came out in a
bunch right in my hand, and she squawked so, father heard. He was in his
study writing his sermon, and he came out, and if I hadn't hid behind
the chicken-coop and then run I couldn't have got here. But I can't see
as you've got any corn, Johnny Trumbull.”
“Couldn't. Every single ear was cooked for dinner.”
“I couldn't bring any cookies, either,” said Lee Westminster; “there
weren't any cookies in the jar.”
“And I couldn't bring the potatoes, because the outside cellar door was
locked,” said Arnold Carruth. “I had to go down the back stairs and out
the south door, and the inside cellar door opens out of our dining-room,
and I daren't go in there.”
“Then we might as well go home,” said Johnny Trumbull. “If I had
been you, Jim Patterson, I would have brought that old hen if her
tail-feathers had come out. Seems to me you scare awful easy.”
“Guess if you had heard her squawk!” said Jim, resentfully. “If you want
to try to lick me, come on, Johnny Trumbull. Guess you don't darse call
me scared again.”
Johnny eyed him standing there in the gloom. Jim was not large, but
very wiry, and the ground was not suited for combat. Johnny, although a
victor, would probably go home considerably the worse in appearance; and
he could anticipate the consequences were his father to encounter him.
“Shucks!” said Johnny Trumbull, of the fine old Trumbull family and
Madame's exclusive school. “Shucks! who wants your old hen? We had
chicken for dinner, anyway.”
“So did we,” said Arnold Carruth.
“We did, and corn,” said Lee.
“We did,” said Jim.
Lily stepped forth from the alder-bush. “If,” said she, “I were a
boy, and had started to have a chicken-roast, I would have HAD a
chicken-roast.”
But every boy, even the valiant Johnny Trumbull, was gone in a mad
scutter. This sudden apparition of a girl was too much for their nerves.
They never even knew who the girl was, although little Arnold Carruth
said she had looked to him like “Copy-Cat,” but the others scouted the
idea.
Lily Jennings made the best of her way out of the wood across lots to
the road. She was not in a particularly enviable case. Amelia Wheeler
was presumably in her bed, and she saw nothing for it but to take the
difficult way to Amelia's.
Lily tore a great rent in the gingham going up the cedar-tree, but that
was nothing to what followed. She entered through Amelia's window, her
prim little room, to find herself confronted by Amelia's mother in a
wrapper, and her two grandmothers. Grandmother Stark had over her arm
a beautiful white embroidered dress. The two old ladies had entered the
room in order to lay the white dress on a chair and take away Amelia's
gingham, and there was no Amelia. Mrs. Diantha had heard the commotion,
and had risen, thrown on her wrapper, and come. Her mother had turned
upon her.
“It is all your fault, Diantha,” she had declared.
“My fault?” echoed Mrs. Diantha, bewildered. “Where is Amelia?”
“We don't know,” said Grandmother Stark, “but you have probably driven
her away from home by your cruelty.”
“Cruelty?”
“Yes, cruelty. What right had you to make that poor child look like a
fright, so people laughed at her? We have made her some dresses that
look decent, and had come here to leave them, and to take away those
old gingham things that look as if she lived in the almshouse, and leave
these, so she would either have to wear them or go without, when we
found she had gone.”
It was at that crucial moment that Lily entered by way of the window.
“Here she is now,” shrieked Grandmother Stark. “Amelia, where--” Then
she stopped short.
Everybody stared at Lily's beautiful face suddenly gone white. For once
Lily was frightened. She lost all self-control. She began to sob. She
could scarcely tell the absurd story for sobs, but she told, every word.
Then, with a sudden boldness, she too turned on Mrs. Diantha. “They call
poor Amelia 'CopyCat,'” said she, “and I don't believe she would ever
have tried so hard to look like me only my mother dresses me so I look
nice, and you send Amelia to school looking awfully.” Then Lily sobbed
again.
“My Amelia is at your house, as I understand?” said Mrs. Diantha, in an
awful voice.
“Ye-es, ma-am.”
“Let me go,” said Mrs. Diantha, violently, to Grandmother Stark, who
tried to restrain her. Mrs. Diantha dressed herself and marched down the
street, dragging Lily after her. The little girl had to trot to keep up
with the tall woman's strides, and all the way she wept.
It was to Lily's mother's everlasting discredit, in Mrs. Diantha's
opinion, but to Lily's wonderful relief, that when she heard the story,
standing in the hall in her lovely dinner dress, with the strains of
music floating from the drawing-room, and cigar smoke floating from the
dining-room, she laughed. When Lily said, “And there wasn't even any
chickenroast, mother,” she nearly had hysterics.
“If you think this is a laughing matter, Mrs. Jennings, I do not,” said
Mrs. Diantha, and again her dislike and sorrow at the sight of that
sweet, mirthful face was over her. It was a face to be loved, and hers
was not.
“Why, I went up-stairs and kissed the child good night, and never
suspected,” laughed Lily's mother.
“I got Aunt Laura's curly, light wig for her,” explained Lily, and Mrs.
Jennings laughed again.
It was not long before Amelia, in her gingham, went home, led by her
mother--her mother, who was trembling with weakness now. Mrs. Diantha
did not scold. She did not speak, but Amelia felt with wonder her little
hand held very tenderly by her mother's long fingers.
When at last she was undressed and in bed, Mrs. Diantha, looking very
pale, kissed her, and so did both grandmothers.
Amelia, being very young and very tired, went to sleep. She did not know
that that night was to mark a sharp turn in her whole life. Thereafter
she went to school “dressed like the best,” and her mother petted her as
nobody had ever known her mother could pet.
It was not so very long afterward that Amelia, out of her own
improvement in appearance, developed a little stamp of individuality.
One day Lily wore a white frock with blue ribbons, and Amelia wore one
with coral pink. It was a particular day in school; there was company,
and tea was served.
“I told you I was going to wear blue ribbons,” Lily whispered to Amelia.
Amelia smiled lovingly back at her.
“Yes, I know, but I thought I would wear pink.”
THE COCK OF THE WALK
DOWN the road, kicking up the dust until he marched, soldier-wise, in a
cloud of it, that rose and grimed his moist face and added to the heavy,
brown powder upon the wayside weeds and flowers, whistling a queer,
tuneless thing, which yet contained definite sequences--the whistle of
a bird rather than a boy--approached Johnny Trumbull, aged ten, small of
his age, but accounted by his mates mighty.
Johnny came of the best and oldest family in the village, but it was
in some respects an undesirable family for a boy. In it survived, as
fossils survive in ancient nooks and crannies of the earth, old traits
of race, unchanged by time and environment. Living in a house lighted
by electricity, the mental conception of it was to the Trumbulls as the
conception of candles; with telephones at hand, they unconsciously still
conceived of messages delivered with the old saying, “Ride, ride,”
etc., and relays of post-horses. They locked their doors, but still had
latch-strings in mind. Johnny's father was a physician, adopting modern
methods of surgery and prescription, yet his mind harked back to cupping
and calomel, and now and then he swerved aside from his path across the
field of the present into the future and plunged headlong, as if for
fresh air, into the traditional past, and often with brilliant results.
Johnny's mother was a college graduate. She was the president of the
woman's club. She read papers savoring of such feminine leaps ahead that
they were like gymnastics, but she walked homeward with the gait of her
great-grandmother, and inwardly regarded her husband as her lord and
master. She minced genteelly, lifting her quite fashionable skirts high
above very slender ankles, which were hereditary. Not a woman of her
race had ever gone home on thick ankles, and they had all gone home.
They had all been at home, even if abroad--at home in the truest sense.
At the club, reading her inflammatory paper, Cora Trumbull's real
self remained at home intent upon her mending, her dusting, her house
economics. It was something remarkably like her astral body which
presided at the club.
As for her unmarried sister Janet, who was older and had graduated from
a young ladies' seminary instead of a college, whose early fancy had
been guided into the lady-like ways of antimacassars and pincushions
and wax flowers under glass shades, she was a straighter proposition. No
astral pretensions had Janet. She stayed, body and soul together, in
the old ways, and did not even project her shadow out of them. There is
seldom room enough for one's shadow in one's earliest way of life, but
there was plenty for Janet's. There had been a Janet unmarried in every
Trumbull family for generations. That in some subtle fashion accounted
for her remaining single. There had also been an unmarried Jonathan
Trumbull, and that accounted for Johnny's old bachelor uncle Jonathan.
Jonathan was a retired clergyman. He had retired before he had preached
long, because of doctrinal doubts, which were hereditary. He had
a little, dark study in Johnny's father's house, which was the old
Trumbull homestead, and he passed much of his time there, debating
within himself that matter of doctrines.
Presently Johnny, assiduously kicking up dust, met his uncle Jonathan,
who passed without the slightest notice. Johnny did not mind at all. He
was used to it. Presently his own father appeared, driving along in
his buggy the bay mare at a steady jog, with the next professional call
quite clearly upon her equine mind. And Johnny's father did not see him.
Johnny did not mind that, either. He expected nothing different.
Then Johnny saw his mother approaching. She was coming from the club
meeting. She held up her silk skirts high, as usual, and carried a
nice little parcel of papers tied with ribbon. She also did not notice
Johnny, who, however, out of sweet respect for his mother's nice silk
dress, stopped kicking up dust. Mrs. Trumbull on the village street was
really at home preparing a shortcake for supper.
Johnny eyed his mother's faded but rather beautiful face under the
rose-trimmed bonnet with admiration and entire absence of resentment.
Then he walked on and kicked up the dust again. He loved to kick up the
dust in summer, the fallen leaves in autumn, and the snow in winter.
Johnny was not a typical Trumbull. None of them had ever cared for
simple amusements like that. Looking back for generations on his
father's and mother's side (both had been Trumbulls, but very distantly
related), none could be discovered who in the least resembled Johnny. No
dim blue eye of retrospection and reflection had Johnny; no tendency to
tall slenderness which would later bow beneath the greater weight of the
soul. Johnny was small, but wiry of build, and looked able to bear any
amount of mental development without a lasting bend of his physical
shoulders. Johnny had, at the early age of ten, whopped nearly every
boy in school, but that was a secret of honor. It was well known in the
school that, once the Trumbulls heard of it, Johnny could never whop
again. “You fellows know,” Johnny had declared once, standing over his
prostrate and whimpering foe, “that I don't mind getting whopped at
home, but they might send me away to another school, and then I could
never whop any of you fellows.”
Johnny Trumbull kicking up the dust, himself dust-covered, his shoes,
his little queerly fitting dun suit, his cropped head, all thickly
powdered, loved it. He sniffed in that dust like a grateful incense. He
did not stop dust-kicking when he saw his aunt Janet coming, for, as he
considered, her old black gown was not worth the sacrifice. It was true
that she might see him. She sometimes did, if she were not reading a
book as she walked. It had always been a habit with the Janet Trumbulls
to read improving books when they walked abroad. To-day Johnny saw, with
a quick glance of those sharp, black eyes, so unlike the Trumbulls',
that his aunt Janet was reading. He therefore expected her to pass him
without recognition, and marched on kicking up the dust. But suddenly,
as he grew nearer the spry little figure, he was aware of a pair of gray
eyes, before which waved protectingly a hand clad in a black silk
glove with dangling finger-tips, because it was too long, and it dawned
swiftly upon him that Aunt Janet was trying to shield her face from the
moving column of brown motes. He stopped kicking, but it was too late.
Aunt Janet had him by the collar and was vigorously shaking him with
nervous strength.
“You are a very naughty little boy,” declared Aunt Janet. “You should
know better than to walk along the street raising so much dust. No
well-brought-up child ever does such things. Who are your parents, little
boy?”