[Illustration: “THE TWO CHILDREN WITH LITTLE LOUIE WERE PLAYING IN THE
LAUNDRY.”]
MABEL’S MISHAP
BY
AMY E. BLANCHARD
Author of “Kittyboy’s Christmas,” “Taking a Stand,”
“A Dear Little Girl,” etc.
Philadelphia
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
103-105 So. Fifteenth Street
COPYRIGHT, 1900 BY
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I 7
CHAPTER II 23
CHAPTER III 37
CHAPTER IV 52
CHAPTER V 66
CHAPTER VI 82
CHAPTER VII 98
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“THE TWO CHILDREN, WITH LITTLE LOUIE, WERE PLAYING IN THE LAUNDRY.”
“O, HAROLD, HERE IT IS!”
“SHE OCCUPIED HERSELF WITH TRYING TO PLAY MARBLES.”
CHAPTER I.
It was raining dismally. Mabel, leaning her arms on the broad
window-sill, watched the drops trickling down the panes. Before her
was an array of paper dolls in gay tissue dresses. They sat perched
upon pasteboard chairs in front of a circle of queer creatures with
flat heads, and no feet; hand in hand these stood, rather flimsy in
appearance. Mabel had cut them all in one from a bit of newspaper.
Presently she gave the whole company a sweep off on the floor.
“I’m tired of you,” she said. “And it’s raining, and I don’t know what
to do. I wish I were twins, so I could have someone to play with.”
“Why, Mabel,” said her mother, “suppose I had two discontented little
Mabels to be fretting around on a rainy day, what should I do?”
“You wouldn’t have to have two Mabels,” returned the little girl, “you
could call one something else: Maude, or--oh, mamma, you could call one
May and one Belle. I think I’d like to be May, myself. That’s what I’ll
do next time I play by myself: I’ll pretend I have a twin sister named
Belle.”
“Suppose you pick up that company of people, lying there by the window,
now, and play with your twin awhile.”
Mabel looked up mischievously. “I think I’ll let Belle pick them up,”
she said.
“Well, let me see her do it. There is a looking glass in which I can
watch her.”
“Oh, like ‘Alice in the Looking Glass Country’. You watch and see Belle
pick them up.” And she set to work, glancing over her shoulder once
in a while to see if her mother took in the performance. “There!” she
said, after a time, “Belle has picked them up, but we are both tired of
paper dolls. Mamma, there is a red flag hanging out by a door across
the street; in that house where the little boy lives. What is it for?
Do you suppose he has scarlet fever?”
Her mother laughed. “No, there is an auction--a sale going on.”
“What for?”
“Why, I don’t know, dear. For some reason they are selling off their
household goods and furniture.”
“Oh, I wonder if the little boy likes to do that. Who is selling the
things--his papa?”
“No, an auctioneer.”
“Does he say, ‘Going, going, gone,’ like Uncle Lewis does when he
pretends to sell me?”
“Yes.”
“Can anybody go to a--a nauction?”
“Why, yes. How many questions a little girl can ask.”
“Well, mamma, I think if you’ll ’scuse me, I’ll go down stairs and find
something else to do.”
“I’ll excuse you, certainly. Don’t get into mischief.”
But Mabel was out of the door and on her way down the steps by this
time. She stopped at the parlor, peeped in, and then went over to
the piano which she opened and began to drum softly upon it, but she
knew her mamma did not allow this, so she went across the hall to the
library. This was a favorite room, especially on a rainy day, and,
when her father was not busy there, Mabel was often allowed to curl
herself up in one of the big chairs with a book. To-day, however,
she did not feel inclined to settle down and looked around to find
something to invite her attention. A box of water-colors stood open
upon the desk where her father had been working. He had been coloring
some drawings to use in his class at the university.
Mabel stood gazing at the colors longingly; they did look so bright
and pretty. She took up one of the brushes and wet it in the glass of
water her father had been using; then she dipped it in the brightest
vermillion in the box.
“I wish I had something to paint,” she said to herself. Looking through
a pile of newspapers, she found nothing that would do, and her eyes
next sought the books nearest her. She opened one; it was fresh and
new. “Oh, I couldn’t take that,” she said. “But this old one, I don’t
believe he cares much for this. It has pictures in it, but they are
very queer, and so yellow, I’m sure the book isn’t of any account at
all. I think it would look much better if I were to paint it up a
little.” And, the action being suited to the word, the brush was soon
making dabs at the colors on the box, and the figures in the engravings
were given startling costumes of red, or blue, or yellow, as Mabel’s
fancy dictated.
She could not help feeling a little guilty, though all the time telling
herself that it was a worthless old book, and that her mamma often gave
her old magazines to try her own paints upon.
Yet, when she heard a step on the stairs, she started guiltily, and
shut the book with a snap, then put down her brush, unaware that she
had upset the glass of water in her haste, and that it was running
across the table and soaking through the book.
She hurried out of the door leading to the porch. Here she could listen
to the voice of the auctioneer, as it came to her ears quite distinctly
from across the street. It had stopped raining, though little puddles
still lay among the bricks of the walk.
“Any one can go,” thought Mabel; “mamma said so. I should love to see a
nauction. And that little boy, I wonder if he is there.”
It was mild spring weather, and Mabel thought she could dispense with
a hat. She would rather not go in the house again just then; “I’ll go
to the nauction,” she said. “It’s no more than going to a store; mamma
said so.”
So, running across the street, she stood for a moment before the gate
of the little boy’s home, then slipped in; another moment found her in
a room full of people. She turned to run away, as several turned to
look at her, but she caught sight of the forlorn figure of a little boy
huddled up in one corner, hugging a large dog, and towards these two
she made her way.
The little boy looked up with a faint smile as Mabel approached, then
made room for her on the box on which he was sitting.
“Isn’t it funny?” whispered Mabel, while the auctioneer went on
rapidly: “A dollar an’ a half an’ a half.”
But the little boy didn’t look as if he thought it very funny, for he
turned his head away, and Mabel thought she saw two tears rolling down
his cheeks.
“Is your father here?” she asked.
The little fellow shook his head, and just then, the articles in that
room being disposed of, the crowd went into the next, and the two
children were left alone.
“Are you going to move?” asked Mabel. “I live across the street, you
know, and I saw the red flag hanging out, so I just came over.”
The boy nodded.
“I’m Mabel Ford. My sister told me your name; it’s Harold, isn’t it?
What a dear dog that is. What’s his name?” Mabel was not to be daunted
by Harold’s silence.
“Don.” This time he answered her.
“I wish you were not going away. Do you want to?” Mabel’s questions
continued.
“No,” returned Harold, “but you know father has to go with his regiment
to Cuba, and so I have to go.”
“Oh, are you going to Cuba? What will you do when they are fighting?
When are you going?”
“I don’t know when I am going, but I am not going to Cuba.”
“Oh, I should think you would be glad not to. Will they take all the
things out of the house?”
“Yes, I suppose so. I expected to go to my aunt’s to-day, but Drake
hasn’t heard from her; neither have I.”
“And your papa went and left you all alone?”
“He had to, for he had to join his troops, and he thought my aunt would
be here before this.”
Mabel thought this a dreadful state of affairs, and looked her
sympathy.
“You see,” Harold went on, “these aren’t our things; not many of them.
Father rented the house furnished, and only brought a few of our own
things here.”
“Oh!” That was better, Mabel thought, but her curiosity was still
unsatisfied. “Where shall you go to-night?”
“Oh, I’ll go home with Drake, I suppose.”
“Who is he?”
“The coachman. Well, not the coachman, exactly. He does all sorts of
things, and his wife has kept house for us all winter.”
“Oh, yes; but I should think it would be much nicer with your aunt.”
“Perhaps it will be when I can go to her, but I can’t yet. You see,
she is probably away from home, and if I started without knowing all
about it, I might get to her house and find no one there, and then
what should I do in a strange place?” Harold was fast growing more
communicative.
“That would be dreadful,” agreed his companion, overcome by his lonely
condition. “I tell you what I wish you’d do,” she hastened to say: “I
wish you’d come over with me. We haven’t any boys at our house, and
I’ve always wanted awfully to be a boy. You see it would be fine if
I were, for now I’m just nothing. Alice is the oldest, so she’s some
importance, and Louie is the baby, so she’s the pet, and I’m in the
middle where I can’t be anything, and I don’t have anyone to play with,
for Alice is fourteen and Louis is only two.”
“Your mother wouldn’t want me, maybe,” said Harold, though his eyes
looked wistful.
“Oh, yes she would,” returned Mabel, confidently; “I’m sure she would.
She lets me have my school friends come, and sometimes they stay all
night.”
“But I’m a boy.”
“Well, never mind, we can’t help that. You can pretend you are a girl,
if you want to, and I’ll lend you one of my frocks.”
This brought the first approach to a laugh which Harold had shown, and
he consented to go and hunt up Drake, and Mabel went with him.
Drake, himself, was not to be found, but his wife was, and to her Mabel
made known her request.
“Well, I just wish he would go,” declared Mrs. Drake. “He’s been moping
around ever since his father went away, and we two old people can’t
cheer him up like you could. Go along, Harold, if you like, and stay as
long as you want to.”
So Harold followed his new friend across the street, and when the
situation was explained, true enough, he was given a warm welcome by
Mrs. Ford. An hour later the two children, with little Louie, were
playing in the laundry, having great times, with a tub of water and
some very primitive fishing lines.
“I don’t usually like babies tagging after me,” Mabel confided to her
friend, fearing he might think her less like a boy than she had given
him reason to suppose, “but Louie’s nurse has gone out,” she explained.
“Oh, I don’t mind her. I think she is a dear little girl,” Harold
returned, and Mabel was relieved when his heart seemed entirely won by
Louie’s overtures to “Boy,” as she called him.
All went merrily enough till supper time; then Mabel, intent only upon
making Harold at home, brought him smilingly into the dining-room. She
had forgotten the affair of the book, but it came back to her in a
very unpleasant manner, when her father, with one of his most severe
looks, greeted her with: “Mabel, was it you who was in the library this
afternoon, meddling with my box of colors?”
Mabel turned as red as a beet, hung her head, tried to speak, and at
last, faltered out: “I--I--yes, papa.”
“I might have expected it from a baby like Louie, but a girl as big as
you must certainly have known better. You have ruined one of my most
valuable and rare books,” Mr. Ford went on to say. All this before
Harold. Poor Mabel felt as though she would sink through the floor. She
wondered what punishment would be meted out to her, and she looked with
pleading eyes at her mother.