Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin
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accounted for the slight confusion in her demeanor.
“Aunt Miranda,” she began, “the fishman says that Clara Belle Simpson wants to see me very much, but Mrs. Fogg can’t spare her long at a time, you know, on account of the baby being no better; but Clara Belle could walk a mile up, and I a mile down the road, and we could meet at the pink house half way. Then we could rest and talk an hour or so, and both be back in time for our suppers. I’ve fed the cat; she had no appetite, as it’s only two o’clock and she had her dinner at noon, but she’ll go back to her saucer, and it’s off my mind. I could go down cellar now and bring up the cookies and the pie and doughnuts for supper before I start. Aunt Jane saw no objection; but we thought I’d better ask you so as to run no risks.”
Miranda Sawyer, who had been patiently waiting for the end of this speech, laid down her knitting and raised her eyes with a half-resigned expression that meant: Is there anything unusual in heaven or earth or the waters under the earth that this child does not want to do? Will she ever settle down to plain, comprehensible Sawyer ways, or will she to the end make these sudden and radical propositions, suggesting at every turn the irresponsible Randall ancestry?
“You know well enough, Rebecca, that I don’t like you to be intimate with Abner Simpson’s young ones,” she said decisively. “They ain’t fit company for anybody that’s got Sawyer blood in their veins, if it’s ever so little. I don’t know, I’m sure, how you’re goin’ to turn out! The fish peddler seems to be your best friend, without it’s Abijah Flagg that you’re everlastingly talkin’ to lately. I should think you’d rather read some improvin’ book than to be chatterin’ with Squire Bean’s chore-boy!”
“He isn’t always going to be a chore-boy,” explained Rebecca, “and that’s what we’re considering. It’s his career we talk about, and he hasn’t got any father or mother to advise him. Besides, Clara Belle kind of belongs to the village now that she lives with Mrs. Fogg; and she was always the best behaved of all the girls, either in school or Sunday-school. Children can’t help having fathers!”
“Everybody says Abner is turning over a new leaf, and if so, the family’d ought to be encouraged every possible way,” said Miss Jane, entering the room with her mending basket in hand.
“If Abner Simpson is turnin’ over a leaf, or anythin’ else in creation, it’s only to see what’s on the under side!” remarked Miss Miranda promptly. “Don’t talk to me about new leaves! You can’t change that kind of a man; he is what he is, and you can’t make him no different!”
“The grace of God can do consid’rable,” observed Jane piously.
“I ain’t sayin’ but it can if it sets out, but it has to begin early and stay late on a man like Simpson.”
“Now, Mirandy, Abner ain’t more’n forty! I don’t know what the average age for repentance is in men-folks, but when you think of what an awful sight of em leaves it to their deathbeds, forty seems real kind of young. Not that I’ve heard Abner has experienced religion, but everybody’s surprised at the good way he’s conductin’ this fall.”
“They’ll be surprised the other way round when they come to miss their firewood and apples and potatoes again,” affirmed Miranda.
“Clara Belle don’t seem to have inherited from her father,” Jane ventured again timidly. “No wonder Mrs. Fogg sets such store by the girl. If it hadn’t been for her, the baby would have been dead by now.”
“Perhaps tryin’ to save it was interferin’ with the Lord’s will,” was Miranda’s retort.
“Folks can’t stop to figure out just what’s the Lord’s will when a child has upset a kettle of scalding water on to himself,” and as she spoke Jane darned more excitedly. “Mrs. Fogg knows well enough she hadn’t ought to have left that baby alone in the kitchen with the stove, even if she did see Clara Belle comin’ across lots. She’d ought to have waited before drivin’ off; but of course she was afraid of missing the train, and she’s too good a woman to be held accountable.”
“The minister’s wife says Clara Belle is a real—I can’t think of the word!” chimed in Rebecca. “What’s the female of hero? Whatever it is, that’s what Mrs. Baxter called her!”
“Clara Belle’s the female of Simpson; that’s what she is,” Miss Miranda asserted; “but she’s been brought up to use her wits, and I ain’t sayin’ but she used em.”
“I should say she did!” exclaimed Miss Jane; “to put that screaming, suffering child in the baby-carriage and run all the way to the doctor’s when there wasn’t a soul on hand to advise her! Two or three more such actions would make the Simpson name sound consid’rable sweeter in this neighborhood.”
“Simpson will always sound like Simpson to me!” vouchsafed the elder sister, “but we’ve talked enough about em an’ to spare. You can go along, Rebecca; but remember that a child is known by the company she keeps.”
“All right, Aunt Miranda; thank you!” cried Rebecca, leaping from the chair on which she had been twisting nervously for five minutes. “And how does this strike you? Would you be in favor of my taking Clara Belle a company-tart?”
“Don’t Mrs. Fogg feed the young one, now she’s taken her right into the family?”
“Oh, yes,” Rebecca answered, “she has lovely things to eat, and Mrs. Fogg won’t even let her drink skim milk; but I always feel that taking a present lets the person know you’ve been thinking about them and are extra glad to see them. Besides, unless we have company soon, those tarts will have to be eaten by the family, and a new batch made; you remember the one I had when I was rewarding myself last week? That was queer—but nice,” she added hastily.
“Mebbe you could think of something of your own you could give away without taking my tarts!” responded Miranda tersely; the joints of her armor having been pierced by the fatally keen tongue of her niece, who had insinuated that company-tarts lasted a long time in the brick house. This was a fact; indeed, the company-tart was so named, not from any idea that it would ever be eaten by guests, but because it was too good for every-day use.
Rebecca’s face crimsoned with shame that she had drifted into an impolite and, what was worse, an apparently ungrateful speech.
“I didn’t mean to say anything not nice, Aunt Miranda,” she stammered. “Truly the tart was splendid, but not exactly like new, that’s all. And oh! I know what I can take Clara Belle! A few chocolate drops out of the box Mr. Ladd gave me on my birthday.”
“You go down cellar and get that tart, same as I told you,” commanded
Miranda, “and when you fill it don’t uncover a new tumbler of jelly; there’s some dried-apple preserves open that’ll do. Wear your rubbers and your thick jacket. After runnin’ all the way down there—for your legs never seem to be rigged for walkin’ like other girls’—you’ll set down on some damp stone or other and ketch your death o’ cold, an’ your
Aunt Jane n’ I’ll be kep’ up nights nursin’ you and luggin’ your meals upstairs to you on a waiter.”
Here Miranda leaned her head against the back of her rocking chair, dropped her knitting and closed her eyes wearily, for when the immovable body is opposed by the irresistible force there is a certain amount of jar and disturbance involved in the operation.
Rebecca moved toward the side door, shooting a questioning glance at Aunt Jane as she passed. The look was full of mysterious suggestion and was accompanied by an almost imperceptible gesture. Miss Jane knew that certain articles were kept in the entry closet, and by this time she had become sufficiently expert in telegraphy to know that Rebecca’s unspoken query meant: “COULD YOU PERMIT THE HAT WITH THE RED WINGS, IT BEING SATURDAY, FINE SETTLED WEATHER, AND A PLEASURE EXCURSION?”
These confidential requests, though fraught with embarrassment when Miranda was in the room, gave Jane much secret joy; there was something about them that stirred her spinster heart—they were