Six sinners; or, School days in Bantam Valley

CHAPTER I. Haps and Mishaps i

CHAPTER H.

On the Throne i6

CHAPTER HI.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

The President and Miss Betsey ... 99

CHAPTER VHI.

IV

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.

Watching and Waiting .

CHAPTER X.

The Turning Point .

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XH.

CHAPTER 1.

HAPS AND MISHAPS.

DODY ! Dora ! Body ! Theodora ! Oh, Body, where are you ? ''

Jack was almost ready to cry. Half an hour’s steady hunting, down in the meadow, under the buttonwood trees by the mill-brook, all over the house, of course, and now from bottom to top, and top to bottom again of the old barn. She wasn’t in the wood-house chamber, and I know she didn’t go off to play with any of the girls. I believe she’s climbed a tree and hid. D^7^?ra ! I know something awful, and you’d better believe I won’t tell you a word if you don't come out quick.”

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I don’t believe it,” said a voice from afar. ‘^You’re always pretending. What is it?”

Come out,” repeated Jack, severely.

I can’t come out till I come down, and I can’t get down. Jack; I’m stuck.”

‘‘Stuck where?'' roared Jack, dancing with impatience. “ I’ve been everywhere for you, and you wasn’t stuck there, else I should a seen you.”

“ In the wood-house roof, and it pinches,' squealed Dora, just the hint of a cry making itself heard. “ Come up through the butternutroom.”

“In the wood-house roof!” repeated Jack, mechanically, running his hands to the bottom of his pockets, and beginning to walk slowly toward the wood-house. “ I never heard of such a girl. You ought to stick awhile, just to pay you for cutting up so. I’ve a great mind to let you.”

Yet, as Jack threatened, he climbed up the ladder leading from the tool-room to the butternut-room. There were no windows, only two round openings at each end, and, for a moment, he could see nothing. Then a pair of boots waving wildly to and fro became visible, and he made toward them.

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‘‘ Drop, and I’ll catch you. What did you try to wiggle through there for ? ”

I can’t drop,” said Dora. There’s a board sprung or something, and all of my dress, and some of my arm’s caught in it. You’ll have to push it back. Jack.”

Jack mounted a block of wood used by Dora in her progress, and felt about till the loose board was found. All his strength could hardly move it, but with a grand jerk it presently flew back, and Dora half fell, half jumped to the floor, sending a regiment ' of butternuts flying. Jack sat down on the barrel and looked for a minute, without a word. Then he began :

Dora Maynard, I’d like to know if there aren’t places enough to play in, without your squeezing yourself to death getting up a place there couldn’t any thing but a squirrel get through ? What did you want out on the roof?”

I didn’t want anything,” Dora said, plaintively, picking cobwebs out of.her hair and eyes. But, Jack, there’s some little squirrels in there, I know, right between that board and the shingles. The old squirrels were getting butternuts, and they scolded and flew around so, I knew there was

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something ; and Fm pretty sure I saw ’em, only I got caught trying to put my arm in. See how black it is. I guess you’d say it hurt if you had it.”

May be I would, and maybe I wouldn’t,” said the young gentleman, pretending scorn, but really looking with some anxiety at the black and blue mark covering half her arm. ‘‘You run in and have grandma put some opodeldoc on it, and I’ll feel round for the squirrels.”

Suiting the action to the word. Jack arose, and began cautiously feeling around, but as his arm went farther in, withdrew it suddenly, with a howl echoed by Dora, who clasped him around the legs and held him there.

“Let go!” roared Jack. “Can’t you let a feller alone. I’m bit, awful 1 Now the blood’s running all down your apron. Tie me up, can’t you ?

“ I most always do have a rag so’s to tie myself up,” said Dora, forgetting her arm, and turning her pocket inside out. There was everything but a rag, and Dora at last tore ‘'her handkerchief in two, and bound up the streaming finger. “ I guess we’ll both go in to grandma,” she said.

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You’d better not, yet awhile ; she and grandpa are talking about you. I heard ’em.”

About me ? I haven’t done anything — to-day,” Dora added, remembering that in past days she had done enough to supply conversation for a century.

Grandma’s crying, too,” Jack went on ; and they’ve got a great long letter from New York, and I heard her say, ‘ I don’t know what will become of the child among strangers.’ Body,. I do believe they’re going to send you to school.”

I won’t go,” said Dora, shutting her teeth hard. Nobody’s any right to take me away from here.”

‘‘Yes they have, too,” Jack said, nursing his finger. “Your father can send you just where he’s a mind to. The letter’s from him, I know, because I heard grandpa read, ‘yours truly, H. H. Maynard.’ ”

“You’re a mean thing, any way, to listen so,” burst out Dora. “ I don’t want to hear about your hateful old letters. I won’t go to school. I’m glad you did get bit. 0-o-o-o-h ! ” and, in a passion of tears, Dora cast herself down among the butternuts and wailed till Jack, at first indig-

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nant, cooled off,' and came down from his perch to comfort her.

''Now, Dody, what’s the use? You know you’ve got to go if the letter says so. I’ll pick out a whole bag of butternut-meats for you, and I’ll pop all my corn, too ; and, Dody, we’ll write letters. I’ll tell you everything, and if I do get one o’ the squirrels, I’ll tame it, and have it all ready when you come home.”

" But I don’t want to go away from you. Jack, or any of ’em,” Dora moaned, rubbing her cheek against his, till there was a mutual interchange of cobwebs, dust, and tears.

" Come down, you two chilluns,” sounded old Dilly’s voice from below. " Your granther wants you. He says, 'Come right away.’ Merciful man ! now who could a told that caliker was ever clean ? ” she went on, as, after a minute of silence, Dora and Jack came down the ladder. "Tubs wouldn’t hold all the clothes you spile, and chains wouldn’t keep you out o’ mischief every blessed minnit you’re awake. It’s a mercy there ain’t any more o’ ye.”

Dilly grumbled all the way back to the kitchen, but ended with a chuckle as Dora passed her with

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a little nip at her great arms, and went into the room opening out from the bedroom, and called office or library, just as it happened. Grandpa sat in his big chair, and grandma on the sofa, had her knitting, and tried to look just as usual, though she turned away her head and looked out of the window for some time when the two came in. Dora sat down in her own rush-bottomed arm-chair, and looked at Mr. Winthrop without speaking.

‘‘Well, Body,’" he said, cheerfully, “here’s news for you. A long letter from father, and he says he has found just the right place for you. A private school where there are only eight little girls about your’ own age, and two or three older ones. It is in a country town, and there’s plenty of ground about it, so you will have almost as much freedom as here. Body, why Body!”

Dora had listened quietly for a moment, but, as he went on, first one tear and then another stole down, till a whole procession chased over the bridge of her nose, and with a great sob, she fled to grandma, and buried her head in the sofa cushions. “I shan’t go. You needn’t tell me a word about it; I don’t want to go to school-

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Oh, grandpa! don’t you know enough to teach me?”

“No, my dear, I don’t believe I do,” said grandpa, half laughing and half ready to cry himself, as Dora raised her appealing face. “Not, at anyfhte, all that yoj||i father wants you to learn. You were such a fraiHittle thing we have let you run wild a good deal, to strengthen you, and your father thinks you will be past training, unless you have a few more rules to keep you straight. They are all good ones; very good ones,” he added hastily, as Dora’s face took on a defiant look which boded ill for the keeping of these rules. “And if you are good, you will come back to us in the long vacations; six weeks in the spring, and sixr-^ the fall. Three whole months at home, I^ra,yf you can only remember to be good.” ( j

“What if I don’t r^ora choked.

“Then you are to stay right on. But, Dora, I know you will be good. You want to learn so ^any things, and have never been content to go to school here. Then, you’re ten years old, and what a Mde while it will take to jnake a young lady.” '

HAPS AND MISHAPS.

‘'I don't want to be a young lady," sighed Dora, ‘'I hate 'em. Must I soon, grandpa?"

^^In three or four weeks, so you have plenty of time to get ready for it. Have you cut yourself, dear? Where did all that blood come from?"

‘‘O, that’s Jack!" said to whom the^ree or four weeks seemed endless, and who felt like a reprieved criminal. '‘This is what I did to myself, and I want some opodeldoc on it, grandma."

‘‘The sleeve is badly torn," said grandma, after her pity and wonder were over, and the arm had been bathed. "Dora, what shall I do to make you more careful? I don't know who there’ll be to sew you up when you get away. Now I think you must mend this sleeve yourself, just to learn."

"O, but I can't, you kn;ow,Nfor my arm aches so I couldn't bend it anywaW grandma, for it’s all swelling."

"Then we’ll keep it till morning, my dear, and you can come in here and sew an hour in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Now lie down and keep quiet a little while, while I tie up Jack properly. Why, Dora, 'tisn’t pos4ble you tore one of your new handkerchiefs 1 You left

I lO

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one in the garden till it mildewed, and let another sail down the brook, and now, this is the third.’'

Dora looked a little ashamed.

‘‘I didn’t mean to, grandma, but it bled in a spirt all over me, and his finger wouldn’t hold a whole handkerchief, so you see I had to tear it.”

^'Well, take off this dress, and get a clean apron from your second drawer, and then try to keep still.”

‘'And Dora,” whispered Jack, privately, “come down pretty soon, for I’m going to have another try at those squirrels.”

Dora walked up the stairs soberly, and down the long hall, to the little room which had been her mother’s before her. Here, forgetting apron and dress together, she curled up in the wide window-seat, and looked over the meadows to the great mountain, which ever since she could remernber had stood there, its peak rising white in winter, soft, hazy, purple, or shrouded in mist in summer; but always the first thing her eyes rested on in the morning. Not the first thing either, for Dora’s opening eyes met the sweet, steady look of the pictured face that was all she knew of her mother, who had left her when a lit-

HAPS AND MISHAPS. II

tie baby, but after that first look were sure to go straight to the mountain. Dora’s favorite among all the psalms began, ‘‘I will lift mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help,” and she never wondered that David should seem to need them, for she did herself every day, and a great many times a day. Sitting in the old window-seat, when the mood came, she dressed her dolls, five of whom spent sadly neglected lives, in or under their bed, sometimes undressed for a month, and again in full dress for another month, unless some motherly little girl, coming in for a Saturday afternoon play, took pity on them. The room ran more to hornet’s nests, bird’s nests, cocoons and gay pebbles, than to doll’s belongings, for Dora and Jack wandered together through the woods, and came home with all man- • ner of creeping and crawling things. Their last expedition had resulted in bringing horned very small, but very fierce, snapping turtle, which being carefully put in Dilly’s bed, •wandered about between the sheets, till that mighty body was settled for the night, and then, indignant at so much space being taken up, seized her little toe savagely, and held tight. Dilly, almost asleep, believed

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the evil one had found her, and sprang from the bed, dancing about the room and screaming, while the obstinate turtle thumped an accompaniment as she went. Grandpa Winthrop’s strength was needed before the wicked jaws would give way, and, for a day or two, Dora was in deep disgrace. She laughed, now, looking down to the box under her window, where the turtle still walked about, and then was ready to cry again as she remembered that all this must come to an end. The kittens, and the pigeons, and Rover, all to be left, to say nothing of Jack, the cousin, who had come to them six months before, and who would stay and enjoy it all when she had gone. Then all the girls, and above all, Alma and Julia Otis, who lived at the foot of the hill, and came up at least once a day. And in thinking of them a dreadful fear came over Dora, lest Jack would, in time, care more for them than for her. “Perhaps he’s gone there now,” she said, and spurred on by this thought, changed her dress and apron, smoothed her hair a little, and ran down.

No Jack in the house, but running down the hill, Dora heard him calling, and saw him in the long grape arbor at the side of the house.

HAPS AND MISHAPS.

“I was looking to see if the grapes would be ripe before you go away, Dora, but they won't. It's only the first of August now, and you've got to go in September."

Don't let's talk about it," said Dora; don't want to think about it till the time comes. Let's have a good time. Get some pea-pods, and we'll go down to the brook and sail 'em."

‘AVell," said Jack, ^^and you run down for Alma and Julia while I get 'em. Tell Bob to come too."

Dora ran fast, but was long in returning, having found the two girls sewing patch- work, and with a ‘"stent" to finish. So Dora stayed to help them, notwithstanding her arm, and hurried back at last, to find Jack fuming in the arbor.

‘T tell you one thing," he shouted, ‘T sha'n't ever mind Dr. Phelps's pills again. I've been trying while I was waiting, and I can swallow the biggest grape here without winking."

“So can I," said Dora, out of breath with running, but looking about for the biggest one to be had.

“You are not as big as he is," said Julia, “and your mouth's smaller, too. I wouldn't do it."

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“No, I know you wouldn’t,” said Dora, scornfully. “You’re afraid to do most anything. Now I’ll swallow a little one just to sort of stretch my throat, you know, and then you see if I can’t take as big a one as Jack.” Down went the little grape, and Dora, with a —

“One, two, three.

Away goes she,”

popped in the second one, which being fully twice as large, went part way and there stayed. Dora choked and gasped, but stir it would not, and as Jack saw her turning black in the face he pounded her furiously on the back, screaming, ''Grandfather! Dilly! Dora’s choking!’'

Dilly heard and ran, and frightened at the child’s struggle for breath, first pounded with Jack, and then finding this did no good, suddenly seized her, turned her neatly upside down, and rapped her head against the walk. Out flew the grape, and up flew the bumped and beaten, black and blue, Dora, ready to scratch Dilly’s eyes out for the indignity put upon her. Julia and Alma screamed. Jack laughed, and Dilly cried, and Grandmother Winthrop running out, and beholding Dora flying at all of them, decided the whole family were crazy.

HAPS AND MISHAPS.

IS

Alma told the story and then went home, while Jack, as the original first cause, was told to sit still an hour, and learn three more verses of Casablanca. Dora went in to have her throat gargled, her head bathed, and her nose, off which the skin had been rubbed, anointed with cream, and then she was laid on the sofa and ordered to keep quiet. '‘I believe I could have done it,'' she said, presently, ^'if it hadn't stuck just there."

‘‘That's just it," said grandpa. “These wild things you undertake almost always do stick just there. You must learn to use your common sense a little, Dora."

“Jack did it, and I can do whatever he can, grandpa."

“Well, I'm glad there are only girls where you are going," said grandma. “And I do hope you won't get them to break all their necks at once."

Dora turned her face away and lay still, and when by and by her regular breathing told them she was sound asleep, grandpa said, for the twentieth time that day, “I don’t know what that child will do among strangers."

Chapter II. On The Throne

HOW those four weeks went by! Dora never could tell afterwards exactly what was done in them, though two hours’ sewing daily was one distinct misery. Grandma brought out an old-fashioned apron of turkey red, in the last stages of tear and rip, and on this apron, with white thread, Dora experimented in every possible darn and patch. What stitches there were at first, and the patches might have been ruffles or puffs, or anything but patches. But before September came she could almost follow a thread, and each stitch stood out “plain as a little pearl,” Jack said, when invited to compliment them. Then all the way down the back was a line of button-holes, beginning with a gash partially covered by staggering lines of thread, but ending in a great deal better button-hole than I am afraid many ten-

ON THE THRONE.

year-olds can make now. Grandpa brought out a pair of stockings; at least, they were stockings once, but toes and heels were missing; one top was a flap, and the other had gone to find the toes.

‘‘Mend these Dora, so that I can wear them once more,'' said he, “and you shall have five dollars in five-cent pieces."

“You never wore them out like that, I know," said Dora, confidently. “I believe you've just chopped 'em every way so's to make me the most work. I don't care though. I’ll do something to ’em."

Three days Dora worked over those wretched stockings, supported by Jack and Alma and Julia, who fed her with last year’s butternuts, blackcaps, and fresh cheeses from that unfailing dairy around the door-step, while Dilly threw in crumbs of comfort in the shape of saucer pies and little cakes. One ball of yarn and part of another disappeared before the work was completed, but at last came an afternoon when Dora threw her yarn and scissors into the air, and with a stocking on each arm danced a jig with Jack, while Rover barked his congratulations. Then the children i8

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stuffed the feet with harvest-apples, so that every darn stood out in bold relief, and while Dora made a wreath of hollyhocks, tiger lilies and small sunflowers, Jack brought out the best silver salver, and placed the work of art in the centre. Then the procession marched round to the library window to the tune of ‘'The Campbells are Coming.’' Jack had arranged a solemn presentation speech, and was scandalized by Dora’s forgetting every word, and contenting herself with handing the waiter through the window, and saying, “Here they are grandpa. Where’s the five dollars?”

“Really mended ? ” said grandpa, much amazed, but receiving the offering with a stately bow. “You shall have your money by five o’clock, provided your ladyship can wait.”

“I did want to do something with it right away,” said Dora, “but may be it will do then.”

“I’m sure it will,” said a voice from within; “for I want you till then.”

“O, it’s Mr. Osgood!” said Dora, beamingly, as she skipped through the window. “ I didn’t know you had come home.”

“I’ve only been here an hour or two. Don’t you want to walk to the mill-pond ? ”

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indeed I do ! Dora said, ‘^but I must tell Jack and the rest first.”

Jack and the girls had, however, disappeared, knowing that Dora was lost to them for the rest of the afternoon ; and soon she was running down the hill to the meadows through which the path to the mill-pond wound, followed more slowly by her friend.

Mr. Osgood was the minister of the little church to which the Winthrops went, and the children never ceased wondering at Dora’s intimacy with him. He was a grave, rather silent man at his first coming, three or four years before, all of which time he had spent in the Winthrop’s south chamber, back of which was Dora’s room. This south room was a sort of fairy land, filled to running over with books and pictures which drew Dora like a magnet, and as soon as Mr. Osgood found that her harum-scarum ways never extended to her treatment of his pets, she had free access to them all the time. At first holding him in the greatest awe, as I think all children did ‘their minister twenty years ago, she learned soon to look up to him as her nearest friend after grandfather and grandmother. Sitting perfectly

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quiet in the broad window-seat, he often forgot her presence, and read over his sermons or bits from his favorite books, while Dora watched him with her great eyes, and thought no such delightful man had ever lived. In the long walks he took among the hills and deep into the woods where Dora never would have been allowed to go alone, she was very often his companion, and learned the way to all sorts of strange places, to which she was able by and by to introduce Jack.

All but one of them, and this special spot had such sacredness in her eyes that I doubt if she would hardly have been willing to take grandfather himself there. Going back from the mill-pond into thick woods, which even the village boys knew little about, you came soon to a branch of the mill-brook, and following it up half a mile or so, it broadened into almost a pond, in the centre of which was a high rock, from which grew one tall hemlock. How it grew was hard to tell, for there seemed only earth enough to give life to the ferns and grasses about, its roots, but grow it did, taller and statelier than any tree Dora had ever seen. In June had been their first visit, when the water was still high from spring freshets,

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and as they looked up to the rock, Dora said,‘'0, how I wish we could get up there.’'

Exactly where we are going,” Mr. Osgood said, pulling off his boots and setting them on a log. ‘^Now Dora, put your arms around my neck; let me get hold of your small shoes, and over we go.”

The water was not deep after all, not much over the knees, and in a minute Dora was scrambling up the sides, and finding between two roots a natural arm-chair, quite wide enough for two, moss-cushioned, and spicy with fallen leaves and cones. Through the opening in the forest, the mountain looked down upon them, and the birds sang on, as if people who came to such lonely places must belong there naturally, and were not to be feared. Mr. Osgood sat silently looking far off, and Dora, quiet too, leaned her head against his arm and felt perfectly content.

‘‘You never brought me here before,” she said, by and by; “I didn’t know there was such a nice place in the world. Why didn’t you bring me before ? ”

“Because I didn’t know as we were good friends enough: I only want to bring the people that I love best here.”

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Dora cuddled up closer, and was still a minute, then she said :

‘‘I wish I was your little wife so’t I could go everywhere with you. Don’t you wish I was?”

Mr. Osgood smiled, but the very grave eyes which looked at him forbade any such levity.

‘‘ I’m afraid it wouldn’t do, Dolly. You were eight in March, I believe. We shall have to wait a little.”

“ Well, will you wait?” persisted Dora. I can do a great many things now, and you know I shall be learning all the time. You can teach me too. I love you harder’n anybody.”

''Do you, child?” said Mr. Osgood with a little look she did not understand. ‘'Well, we’ll think about it.”

That was over a year ago, and this had been their favorite walk ever since. Here Dora had talked over her plans for the future, confessed her sins, and had made tremendous resolutions, broken and re-made every few weeks. To-day August heats had lowered the brook, till she could easily reach “the throne” as she called it, by jumping from one stone to another. The last was a long leap, but Mr. Osgood swung her over,

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23* and soon she was in the old seat. Then a sudden memory of all she must leave came over her, and holding tight to his hand she cried for a little while some very bitter tears. Mr. Osgood said little, but drew her into his arms, and held her till she was more quiet. Then he asked:

^'Did you know I was going with you, Dora?”

. ‘^To school? Why how can you? Not to stay! Oh, I’m so glad! What makes you?”

‘^Because your grandmother is not well enough to be left by your grandfather, and your father cannot take time to come on for you. He is very busy now.”

‘‘Yes, I know,” said Dora, absently. “He always is busy. He hasn’t been here but once since I was a baby, and then he didn’t say anything to me hardly. I don’t believe he loves me a bit.”

“ He loves you enough to have found this pleasant school for you, and to want you to learn how to be a good woman. He has never had you with him, Dody, or any other child, I think, and hardly knows what to say to one.”

“ Well, I don’t mind it much,” said Dora, “ but there is one thing I keep thinking about, Mr.

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Osgood. You know what I do so much without meaning to,” here Dora turned very red, but hurried on. “ Now just suppose I should get going there, and couldn’t stop, you know, and they should all think just as father does that I — well, that I tell lies. I don’t tell real true lies, now, do I ? It’s only stories for fun,”

Mr. Osgood waited a moment. “ Can’t you think just what they are yourself?” he said. “ What was it when you told old Mrs. Stevens that there was a singing mouse in the wall in your room, and that you fed it every day, and it could sing ‘ There is a happy land,’ straight through, and you heard it teaching it to the other mice ? ” “ Well, it was partly true any way,” Dora said, eagerly. “ I did feed it, and I thought may be it might sing. I’ve read about singing mice.”

“ And then when grandfather was altering the barn, you told Mr.' Pettis your father had bought you a little, tame elephant with a seat on his back, just like those in the menagerie, and you were going to ride every day. When he said, ‘O sho, now ! ’ you declared so solemn^ it was so, that he went to the post-office, and told everybody your father was crazy, and your grandfather

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too. Then when old aunt Patty asked you to buy her some tea, you said she needn’t ever buy any more, for your father had given you the money, and you had got a big box for her. So the poor soul waited a week, expecting it every day, and at last asked me. What could I say, and what do you really think about it, Dora ? ” Dead silence, and Dora looking steadfastly at the toes of her boots. Mr. Osgood sat watching her, and almost laughed aloud as he remembered something which had happened two years before. Sitting with his doors open he had heard Dora in her own room, going to bed under aunt Katy’s superintendence. Almost every day she told some wonderful story founded on fiction, but had been making a special effort to reform. So in saying her prayers that night she congratulated herself on having been all day strictly truthful, in this fashion: