Miss Wildfire; a story for girls

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I Nan 7

II Nan’s Visitor 22

Chapter I Nan

“ Hello, Nan !”

“ Heyo, Ruthie !”

“ Where are you going ?”

“ Over to Reid’s lot.”

“ Take me ?”

“No, Ruthie, can’t.”

The little child’s lip began to tremble. “ I think you’re real mean, Nan Cutler,” she complained.

Nan shook her head. “ Can’t help it if you do,” she returned, stoutly, and took a step on.

“ Nannie,” cried the child eagerly, starting after her and clutching her by the skirt, “I didn’t mean that! Truly, I didn’t. I think you’re just as nice as you can be. Do please let me go with you. Won’t you ?”

Nan compressed her lips. “ Now, Ruth, look here,” she said after a moment, in which she stood considering, “ I’d take you in a minute if I could but the truth is — oh, you’re too little.”

“ I ain’t too little !”

“ Well, then, your mother doesn’t like you to be with me, so there !” cried Nan, in a burst of reckless frankness.

Ruth hung her head. She could not deny it but at sight of her companion turning to leave her she again started forward, piping shrilly, “ Nannie ! Nannie ! She won’t care this time. Honest, she won’t.”

Nan stalked on without turning her head. The hurrying little feet followed on close behind.

“ Nannie ! Nannie !”

“ See here, Ruth,” exclaimed the girl, veering suddenly about and speaking with decision. “ You can’t come, and that’s all there is about it. Your mother doesn’t like me, and you ought not to disobey her. Now run back home like a good little girl.”

The delicate, small face upturned to hers grew hardened and set, but the child did not move.

Nan gave her a friendly shove on the shoulder and turned on her way again. Immediately she

NAN heard the tap of hurrying little feet behind, like the echoing sound of her own hasty footsteps. She stopped and swung about abruptly.

“ Are you going to be a good little girl and go back this minute ?” she demanded sternly, calling to her assistance all the dignity of her fourteen years, and turning on the poor infant a severe, unrelenting eye.

The child gazed up at her reproachfully, but did not reply.

Nan felt herself fast losing patience. “ Of all the provoking little witches !” she exclaimed, in an underbreath of irritation.

Ruth’s rebuking eyes surveyed her calmly, but she made no response.

“Now be good and trot along back,” cajoled Nan, changing her tactics and stroking the child’s soft hair caressingly.

There was a visible pursing of the obstinate little lips, but no further sign of acknowledgment.

Nan dropped her voice to a tone of honeysweetness. “ See here, Rutliie, if you’ll go home this minute I’ll give you five cents. You can buy anything you like with it at Sam’s, on the way back.” She plunged her hand into her pocket and drew forth a bright new nickel, and held it alluringly aloft.

The azure eyes gazed at it appreciatively, but the hand was not outstretched to receive it. For a second Nan reviewed the situation in silence. Then she flung about with a movement of exasperation, and marched on stolidly, and the smaller feet hastened after her, keeping pace with difficulty, and often breaking into a little run that they might not be outstripped.

A chill autumn wind was sweeping up heavily from the northeast, and the air was cold and raw. Nan shuddered as she walked, and wished Ruth were safe and sound in her own warm home, which she never should have been permitted to leave this blustering day. A score of plans for ridding herself of her troublesome little follower crowded Nan’s brain. She might run and leave the youngster behind. But then Ruth would cry, and Nan could not bear to inflict pain on a little child. She might take her up in her arms and carry her bodily back to her own door. Well, and what then ? Why, simply, she would get the credit of abusing the little girl. There seemed no way out of it. She stalked on grimly, and when she came to

NAN

Reid’s lot she promptly and dexterously climbed its fence and continued her way in silence. But the fence proved an insurmountable obstacle to Ruth. She stood outside and wailed dismally. The sound smote Nan, and made her turn around.

“ Ruth Newton, you deserve to be spanked !” she announced, severely.

The child uttered another wail of entreaty. Nan sprang up to the cross-bar of the palings, gathered her skirts about her knees, and leaped down.

“ Here, let me boost you, since you will get over,” she said sharply.

After they were both safely on the other side Ruth’s spirit rose, and she capered about in the freedom of the open space as wildly as a young colt. Nan had come for chestnuts. She announced the same presently to Ruth. Ruth shouted gleefully.

“ I’m going to climb the tree. You can stand underneath and pick up what I shake, only mind you don’t get the burr-prickles in your fingers, for they hurt like sixty,” warned Nan.

The child nodded her head and pranced over the brown, stubbly ground with dancing feet, her cheeks aglow and her eyes flashing with satisfaction.

She watched Nan with the liveliest interest, and when the older girl was once comfortably ensconced in the lofty branches, she executed a sort of war-dance underneath, and spread her tiny skirt to catch the rain of nuts that Nan shook down upon her from above. But presently this began to pall.

“ I want to come up where you are, Nannie, ,, she called, coaxingly.

“ You’ll have to want then/’ retorted Nan, carelessly munching nuts like a squirrel.

“ I could climb’s good as anything if only I had a boost,” drawled the child ruefully.

Nan sprinkled a handful of shucks on her head.

“ I’m going to try,” ventured Buth.

Nan laughed.

Buth looked around, trying to discover some means by which she might accomplish her purpose. Nan felt so sure that the child could not do what she threatened that she made no effort to dissuade her. She, herself, passed from bough to bough as nimbly as a boy, in spite of her

NAN skirts, and in a very short time was almost out of sight among the upper spreading branches. She sat astride one of these, swinging to and fro and luxuriating in her sense of freedom and adventure. Peering clown occasionally she saw Ruth standing beneath her and sent repeated showers of nuts spinning through the boughs to keep the child busy. But presently Ruth disappeared. She had spied an old piece of board and she immediately flew to get it, her silly little head filled with the idea of making it serve her as a ladder. She tugged it laboriously across the stubbly field, and her short, panting breaths did not reach Nan’s ear, full of the near rustle of leaves and the hum of the scudding wind.

“ Ahoy ! below there !” she shouted nautically from above.

Ruth was too busy to respond. The board was heavy, and it took all the strength of her slight arms to get it in position.

“ Shipmate ahoy !” repeated Nan.

By this time the board had been tilted against the tree and Ruth was scrambling up the unsteady inclined plane, too absorbed and scared in her adventure to reply. She actually managed to reach the top and to stand there tip-toeing the edge uncertainly, her small fingers clasping the tree-trunk convulsively and her arms trying to grapple with it for a surer hold. But suddenly she gave a piercing scream, and Nan, peering down through the branches in instant alarm, saw Buth lying at the foot of the tree in a pitiful little motionless heap, and knew in a moment that she had tried to do what she had threatened and had failed.

It did not take Nan a minute to reach the ground. Her heart seemed to stand still with fear. She flung herself from bough to bough with reckless haste and dropped to the ground all in one breathless instant.

“ Ruth,” she cried, bending over the little prostrate figure in an agony. “ Ruth, open your eyes ! Get up ! Oh, please get up !”

There was no answer. Nan wrung her hands in despair. The cold wind blew over the field in chilling gusts. It made her shudder, and instinctively she took a step toward her warm coat, which she had stripped off and cast aside before climbing the tree. At sight of it a new thought struck her. Ruth lying there on the frosty ground would surely take cold — perhaps die

NAN from it ! In a twinkling the soft, woolly garment was wrapped securely about the child and Nan had her two stout arms around her and was half dragging, half carrying her in the direction of the distant fence. But they had not covered a dozen yards before she felt her strength begin to fail. * She was lifting a dead weight, and it seem to drag more heavily upon her every moment. Her arms pulled in their sockets and her breath came in painful gasps, and she knew that if she tried to keep on as she was it would be at the cost of increasing misery. Still she did not give up, and at last, after what seemed to her hours of agony and suspense, she actually reached the limit of the field. She laid Buth gently upon the ground and straightened herself up to ease her aching back and regain her lost breath before taking up her burden again. But as she lifted her head her eyes fell on the high pickets before her, which seemed to confront her with as grim defiance as if they had been bayonets. How could she get Ruth over ? The gate, which was at another end of the lot, was always kept padlocked, and even if she had remembered this at first and had carried the child there, she could not have undone the bolt. This was the last straw ! She felt frustrated and defeated, and a low sob of complete discouragement broke from her. It was useless to dream of getting Ruth over alone. The only way that remained was to secure help, that was plain. She looked about wildly, but not a soul was in sight, and she knew in her heart that the chances were against her. The street at this point was near the city limits, and it had not been built up as yet. There would be nothing to call any one here unless it might be some boy who, like herself, had come out for chestnuts, and what use would a mere boy be ? If only John Gardiner were here ! John was tall and strong, and would lend a hand in a jiffy. But John also was miles away. Ruth’s eyes opened for a second and then closed sleepily again. Nan’s heart leaped up with new hope.

“ Ruth ! Ruth !” she called eagerly bending over her and stroking her cheek tenderly. But her hope was short-lived. The eyelids remained shut, and the child only breathed deeper than before. Nan’s own heart seemed to stop in her anxiety for Ruth. Suddenly she sprang to her feet. Surely she had heard the rattle of wheels ! Ever so far and indistinct to be sure, but still

NAN unmistakably wneels, clattering over some distant cobbles. She raised her voice and shouted ; then held her breath to listen. The clatter grew more distinct ; it drew nearer and nearer. She clambered up the fence and stood there waving her arms and shouting as madly as if she had been a shipwrecked mariner sighting a sail. She j^aused a moment to listen. The rattling wheels came nearer. She shouted again and then waited, listening intently. The rattling stopped. She set up a wild howl of dismay and kept it up till her ears seemed on the point of splitting. But now the clatter of wheels had begun again and she could see a milk cart rounding the corner of the street. She gave a long, shrill whistle and leaped down and ran frantically out into the road, straight for the horse’s head.

It was a second or two before the astonished driver could be made to understand, but when he did, he bounded out of his cart willingly enough, vaulted over the fence and then bade Nan “ stand hard ” while he lifted Buth into her arms. Her weight was nothing to the brawny fellow, and he had her safely stowed away on the seat of his cart, with Nan crouching on the floor beside her and himself clinging 2 to the step outside, in less time than it takes to tell it.

Nan gave him the street and number in a trembling gasp of gratitude. He eyed her narrowly, and then seemed to sum up his conclusion in a low, keen whistle. Her hat was hanging by its elastic on her shoulders ; her hair was blown out of all order by the wind ; her dress was torn and her hands were bruised and none too clean. She had no coat on, and her cheeks were flaming with cold and excitement. She was an astonishing spectacle.

“ Guess you’re a sort of high-flyer, ain’t you ?” said he at last without a sign of ill-nature.

Nan set her jaws and did not reply.

“ Oh, well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. Only you look sorter wild-like, you know, and as if your mother didn’t know you was out.”

Nan’s teeth snapped. “I haven’t got any mother,” she returned curtly. “ She’s dead.”

The milkman looked uncomfortable. He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other and muttered something about being sorry. Then for some time there was silence.

“ That’s the house,” announced Nan at length, jumping to the step and hanging to the rail

NAN above the dashboard. “ That third one from the corner, on this side. Please let me out first. I want to run ahead and tell.”

Almost before he could rein in his horse she was out on the pavement. She flew to the area gate and pressed the bell with all her might. She kept her finger on it, and the cook came flying to the door, looking flushed and angry at the continuous ringing.

“Well, I might o’ known,” she said, eying Nan with unconcealed disfavor. “ Do you think a body’s deaf that you ring like that ?”

Nan flung back her head resentfully.

“ Never mind what I think,” she returned sharply. “ Open the gate ! Ruth is sick ! She got hurt ! Some one’s bringing her in. Quick !”

The gate was flung open with a bang, and the woman rushed out, clutching Ruth from the milkman’s arms and carrying her into the house, muttering mingled caresses and abuse all the while : the caresses for Ruth and the abuse for Nan.

The milkman turned on his heel and went his way unthanked, but by the time he got to the outer gate Nan had recollected herself, and had rushed after him, calling :

“ Oh, please ! I want to tell you — thank you ever so much !”

She was glad she had done it when she saw the gratified look on his face. When she got back to the area gate it was shut. Mary the chambermaid stood just inside it. She made no attempt to admit Nan. She simply stood there and looked her over from head to toe.

“ Well, you’re a pretty piece !” she remarked.

“ None of your business if I am,” retorted Nan. “ Let me in. I want to see Mrs. Newton.”

The maid took her hand from the knob and put it on her hip.

“ Mrs. Newton don’t want to see you, though, I guess,” she returned. “ By this time Bridget’s told her all she wants to know.”

“ But I must see her ! I must tell her !” Nan insisted, stamping her foot. “ Bridget don’t know anything about it. No one does but me. Let me in, I say !”

The girl laughed.

“ Well, I’ll go upstairs and tell Mrs. Newton. Then, if she wants to see you, she can,” and she went inside and closed the door, leaving Nan to stand shuddering in the cold outside. Pres-

NAN ently she came back, carrying the coat in her hands.

“ Mrs. Newton says she hasn’t time to see you now. She says she’ll attend to you later. She says she can guess how it happened, and that if Ruth dies it’ll be your fault. There, now, you know what’s thought of you, and you can put it in your pipe and smoke it, you great, rough tomboy !”

The gate was thrust open a little way, the coat was flung out, and the door slammed to again, and once more Nan found herself in the area way alone. Burning tears of fury sprung to her eyes. She caught up her despised coat and dashed wildly out of the gate in a perfect tempest of anger and resentment.

CHAPTEB II

She knew what was coming when the bell rang. She had been expecting it all the afternoon. But in spite of that her heart beat fast and her breath came hard as she heard the familiar sound. Not that she was afraid. She had nothing to be afraid of, she assured herself defiantly, and besides, fear was one of the things she despised. Whatever else she was, she was certainly not a coward. Still she sat in her room and waited in a state of mind that was not precisely what one would call tranquil.

She heard Delia mount the basement stairs and then she heard her ask the new-comer into the parlor. A moment later there was a tap upon Nan’s bedroom door.

“Come in,” she said carelessly, and pretended to be searching for some article lost in the confusion of her upper drawer.

“You’re wanted in the parlor, Nan,” began Delia at once. “ It’s a lady who says she lives 22 on the block and slie wouldn’t give her name, but I think she’s the one moved into Leffingwell’s old house last spring — has that little girl with the long curls, you know the one I mean. Shall I help you put on another dress and braid your hair over ? It’s fearful mussy-lookin’. Or will I just go and say you’ll be down in a minute while you do it yourself?”

Nan cast a glance at her torn dress and towzled head in the mirror. “ No, Delia, I’ll go as I am, and if the lady doesn’t like it she can — oh, well, I’ll go down as I am.”

Delia pressed her lips together, as though trying to hold back the words of advice on the tip of her tongue. She knew it was worse than useless to try to argue with the girl. She had not lived in the house since Nan was born without learning better than to try to reason with her when she had once declared her mind. She stood beside the door, and allowed Nan to pass through it before her, without saying a word. Then she followed her quietly down stairs. At the parlor door Nan paused a moment, and Delia, who thought she was about to speak, paused too, but the girl only turned sharply into the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Once across the threshold she halted and stood irresolute. Whatever the result of this meeting might prove, depended not so much on Nan as on her visitor.

Nan, though standing in awkward silence, as stiff and as straight as a soldier on parade, was ready to be influenced by whatever course her caller chose to pursue ; a kind word spoken at the start would melt her at once, where a harsh one would raise in her every sort of sullen hostility and obstinate resistance. She was, as Delia often said to herself, “ as hard to manage as a kicking colt.” Sometimes she was wonderfully docile, but her moods were variable, and oftenest she was headstrong and wilful, with a fierce repugnance to curb, or what she considered unwarrantable interference.

But it would have been difficult to convince the stranger at that moment that Nan could ever be won, or, in fact, that she had any tenderness to be appealed to. There she stood, looking as erect and impassive as a young Indian. Her brown hair was in a state of thorough disorder, and gave a sort of savage look to her sun-browned face. Her gray eyes were anything but soft at this moment ; her mouth was set, and her whole attitude seemed to be one of imperturbable indifference. In reality, the girl was apprehensive and embarrassed. She set her lips to keep them from trembling. Her first impulse would have been to make a clean breast of everything, frankly and truthfully, but — something in her nature held her back. Was it obstinacy, or was it reticence ?

Her visitor did not wait to discover. She decided the result of the interview in the first words she spoke.

“ Is your name Nan Cutler ?” she asked in a voice of stern authority.

“ Yes, it is !” acknowledged the girl, instantly on the defensive.

“ Then it is you who are accountable for the accident to Ruth Newton ? You urged her to go with you, and when she fell— oh, you are a coward ! It was detestable !”

Nan made no reply, but stood the picture of inflexibility, facing her accuser squarely.

“ I have come to see you, not because you can undo the mischief you have done to my child, and not because I think I can affect you in the least, or make you sorry or ashamed, but simply to tell you that I intend to see that you are punshed, as you deserve. I have put up with annoyance you caused me long enough. Your influence is bad. All the neighbors complain of you. You are noisy and careless, and rough and rude. When any one reprimands you, you give a pert retort, or else pretend not to hear — which is impudent. Unless we wish our children to he utterly ruined we must see that they are put beyond your influence at once. You do things that are absolutely vulgar and unbefitting a girl of your age ; you must be fourteen, at least, you look older, you are certainly old enough to know better. You are not a proper playmate for our children. You are boisterous and unladylike. You — you — are a perfect hoyden !”

The stranger paused for breath, while Nan surveyed her with a look of calm indifference ; an air of unconcern in anything she might say or think that seemed as insolent as it was exasperating.

“ You are a perfect hoyden !” repeated the stern voice in rising anger. “ Whatever you do is done in such a loud, violent fashion that it becomes perfectly unbearable. You play ball with boys. You climb fences and trees. You are continually flying up and down the street on your detestable roller-skates and shouting until the neighborhood seems like Bedlam, and you don’t appear to have the vaguest idea that people’s rights need not be infringed on in such a manner ; that they have the right to peace and quiet in their own homes. Even if you would content yourself with your own disorderliness ! But you are not satisfied with doing what you know must annoy others ; you seem to take a malicious delight in bringing the little children under your influence and making them long to follow your example. You cannot have the first shadow of generosity or bravery in your nature, or you would not urge them to do what you know their parents would disapprove of. You teach them to disobey. My daughter never told an untruth in her life until the other day. I have no reason to doubt that you taught her to tell that untruth !”

Nan’s cheeks suddenly became white, but she did not open her lips.

“ If you cannot be restrained by your own people at home you shall be by some other means. They say your own people are respectable ; how can you disgrace them so?”

Nan deigned no reply, but her lip curled contemptuously.

“ They say your mother is dead.”

Again no answer.

“ Where is your father ?”

“ My father is in India. He is in Bombay,” announced Nan, deliberately.

“ Who has control of you in his absence ?”

“ No one !” declared the girl with decision.

Mrs. Newton surveyed the lank, overgrown, girlish figure with unconcealed scorn.

“ Do you know,” she said with bitter distinctness, “ that you are the most shameless, unfeeling girl I have ever beheld ? Any one else would show some remorse for what she had done, but you — young as you are, you are the hardest creature I have ever known. Hard, cruel, and cold. How can you stand there and look me in the face when you know how you have injured me ? Tell me, does it not touch you at all that Ruth is hurt? Do you know or care that such a fall as she has had is enough to cripple a child for life ? Many children have been hopelessly crippled through far less.”

The mother’s voice broke, and she set her lips to keep down a sob.

“How much is she hurt?” whispered Nan after a moment. She was trembling all over and cold and hot by turns, and she could not command her voice. It was almost more than she could do to keep from bursting into a violent fit of sobbing from her sense of injury and shame and indignation. But she simply would not permit herself to break down. No one should be allowed to think they intimidated her. But she could not hide her anxiety about Ruth.

“ Is she much hurt ?” she repeated.

There was a shade of softening in her visitor’s face. “We can’t tell yet. She has had a severe fall, and the chill coming after it may have very serious consequences, but we can tell nothing yet. However, I did not come here to inform you of her condition,” the voice growing stern and the face severe again. “ I came to tell you that if Ruth is injured I will hold you responsible. And not only that, but I warn you that I mean to take matters into my own hands now and see that you are permitted to do no further mischief. You shall be controlled. Who has charge of your father’s affairs ? Who has any sort of authority over you in his absence ? He must have left you in somebody’s care. He can’t have gone away leaving you with no one to look after you. Who is your guardian ? Tell me ? If you don’t I shall find out for myself, you may depend.”

“ I’m perfectly willing to tell you,” declared Nan, with what seemed to be complete coolness. “ It’s Mr. Turner. He gives Delia the money to get me things and to keep the house. He comes here every once in a while to see me. My father has him for his lawyer. He’s a friend of his. When Delia writes to him for money for me she sends the letter to 101 Blank Street. That’s his office. I don’t remember where his house is. Delia never writes to his house. He doesn’t attend to me — that is, he isn’t my guardian, but I guess he would do if you want to see some one.”

Nan delivered herself of this information as casually as though it had been a report of the weather. As a matter of fact she was inwardly quivering, and every moment found it more and more difficult to control herself. Never in all her life before had she been so relentlessly, harshly accused. In trying to conceal her emotion she only gave herself the appearance of rigid inflexibility.

Her visitor regarded her stonily for a moment and then abruptly brushed past her toward the door. Nan made no attempt to intercept her, but suddenly the hard lines about her mouth relaxed, her eyes softened, and she held out her hands with an imploring gesture.

“ Won’t you please tell me where Ruth is hurt?” she cried. “ Won’t you let me do something for her ? Let me — please let me ! If you’ll only listen a minute I’ll tell you — ”

But it was too late now. She was given no reply ; permitted no chance to vindicate herself. Her visitor’s hard lips quivered, but she uttered no syllable. In a moment she was gone.

After the door had closed upon her and it was quite certain that she would not come back, Nan turned and rushed headlong, like a young savage, upstairs and into her own room. What took place there it would have been impossible to discover, for the shades were jerked fiercely down, the door sharply shut and locked, and Delia, coming up some time later, could not make out a sound within nor get a reply to her requests to be admitted, though she stood outside and pleaded for an hour.