Marjorie Moxie: her experiences

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CHAPTER I “It’s such a comfort to be happy, and so useless being miserable.”

Marjorie sat on the back porch hulling strawberries. Her face and hands were smeared with the crimson juice. She finished a final handful and crowded it on top of the quart measure.

“There! That’s heaped and running over. Let me see! Where am I! Oh, yes! ‘July 4. — Dick and I followed the circus parade. There were three elephants and two tiny cub bears in a cage. We patted the Shetland ponies. — ’ I can afford to do a quart for that. My! We had a time. We never got back to dinner.” She emptied the generous measure into Mother Moxie’s granite dishpan. With one hand she turned a page of the soiled diary that lay on a chair beside her.

“'July 21. — ’ That’s next. Let’s see what happened then! ‘ — Left Jane’s sunbonnet on the bank while Dick and I were wading, and Duffy’s old hog ate it up.’ I don’t care, it was an old one. She need not have made such a fuss.” Marjorie began to hull again desperately. “ — Eight whole gills for something I wasn’t to blame for. How could I tell that Duffy’s hog was such an old cannibal ? And anyhow she wouldn’t have eaten it if Jane hadn’t put sugar in the starch; so in the long run you’re to blame, Missy, though you sit in there so fine eating stuffed dates while I hull strawberries for the old thing.”

Marjorie consoled her tortured appetite with a plump and luscious berry. “Let’s see! What else have I got to do penance for ! It’ll be some consolation to know.” She set the pan on the step and wiped her hands on her apron. Leaning back with her head in the ivy vines, she read.

“‘Aug. i. — Hid away from mother when she wanted me to pare apples for pies/ I mean to skimp that quart, for I couldn’t have any of the pie. Dick never saved me a smell of his. Stingv thing ! I don’t care, I got even. I found his gum on the window sill and rolled it in sand. Mother said we wasn’t to keep our gum on the window sill anyhow. It served him right.

Aug- 3 1 - Lost mother’s screw-driver down in the mill yaid where Dick and I were gathering pitch. It fell m a hole in the old pine stump and I couldn’t get it out. We boiled the pitch in an old tomato can and made pitch gum.’

“ 'Sept. 6. — Had a fight with Mamie Anderson over my seat/ — Tore I'd try to crowd somebody out of a seat that had been theirs since Adam ! I've been No. 23 ever since I went to Central. Oh, well, a quart of strawberries isn't anything to the satisfaction I got out of that! There are certain principles that ought to be defended, and I think I can see where meekness ceases to be a virtue.

“ 'Sept. 16. — Wore Jane's blue beads to school and lost them.'

" 'Sept. 29. — After school Dick and I went to see Benny Williams' pet coon and didn't get home till dark! I gave him the crusts out of my dinner pail. You ought to have seen him put them in the water and then skin up a tree and stretch out as easy as you please while they soaked !' I couldn't blame him. They were tough old things. Some of Jane's experiments. I pity her man if she ever gets one.

" 'Oct. 3. — Fought four boys who were picking on little Lummy Beezler and got the sleeve torn out of my new plaid dress; also lost one of my good hair ribbons.' I suppose I am a great trial to mother.

" 'Oct. 17. — Skipped school at recess to carry Annie Murry's kitten home.' It cried and clawed terribly and it was most a mile; but I am glad I did for it is a terrible thing to be a stray kitten and at the mercy of boys. Most boys are brutes, though Dick isn't.

" 'Oct. 31. — Cooned pumpkins of old Merriweather to make Jack-o’-lanterns, and took mother’s pink wax candle to put in the Goliath.’ I never can see that cooning and stealing are the same, especially when the pumpkins are rotten, but mother says it is. Old Merriweather is too stingy to live, anyhow. Oh, yes, and we put tick-tacks on poor Mrs. Gilbert’s windows and brought on her ague. ‘ — And Dick and I carried Jane’s crazy quilt up on the barn and made it into a flag.’ — A very eventful day.

“ ‘Nov. i. — Went nutting with the Cameron girls without asking mother. Hurt my foot so I couldn’t wear my shoes to Sunday School, and mother took the nuts.’ I believe I shall do a small quart for that. They were beautiful shoes — patent leather. I think one ought to be just to oneself.

“ ‘Nov. 9. — Pulled Janie Keeler’s hair for watching old Buxby kill a calf and saying she liked it. She told her mother and her mother came to see Momsie.’ I don’t care. I am glad of it. I only wish I’d pulled it harder, little heathen ! —And mother didn’t look a bit sorry. It’s a great satisfaction to know that whatever you do your mother will deal justly with you. I very seldom get more than I deserve.

“ ‘Nov. 22. — Dick and I ate some of Jane’s frosting. I don t care, she wouldn’t even give us a taste and it was pineapple flavoring. Jane knows I’d rather have pineapple than anything,— and I helped her seed a whole bowl of raisins. Such a fuss over a spoonful of frosting! A body ought to have some privileges on Thanksgiving Day.

“ ‘Nov. 30. — Mulligan’s cat had kittens — four of the dearest little things. Mr. Mulligan was going to kill them. He didn’t even mean to save one of the prettiest. Old Topsy Mulligan hid them under our shed.’ I don’t see how I was to blame for that, but I seem to have been. Of course, I might have betrayed them to their bloody pursuer, but I didn’t, and the few pieces of breakfast cakes I managed to smuggle in my apron pocket only saved the family digestion. Mother said they were Mr. Mulligan’s kittens, but they weren’t, they were Topsy’s. That is one of the delicate points upon which I can not agree even with mother.

“ ‘Dec. 1. — Cut Jane’s embroidery silk in little bits.’ That was mean. I’ll heap the measure up for that. But she looked so precise and scrumptious in her new blue dress and lace collar, and I was tired and dirty and almost froze, too' (Dick and I had been skating), and I wanted her to sew on a button; still one oughtn’t to lose one’s temper, and perhaps I shall do an extra quart if the strawberries hold out. Goodness knows I hope they will, but it’s doubtful,” as she whisked over another page.

“ ‘Dec. 10. — Forgot mother’s errands and went with Nellie Coot to help carry their baby home.’ It’s a terrible little thing, all chaps. I was listening to Nellie about how they came out and that is what made me forget. If I had a chappy baby I should try to do something to heal it up. The errands were very important as the minister came to our house to supper and we didn’t have any butter.

“ ‘Dec. 23. — Raveled out my winter hood to crochet father some wristlets for Christmas/ I don’t care, I didn’t have a thing for father, and I always hated the hood. I can crochet beautifully too, mother said so. Oh, yes, and I traded my amber beads to Hattie Mintey for a postal-card album to give Jane. I don’t know why I couldn’t for they were mine. It’s hard to scrimp at Christmas time. I made mother a lovely cotton cat. If I ever marry I hope my husband will be rich and will give me an allowance.

“ ‘Dec. 26. — Dick and I and Giddy Reason got to snowballing the old mill and we broke seventeen lights.’ Father had to pay for half of them. Giddy Leason said we didn’t, but we did. Dick and I wouldn’t tell a lie. I don’t care, I hit most. Giddy Leason can’t throw for sour beans.

“ ‘Jan. 7. — Jane and I had a spat over the dishes. I think I ought to rinse them if I have to wipe them. It’s horrid being dictated to. I snatched the dipper and burned Jane’s hand. Mother made me carry my own in a sling all the rest of the day.’ It was horrible for Dick took his new bobs up to the plank hill. Who could coast with their hand in a sling? Of course,

I was sorry about Jane; but I still think I ought to have rinsed the dishes.

“ 'Jan. 20. — Left mother’s best pitcher on the well curb all night. It was full of water and froze and broke of course.’ That is just my luck. I was just filling it when Dick called me to the barn to see his new skees.

“ 'Feb. 4. — Dick and I went skeeing, and I lost mother’s mufif.’ I was trying to look like the picture in her book of poems. That certainly looks very grand. I like to live up to things. Anyhow it is hard to skee with one skee, and Dick and I only had a pair between us.

“ ‘Feb. 14. — Sold my new sponge and pencil box and three slate pencils and a button buzz to Jessie May for ten cents to buy teacher a valentine. I got a lovely one, all angels and forget-me-nots — the dearest thing with a little verse.’ Mother says that it means just for father to buy me more, but it don’t. I can wash my slate with my hand, and I’d have lost the pencils, and the box isn’t any good — I never keep my pencils in it — and I’ve stood on the floor three times over the button buzz already. Teacher did look so pleased. I ain’t sorry a mite.”

Inside the clock was striking ten, and Marjorie’s chair came down with a thud. “Twenty quarts and all this and this and this and this to do yet,” and she ran a sticky finger down each succeeding page. “My !

it takes me to do things, but it takes much longer to undo them. I shall probably have to finish up with cherries, only they are not ripe yet. We will never eat so many strawberries, and poor mother! Think of doing them up! To say nothing of bankrupting father! It is awful to have to buy imported strawberries in May, but I couldn’t wait. It takes for everlasting to even read my sins, to say nothing of making good. Supposing I just cancel a lot, who’d ever know it? I don’t have to do it, anyhow. Nobody else does. Jane is just as mean as I am, only she keeps it inside her. I’d rather let it out. I’d rather do things and then pay for ’em. It’s fun to hull strawberries. I don’t mind it a mite — ” She grabbed up the pan. “ — And I shan’t quit till the last thing is paid for; till the accounts on the old book are all squared and I’ve earned my right to a new one. Do you s’pose I could take a pen and begin on that nice clean thing and this one all black and blotted and horrid? I always have done penance on my birthday and I always expect to. I never expect to be so good I won’t have to. But it’s something to begin each year clean. I think I — I should be swamped if I let it go two years. I always think that no matter how much mother punishes me, that isn’t making good myself, and when I read back through my old diaries if I find one thing that hasn’t been settled right I feel mean and sneaking. It seems to ease my conscience to do strawberries or something.

“Last year I did carpet rags, an ounce apiece, and the year before that I pieced on mother’s nine patch. I love to read my old diaries, but if I should cheat in this one thing I should want to burn them. When I do something so perfectly horrible that I think there isn’t any use. trying to be good any more I look back and find something much worse that I did last year, and it comforts me. Wouldn’t it be awful to just let them accumulate year after year till one had to reckon for them all in a bunch ? I love to think that I’m beginning new, and at the end of the year I shan’t have but three hundred and sixty-five against me if I do one every day. When you think of three hundred and sixty-five, twenty or thirty crimes in a year isn’t so many, is it? When I look at it that way things seem to brighten up.” Her nimble fingers made the hulls fly. “If I do twenty more before dinner, that will leave only a few for afternoon.

“Jane, oh, Jane! Would you mind telephoning father to send up another crate ? They shrink a great deal in doing up.” Marjorie consoled herself. “They will not look so many when they are in cans. Say fifteen or twenty quarts — that isn’t a one too many for such a family, only they seem a great many because they are a penance. I think one more crate will clear me, however. Say, Jane! Do I smell something cooking? Where’s mother? Oh, Jane! You needn’t bother about that birthday cake. I shan’t mind not having it. What are we going to have for dinner! Oh, have beans! Do, Jane! Beans are so very satisfying. I’d dearly love to have beans on my birthday.”

“Yes, have beans!” Dick came panting up from the barn and snatched a handful of finished berries from Marjorie’s pan. “Gee, but they’re good! How much longer are you going to work, Sis ?”

“Till I get through, and that’ll be never if you stand there and gobble as fast as I hull, Dick Moxie.” Marjorie spread her apron over the ravaged pan. “I should think you might have the decency to hull for yourself at least.”

“Well, if you want to sit there and mope all day, you can. I’m going to the beech woods after May flowers this afternoon.” Dick marched off tantalizingly.

Marjorie grabbed up the despised diary and crossed off for “Aug. i,” savagely. All the spring she had longed to go to the beech woods, and now — her fingers turned into fairies in their dexterity to remove hulls.

“You could easily have made it a pint instead of a quart,” Jane suggested after it was all over, and Marjorie came panting up to the chamber with the stained diary clutched in one hand and a clean apron ii and hair ribbons in the other. “ — It would have done quite as well. It seems tame — ”

“Well, it needn’t ‘seem’ to you. They’re done, and I didn’t skimp ’em, and I’m glad of it. Where’s the comb, Jane Moxie? Have you had it? It isn’t on the dresser, it isn’t here, and it isn’t here.”

Marjorie went over the stand and the whatnot like a whirlwind. “I should think you might help me find it instead of standing there like a dummy; you had it last.”

“So a person would judge by the looks of your hair,” Jane made mild retort. “Now that you are twelve, Marjorie, you ought to take more pains with your hair.”

“Well, I’m not going to. I don’t see as being twelve makes a bit of difference. I didn’t feel any more jar when I went over than Dick and I did when father took us over the county line. We looked all along the road for it. I suppose we thought ’twould be about like mother’s clothes line. I remember where father said it was there was corn growing on either side, and so I suppose eleven and twelve will run right together and you won’t notice the least change in me, my dear good sister. I don’t feel it coming, anyhow. I imagined there would be symptoms as there is with measles. You remember father said I shouldn’t have the croup any more when I got to be ten, but I did, I had it worse’n ever, and I’ll probably have a good many things worse’n ever. It’ll take more strawberries another time. Well, I hope you haven’t swallowed it. It’s mother’s best one.” She rattled through a stack of magazines.

Jane came over from tidying the closet and picked it up from the window sill. “Never mind tearing the house down,” she reproved. “If you weren’t so harum-scarum, it might seem good to be orderly for once, and on your birthday.”

“Yes, it might, but it doesn’t. It seems horrid. And if being comfortable is harum-scarum I’m glad I am most of the time. I should hate to think I would never be again.” Marjorie snagged the comb through her ragged locks viciously. “There! Dick’s going! Here! Tie this!” She snatched the ribbon up from the stand and turned to Jane. “Just any old kind of a bow. It don’t matter. It’ll come down, anyhow. There!”

She grabbed the clean apron and ran through the hall and down the stairs, shedding the old one as she went. “Oh, Dick! Dick! Dick!” she called. “I’m coming. Here I am. Wait for me!”

She overtook him sitting leisurely on the front walk flipping his jackknife. “Oh, Dicky! You’re a dear. You did wait. I was so afraid you wouldn’t, I ran. I know there are millions of them — little feathery hepaticas, and spring beauties, and anemones, yes, and squirrel’s corn— I’ll bet there’s squirrel’s corn already, and yellow adder tongues and bloodroot. Oh, I wouldn't have missed going. I'm going to be perfectly, perfectly happy. It's such a comfort to be happy, and so useless being miserable. Did you ever think of that? That's a wonderful thought. It came to me when Jane was tying my hair so tight that my ears stood out. I wonder if being orderly, as Jane puts it, improves my appearance as much as it hurts my disposition. Do you think that being skinned is especially becoming to me? — And, oh, Dick! Isn't it a perfectly lovely thing to have a clean conscience at least once a year?"

Chapter II

“I wonder if I shall ever find words big enough for the woods.”

Of all delightful spots the beech woods excelled them all to Nor thrum village folk — a long low slope backgrounding the town in spring with a beautiful line of shimmering green known only to young beech leaves, against which the painted cottages rested like flowers in the grass; in summer deepening to vivid emerald, alive with light and birds; transformed in autumn to rarest quivering gold. Verily to walk there was to foretaste the golden glory of Paradise. Gold above, below, mid-air, drifting, dreamy gold. Gold to make spendthrifts of the children, who waded and plunged and wallowed in the reckless extravagance of plenty.

But this was spring, and all things were in, the delightful crisp lettuce-green stage. Did you ever smell tender, newborn beech leaves on a warm afternoon in May? Marjorie began to sniff hungrily before they reached the stile, and when she stood upon it looking in, her hands came together in a rapture of ecstasy.

“Oh, Dick! Is it flowers? No, it isn’t. It smells like roses. Oh, what is it? It’s like entering the land of fairies. Oh, Dick! Did you ever see anything so perfectly deliciously beautiful? Oh, if I could always live in the woods like this I should never be wicked. Do you know, no matter how mean I was, or what horrible thing I was about to do, if I came here I should never do it. It comes over me like a big wave, and something breaks loose inside me and is washed away. And it isn't just seeing things, though Heaven couldn't be prettier." She stretched her arms to take in the glories, — “And it isn't just hearing all those birds, nor smelling those beautiful smells ; it 's like a great wonderful Presence that comes down and lays its hands on one. I should feel it if I were blind and deaf like old Brewster Smead, I know I should, Dick. It — it makes me swell in here. Oh, such a feeling! Dick, does it make you swell too? I should love to be an Indian. Just think how lovely it would be always to live in such places! To watch the little wee bittie leaves being born even, — watch them getting green, greener, greenest, and the tiny pink posybabies crawling out of their winter blankets. Do you suppose it makes an Indian swell inside as it does me?

“There! I knew we should find them. Look, Dick! Lookee ! Look ! Did you ever see so many perfectly beautiful darlings? White ones and blue ones and pink ones, yes, and variegated. Oh, let's not pick any i6 but just sit down here and enjoy them! Oh, I’m glad I didn’t see one till these. It’s like running upon a feast all spread. I do so love to have nice things surprise me.”

They sat on a gray boulder, lichened with little tufts of red and green moss and draped with a feathery spray of squawberry vine. Over their heads a maple sapling drooped fragrant yellow tassels of bloom. At their feet were the hepaticas.

“You little dears!” Marjorie reached over and stroked some of the fluffy bonnets. “You all came in a party, didn’t you? And' that tall stately one, dressed in white, is your chaperon, I guess. You’re having a delightful time and we won’t disturb you, though I should like to take you home to mother. I wonder if it hurts you much to pick you? I don’t see how it can and yet I always feel as though it did. If I ever pick a flower I always shut my eyes up tight and do it as mercifully as I can. Do you shut your eyes when you pick a flower, Dick?” Marjorie lifted her chin from her hands questioningly. “I don’t like to hear the little sound they make when they break, do you?”

“Flowers are plants. Only animal life can feel,” Dick enlightened grandly.

“I don’t know whether they can or not, Dick Moxie. Just because they can’t talk. — A fish can’t talk, but you know a fish can feel, else why does it squirm and act so!”

“If you feel that way about it I shouldn’t think you’d fish, Sis,” Dick reproved scathingly. “What makes you?”

“I don’t ‘know what makes me,” Mar jorie admitted weakly. “ ’Tain’t because I don’t know they feel and suffer too, and I’m a murderer every time I throw one up on the bank to flop and wiggle his poor little life out and get sand in his eyes. It’s all the more awful because he can’t talk ; if he could we wouldn’t do it. We wouldn’t dare to. If I just let myself stand and watch him do you think I could bear it, Dick Moxie? Could you? No, I just shut my eyes and go after another one, same as all the rest, and that’s how we keep from thinking what a wicked thing we’ve done.”

“I never saw anybody love to land ’em any better’n you do,” Dick aceused her.

“I s’pose there’s a streak of cannibal in me same as there is in you ; but you ought to be the last one to throw it up to me, Dick Moxie, a boy who can poke out fish eyes for bait when he runs out of angleworms, or stick a poor little crying frog onto his hook. Oh, Dick ! I never can forgive you for that — never, never ! You know I always throw back the minnies.”

“Well, I’m not so awfully conscientious,” admitted Dick.

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“You ought to be, though.” Marjorie was veryserious. “Some day I mean to settle all these questions, and then I shall live up' to them ; not to, is being a hypocrite. Of course that's why God put such thoughts in our heads — if there wasn't anything in it they wouldn't come. Just because nobody else thinks them isn't any excuse for us. Somebody has to have them first. If I ever do make up my mind I shall be faithful. It's just as wicked to eat fish somebody else has caught as it is to kill them yourself'' — Marjorie's conscience pursued her — “for you see, there are so many people who will eat fish and if I eat one that would have satisfied somebody else another will have to be caught, that's all.'' It was plain logic, she convinced herself.

“Oh, there are so many things ! When one begins to think there is no end ; one can think on and on and one question is sure to lead to another. There are a great many things that I must think of by and by.” She sighed heavily and crept nearer to Dick.

“Well, don't begin on the fish question until after f vacation,” he advised her. “I'm going to Whalen* Lake this summer, and I did mean to fit up two poles, but if you're going to do so much thinking maybe one will be enough.”

Oh, but I m not, not so soon,” Marjorie interposed hurriedly. “Oh, Dick, are you sure f Did father say you might? Do you suppose mother will let me?

Oh, we’ll take our lunch and a bottle of cold tea, and have our fish poles and things hanging on behind, just as old Jimmerson does when he goes past! Oh, won’t it be jolly, jolly! Even if it is wrong a few more won’t matter, do you think it will, Dick?” Marjorie tried to appease a smarting conscience. “ Anyhow, I am not really sure that it is wrong yet.

“Oh, Dick! Couldn’t we get some sweet corn and build a little fire by the side of the lake and roast it? You know, like we did when we went huckleberry ing. That was jolly fun. Is there anything in the world as good as roasted corn when it’s all smoky and tastes of outdoors? Oh, I do hope mother will let me. I guess I am a little young to settle such serious questions; only I think after this I will always put them in a bucket of water. It seems more merciful, don’t you think so?” Having temporized to her satisfaction, Marjorie drew a breath of relief.

The sunshine splashing on the green leaves above seemed to be spattering in a golden spray upon the mold-brown carpet about them. Where the green canopy was draped away, patches of the bluest of blue skies showed. A thousand birds marveled with them. Little wild things, scurrying around through the leaves, ceased regarding them as intruders. Light perfumed zephyrs sprang up from nowhere and went nowhere. One freed Marjorie’s soft hair from the confining string; another came and made it into becoming tendrils about her face.

“Dick, did you ever think how the leaves are like tiny boats anchored to the trees by their brown stem ropes ?” She brought her eyes down from a long contemplation of the maple sapling’s mysteries. “Just hundreds of little green boats tugging to get away into the great, sea. If they could, they would just flutter a little way, then fall, wouldn’t they? They would never get away out there where they wanted to go, and yet they are impatient to try.” She grew thoughtful. “Such thoughts, when they come, go way deep in and make me think things that I can’t say. It’s in the woods that I always think things too big for words. I wonder if I shall ever find words big enough for the woods?”

They went farther up on the hillside, and there were the white shoots of bloodroot piercing the dark mold, and oh! most fragrant Mayapple blooms, — white, white like a crown oh the hilltop. Marjorie got down on her knees to smell them. She drew the satiny blooms tenderly through her fingers. One succulent stalk snapped and left its waxen treasure in her hand.

“Oh, Dick ! it bleeds,” she said remorsefully. “See ! Two tiny drops of blood. Isn’t it an awful thought that no matter how I try I can never put it back, and how easily I destroyed it, and how long months and months it was waking to life in the little brown seed hidden from sight. Flowers bleed, and trees bleed when some horrid man sinks his cruel ax in their side,” she philosophized grimly.

“Yes, and you dig out the poor potatoes' eyes, and strip the corn of its ears, and behead the helpless cabbage,” Dick finished. “You might as well be as miserable as you can while you're enjoying it. Just think how you sink your teeth into the melon's crimson heart, and bite into the poor apple's cheek. Say! How much’ll you give me to see a bird's nest, Sis?”