Honey-Sweet Part 11

And Anne?

The bewildered child gathered only one fact from his speech. She was not going to Miss Drayton, as she had expected--dear Miss Drayton, to whom she longed to pour forth her secret. Instead, she was going to strangers--people, Mr. Patterson said, who took care of little girls that had no fathers and mothers.

She hugged Honey-Sweet tight in her arms and walked up the steps of the square brown house.

If you have never seen the 'Home for Girls,' you will wish me to describe Anne's new abode. Let me see. I have said that the house was square and brown, haven't I? with many green-shuttered windows. The grounds were large and well-kept--almost too spick and span, for one expects twenty-six children to leave behind them such marks of good times as paper dolls and picture-books, croquet-mallets and tennis b.a.l.l.s on trampled turf.

The brick walk led straight between rows of neatly-clipped box to the front door. In the gra.s.s plot on the right, there was a circle of scarlet geraniums and on the left there was a circle of scarlet verbenas. On one side of the porch, there was a neatly-trimmed rose-bush with straggling yellow blossoms, and on the other side there was a white rose-bush.

The front door was open. Anne saw a long, narrow hall with whitewashed walls and a bare, clean floor. A curtain which screened the back of the hall fluttered in the breeze, and disclosed a long rack holding twenty-six pairs of overshoes, and above them, each on its own hook, twenty-six straw hats. Anne counted them while she waited and her heart sank--why, she could not have told. She knew that no matter how long she might live, she would never, never, never want a broad-brimmed straw hat with a blue ribbon round it. A subdued clatter of knives and forks came from a room at the back. Anne reflected that this place seemed more like a boarding-school than a home. How odd it was to have a sign over the door saying that it was a 'Home'! And 'for Girls.' How did the people choose that their children were to be just girls?

While she was thinking these things, the cabman put her trunk down on the porch, rang the bell, and stamped down the steps. No use waiting here for a fee. A door at the back of the hall opened, and there came forward a girl with a scrubbed-looking face and a blue-and-white gingham ap.r.o.n over a blue cotton frock. She fixed her round china-blue eyes on Anne, and waited for her to speak.

Anne opened her mouth and then shut it again. She did not know what to say. The blue-ap.r.o.ned girl caught sight of the trunk.

"Oh, you're a new one!" she exclaimed.

She was so positive that Anne did not like to disagree with her. "I--I reckon I'm newer than I'm old," she said politely.

The girl grinned. "You come to stay, ain't you? That your trunk?"

"Yes," stammered Anne. "Mr. Patterson says--there's a lady here--"

"You want to see Miss Farlow. She's the superintendent," explained the girl, still grinning. "Just you wait in the office till she comes from supper--" and she opened a door on the right. "My! didn't that cabman leave a lot of mud on the steps?--and tracks on the porch? Mollie'll have to scrub it again. She'll be so mad!"

The next day there was a new pair of overshoes on the rack, and instead of twenty-six, there were twenty-seven broad-brimmed, blue-ribboned hats.

After all, Anne was not unhappy in her new surroundings. She missed cheery Miss Drayton and mischievous Pat, of course, but they seemed so far away from the sober life of the inst.i.tution that she accepted without wonder the fact that she heard nothing from either of them. The past year was like a dream. Anne felt sometimes as if she had been at the 'Home' forever and forever. She soon solved, to her own satisfaction and Honey-Sweet's, the meaning of the name 'Home for Girls.' "It's one of the words that means it isn't the thing it says," she explained.

"Like b.u.t.terfly. That isn't a fly and it doesn't make b.u.t.ter. And 'Home for Girls' means that it isn't a home at all, but a schooly, outside-sort-of place."

The girls lacked mothering, it is true, but they were governed kindly though strictly. The simple fare was wholesome and the daily round of work, study, and exercise brought the children to it with healthy appet.i.tes. It being vacation time, the schoolroom was closed. But each girl had household tasks, which she was required to perform with accuracy, neatness, and despatch.

"The world is full of dawdlers and half-doers," said Miss Farlow, wisely. "Their ranks are crowded. But there is always good work and good pay for those who have the habit of doing work well--be it baking puddings or writing Greek grammars. I want my girls to form the habit of well-doing."

Anne always listened with respect to Miss Farlow. She was one of the grown-ups that it seemed must always have been grown up. You would have amazed Anne if you had told her that Miss Farlow was still young and, with her fresh color, good features, and soft, abundant hair, really ought to be pretty. But there were anxious lines around the eyes and mouth, and the hair was always drawn straight back so as to show at its worst the high, k.n.o.bby forehead. Poor, patient, earnest, hard-working Miss Farlow! She was brought face to face with much of the world's need and longed to remove it all and was able to relieve so little. She had at her disposal funds to support twenty homeless girls. Because she could not bear to turn away one needing help, she was always saving and scrimping so as to take care of more. One cannot wonder that she found life serious and solemn. Yet if only she had known how to laugh and forget her work sometimes, she might have done more good as well as been happier herself.

From the first, Anne was a puzzle to the sober-minded lady. A few days after Anne entered the home, she was sent into the office to be reproved. Slim and erect in her short blue frock, she stood before the superintendent. Miss Farlow looked at the slip of paper from the pupil teacher: "Anne Lewis; disorderly; laughed aloud in the Sunday study cla.s.s."

"Why did you laugh during the Bible lesson, Anne Lewis?" asked Miss Farlow. She always called each girl by her full name. "You knew that it was naughty, did you not?"

"I did not mean to be naughty," said Anne, penitently. "I just laughed at myself."

"Laughed at yourself?" Miss Farlow was puzzled.

"I was thinking," Anne explained. "My eyes were half-shut and--it was the way the light was shining--I could see us all from our chins down in the shiny desk. Then I thought, suppose all the mirrors in the world were broken so we could never see our faces! We'd never know whether we were ourselves or one of the other girls--we're so exactly alike, you know. And I thought how funny it would be not to know whether you were yourself or some one else, and maybe comb some one else's hair when you meant to get the tangles out of your own--and I laughed out loud."

Miss Farlow did not smile. "What a queer, foolish thing that was for you to think!" she said. "I will not punish you this time, since you did not mean to be naughty. But if you do such a thing again, I must take away your Sat.u.r.day afternoon holiday."

That would be a severe punishment, for the girls dearly loved the freedom of the long Sat.u.r.day afternoons. From early dinner until teatime, they amused themselves as they pleased, indoors or on the 'Home' grounds, under the general oversight of a pupil-teacher.

CHAPTER XIV

One Sat.u.r.day afternoon in July, while the other girls were playing and chattering on a shady porch, Anne slipped with Honey-Sweet through a hole in the hedge and sauntered toward an old brown-stone house set in s.p.a.cious grounds near the 'Home.' Anne had long been wanting to explore the place. She had never seen any one there--the house was closed for the summer--and in her stories it figured as an enchanted castle. As she walked ankle-deep in the unclipped gra.s.s under the catalpa and elm-trees, she looked around with eager interest.

She liked everything about the place, even the clump of great rough dock which had grown up around the back door. A frog hopped under the broad leaves as she pa.s.sed. She almost expected to see it come forth changed to a fairy. Of course she didn't believe in fairies now, but this looked like a place where they would stay if there were any.

At last she wandered toward a great clump of boxwood near a side gate.

It made such a ma.s.s of greenery that Anne pulled aside a branch to see if it were green inside too. She gave a gasp of delight. The tall, close-growing stems were thickly leaved on the outside and bare within; in the centre there was a hollow s.p.a.ce, like a little room. There must be fairies, after all, to make such a beautiful place as this.

Anne pulled aside a branch and crept in. One might have pa.s.sed a yard away and never suspected that she was there. After a while, she put Honey-Sweet down and set to work as a tidy housekeeper should. With a broom of twigs, she swept up the dead leaves. Then she went out and pulled handfuls of gra.s.s to make a carpet, which she patterned over with blue stars of periwinkle. For chairs she brought two or three flat stones. How time flew! While she was looking for green moss to cover these stones, she was startled to see the sun setting, a red ball on the horizon. She hurried back to the 'Home.' As she slipped through the hedge, Emma, the pupil-teacher in charge, hurried across the yard.

"Where on earth have you been, Anne?" she asked crossly. "The supper-bell rang long ago. I've looked for you everywhere. Where've you been, I say?"

"Over there," Anne answered, nodding vaguely toward the lawn.

"Out of bounds!" exclaimed Emma. "You knew better, Anne. That you did.

You come straight to Miss Farlow. She was dreadful worried when I told her I couldn't find you."

Miss Farlow, too, reproved Anne sharply. She was to have a bread-and-water supper, and then go straight to bed. And she must never again go out of bounds alone--never. That was strictly forbidden.

Anne ate her bread and drank her water with a downcast air. She was not thinking about the scolding and her punishment. She was troubled because Miss Farlow had forbidden her to go off the 'Home' grounds again. Must she give up her dear secret playhouse? She and Honey-Sweet had had such a good time! And they were planning to spend all their Sat.u.r.day afternoons there. Finally she asked Emma what would be done if she disobeyed Miss Farlow and went outside bounds again.

Emma knew and answered promptly and cheerfully. She would be whipped, and that severely.

Anne turned this over in her mind. She was very much afraid of the rod which had seldom been used to correct her--but a whipping did not last long, after all, and it would be far worse to give up her beautiful new playhouse. If Miss Farlow wished to whip her for going there, why, Miss Farlow would have to do it. Grown-up people had to have their way. But she wondered if Miss Farlow would not just as lief whip her before she went as after she came back. It would be a pity to spoil the beautiful afternoon with expectation of punishment.

After prayers next Sat.u.r.day morning, Anne lingered near Miss Farlow's desk.

"Do you wish to speak to me, Anne Lewis?" asked that lady, frowning over a handful of bills.

"If you please--wouldn't you as soon--won't you please whip me before I go out of bounds?" she requested.

"What's that you're saying, Anne Lewis? What do you mean?" asked Miss Farlow.

Anne explained.

"Pity sake!" the bewildered lady exclaimed. She looked at Anne over her spectacles, then took them off and stared as if trying to find out what kind of a queer little creature this was. "Do you mean," she inquired solemnly, "that you'd rather be a bad girl and go out of bounds and be whipped--rather than be good and stay in bounds?"

"If you please, Miss Farlow." Anne stood her ground bravely though her knees were shaking.

"Anne Lewis, if whipping will not make you obey, we must--must try something else," Miss Farlow said severely. She considered awhile, then she asked: "Why are you so anxious to go out of bounds?"

Anne went a step nearer. "It isn't far," she said. "Just across the hedge. It's a secret. A beautiful place. I take Honey-Sweet--she's my doll--and we play stories. It's just my private property." Anne used the words she heard often from the larger girls.

"You mean that you play it is," Miss Farlow corrected gravely. "You don't get in mischief--or go where it's unsafe?"