Honey-Sweet Part 12

"Indeed I don't, Miss Farlow," said Anne, earnestly. "I just sit there and play with Honey-Sweet."

"It's safe and near, and the Marshalls are away--they wouldn't care,"

considered Miss Farlow. "I'll allow you to go there this one afternoon.

Tell Emma I say you may play beyond the hedge."

Anne skipped away with a radiant face. On hearing her message, Emma scowled and said: "I think you oughtn't to have any holiday at all for making so much trouble last Sat.u.r.day. I could have crocheted dozens of rows on my mat while I was looking for you. I tell you what, missy, if you're naughty and disobedient, you'll be sent away from here."

"Sent where, Miss Emma?" asked Anne.

"Oh, away. Back where you came from," answered Emma.

Anne ran away, happier than ever. Being sent away, then, was the "something else" that Miss Farlow said they must try if she were naughty and disobedient. "Back where she came from!" That meant to Miss Drayton and Pat. Anne resolved that she would be very naughty so they would send her away as soon as possible. That evening she began to carry out her plan and let a cup fall while she was washing dishes. Jane, who was helping her, looked frightened, but Anne only smiled. That was one step toward Miss Drayton. During the days that followed, Anne was a very naughty girl. She came late to breakfast, with rough hair and dangling ribbons; she tore her ap.r.o.ns; she rumpled her frocks; her usually tidy bed was in valleys and mountains; her tasks were neglected or ill done.

She was reproved; she was punished. But she accepted each reproof and punishment calmly.

"Next time," she thought, "they will think I am bad enough to send me away--back to dear Miss Drayton."

The punishment she disliked most was that on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, instead of being allowed to go out, she was sent to her room in disgrace. She was sitting doleful by a window, neglecting the task a.s.signed her, when Milly came in. Milly was one of the larger girls who went out as a seamstress.

"You kept in, ain't you?" she said, sitting down and beginning to make b.u.t.tonholes.

Anne nodded.

"What's come over you?" Milly asked. "You don't act like the same girl you used to be. Why, you're downright bad."

Anne smiled knowingly. "That I am," she agreed.

"How come?" Milly inquired.

Anne hesitated, then she poured out the whole story. 'She wanted so much to go back to Miss Drayton. And didn't Milly think she was 'most bad enough now?'

Milly threw back her head and laughed till she cried.

"Oh, you Anne! you Anne!" she exclaimed. At last she got breath enough to explain that Emma had only said that because she was provoked. It was not true. Anne would not be sent away. Indeed, there was nowhere to send her. Miss Farlow took charge of her and would keep her because there was no one else to care for her. She would stay there till she was large enough to go out and work for herself, as Milly did.

Anne was much disappointed. She had set her heart on going back to Miss Drayton. Still it was disagreeable to be naughty and in disgrace all the time. Louise used to say, too, that no one loved naughty girls, and Anne loved to be loved. She didn't care to be large if she had to make dresses like Milly, when she went away from the 'Home.' She did hate to sew! She cried a little while, then she washed her face, brushed her hair, learned the hymn set her as an afternoon task, and went downstairs to tea, a meek, well-behaved girl again.

CHAPTER XV

The weeks went by, one as like another as the blue-clad children. A September Sat.u.r.day afternoon found Anne, with Honey-Sweet clasped in her arms, in a secluded corner near the boundary hedge. She had told Honey-Sweet all the happenings of the week--that she was head in reading, that she would have cut Lucy down in spelling-cla.s.s if the girl next above her had not spelt 'scissors' on her fingers--that Miss 'Liza had not found a wrinkle in her bed-clothes all the week. She cuddled and kissed Honey-Sweet to her heart's content, crooning over and over her old lullaby:--

"Honey, honey! Sweet, sweet, sweet!

Honey, honey! Honey-Sweet!"

Then she wandered into her world of 'make believe.' Once upon a time, there was a fair, forlorn princess on a milk-white steed. She was lost in a forest. It was, though the princess did not know it, an enchanted forest. And there was a cruel giant who had seized twenty-seven fair, forlorn princesses whom he had made his serving-maids. They could be freed only by a magic ring worn by a gallant knight who did not know about their danger. Anne stopped in the middle of her story, keeping mouse-still so as not to frighten a robin beside the hedge.

She gave a start when a voice near her piped out, "Tell on, little girl, tell on; I like that story."

Anne looked around. No one was in sight.

"If you don't tell on, I'll cry. Then mother will punish you," said the shrill little voice.

Anne stood up and looked all about. At last she discovered the speaker.

He was a small boy who had climbed a low-branching apple-tree on the other side of the hedge. A smaller boy was walking beside a white-capped, white-ap.r.o.ned nurse at a little distance. Anne had made believe that the brown-stone house was the castle of the wandering knight who was to return and rescue the enchanted princesses. It had been closed all the summer and Anne was surprised and grieved to see now that it was open and occupied by everyday people.

As his command was not obeyed, the small boy made good his threat and wailed aloud. The white-capped nurse came running to him.

"What is the matter, Master Dunlop? Have you hurt yourself on that naughty tree? I'll beat it for you. Don't you cry."

Dunlop paused in his wailing to say: "It's that girl over there. She stopped telling a story. And I told her to keep on. And she didn't."

"Oh, Master Dunlop! A-talking to them charity chillen!" exclaimed the nurse. "You're in mischief soon as my back's turned. Come away, Master Dunlop, come along with me and Master Arthur. You'll catch--no telling what."

"I've had fever," announced Dunlop, proudly. "And I'm not to be fretted.

Mamma told you so. I won't go, Martha. I'll cry if you try to make me. I want to hear that story.--Tell it, girl," he commanded.

"We don't answer people that speak to us like that, do we, Honey-Sweet?"

said Anne, turning away. "We'll go under the elm-tree in the far corner.--And the fair, forlorn princess got off her milk-white steed to pick some berries--and whizz! gallop! off he went and left her. So the princess walked on alone through the forest--" as Anne spoke she was walking away from the hedge.

Dunlop began to scream again.

Martha spoke hastily. "If you'll hush, I'll ask her to tell you the story. If you scream, Master Dunlop, your mother'll call you in and she'll make you take a spoonful of that bitter stuff."

"You call that girl, then," he commanded.

Martha raised her voice. "Little girl, oh, little girl!--I don't know your name. Please come back."

Anne paused, but did not turn her head.

"This little boy has been ill," Martha continued. "He's just getting over fever. And he's notiony. Won't you please tell that story to him?"

Anne walked slowly back. "I do not mind telling him the story," she answered with grave dignity. "I'm always telling stories to the girls.

But he must ask me proper. I don't 'low for to be spoken to that way."

"Martha said 'please' to you," mumbled Dunlop, digging his toe in the turf.

"You want me to tell the story," said Anne.

There was a brief silence.

"I'll cry," he threatened.

"I don't have to keep you from crying," said Anne, with spirit. "Come on, Honey-Sweet."

"Please, you little girl," said Dunlop, hastily.