Marjorie's Busy Days Part 27

clothes on purpose. I hoped Lisa was right, but I feared she wasn't, so I picked up the baby and ran over here to see."

Mrs. Maynard was both grieved and chagrined.

"How could Marjorie do such a thing!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, don't be too hard on her, Mrs. Maynard," said Mrs. Curtis. "It's all right, now, and you know Marjorie and Gladys are a mischievous pair."

"But this is inexcusable," went on Mrs. Maynard. "Mrs. Harrison nearly went frantic, and you were certainly greatly alarmed."

Mrs. Curtis smiled pleasantly. "I was," she admitted, "but it was only for a few moments. I was mystified rather than alarmed, for Lisa said the carriage had not been out of her sight a moment, except when the girls had it."

Mrs. Curtis took her leave, and, carrying with her her own baby, went away home.

Mrs. Maynard made sincere apologies to her friend for naughty Marjorie's mischief.

"Never mind, Helen," said Mrs. Harrison. "I can see now it was only a childish prank, and doubtless Marjorie and Gladys expected a good laugh over it; then they ran off unexpectedly and forgot all about the babies."

Mrs. Maynard remembered then that Midget had said at the last moment that she had something to tell her, but that she had hurried the child off.

"Still," she thought to herself, "that was no excuse for Midge. She should have told me."

After a refreshing luncheon, Mrs. Harrison was able to view the matter more calmly.

"Don't punish Marjorie for this, Helen," she said. "Children will be children, and I daresay those girls thought it would be a fine joke on me."

"I certainly shall punish her, Mildred. She is altogether too thoughtless, and too careless of other people's feelings. She never does wilful or malicious wrong, but she tumbles into mischief thoughtlessly.

She will be honestly grieved when she learns how frightened and upset you were, and she'll never do such a thing again. But, the trouble is she'll do some other thing that will be equally naughty, but something that no one can foresee or warn her against."

"Well, just for my sake, Helen, don't punish her this time; at least, not much. I really oughtn't to have gone to pieces so; I ought to have realized that it could all be easily explained."

But Mrs. Maynard would not promise to condone Midget's fault entirely, and argued that she really ought to be punished for what turned out to be a troublesome affair.

Mrs. Harrison went home about four o'clock, and it was five before Marjorie returned.

Her mother met her at the door.

"Did you have a pleasant time, Marjorie?" she said.

"Oh, yes, Mother; we had a lovely time. We went clear to Ridge Park. Oh, I _do_ love to ride in an automobile."

"Go and take off your things, my child, and then come to me in my room."

"Yes, Mother," said Marjorie, and she danced away to take off her hat.

"Here I am, Mother," she announced, a little later. "Now shall I tell you all about my afternoon?"

"Not quite yet, dear. I'll tell you all about my afternoon first. Mrs.

Harrison had a very unhappy time, and of course that made me unhappy also."

"Why, Mother, what was the trouble about?"

Mrs. Maynard looked into the clear, honest eyes of her daughter, and sighed as she realized that Marjorie had no thought of what had made the trouble.

"Why did you put Dotty Curtis' cloak and hat on Totty?"

Then the recollection came back to Marjorie.

"Oh, Mother!" she cried, as she burst into a ringing peal of laughter.

"Wasn't it a funny joke! Did Mrs. Harrison laugh? Did she know her own baby?"

"Marjorie, I'm ashamed of you. No, Mrs. Harrison did not laugh. Of course she knew that the child you left in the carriage was not her little Totty, and as she didn't know what had happened, she had a very bad scare, and her nerves were completely unstrung."

"But why, Mother?" said Marjorie, looking puzzled. "I thought she wouldn't know the difference. But if she did know right away it wasn't Totty, why didn't she go over to Mrs. Curtis' and change them back again?"

"She didn't know Totty was at Mrs. Curtis'. Neither did I. We never dreamed that you couldn't be trusted to take a baby out to ride and bring her home safely. She thought some dreadful thing had happened to her child."

"Oh, Mother, did she? I'm so sorry. I never meant to tease her that way.

I only thought it would be a funny joke to see her think Dotty was Totty."

"But, my little girl, you ought to have realized that it was a cruel and even a dangerous joke. You cannot carelessly dispose of little human beings as if they were dolls, or other inanimate things."

"I never thought of that, Mother. And, anyway, I started to tell you about it, just as I went away, and you told me to run along, and tell you what I had to tell after I came home."

"I thought you'd say that; but of course I thought you meant you wanted to tell me some trifling incident, or something of little importance.

Can't you understand that what you did was not a trifle, but a grave piece of misbehavior?"

"Mischief, Mother?"

Mrs. Maynard bit her lip to keep from smiling at Marjorie's innocent request for information.

"It was mischief, I suppose. But it was more than that. It was real wrong-doing. When little girls are trusted to do anything, they ought to be very careful to do it earnestly and thoroughly, exactly as it is meant to be done. If you had stopped to think, would you have thought either of those mothers _wanted_ you to exchange their babies?"

Marjorie pondered.

"No," she said, at last; "but, truly, if I had thought ever so hard I wouldn't have thought they'd mind it so much. Can't they take a joke, Mother?"

"Marjorie, dear, you have a fun-loving disposition, but if it is to make you joy and not sorrow all your life, you must learn what const.i.tutes a desirable 'joke.' To begin with, practical jokes are rarely, if ever, desirable."

"What is a practical joke?"

"It's a little difficult to explain, my dear; but it's usually a well-laid plan to make somebody feel foolish or angry, or appear ridiculous. I think you hoped Mrs. Harrison would appear ridiculous by petting another child while thinking it was her own. And you meant to stand by and laugh at her."

This was putting it rather plainly, but Marjorie could not deny the truth of her mother's statement.

"And so," went on Mrs. Maynard, "that was a very wrong intent, especially from a little girl to a grown person. Practical jokes among your playmates are bad enough, but this was far worse."

"I understand, Mother, now that you've explained it; but, truly, I didn't mean to do anything so awfully dreadful. How are you going to punish me?"

"Mrs. Harrison was very forgiving, and begged me not to punish you severely. But I think you deserve a pretty hard penance; don't you?"