Not Quite Eighteen Part 15

"But you all know what I mean."

"Well, we can guess, but you ought to be more exact. And, besides, Papa says if we use up all our strong words about little every-day things, we sha'n't have any to use when we are talking about really great things.

If you call a heavy m.u.f.fin 'awful,' what are you going to say about an earthquake or tornado?"

"We don't have any earthquakes in Groton, and I don't ever mean to go to places where they do," retorted Madge, triumphantly.

"Madge, how bad you are!" cried little Alice. "You ought to promise Mary right away, because it's your birthday."

"Well, I'll try," said Madge. But she did not make the promise with much heart, and she soon forgot all about it. It seemed to her that Mary was making a great fuss about a small thing.

Are there any small things? Sometimes I am inclined to doubt it. A fever-germ can only be seen under the microscope, but think what a terrible work it can do. The avalanche, in its beginning, is only a few moving particles of snow; the tiny spring feeds the brook, which in turn feeds the river; the little evil, unchecked, grows into the habit which masters the strongest man. All great things begin in small things; and these small things which are to become we know not what, should be important in our eyes.

Madge h.o.a.re meant to be a truthful child; but little by little, and day by day, her perception of what truth really is, was being worn away by the habit of exaggeration.

"Perfectly beautiful," "perfectly horrible," "perfectly dreadful,"

"perfectly fascinating," such were the mild terms which she daily used to describe the most ordinary things,--apples, rice puddings, arithmetic lessons, gingham dresses, and, as we have seen, blue parasols! And the habit grew upon her, as habits will. When she needed stronger language than usual, things had to be "horrider" than horrid, and "beautifuller"

than beautiful. And the worst of it was, that she was all the time half conscious of her own insincerity, and that, to use Mary's favorite figure, she _meant_ pink, but she _said_ scarlet.

The family fell so into the habit of making mental allowances and deductions for all Madge's statements that sometimes they fell into the habit of not believing enough. "It is only Madge!" they would say, and so dismiss the subject from their minds. This careless disbelief vexed and hurt Madge very often, but it did not hurt enough to cure her. One day, however, it did lead to something which she could not help remembering.

It was warm weather still, although September, and Ernest, the little baby brother, whom Madge loved best of all the children, was playing one morning in the yard by himself. Madge was studying an "awful" arithmetic lesson upstairs at the window. She could not see Ernest, who was making a sand-pie directly beneath her; but she did see an old woman peer over the fence, open the gate, and steal into the yard.

"What a horrid-looking old woman!" thought Madge. "The multiple of sixteen added to--Oh, bother! what an awful sum this is!" She forgot the old woman for a few moments, then she again saw her going out of the yard, and carrying under her cloak what seemed to be a large bundle. The odd thing was, that the bundle seemed to have legs, and to kick; or was it the wind blowing the old woman's cloak about?

Madge watched the old woman out of sight with a puzzled and half-frightened feeling. "Could she have stolen anything?" she asked herself; and at last she ran downstairs to see. Nothing seemed missing from the hall, only Ernie's straw hat lay in the middle of the gravel walk.

"Mamma!" cried Madge, bursting into the library where her mother was talking to a visitor. "There has been the most perfectly horrible old woman in our yard that I ever saw. She was so awful-looking that I was afraid she had been stealing something. Did you see her, Mamma?"

"My dear, all old women are awful in your eyes," said Mrs. h.o.a.re, calmly. "This was old Mrs. Shephard, I presume. I told her to come for a bundle of washing. Run away now, Madge, I am busy."

Madge went, but she still did not feel satisfied. The more she thought about the old woman, the more she was sure that it was not old Mrs.

Shephard. She went with her fears to Mary.

"She was just like a gypsy," she explained, "or a horrible old witch.

Her hair stuck out so, and she had the awfullest face! I am almost sure she stole something, and carried it away under her shawl, sister."

"Nonsense!" said Mary, who was drawing, and not inclined to disturb herself for one of Madge's "c.o.c.k-and-bull" stories. "It was only one of Mamma's old goodies, you may be sure. Don't you recollect what a fright you gave us about the robber, who turned out to be a man selling apples; and that other time, when you were certain there was a bear in the garden, and it was nothing but Mr. Price's big Newfoundland?"

"But this was quite different; it really was. This old woman was really awful."

"Your old women always are," replied Mary, unconcernedly, going on with her sketch.

No one would attend to Madge's story, no one sympathized with her alarm.

She was like the boy who cried "Wolf!" so often that, when the real wolf came, no one heeded his cries. But the family roused from their indifference, when, an hour later, Nurse came to ask where Master Ernie could be, and search revealed the fact that he was nowhere about the premises. Madge and her old woman were treated with greater respect then. Papa set off for the constable, and Jim drove rapidly in the direction which the old woman was taking when last seen. Poor Mrs. h.o.a.re was terribly anxious and distressed.

"I blame myself for not attending at once to what Madge said," she told Mary. "But the fact is that she exaggerates so constantly that I have fallen into the habit of only half listening to her. If it had been Alice, it would have been quite different."

Madge overheard Mamma say this, and she crept away to her own room, and cried as if her heart would break.

"If Ernie is never found, it will all be my fault," she thought. "n.o.body believes a word that I say. But they would have believed if Alice had said it, and Mary would have run after that wicked old woman, and got dear baby away from her. Oh dear, how miserable I am!"

Madge never forgot that long afternoon and that wretched night. Mamma did not go to bed at all, and none of them slept much. It was not till ten o'clock the next morning that Papa and Jim came back, bringing--oh, joy!--little Ernie with them, his pretty hair all tangled and his rosy cheeks glazed with crying, but otherwise unhurt. He had been found nearly ten miles away, locked in a miserable cottage by the old woman, who had taken off his nice clothes and dressed him in a ragged frock.

She had left him there while she went out to beg, or perhaps to make arrangements for carrying him farther out of reach; but she had given him some bread and milk for supper and breakfast, and the little fellow was not much the worse for his adventure; and after a bath and a re-dressing, and after being nearly kissed to death by the whole family, he went to sleep in his own crib very comfortably.

"Papa," said Madge that night, "I never mean to exaggerate any more as long as I live. I mean to say exactly what I think, only not so much, so that you shall all have confidence in me. And then, next time baby is stolen, you will all believe what I say."

"I hope there will never be any 'next time,'" observed her mother; "but I shall have to be glad of what happened this time, if it really cures you of such a bad habit, my little Madge."

DOLLY'S LESSON.

"What is presence of mind, any way?" demanded little Dolly Ware, as she sat, surrounded by her family, watching the sunset.

The sunset hour is best of all the twenty-four in Nantucket. At no other time is the sea so blue and silvery, or the streaks of purple and pale green which mark the place of the sand-spits and shallows that underlie the island waters so defined, or of such charming colors. The wind blows across softly from the south sh.o.r.e, and brings with it scents of heath and thyme, caught from the high upland moors above the town. The sun dips down, and sends a flash of glory to the zenith; and small pink clouds curl up about the rising moon, fondle her, as it were, and seem to love her. It is a delightful moment, and all Nantucket dwellers learn to watch for it.

It was the custom of the Ware family, as soon as they had despatched their supper,--a very hearty supper, suited to young appet.i.tes sharpened by sea air;--of chowder, or hot lobster, or a newly caught blue-fish, with piles of brown bread and b.u.t.ter, and unlimited milk,--to rush out _en ma.s.se_ to the piazza of their little cottage, and "attend to the sunset," as though it were a family affair. It was the hour when jokes were cracked and questions asked, and when Mamma, who was apt to be pretty busy during the daytime, had leisure to answer them.

Dolly was youngest of the family,--a thin, wiry child, tall for her years, with a brown bang lying like a thatch over a pair of bright inquisitive eyes, and a thick pig-tail braided down her back. Phyllis, the next in age, was short and fat; then came Harry, then Erma, just sixteen (named after a German great-grandmother), and, last of all, Jack, tallest and jolliest of the group, who had just "pa.s.sed his preliminaries," and would enter college next year. Mrs. Ware might be excused for the little air of motherly pride with which she gazed at her five. They were fine children, all of them,--frank, affectionate, generous, with bright minds and healthy bodies.

"Presence of mind sometimes means absence of body," remarked Jack, in answer to Dolly's question.

"I was speaking to Mamma," said Dolly, with dignity. "I wasn't asking you."

"I am aware of the fact, but I overlooked the formality, for once. What makes you want to know, midget?"

"There was a story in the paper about a girl who hid the kerosene can when the new cook came, and it said she showed true presence of mind,"

replied Dolly.

"Oh, that was only fun! It didn't mean anything."

"Isn't there any such thing, then?"

"Why, of course there is. Picking up a sh.e.l.l just before it bursts in a hospital tent, and throwing it out of the door, is presence of mind."

"Yes, and tying a string round the right place on your leg when you've cut an artery," added Harry, eagerly.

"Swallowing a quart of whiskey when a rattlesnake bites you," suggested Jack.

"Saving the silver, instead of the waste-paper basket, when the house is on fire," put in Erma.

Dolly looked from one to the other.

"What funny things!" she cried. "I don't believe you know anything about it. Mamma, tell me what it really means."

"I think," said Mrs. Ware, in those gentle tones to which her children always listened, "that presence of mind means keeping cool, and having your wits about you, at critical moments. Our minds--our reasoning faculties, that is--are apt to be stunned or shocked when we are suddenly frightened or excited; they leave us, and go away, as it were, and it is only afterward that we pick ourselves up, and realize what we ought to have done. To act coolly and sensibly in the face of danger is a fine thing, and one to be proud of."