Rosemary Part 20

"Just go right into the next office, and you'll find him," said Mr.

Oliver's secretary, smiling.

CHAPTER XVI

MR. OLIVER AND SARAH

The door into the next office stood open. Sarah walked in, that is, she stepped just inside the doorway and stood there as though glued to the floor. The thin, gray-haired man who was stooping over the flat-topped desk, looking at a card file, glanced up at her and smiled. This was the princ.i.p.al, Mr. Oliver.

"Good morning," he said. "Did you wish to see me?"

"No-o," stammered Sarah, "I didn't. But Miss Ames sent me."

Mr. Oliver sat down and pointed to a chair drawn up beside the desk.

"Suppose you come and sit down and tell me all about it," he suggested.

His secretary in the next room stepped over and closed the connecting door noiselessly as Sarah seated herself on the edge of the chair and stared unhappily at the floor.

"If you're in Miss Ames' room, you are a fourth grader," said Mr.

Oliver pleasantly. "What is your name?"

"Sarah," the small girl whispered, "Sarah Willis."

"Oh, yes--then you're a sister of Doctor Willis," said the princ.i.p.al. "And I know Rosemary, too. Isn't there another sister--a little light-haired girl in one of the grades?"

"That's Shirley," answered Sarah, forgetting her errand for an instant and looking Mr. Oliver in the face for the first time.

"She's in the first grade."

"Well, Sarah, what have you to tell me?" said the princ.i.p.al quietly.

"Why did Miss Ames send you to me?"

"I don't know where to begin," complained Sarah forlornly.

"Don't be afraid--there is nothing to be afraid of," said Mr.

Oliver. "Just tell me everything that has happened and I promise to listen to you and believe you."

Sarah, as Doctor Hugh had discovered, was morally not very brave.

She was afraid of people and though the Willis will was as strong in her as in any of the others, she would not come out openly and demand her way. Rather Sarah would do as she pleased and shirk the consequences wherever possible. The doctor had had several little talks with her on this subject of fear and he was gradually teaching her to acknowledge her mistakes and wrong doings and patiently explaining at every opportunity the rules of fair play.

"It is both cowardly and contemptible to let someone else be blamed for what you have done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah--you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find that is so."

So this morning, in the princ.i.p.al's office, Sarah remembered what Doctor Hugh had said. She wanted dreadfully to retreat into one of her obstinate, sulky silences, and refuse to answer questions. She was afraid--afraid of a severe scolding and the disgrace of a public expulsion. Her knees were wobbling, but she slipped to her feet and stood facing Mr. Oliver bravely.

"If you're going to expel me," she said clearly, "tell Hilda French I wanted her to have my pencil box."

And then the tears came.

She cried and cried and as she wept she told the story and though drawings of leaves and paint boxes and middy blouse pockets and snakes and paper weights seemed to be hopelessly mixed in her sobbing conversation, Mr. Oliver, in some miraculous fashion, pieced together the disconnected bits and declared that he understood perfectly. He loaned Sarah his extra clean handkerchief on which to dry her eyes, her own handkerchief being obviously employed, for she had laid the pathetic remains of the dead snake on his desk, and when she was more quiet he told her kindly that there was no question of expulsion.

"I don't know where you ever got such an idea," he said, smiling a little, and he looked so friendly and not at all angry, that Sarah even managed a faint, watery smile in response. "Boys and girls are never expelled from school except for very serious reasons. You've made a little mistake, that's all and I'll show you where you were wrong in just a minute. Sometimes we want our own way so much, we can't see how we can be wrong."

Sarah blushed a little, but nodded honestly.

"Well, you see, as soon as you found out that Miss Ames didn't like snakes in her cla.s.s room, you should have stopped right there," said Mr. Oliver decidedly. "You disobeyed Miss Ames and all this trouble came from that. If she said her cla.s.s room was no place for snakes and mice--you brought mice one day, didn't you?--that should have settled the question for you."

"But how will the children ever learn about snakes?" asked Sarah earnestly.

"They'll learn, if they are interested," answered Mr. Oliver. "You can't force anyone to adopt your likes and dislikes, you know, Sarah. Rosemary may like to sew and you may say you 'hate' to touch a needle, but do you make yourself into an ardent needlewoman, simply because Rosemary enjoys sewing? Don't you see? I'm afraid you'll have to give Miss Ames and me your promise that you will not bring any more snakes, alive or dead, or any other animal to school."

Sarah promised slowly, her eyes on the dead snake.

"He was such a lovely specimen," she mourned. "I s'pose maybe he was valuable."

"I tell you what to do, Sarah," said Mr. Oliver quickly. "You don't know Mr. Martin, do you? He teaches biology in the high school and I must take you up to his room some day and let you see the 'specimens' he has. He has a menagerie that fills one side of a large room. Whenever you find something you can't resist, you bring it here to me in the office and I'll turn it over to Mr. Martin. In that way your cla.s.s room won't be upset and Mr. Martin will likely gain some valuable additions to his collection. Don't you think that is a good plan?"

Sarah said she thought it was, and then, as the noon bell rang throughout the building, Mr. Oliver shook hands with her and told her that if she ever needed advice or help to come directly to him.

He promised, too, to speak to Miss Ames and tell her that no more snakes or other lively "specimens" would be brought into her room by Sarah. He opened the door for her and she was free.

She sped along the corridors, her snake in her hand again, but it was a far happier Sarah than the little girl who had walked slowly through them an hour and a half ago. Up to the lunch room dashed this Sarah, and startled Rosemary who was opening the lunch box at their corner table by her demand, "I have to bury a snake--will you come help me?"

Of course she had to tell what had happened that morning, and Rosemary and Shirley agreed that Mr. Oliver was "just as nice as nice could be."

"Though I do hope, Sarah, this will teach you to let snakes alone,"

said Rosemary in the elder-sister tone she rarely used. "You frightened Aunt Trudy into fits and now you've upset a whole cla.s.s.

No, don't show me that ugly little snake--I'm sorry he is dead because you are, but I don't want to see him; I couldn't eat a bit of lunch. Come on, and eat your sandwiches and then we will go down and bury him somewhere on the play-ground."

That night at dinner Rosemary had an announcement to make. Her eyes shining like stars and her face glowing, she declared that she had been appointed to plan and serve the dinner to be given by the grammar school teachers for the Inst.i.tute visitors.

"Inst.i.tute is the second week in November," bubbled Rosemary, "and there will be about ten visiting teachers from the towns within twenty-five miles. Miss Parsons says I'm the best cook in the cla.s.s though Bessie Kent is older than I am and Fannie Mears had cooking last year."

"But can you cook a dinner?" asked Doctor Hugh. "Seems to me that's a pretty large order for a cla.s.s of young girls and with visitors expected, too."

"Oh, we know just what to do," said Rosemary confidently. "I have to make out the menu and submit it to Miss Parsons by Friday of this week. And then I have to choose the girls I want to help me cook, and those to set and wait on the tables--this year we're going to have small tables instead of one large one. And we girls are to do every bit of the work ourselves!"

Aunt Trudy and Winnie beamed on Rosemary, sure that she would do well whatever she undertook, while Sarah demanded to know who the waitresses were to be.

"Well, Nina Edmonds for one," said Rosemary and the doctor frowned involuntarily. Although Nina seldom came to the house and he knew that Rosemary saw little of her outside of school, he could not help but see that her influence continued to be remarkably strong.

"Nina's an awful chump," declared Sarah who cordially disliked her and was in turn, disliked by Nina.

"She is not!" flared Rosemary. "And, Aunt Trudy she has the loveliest blue velvet dress. She says she can wear it under her ap.r.o.n and then, after dinner when we take our ap.r.o.ns off, she will look all right. Couldn't I wear my new brown velvet that night?"

"Why I don't know," replied Aunt Trudy uncertainly. "I don't think it would be very suitable, dear. What do you think, Hugh?"