Rosemary Part 32

"What are you doing in here?" he asked sternly. "Did Miss Parsons ask you to do anything to that bowl?"

At that moment Miss Parsons herself came into the kitchen.

"I was looking for you," Mr. Oliver explained, "and I saw Fannie Mears about to shake something into that large bowl on the table. I thought Rosemary Willis was working here this morning."

"She was--" Miss Parsons stooped to recover the shaker. "Salt!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed as she saw what it was. "Fannie Mears, I do believe you were going to salt Rosemary's icing!"

Fannie began to cry.

"Did you salt the soup last fall?" asked the teacher sternly. "Did you? Answer me, Fannie."

"Yes, I did," sobbed Fannie. "I got so sick and tired of hearing about Rosemary and her cooking. I put in the salt while she was looking at the tables in the dining-room with you. It makes me sick to hear all the fuss people make about her being such a good cook."

Rosemary, breathless from running, burst in at that juncture, the clean tablecloth under her arm.

"Rosemary," said Mr. Oliver gravely, "Fannie has just told us that it was she who over-salted the soup at the Inst.i.tute dinner--you remember?"

"You did?" cried Rosemary, turning to the other girl. "Did you take the needle-books you gave Shirley, too?"

Fannie nodded.

"Did you wad up the clean tablecloth for the cake table?" chorused Rosemary and Miss Parsons together. "And spill tomato soup on it, too?"

"Catsup," corrected Fannie.

"How can you be so horrid!" cried Rosemary in a burst of frankness.

"Well, it's your own fault," declared Fannie resentfully. "You've got a swelled head over your cooking and I just wanted to make you see you weren't so much, after all."

"But there were teachers from all over the State at the Inst.i.tute dinner," protested Rosemary. "If the dinner was spoiled, they would blame the school because we were not better taught. And the fair is for the hospital and if it doesn't go off right, the whole school loses credit. Don't you see, Fannie, you weren't just hurting me, but you were making the whole school fall down."

"You come down to the office with me, Fannie," said Mr. Oliver sternly. "I think you and I will have a little talk and perhaps you will see things in a clearer light afterward. Certainly your ideas need to be set right, if you are to continue in school."

"Oh, dear, I hope he won't scold her," sighed Rosemary, beginning to stir the chocolate mixture. "As long as she didn't get the salt into this, I don't care, and I don't think Mr. Oliver should."

"He may think differently," said Miss Parsons briefly.

CHAPTER XXV

GARDEN DAYS

Mr. Oliver did think differently. He talked very seriously to Fannie for nearly an hour and then Rosemary was sent for to come to the office.

"Rosemary," said the princ.i.p.al, when she appeared, "I know you have a great many last things to do for the fair, but I had to speak to you before the three o'clock dismissal bell. Fannie is ready to apologize to you before your cla.s.s is dismissed this afternoon."

He had explained to Fannie that she must either publicly apologize to Rosemary or be indefinitely suspended.

"I quite understand," went on Mr. Oliver, "that a belated apology like this can not make up to you for the humiliation you suffered on the night of the dinner, but at least the cooking cla.s.s will know that you were not at fault. I'm afraid you've had to endure a good deal of teasing on the score of the salty soup."

"Oh, I didn't mind, really I didn't!" cried Rosemary quickly. "I'd rather Fannie didn't say anything, Mr. Oliver. Honestly I would."

"I think it will be good for her," said the princ.i.p.al whimsically.

"Any girl who can be guilty of a series of such mean little acts as Fannie has confessed to, can not help but benefit by open confession."

"But Mr. Oliver!" Rosemary spoke involuntarily and the color deepened in her face.

"Yes?" he encouraged.

"Nothing--only, if you make Fannie apologize, you are punishing me,"

brought out Rosemary desperately. "I can't stand it to sit there in cla.s.s and listen to her. I don't care about the salty soup--at least I don't now; but I know how I should feel to have to get up before the whole cla.s.s. Please don't make Fannie do it."

The princ.i.p.al tapped his desk thoughtfully with his pencil.

"All right," he said presently. "I certainly have no right to make you uncomfortable, Rosemary, and even less desire. Apologize here and now, Fannie, and I'll excuse you from a cla.s.s acknowledgment.

But only on Rosemary's account, mind you. I think you deserve all the punishment I can give you."

Fannie made a faltering and shame-faced apology and then Rosemary was allowed to go back to the kitchen and, as the three o'clock bell sounded, Fannie to go home. She did not come to the fair and her cla.s.s mates did not see her again till next Monday.

True to his promise, Doctor Hugh took his family to the high school cafeteria for supper and Jack Welles, who was one of the carvers, served them in fine style. Frank Fenton was manager and he insisted on securing the most desirable table for them, much to Doctor Hugh's amus.e.m.e.nt and Sarah's ill-concealed disgust.

"Why do you smile and say 'How do you do' to him, Rosemary?" she demanded of her sister hotly. "I think it's untruthful to pretend to like people you don't."

"Well it isn't!" flung back Rosemary, who was tired from standing behind the cake table that afternoon. "It's impolite to stick out your tongue at them the way you do!"

"Let me catch you doing that!" Doctor Hugh warned Sarah. "However, children, let's not have any quarrels on a fair night. How late are they going to keep this up, Rosemary?"

"Only till eight o'clock," Rosemary answered. "We have to go back, now, Hugh, and serve at the tables. Are you and Aunt Trudy coming up?"

"Right away," he a.s.sured her. "And we'll bring our pocketbooks."

The fair was an unquestionable success. Shirley's bouquets sold swiftly and her tray was replenished again and again that evening and during the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Sarah convulsed her customers by her business-like manner and she did a thriving trade in gold fish.

Winnie came Sat.u.r.day afternoon and bought a large cake and another for Mrs. Welles who was kept home by a bad cold. The coveted state of bare tables was attained an hour before the fair was scheduled to close Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and the Eastsh.o.r.e pupils had the pleasant knowledge that they would have more money to turn over to the hospital than in any previous year.

Spring came to Eastsh.o.r.e with fascinating suddenness. One night it was bl.u.s.tery and cold and householders stoked their furnaces with a sigh for the nearly empty coal bins, and the following morning a South wind blew gently, robins chirped on the lawns that showed a faint green tinge and children appeared in school with huge bundles of p.u.s.s.y willows.

"What do you say to fixing up the garden, Rosemary?" Doctor Hugh suggested, tumbling a sheaf of seed catalogues on the living-room table early in April. "If Mother comes home in June, she'd like to find plenty of flowers growing, wouldn't she?"

"Oh, yes!" Rosemary's response was enthusiastic. "Do let's plan a garden, Hugh, and if it doesn't cost too much, we could have Peter Cooper fix up the lawn. It's rather thin in spots."

The gardening fever seized upon the Willis family and the girls sped home from school to dig and plant and rake and hoe. They recklessly promised Winnie a vegetable garden back of the garage and risked a late frost to jab onion and radish and lettuce seeds into the patch, Peter Cooper, the handy man, spaded up for them. Rosemary acquired a line of golden freckles across her nose and Sarah "got a shade darker every day," according to Winnie.

"I don't care!" the object of her solicitation retorted. "I won't wear a hat--they're hot and stuffy and make my head ache."