Ruby at School Part 6

"Well, I know what I would do," said Ruby. "I would say to her this way--" and Ruby held her head very high, and tried to look exceedingly dignified--"I should say, 'Miss Abigail, if you will please tend to making Ruby's dresses, I will tend to her behavior.'"

Ruthy looked rather shocked.

"I am afraid that would make Miss Abigail feel dreadfully bad, to have your auntie say such a thing," she said. "I think Miss Abigail is real nice, I truly do. She saves pretty pieces of calico for my patch-work, and once she gave me a sash for my doll; don't you remember it?--that blue one, with a little rose bud in the middle."

"Well, I don't like her," and Ruby shook her shoulders. "And I don't think it's nice in you to like her, when she makes me perfectly miserable. How would you like it if every time you wanted to do anything you heard her calling you, and had to go in and be fitted and fitted. She holds pins in her mouth, too, a whole row of them, and mamma never lets me do that, so Miss Abigail ought not to, and I just think I will tell her so. She has a whole row of them, just as long as her mouth is wide, and they bristle straight out when she talks. Just suppose she should drop some down my neck when she is talking. They would stick in to me, and hurt me like everything before I could get them out. I guess I would n't like that, would I? And if you had to stand just hours and hours, and have her cold fingers poking around your neck, and those great sharp scissors going snip, snip all around your neck, just where they would cut great pieces out if you dared move, I don't believe you would like that yourself, Ruthy Warren, even if she did give you things for your doll."

"No, I don't s'pose I would like it any better than you do," a.s.sented Ruthy, who was determined not to quarrel with her little friend, when they were so soon to be separated.

"Ruby, Miss Abigail wants you," called Aunt Emma.

Ruby made a wry face.

"There she is again," she exclaimed. "It's just the way the whole livelong time. I think if she knew how to make dresses, she ought not to have to fit so much. If I fitted my doll so often when I made her a dress, I guess her head would fall off. It would get shaky anyway, with so much fussing. Wait till I come back, Ruthy, and then we will play."

Miss Abigail was waiting to fit Ruby's blue delaine, and it looked so pretty that Ruby forgot how unwilling she had been to come in and have it fitted.

She showed her pleasure in it so plainly that good Miss Abigail was afraid that the little girl was in danger of becoming vain, and thought it best to warn her against this state of mind.

"I am afraid it is n't the best thing for you, Ruby Warren, to have so many new clothes all at once," she said, with the row of pins waving up and down, as she spoke through her teeth, which she did not open when she spoke, lest the pins should fall out. "If any one thinks more of clothes than they should, then dress is a snare and a temptation to them, and I am much afraid that that is what it is going to be to you.

Better for you to have only one dress to your back than to put clothes in the wrong place in your mind, and let them make you vain and conceited. What are clothes, anyway? There is n't any thing to be so proud of in them. Now this nice wool delaine was once growing on a sheep's back. Do you suppose that sheep was vain because it was covered with wool? No, it never thought anything about it. And so you see that you ought n't to be proud of it either."

"I think new dresses are very nice," said Ruby, speaking cautiously, lest she should inadvertently turn her head, and the sharp points of the scissors should run into her neck.

Miss Abigail felt that she must say still more, for it was evident that Ruby was putting too much value upon her dress.

"But it is n't new," she said.

"Oh, Miss Abigail, it truly is," exclaimed Ruby, forgetting herself and turning her head so suddenly that if the scissors had been in the right place, the points would surely have run into her. Fortunately, Miss Abigail had stopped to see how the neck looked, and her scissors were hanging by her side for a moment. "Why, of course, it is new. I went with Aunt Emma to the store, and helped buy it my very own self, so I know it is brand-new. Why, I should think you could tell it is new, it is so pretty and bright, and there is n't one single teenty tonty wrinkle in it."

"Yes, it is new to you," Miss Abigail answered solemnly. "But when you think about the matter, Ruby Harper, you know that the sheep wore it first, and you only have it second-hand, as you might say. Now, I should think a little girl was very silly that thought herself better than any one else, and let her thoughts rest on her clothes because she wore a sheep's old suit of wool made up in a little different way.

Shall I tell you some verses that my mother made me learn when I was a little girl, because I was proud of a new pelisse?"

"Yes 'm," said Ruby, meekly, taking a great deal of pleasure in the thought that when Miss Abigail was a little girl she had been naughty sometimes, and had had to learn verses as a punishment.

"'How proud we are, how fond to show Our clothes, and call them rich and new, When the poor sheep and silk-worm wore That very clothing long before.

"'The tulip and the b.u.t.terfly Appear in gayer coats than I; Let me be dressed fine as I will, Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.'"

"I don't think worms look nicer than I do," said Ruby, not very politely, when Miss Abigail had finished. "And I am very sorry for you, Miss Abigail, if you had to learn such ugly verses. If you had had a mamma like mine you would have had a better time, I think."

Miss Abigail looked severely over her bra.s.s-bowed spectacles at Ruby, almost too shocked to speak for a moment.

"I am sure, I don't know what your mother would say, Ruby Harper, if she heard you talking that way. I am sure she would think that you were no credit to her bringing-up. You have a good mother, one of the best mothers that ever lived, and your father is such a good man, too, that I am sure I don't see where you get your pert ways from. I was a happy child, because I was, in the main, a good child, and no one ever had a better mother than mine; and I have tried to follow the way in which I was brought up, if I do say it myself. Those were counted to be very pretty verses when I was a child, and I don't know but they were better than to-day. At any rate, in my day, children were taught to have a little respect for their elders, and there are very few that do that now. There were some other verses that I was going to tell a good deal of the nonsense that children learn you, but if that is your opinion of those I did tell you, there is no use in my taking so much trouble."

Miss Abigail looked sorrowful as well as vexed, and Ruby wished that she had not told her what she thought of the verses.

"I suppose she thinks they are nice," she said to herself; "and mamma would be sorry if she thought I had been rude to Miss Abigail."

Ruby was going away from her mother so soon that her conscience was more tender than usual, and she did not want to do what she knew her mother would not like.

"Please tell me the other verses, Miss Abigail," she said. "I did not know you liked those other verses, or I would not have called them ugly."

"I am glad you did not mean to be a rude child," said Miss Abigail, pleased by Ruby's apology. "Your mother takes so much pains with you that it would be a pity for you not to be a good child. Yes, I will tell you the others, and while I am repeating them you can sit down upon this little ottoman, and pick out the bastings in this sleeve."

While Ruby pulled the basting-thread out, and wound it on a spool as Miss Abigail had taught her, half wishing that she had not said anything about the other verses, since she might now have been out at play with Ruthy, Miss Abigail repeated some more of the verses she had learned when she, too, was a little girl like Ruby:--

"'Come, come, Mister Peac.o.c.k, you must not be proud, Although you can boast such a train; For many a bird, far more highly endowed, Is not half so conceited nor vain.

Let me tell you, gay bird, that a suit of fine clothes Is a sorry distinction at most, And seldom much valued, excepting by those Who only such graces can boast.

The nightingale certainly wears a plain coat, But she cheers and delights with her song; While you, though so vain, cannot utter a note, To please by the use of your tongue.

The hawk cannot boast of a plumage so gay, But piercing and clear is her eye; And while you are strutting about all the day, She gallantly soars in the sky.

The dove may be clad in a plainer attire, But she is not selfish and cold; And her love and affection more pleasure impart Than all your fine purple and gold.

So you see, Mister Peac.o.c.k, you must not be proud, Although you can boast such a train; For many a bird is more highly endowed, And not half so conceited and vain.'"

"I think I like that ever so much better," said Ruby, jumping up as Miss Abigail finished, and handing back the sleeve, from which she had pulled all the basting-threads.

"Now can I go over to Ruthy's, Miss Abigail? Aunt Emma told me that I must ask you before I went away anywhere, for fear you would want me."

"No, I shall not want you any more until nearly tea-time," Miss Abigail answered, as she scrutinized the sleeve to see whether Ruby had left any bastings in it. "Now remember what I have told you, Ruby, child, about setting your heart upon your fine clothes. Clothes do not make people, and if you are not a well-behaved child, polite and respectful to your betters, it will not make any difference to any one how well you may be dressed."

"Yes 'm," Ruby answered, as she ran away to find Ruthy, thinking that little girls in Miss Abigail's time must have been very different from the little girls she knew, and wondering whether Miss Abigail looked as tall and thin when she was a little girl as she did now, and whether she used to be just as proper and precise.

It was so funny to think of Miss Abigail as a little girl that Ruby laughed aloud at the thought, as she looked for her little friend. She was quite sure of one thing: if she had been a little girl when Miss Abigail was a little girl, she would not have chosen her for a friend.

Ruthy was the only little girl in all the world that she could wish to have always for a friend, for who else would be always willing to give up her own way, and yield so patiently to impetuous little Ruby in everything.

CHAPTER VIII.

READY.

Ruby thoroughly enjoyed all the preparations that were being made for her departure. Every day, and a great many times a day, the little trunk would be opened and something more put into its hungry mouth, and it was soon quite full of the things which Ruby was to take with her.

Of course she did not get into mischief during these busy days,--there was no time for it. It was only when Ruby had nothing else to think about that she devised plans for mischief. At last everything was ready the evening before she was to start. Miss Abigail had finished all that she had to do; she had bidden Ruby good-by, with a long lecture upon how she ought to behave when she was at school, so as to set a good example to her school-mates, and reflect credit upon her father and mother and the training they had given her, and then she had concluded by giving Ruby something that I am afraid she valued much more than the advice,--a pretty little house-wife, of red silk, which she had made for her, with everything in it that Ruby would need if she wanted to take any st.i.tches.

When Ruby saw it she was sorry that she had twisted about so much, and showed so plainly how impatient she was growing of the long talk which preceded it.

Then Miss Abigail had tied on her large black bonnet, and Ruby had watched her going down the road with a sense of relief that there would be no more fitting of dresses, with cold fingers and still colder scissors, and no more lectures upon good behavior. However, she was so pleased and surprised by the pretty gift that she felt more kindly towards Miss Abigail than she would have believed it possible.

Ruby's old dresses had been made over until they looked just like new ones, and the last st.i.tches had been taken in her new ones, and little white ruffles were basted in the necks, so that they were all ready to put on. Everything had been carefully folded up and packed in her trunk,--not only her clothes, but the little farewell gifts that her friends had brought her.

She had a nice pencil-box, filled with pencils and pen-holders, two penwipers, as well as a box of the dearest little note-paper, just the right size for her to write upon, with her initial "R" at the top of the paper.