The Little Colonel's Hero Part 8

"It was an accident, was it not?" asked Mrs. Sherman.

"Oh, she didn't know she was throwing the watah on me, when she pitched it out, but she was glad that it happened to hit me. She didn't even say 'excuse me,' let alone say that she was sorry. And she laughed and held on to her sides, and laughed again, and said, 'oh, what a joke,' and that it was the funniest thing that she evah saw. I think her mothah ought to know what bad mannahs she's got. Somebody ought to tell her. I told Fidelia what I thought of her, and I'll nevah speak to her again! So there!"

Mrs. Sherman listened sympathetically to her tale of woe, but as she unb.u.t.toned the wet dress, and Lloyd still stormed on, she sighed as if to herself, "Poor Fidelia!"

"Why, mothah," said Lloyd, in an aggrieved tone, "I didn't s'pose that you'd take her part against me."

"Stop and think a minute, little daughter," said Mrs. Sherman, opening her trunk to take out another white dress. Lloyd was working herself up into a white heat. "Put yourself in Fidelia's place, and think how she has always been left to the care of servants, or of a governess who neglected her.

Think how much help you have had in trying to control your temper, and how little you have had to provoke it. Suppose you had Howell and Henderson always tagging after you to tease and annoy you, and that I had always been too busy with my own affairs to take any interest in you, except to punish you when I was exasperated by the tales that you told of each other. Wouldn't that have made a difference in your manners?"

"Y-yes," acknowledged Lloyd, slowly. Then, after a moment's silence, she broke out again. "I might have forgiven her if only she hadn't laughed at me. Whenevah I think of that I want to shake her. If I live to be a hundred yeahs old, I can nevah think of Fidelia Sattawhite, without remembahin' the mean little way she laughed!"

"What kind of a memory are you leaving behind you?" suggested Mrs.

Sherman, touching the little ring on Lloyd's finger that had been her talisman since the house party. "Will it be a Road of the Loving Heart?"

Lloyd hesitated. "No," she acknowledged, frankly. "Of co'se when I stop to think, I do want to leave that kind of a memory for everybody. I'd hate to think that when I died, there'd be even one person who had cause to say ugly things about me, even Fidelia. But just now, mothah, honestly when I remembah how she _laughed_, I feel that I must be as mean to her as she is to me. I can't help it."

Mrs. Sherman made no answer, but turned to her own dressing, and presently Lloyd kissed her, and went slowly down-stairs to find Hero. He was no longer dreaming in peace. Two restless boys cooped up in the narrow limits of the hotel, and burning with a desire to be amused, had discovered him through the crack of the door, and immediately pounced upon him.

"Aw, ain't he nice!" exclaimed Henny, stroking the s.h.a.ggy back with a dirty little hand. Howl felt in his blouse, hoping to find some crumb left of the stock of provisions stored away at lunch-time.

"Feel there, Henny," he commanded, backing up to his little brother, and humping his shoulders. "Ain't that a cooky slipped around to the back of my blouse? Put your hand up and feel."

Henny obligingly explored the back of his brother's blouse, and fished out the last cooky, which they fed to Hero.

"Wisht we had some more," said Howell, as the cake disappeared. "Henny, you go up and see if you can't hook some of Beauty's biscuit."

"Naw! I don't want to. I want to play with the dog," answered Henny, "He's big enough to ride on. Stand up, old fellow, and let me get on your back."

"I'll tell you a scheme," cried Howl; "you run up-stairs and get one of mamma's shawl-straps, and we'll fix a harness for him, and make him ride us around the room."

"All right," agreed Henny, trotting out into the hall. At the door he met Lloyd. When she went into the room she found Howell lying on the floor, burrowing his head into the dog's side for a pillow. Hero did not like it, and, shaking himself free, walked across the room and lay down in another place.

Howl promptly followed, and pillowed his head on him again. Hero looked around with an appealing expression in his big, patient eyes, once more got up, crossed the room, and lay down in a corner. Howell followed him like a teasing mosquito.

"Don't bothah him, Howl," said Lloyd. "Don't you see that he doesn't like it?"

"But he makes such a nice, soft pillow," said the boy, once more burrowing his hard little head into Hero's ribs.

"He might snap at you if you tease him too much. I nevah saw him do it to any one, but n.o.body has evah teased him since he belonged to me."

"Is he your dog?" asked Howl, in surprise.

"Yes," answered Lloyd, proudly. "He saved my life one time, and his mastah's anothah. And that medal on his collah was one that was given by France to his mastah fo' bravery, and the Majah gave it to him because he said that Hero had twice earned the right to wear it."

"Tell about it," demanded Howl, scenting a story. "How did he--" His question was stopped in the middle by Hero, who, determined to be no longer used as a pillow, stood up and gave himself a mighty shake. Walking over to the sofa piled with cushions, he took one in his mouth, and carrying it back to Howl dropped it at his feet as if to say, "There! Use that! I am no sofa pillow." That done he stretched himself out again in the farthest corner of the room, and laid his head on his paws with a sigh of relief.

"Oh! Oh!" cried the Little Colonel. "Did you evah see anything so sma'ht as that in all yo' life? It's the brightest thing I evah saw a dog do. He thought it all out, just like a person. I wish Papa Jack could have seen him do it. I'm goin' to treat you to something nice fo' that, Hero. Wait till I run back up-stairs and get my purse."

Anxious to make him do something else interesting, Howl still followed the dog. He tickled his paws, turned his ears back and blew in them and blindfolded him with a dirty handkerchief.

Lloyd was gone longer than she intended, for she could not find her purse for several minutes, and she stopped to tell her mother of Hero's performance with the sofa pillow. When she went into the parlour again, both boys were kneeling beside the dog. Their backs were toward the door, Henderson had brought the shawl-strap, and they were using it for the further discomfort of the patient old St. Bernard.

"Here, Henny, you sit on his head," commanded Howl, "and I'll buckle his hind feet to his fore feet, so that when he tries to walk he'll wabble around and tip over. Won't that be funny?"

"Stop!" demanded Lloyd. "Don't you do that, Howl Sattawhite! I've told you enough times to stop teasing my dog."

Howl only giggled in reply and drew the buckle tighter. There was a quick yelp of pain, and Hero, trying to pull away found himself fast by the foot.

Before Howl could rise from his knees, the Little Colonel had darted across the room, and seizing him by the shoulders, shook him till his teeth chattered.

"There!" she said, giving him a final shake as she pushed him away. "Don't you evah lay a fingah on that dog again, as long as you live. If you do you'll be sorry. I'll do something _awful_ to you!"

For the second time that afternoon her face was white with anger. Her eyes flashed so threateningly that Howl backed up against the wall, thoroughly frightened. Releasing Hero from the strap, she led him out of the room, and, with her hand laid protectingly on his collar, marched him out into the street.

"Those tawmentin' Sattawhites!" she grumbled, under her breath. "I wish they were all shut up in jail, every one of them!"

But her anger died out as she walked on in the bright sunshine, watching the strange scenes around her with eager eyes. More than one head turned admiringly, as the daintily dressed little girl and the great St. Bernard pa.s.sed slowly down the broad boulevard. It seemed as if all the nurses and babies in Touraine were out for an airing on the gra.s.s where the benches stood, between the long double rows of trees.

Once Lloyd stopped to peep through a doorway set in a high stone wall.

Within the enclosure a group of girls, in the dark uniforms of a charity school, walked sedately around, arm in arm, under the watchful eyes of the attendant nuns. Then some soldiers pa.s.sed on foot, and a little while after, some more dashed by on horseback, and she remembered that Tours was the headquarters of the Ninth Army corps, and that she might expect to meet them often.

Not till the tolling of the great cathedral bell reminded her that it was time to go back to the hotel, did she think again of Howl and Kenny and Fidelia. By that time her walk had put her into such a pleasant frame of mind, that she could think of them without annoyance.

CHAPTER VIII.

WITH BETTY AND EUGENIA

When the Little Colonel reached the hotel, the omnibus was leaving the door to go to the railroad station, a few blocks away. Thinking that Betty and Eugenia might be on the coming train, she went into the parlour to wait for the return of the omnibus. She had bought a box of chocolate creams at the cake shop on the corner to divide with Hero.

Fidelia had wandered down to the parlour in her absence, and now seated at the old piano was banging on its yellow keys with all her might. She played unusually well for a girl of her age, but Lloyd had a feeling that a public parlour was not a place to show off one's accomplishments, and her nose went up a trifle scornfully as she entered.

Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror over the mantel, and her expression changed instantly.

"For mercy sakes!" she said to herself. "I look like one of the proud and haughty sistahs in 'Cindah.e.l.la,' as if I thought the earth wasn't good enough for me to step on. It certainly isn't becoming, and it would make me furious if anybody looked at me in such a cool, scornful way. I know that I feel that way inside whenevah I talk to Fidelia. I wondah if she sees it in my face, and that's what makes her cross and scratchy, like a cat that has had its fur rubbed the wrong way. Just for fun I believe I'll pretend to myself for ten minutes that I love her deahly, and I'll smile when I talk to her, just as if she were Betty, and nevah pay any attention to her mean speeches. I'll give her this one chance. Then if she keeps on bein' hateful, I'll nevah have anything moah to do with her again."

So while Fidelia played on toward the end of the waltz, purposely regardless of Lloyd's presence, Lloyd, sitting behind her, looked into the mirror, and practised making pleasant faces for Fidelia's benefit.

The music came to a close with a loud double bang that made Lloyd start up from her chair with a guilty flush, fearing that she had been caught at her peculiar occupation. Before Fidelia could say anything, Lloyd walked over to her with the friendliest of her practised smiles, and held out the box of chocolate creams.

"Take some," she said. "They are the best I've had since I left Kentucky."

"Thanks," said Fidelia, stiffly, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around on the piano-stool, and helping herself to just one. But feeling the warmth of Lloyd's cordial tone, urging her to take more, she thawed into smiling friendliness, and took several. "They are delicious!" she exclaimed. "You got them at the cake shop on the corner, didn't you? There are two awfully nice American girls stopping at this hotel who took me in there one day for some.

They've been in Kentucky, too. The one named Elizabeth lives there."