Young Lucretia and Other Stories Part 3

"There was a big p.u.s.s.y cat there, do you remember? and Mis' Rose gave you a cooky."

Fidelia's affirmative wink seemed to give out sparkles.

"Well, you remember how we went to the _side_ door and knocked--the door with some roses over the top of it--and Mis' Rose came--the _side_ door?"

Fidelia, intensely attentive, standing before her mother and Aunt Maria, remembered about the side door.

"Well, you remember how there was a piazza across the front of the house, don't you? Father hitched the horse to a post there. Well, there's another door there opening on the piazza, don't you remember--a door with panes of gla.s.s in it like a window?"

Fidelia remembered.

"Well, now, Fidelia, do you suppose you can go down to the store and buy some raisins for mother to put in sister Cynthy's weddin'-cake, all yourself?"

"An' be a real smart little girl," put in Aunt Maria.

Fidelia gave one ecstatic roll of her black eyes at them, then she broke into a shout, "Lemme go! lemme go!" She oscillated on her small stubbed toes like a bird preparing to fly, and she tugged energetically at her mother's ap.r.o.n.

"I'll give you a penny, an' you can buy you a nice stick of red-and-white twisted candy," added her mother.

Fidelia actually made a little dash for the door then, but her mother caught her. "Stop!" she said, in an admonitory voice which was quieting to Fidelia, and made her realize that the red-and-white candy was still in the future. "Now you just wait a minute, an' not be in such a pucker.

You ain't goin' this way, with your ap.r.o.n just as dirty as poison, and your hair all in a snarl. You've got to have on your clean ap.r.o.n, and have your hair brushed and your face washed."

So Fidelia climbed obediently into her high chair, and sat with her eyes screwed up and her fists clinched, while her mother polished her face faithfully with a wet, soapy end of a towel, and combed the snarls out of her hair. When it was all done, her cheeks being very red and shiny, and her hair very damp and smooth, when she was arrayed in her clean starched white tier, and had her Shaker tied on with an emphatic square bow, she stood in the door and drank in the parting instructions. Her eyes were wide and intent, and her mouth drooped soberly at the corners.

The importance of the occasion had begun to impress her. She held a penny tight in her hand; the raisins were to be charged, it not being judged advisable to trust Fidelia with so much money.

"I don't believe that little thing can carry three pounds of raisins,"

Mrs. Lennox said to Aunt Maria. She was becoming more and more uneasy about Fidelia's going.

"Let her take her little wagon an' drag 'em; that'll be just the thing,"

said Aunt Maria, complacently.

So Fidelia started down the road, trundling behind her the little squeaking cart. It was a warm July day, and it was very dusty. Directly Fidelia started she forgot her mother's injunctions about stubbing her toes; she disappeared in a small cloud of dust, for she walked in the middle of the road, and flirted it up with great delight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'WHOSE LITTLE GAL AIR YOU?'"]

In the course of the mile Fidelia met one team. It was an old rocking chaise and a white horse, and an old farmer was driving. He drove slower when he came alongside of Fidelia. When he had fairly pa.s.sed her he stopped entirely, twisted about in his seat, and raised his voice.

"Whose little gal air you?" he asked.

Fidelia was a little frightened. Instead of giving her father's name, she gave her own with shy precision--"Fidelia Ames Lennox," she said, retiring into her Shaker bonnet.

"You ain't runnin' away, be you?"

Fidelia's pride was touched. "I'm going to the store for my mother," she announced, in quite a shrill tone. Then she took to her heels, and the little wagon trundled after, with a wilder squeak than ever.

Fidelia kept saying over to herself, "Three pounds of your best raisins, and Mr. Lennox will come in and pay you." Her mother and Aunt Maria wished after she had gone that they had written it out on a piece of paper; they had not thought of that. But Aunt Maria said she knew that such a bright child as Fidelia would remember three pounds of raisins when she had been told over and over, and charged not to come home without them.

Fidelia had started about ten o'clock in the morning, and her mother and Aunt Maria had agreed that they would not worry if she should not return until one o'clock in the afternoon. That would allow more than an hour for the mile walk each way, and give plenty of time for a rest between; for Fidelia had been instructed to go into the store and sit down on a stool and rest a while before starting upon her return trip. "Likely as not Mis' Rose will give her a cooky or something," Aunt Maria had whispered to Mrs. Lennox.

So when noon came the two women pictured Fidelia sitting perched upon a stool in the store, being fed with candy and cookies, and made much of, or even eating dinner with the Rose family. "Mis' Rose made so much of her when you took her there before that I shouldn't wonder a mite if she'd kept her to dinner," said Aunt Maria. She promulgated this theory the more strenuously when one o'clock came and Fidelia had not appeared.

"Of course that's what 'tis," she kept repeating. "It would take 'em a good hour to eat dinner. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she didn't get here before two o'clock. I think you're dreadful silly to worry, Jane."

For poor Mrs. Lennox was pushing her chair every few minutes over to the door, where she would stand, her face all one anxious frown, straining her eyes for a glimpse of the small figure trudging up the road. She had made the blueberry dumpling that Fidelia loved for dinner, and it was keeping warm on the back of the stove. Neither she nor Aunt Maria had eaten a mouthful.

When two o'clock came Mrs. Lennox broke down entirely. "Oh dear!" she wailed; "oh dear! I ought to have known better than to let her go."

Aunt Maria was now pacing heavily between her chair and the door, but she still maintained a brave front. "For goodness' sake, Jane, don't give up so," said she. "I don't see anything to worry about, for my part; they're keepin' her."

At half-past two Mrs. Lennox stood up with a determined air. "I ain't goin' to wait here another minute," said she. "I'm goin' to find her. I don't know but she's fell into the brook, or got run over." Mrs.

Lennox's face was all drawn with anxiety.

"I'd like to know how you're goin'," said Aunt Maria.

"I guess I can push this chair along the road just as well as in a room."

"Pretty-lookin' sight you'd be goin' a mile with one knee in a wooden chair."

"I guess I don't care much how I look if I only find--her." Mrs.

Lennox's voice broke into a wail.

"You just sit down and keep calm," said Aunt Maria. "If anybody's goin', I am."

"Oh, you can't."

"Yes, I can, too. I ain't quite so far gone that I can't walk a mile.

You ain't goin' a step on that scalt foot an' get laid up, with that weddin' comin' off, not if I know it. I'm just goin' to slip on my gaiter-shoes an' my sun-bonnet, an' take the big green umbrella to keep the sun off."

When Aunt Maria was equipped and started, Mrs. Lennox watched her progress down the road with frantic impatience. It seemed to her that she could have gone faster with her chair. Truth was, that poor Aunt Maria, plodding heavily along in her gaiter-shoes, holding the green umbrella over her flaming face, made but slow and painful progress, and it was well that Mr. Lennox and Cynthia Lennox came home two hours before they were expected. It was three o'clock when Mr. Lennox came driving into the yard in the open buggy. Cynthia, erect and blooming, with her big bandbox in her lap, sat beside him, and the new Jersey cow, fastened by a rope to the tail of the buggy, came on behind with melancholy moos. Cynthia had bought her wedding-bonnet sooner than she had expected, so she had come home on the three o'clock train instead of the five; and her father had bought the cow sooner than he had expected, and had come to the railroad crossing just about the time that Cynthia's train arrived. So he had stopped and taken in her and her bandbox, and they had all ridden home together.

Mrs. Lennox stood in the kitchen door when they drove in.

"Oh, mother," Cynthia cried out, "I've had splendid luck! I've got the handsomest bonnet!"

"I guess you won't care much about bonnets," answered her mother; "_Fidelia's lost_." She spoke quite slowly and calmly, then she began to weep wildly and lament. It was quite a time before she could make the case plain to them, and Cynthia and her bandbox, and Mr. Lennox and the horse and buggy and cow, all remained before her in a petrified halt.

As soon as Mr. Lennox fairly understood, he sprang out of the buggy, untied the cow, led her into the barn, turned the team around, with a sharp grate of the wheels, jumped in again, and gathered up the reins.

Cynthia, her rosy cheeks quite pale, still sat in her place, and the tears splashed on her new bandbox cover. Mrs. Lennox had set her chair outside the door, and followed it, with a painful effort. "Stop, father!" she cried; "I'm goin' too!"

"Oh, mother, you can't!" said Mr. Lennox and Cynthia, together.

"I'm goin'. You needn't say a word. Father, you get out an' help me in."

Mr. Lennox got out and lifted, while Cynthia pulled. Mrs. Lennox's injured foot suffered, but she set her mouth hard, and said nothing.

They started at a good pace, three on a seat, with Mr. Lennox in the middle, driving.

They had got about half-way to the store when they overtook Aunt Maria.

Aunt Maria, with the green umbrella overhead, was proceeding steadily, with a sideways motion that seemed more effective than the forward one.