Young Lucretia and Other Stories Part 7

Ann Lizy sighed, but reached out her hand for the bag. "Now be careful and not lose it," said her grandmother, "and be a good girl."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't run too hard, nor go to climbin' walls, and get your best dress torn."

"No, ma'am."

"And only one piece of cake at tea-time."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And start for home at half-past five."

"Yes, ma'am."

Little Ann Lizy Jennings, as she went down the walk between the rows of pinks, had a bewildered feeling that she had been to Jane Baxter's to tea, and was home again.

Her parents were dead, and she lived with her Grandmother Jennings, who made her childhood comfortable and happy, except that at times she seemed taken off her childish feet by the energy and strong mind of the old woman, and so swung a little way through the world in her wake. But Ann Lizy received no harm by it.

Ann Lizy went down the road with the bead bag on her arm. She toed out primly, for she had on her best shoes. A little girl, whom she knew, stood at the gate in every-day clothes, and Ann Lizy bowed to her in the way she had seen the parson's wife bow, when out making calls in her best black silk and worked lace veil. The parson's wife was young and pretty, and Ann Lizy admired her. It was quite a long walk to Jane Baxter's, but it was a beautiful afternoon, and the road was pleasant, although there were not many houses. There were green fields and flowering bushes at the sides, and, some of the way, elm-trees arching over it. Ann Lizy would have been very happy had it not been for the patchwork. She had already pieced one patchwork quilt, and her grandmother displayed it to people with pride, saying, "Ann Lizy pieced that before she was eight years old."

Ann Lizy had not as much ambition as her grandmother, now she was engaged upon her second quilt, and it looked to her like a checked and besprigged calico mountain. She kept dwelling upon those four squares, over and over, until she felt as if each side were as long as the Green Mountains. She calculated again and again how little time she would have to play with Jane--only about an hour, for she must allow a half-hour for tea. She was not a swift sewer when she sewed fine and even st.i.tches, and she knew she could not finish those squares before four o'clock. One hour!--and she and Jane wanted to play dolls, and make wreaths out of oak-leaves, and go down in the lane after thimbleberries, and in the garden for gooseberries--there would be no time for anything!

Ann Lizy's delicate little face under the straw flat grew more and more sulky and distressed, her forehead wrinkled, and her mouth pouted. She forgot to swing her muslin delaine skirts gracefully, and flounced along hitting the dusty meadowsweet bushes.

Ann Lizy was about half-way to Jane Baxter's house, in a lonely part of the road, when she opened her bead bag and drew out her pocket-handkerchief--her grandmother had tucked that in with the patchwork--and wiped her eyes. When she replaced the handkerchief she put it under the patchwork, and did not draw up the bag again, but went on, swinging it violently by one string.

When Ann Lizy reached Jane Baxter's gate she gave a quick, scared glance at the bag. It looked very flat and limp. She did not open it, and she said nothing about it to Jane. They went out to play in the garden.

There were so many hollyhocks there that it seemed like a real flower-grove, and the gooseberries were ripe.

Shortly after Ann Lizy entered Jane Baxter's house a white horse and a chaise pa.s.sed down the road in the direction from which she had just come. There were three persons in the chaise--a gentleman, lady, and little girl. The lady wore a green silk pelerine, and a green bonnet with pink strings, and the gentleman a blue coat and bell hat. The little girl had pretty long, light curls, and wore a white dress and blue sash. She sat on a little footstool down in front of the seat.

They were the parson's wife's sister, her husband, and her little girl, and had been to visit at the parsonage. The gentleman drove the white horse down the road, and the little girl looked sharply and happily at everything by the way. All at once she gave a little cry--"Oh, father, what's that in the road?"

She saw Ann Lizy's patchwork, all four squares nicely pinned together, lying beside the meadowsweet bushes. Her father stopped the horse, got out, and picked up the patchwork.

"Why," said the parson's wife's sister, "some little girl has lost her patchwork; look, Sally!"

"She'll be sorry, won't she?" said the little girl, whose name was Sally.

The gentleman got back into the chaise, and the three rode off with the patchwork. There seemed to be nothing else to do; there were no houses near and no people of whom to inquire. Besides, four squares of calico patchwork were not especially valuable.

"If we don't find out who lost it, I'll put it into my quilt," said Sally. She studied the patterns of the calico very happily, as they rode along; she thought them prettier than anything she had. One had pink roses on a green ground, and she thought that especially charming.

Meantime, while Sally and her father and mother rode away in the chaise with the patchwork to Whitefield, ten miles distant, where their house was, Ann Lizy and Jane played as fast as they could. It was four o'clock before they went into the house. Ann Lizy opened her bag, which she had laid on the parlor table with the _Young Lady's Annuals_ and _Mrs.

Hemans's Poems_. "I s'pose I must sew my patchwork," said she, in a miserable, guilty little voice. Then she exclaimed. It was strange that, well as she knew there was no patchwork there, the actual discovery of nothing at all gave her a shock.

"What's the matter?" asked Jane.

"I've--lost my patchwork," said Ann Lizy.

Jane called her mother, and they condoled with Ann Lizy. Ann Lizy sat in one of Mrs. Baxter's rush-bottomed chairs and began to cry.

"Where did you lose it?" Mrs. Baxter asked. "Don't cry, Ann Lizy, maybe we can find it."

"I s'pose I--lost it comin'," sobbed Ann Lizy.

"Well, I'll tell you what 't is," said Mrs. Baxter; "you and Jane had better run up the road a piece, and likely as not you'll find it; and I'll have tea all ready when you come home. Don't feel so bad, child, you'll find it, right where you dropped it."

But Ann Lizy and Jane, searching carefully along the road, did not find the patchwork where it had been dropped. "Maybe it's blown away,"

suggested Jane, although there was hardly wind enough that afternoon to stir a feather. And the two little girls climbed over the stone-walls and searched in the fields, but they did not find the patchwork. Then another mishap befell Ann Lizy. She tore a three-cornered place in her best muslin delaine, getting over the wall. When she saw that she felt as if she were in a dreadful dream. "Oh, what will grandma say!" she wailed.

"Maybe she won't scold," said Jane, consolingly.

"Yes, she will. Oh dear!"

The two little girls went dolefully home to tea. There were hot biscuits and honey and tarts and short gingerbread and custards, but Ann Lizy did not feel hungry. Mrs. Baxter tried to comfort her; she really saw not much to mourn over, except the rent in the best dress, as four squares of patchwork could easily be replaced; she did not see the true inwardness of the case.

At half-past five, Ann Lizy, miserable and tear-stained, the three-cornered rent in her best dress pinned up, started for home, and then--her grandmother's beautiful bead bag was not to be found. Ann Lizy and Jane both remembered that it had been carried when they set out to find the patchwork. Ann Lizy had meditated bringing the patchwork home in it.

"Aunt Cynthy made that bag for grandma," said Ann Lizy, in a tone of dull despair; this was beyond tears.

"Well, Jane shall go with you, and help find it," said Mrs. Baxter, "and I'll leave the tea-dishes and go too. Don't feel so bad, Ann Lizy, I know I can find it."

But Mrs. Baxter and Jane and Ann Lizy, all searching, could not find the bead bag. "My best handkerchief was in it," said Ann Lizy. It seemed to her as if all her best things were gone. She and Mrs. Baxter and Jane made a doleful little group in the road. The frogs were peeping, and the cows were coming home. Mrs. Baxter asked the boy who drove the cows if he had seen a green bead bag, or four squares of patchwork; he stared and shook his head.

Ann Lizy looked like a wilted meadow reed, the blue streamers on her hat drooped dejectedly, her best shoes were all dusty, and the three-cornered rent was the feature of her best muslin delaine dress that one saw first. Then her little delicate face was all tear-stains and downward curves. She stood there in the road as if she had not courage to stir.

"Now, Ann Lizy," said Mrs. Baxter, "you'd better run right home and not worry. I don't believe your grandma 'll scold you when you tell her just how 't was."

Ann Lizy shook her head. "Yes, she will."

"Well, she'll be worrying about you if you ain't home before long, and I guess you'd better go," said Mrs. Baxter.

Ann Lizy said not another word; she began to move dejectedly towards home. Jane and her mother called many kindly words after her, but she did not heed them. She kept straight on, walking slowly until she was home. Her grandmother stood in the doorway watching for her. She had a blue-yarn stocking in her hands, and she was knitting fast as she watched.

"Ann Lizy, where have you been, late as this?" she called out, as Ann Lizy came up the walk. "It's arter six o'clock."

Ann Lizy continued to drag herself slowly forward, but she made no reply.

"Why don't you speak?"

Ann Lizy crooked her arm around her face and began to cry. Her grandmother reached down, took her by the shoulder, and led her into the house. "What on airth is the matter, child?" said she; "have you fell down?"

"No, ma'am."

"What does ail you, then? Ann Lizy Jennings, how come that great three-cornered tear in your best dress?"

Ann Lizy sobbed.