The Staying Guest

“Aren’t you the little girl who lives with the Flint ladies?” she said.

“Yes,” said Ladybird; “they’re my aunts.”

“I am Stella Russell, and I live on this farm, which is next to Primrose Place. I live with my grandfather and grandmother.”

“Oh, haven’t you any mother, either?” said Ladybird, quickly, and her little brown paw slid into the girl’s white hand.

“No,” said Stella, silently accepting Ladybird’s unspoken sympathy. “I haven’t a friend in the world, except my grandparents.”

“Why, how funny!” said Ladybird. “I should think you could have lots of friends, you are so pretty and so bright. I’ll be your friend.”

“I think I should like to have you,” said Stella, but slowly, as if considering a weighty matter; “but you see, I am queer about my friends.”

“How?” asked Ladybird.

“Well,” said Stella, wearily, “of course I know all the people in Plainville, – I have lived here a great many years, – but I can’t seem to persuade myself that they are the kind of people I want for my friends. Oh, of course they are nice, good people, you know – ”

“Yes, I know,” said Ladybird, nodding her head wisely.

“It isn’t that they’re plain,” Stella went on, “or countrified. I don’t mind those things. But they’re uninteresting. When I go to see them, they just talk about the minister, and the dressmaker, and the village gossip.”

“Yes,” said Ladybird, again nodding her head like an owl, “I know.”

“How do you know, you ridiculous child?” said Stella, laughing. “How old are you, you mountain of knowledge?”

“I do know,” said Ladybird, shaking her thin forefinger at her companion across an intervening apple-twig – “I do know just what it is you want and can’t get, – and I’m twelve.”

“Oh, you are. Well, my twelve-year-old Solomon, what is it that Stella Russell wants and can’t get?”

“You don’t want beauty,” said Ladybird, who was gazing in sheer delight at the lovely face before her, “for you’ve got it; and I think you have education, and accomplishments, and all those things. But you want to be in a place where you can give all those things to others and take some of theirs in return.”

“You’re a witch,” said Stella, looking at the pale child before her with amazement.

“Oh, I know,” went on Ladybird, her big eyes growing bigger, and her head nodding most expressively. “You want to be among people who talk quick, shining talk that doesn’t mean much, but that’s witty and bright, and most pleasant to hear; and people can’t talk like that unless they have a whole lot of big knowledge, too, that they can use when they need it; and of course,” and now the head was shaking slowly from side to side, “the Plainville people aren’t like that.”

“No, they’re not,” said Stella. “But will you please tell me how you know all this?”

“I know it,” said Ladybird, “because it is true, that’s all. I always know true things; and besides, my mamma ran away from Plainville because she wanted to marry my papa, who was the other kind.”

“Well, I can’t run away,” said Stella, laughing.

“You could if you had any one to run with,” said Ladybird, gravely.

“Well, perhaps I could, but I certainly wouldn’t.”

“No, I s’pose you wouldn’t.”

“Well, never mind about me,” said Stella; “it doesn’t make any difference what sort of people I want if I can’t get them; and since you’ve offered, I think you’ll do very nicely for a friend.”

“Yes; I’m a good friend,” said Ladybird, with an air of calm confidence in herself; “but I’m not always good. Sometimes I’m very naughty, and I try my dear aunts most exceeding; but then,” she added, with a sigh, “sometimes they are a fearsome trial to me.”

“I’ve heard of some of your pranks,” said Stella, smiling; “and I’m not sure but you are a naughty little girl.”

“I guess I am a naughty girl,” said Ladybird, soberly; “and sometimes I do it on purpose, and sometimes it’s just because I was born so.”

“Well, there’s the dinner-bell,” said Stella; “even if you are a naughty girl, I’d like to have you come in and take dinner with us, if you will. My grandparents will be glad to see you.”

“I’d like to come very much, thank you,” said Ladybird; and the two scrambled down the old apple-tree to the ground.

Seen at this better advantage, Stella Russell proved to be an exceptionally beautiful girl. Tall and slender, with brown eyes and dark-brown hair, her fresh, sweet color and dainty grace showed the best type of physical beauty, combined with an unusual amount of perceptive and responsive intelligence. Unsophisticated in many ways, she was possessed of an inherent power to see things clearly, and this showed in her beautiful, sensitive face.

Ladybird, too, possessed this power; but while hers was quicker, Stella’s was truer.

As the two girls walked up the path to the house, Stella said:

“It’s very strange, but though you are twelve and I am twenty-one, I see very clearly that we shall be good friends.”

“Oh, twelve from twenty-one doesn’t leave much,” said Ladybird, laughing.

Stella’s grandparents, old Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, were very much pleased to meet the young stranger.

“I knew your mother,” said Mr. Marshall, as he looked at Ladybird; “but you do not look a bit like her.”

“No,” said Ladybird; “that’s what my aunts told me.”

The two girls spent a long and pleasant afternoon together. Stella showed Ladybird all her books and other treasures, and notwithstanding the difference in their ages, the girls became congenial friends.

As it neared four o’clock Ladybird said she must go home, for her aunt had told her to come at that time.

“I am going over to Primrose Hall,” said Mrs. Marshall, “to the meeting of the Dorcas Circle. You can drive over with me.”

So among the earliest arrivals at the Dorcas meeting were Mrs. Marshall and Miss Ladybird Lovell.

Now that Ladybird’s quick and tempestuous anger had spent itself, she felt sorry to see her Aunt Priscilla arrayed in her second-best black silk, for she knew how it must have hurt that good lady to appear before her guests in anything less than the resplendent glory of her best and cherished black silk gown.

Both the Misses Flint wore a look of sternness that Ladybird could not misinterpret. But they said nothing to the child, and cordially invited Mrs. Marshall to step into the bedroom and lay off her bonnet.

Many successive guests were treated with the same punctilious courtesy.

The Dorcas meeting came, the Dorcas meeting ate its supper, the Dorcas meeting went, and after the door of Primrose Hall had closed behind the last departing guest, Miss Priscilla said:

“Now, Lavinia, I will talk with you, if you please.”

“Good for you, aunty,” said Ladybird, clambering into her Aunt Priscilla’s lap and twining her thin brown arms about the old lady’s neck, thereby – although unconsciously – seriously modifying the tenor of the remarks which Miss Flint had meant to make.

“Lavinia,” she said, with much sternness in her voice.

“Now, aunty,” murmured Ladybird, “please!”

“Lavinia,” went on Miss Flint, unmoved by her niece’s words, “I am more pained than I can tell you at your unkindness to me to-day.”

“Aunty,” said Ladybird, solemnly, “I was more pained than I can tell you at your unkindness to me to-day.”

“But,” said Miss Priscilla, “you must realize, my child, that I am older than you are, and know more.”

“But, aunty,” said Ladybird, “you must realize that I am younger than you are, and care more.”

“Care more for what?” said Miss Priscilla.

“For red spots,” said Ladybird. “Of course I know, Aunt Priscilla, that you have a right to say what kind of horrid old clothes I shall wear; but it seems to me, if I had a little girl to look after, and she wanted to wear red spots, I’d let her wear them. It wouldn’t kill anybody, you know.”

“Priscilla,” said Miss Dorinda, “I think the child is right.”

“I’m not aware, Dorinda,” said the elder Miss Flint, “that I asked your opinion concerning our niece’s conduct.”

“No,” said Miss Dorinda, humbly.

“Aunty,” said Ladybird, still refusing to be pushed from her position on the old lady’s lap, and still with her arms clasped about Miss Priscilla’s stately, if withered, neck, “aunty, are red spots wicked?”

“Not that I know of,” said Priscilla Flint.

“Then don’t you think, aunty, that you might as well have let me keep them, in the first place? Then I wouldn’t have pasted them on your dress; then I wouldn’t have been naughty; and then everything would be lovely, and the goose hang high,” concluded Ladybird, with an airy, careless gesture of her thin, brown, little paws.

“Ladybird,” said Miss Priscilla, and her voice softened as she used the more endearing title, “I am not sure but that you are right in this case. There is no sin in bright colors, and if you want them, I suppose there is no real reason why you should not have them. I am sorry for my part of this unfortunate episode. I was unjust – ”

“Never mind, aunty,” said Ladybird, clasping her arms tighter round the old lady’s throat and kissing her hard, “I was unjust, too, I was naughty, and I was a bad, bad girl, and I – that is, we’re both sorry, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” said Miss Priscilla Flint, “we’re both sorry, and I will get you a new red dress.”

“Do,” said Ladybird, cheerfully: “and get yourself a new black silk one, won’t you, aunty?”

CHAPTER IX

DOING RIGHT

Ladybird hated school. Not the lessons, they were learned quickly enough, and with but little study; but the out-of-doors child grew very restive in the restraint and confinement of the school-room, and her whole touch-and-go nature rebelled at the enforced routine.

Many battles were fought before she consented to go at all; but though Ladybird was strong-willed, Miss Priscilla Flint was also of no pliable nature, and she finally succeeded in convincing her fractious niece that education was desirable as well as inevitable.

So Ladybird went to school – to a small and not far distant district school – whenever she could not get up a successful excuse for staying at home.

With her sun-dial-like capability of marking the bright hours only, she eliminated as much as was possible of the ugly side of school life.

She enjoyed the walks to and from the school-house, across the fields and through the lanes, and she enjoyed them so leisurely that she was a half-hour late nearly every morning, thus escaping the detestable “opening exercises.”

During school hours, when not studying or reciting her lessons she read fairy-tales or else worked out puzzles. Though this was not exactly in line with the teacher’s methods of discipline, yet it was overlooked after several experimental endeavors which showed unmistakably what was the better part of valor.

Also, Ladybird always kept fresh flowers on her desk, and kept lying in her sight any new toy or trinket which she might have recently acquired.

She would have been fairly happy during school hours if she could have had her dog with her; but the teacher’s discretion did not extend as far as this, and so Cloppy was left at home each day to add to the gaiety of Primrose Hall.

One day after he had added gaiety with especial assiduity, Miss Priscilla announced that she was at the end of her rope, and the dog must go.

It happened that Ladybird came in from school that day in an unusually docile frame of mind. To begin with, it was Friday afternoon and the next day was a holiday. Furthermore, she had wrested a good half-hour from the long school afternoon, with its horrid “general exercises,” by the simple method of rising from her seat and walking out at the door. The teacher saw her do this, but allowed her feeling of relief to blunt her sense of duty. Not but what she liked Ladybird: no one could know the child and not like her; but when one is teaching a district school it is easier if the disturbing element be conspicuous by its absence.

And so, with her course unimpeded, Ladybird marched out of school into the fields, and drawing a long breath, sauntered slowly and indirectly home.

“I had a beautiful time,” she announced to her aunts. “There’s the loveliest afternoon outdoors you ever saw, and I’ve walked all around it. Such a big, fair, soft afternoon, and the sunlight is raining down all over it, and it’s full of trees, and sticks, and fences, and dry leaves; and where’s Cloppy? I’m going out in the orchard.”

“Wait a moment, Lavinia,” said Miss Flint, “I wish to talk to you; sit down in your chair.”

“Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird, dropping into a chair suddenly,

“And hurry up your talkingFor I want to go a-walking.”

“That will do, Lavinia, I’m in no mood for foolishness; I want to say that that wretched dog of yours cannot stay here any longer.”

“Is that so, aunty?” said Ladybird, with her most exasperating air of polite interest. “Well, now I wonder where we can stay? Would they take us to board down at the hotel? I don’t know. Or perhaps Mrs. Jacobs would take us, if I helped her with the housework and sewing.”

“That is enough nonsense, Lavinia. I tell you that dog is to be put away.”

“I understand that, Aunt Priscilla; I’m not stupid, you know; I’m only wondering where we can go, for whithersoever Cloppy goest, I’m going, and there will I be buried.”

“Very well, you may go if you choose; but that dog shall not remain in this house another day.”

“You don’t like him, do you aunty?” said Ladybird, leaning her chin on her hand and gazing thoughtfully at her aunt. “Now I wonder why.”

“He’s always under foot,” said Miss Priscilla, “and he’s such a moppy, untidy-looking affair!”

“He’s a smart dog,” said Ladybird, meditatively.

“That’s just it,” said Miss Flint, “he’s too smart: he looks at you just like a human. Why, when I scold him for anything, he sits up and stares at me, and those brown eyes of his blink through that ridiculous fringe of hair, and he never says a word, but sits there, and looks and looks at me until I feel as if I should just perfectly fly.”

“Aunt Priscilla,” said Ladybird, looking at Miss Flint very steadily, “you haven’t been doing anything wrong, have you?”

“What do you mean?” said her aunt, angrily.

“Oh, nothing, but when I think Cloppy’s looking at me like that, it’s really my conscience inside of me telling me I’ve done wrong, when I think it’s only a little dog blinking.”

Miss Flint sat quiet for a moment. Then the fact that there was a modicum of truth in her niece’s remarks caused her annoyance to find vent in sarcasm.

“I did not know, Lavinia, that you ever thought you had done wrong.”

“Oh, aunty, what a foolishness! Of course I know when I’ve done wrong, and you know I know it; and you know I’m as sorry as sorry as sorry! But sometimes I don’t know it until I see that Cloppy-dog staring at me, and then I realize what’s up; and so you see, aunty, I have to keep my little blinky doggy as a sort of a conscience. And now we’ll consider that matter settled.”

“You may consider what you choose,” said Miss Priscilla, looking at her niece very sternly; “I consider it is not settled, and will not be until the dog is disposed of permanently, and if you don’t attend to it, I shall.”

“Aunt Priscilla,” said Ladybird, rising from her chair with great dignity, “I will go to my room and think this matter over.”

“Do,” said Miss Priscilla, dryly, “and take your conscience with you.”

“Come on, Conscience,” said Ladybird to Cloppy, and swinging the dog up to her shoulder, she went to her room.

She was not in one of her stormy moods; she closed her chamber door quietly behind her and gently deposited Cloppy on his favorite cushioned chair. She then seated herself on a low ottoman directly in front of him, and resting her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, she gazed intently at the dog.

“It seems to me, Cloppy,” she began, “that something is going to happen. You heard what Aunt Priscilla said, and I have learned my Aunt Priscilla well enough to know that when she clicks her teeth and waggles her head over her glasses like that she’s made up her mind most especial firmly, and it is ours but to do or die. Now, Clops, the whole question is, shall we do or die?”

Save for an occasional blink, the dog’s brown eyes gazed straight through his wispy locks of hair at Ladybird, who gazed steadily back at him also through stray, straight wisps of hair, and also blinking now and then.

“You see, Cloppy-dog, it’s a crisis; like the heroes in the history book, you’ve got to cross the Rubicon or cut the Gordian knot, or something. Of course I sha’n’t let you go away from me; you know that as well as I do. Why, I’d rather have you than all the aunts in the world, yes, or uncles either, or man-servants, or maid-servants, or cattles or strangers within our gates. Why, Cloppy, if they tried to take you away from me, I’d – I’d kill them! Yes, I would! I’d kill them all, and burn the house down, and I’d – oh, I’d even break the buds off of Aunt Priscilla’s Lady Washington geranium! Cloppy, don’t sit there staring at me like that! Don’t you think so too? Wouldn’t you kill and murder and massacre anybody that tried to take me away from you? Stop it, Cloppy; stop looking at me in that reproachful way! I’m not naughty; Aunt Priscilla is naughty: she says you’ve got to go —go, do you understand, GO!”

By this time Ladybird was on her knees in front of the dog, alternately caressing and shaking him to emphasize her remarks; but Cloppy, being used to his emotional mistress, continued to gaze at her without sharing her excitement.

“Dog! if you don’t stop looking at me like that I’ll tie a bandage over your eyes. I know perfectly well what you mean, but I won’t pay a bit of attention to it: you mean that I ought not to let my angry passions rise; but I guess you would too if you had an Aunt Priscilla like mine! Suppose you had an old aunt dog with gray hair and spectacles, who wouldn’t let you have anything you wanted, wouldn’t you get mad at her, I’d like to know?

“Oh, I understand you; don’t trouble yourself to put it into words: you mean that aunty does let me have some things that I want, – most things, in fact, – and you mean I’m a bad, ungrateful girl to act like this, and you mean that no decent dog would act so. Well, I suppose they wouldn’t; I suppose I am worse than a dog, or a cat, or a hyena. But I’m sorry, Cloppy, I am sorry, and I guess I’ll be good. Yes, I believe I will be good!”

As this high and noble resolve formed itself in Ladybird’s mind, the glory of it appealed to her, and she began at once to elaborate upon it.

“Now will you stop piercing me with those daggery eyes of yours? I’m going to do right; I’m going to honor and obey my Aunt Priscilla Flint; and though I shall be a martyr in the cause, I sha’n’t mention that, because it would spoil all the goodness of my deed. Of course my duty is to my aunt – my dear aunt who feeds and clothes me, and lends me her roof to keep off the rain; and though she has asked me for the apple of my eye and the apple-core of my heart, I will give them. I will sacrifice them on the altar of duty, even though they are my dear little dog. And now I shall go right straight down and tell my aunt before I change my mind.”

Buoyed up by the elation of her noble resolve, and enveloped in an atmosphere of conscious rectitude, Ladybird gathered up Cloppy and marched down-stairs, with her head erect and her eyes shining.

“Aunty,” she announced, “I am ready to obey you; I’m going to take Cloppy away, and you will never see him again.”

“What’s that, child?” said Miss Priscilla, looking up from an article she was reading, and in which she was deeply absorbed.

“I say,” repeated Ladybird, with dignity, “that since you say Cloppy must go, he is going.”

“That’s a good girl,” said Miss Priscilla, half absent-mindedly, and she returned to her reading.

“I am a good girl,” said Ladybird; “but this is the goodest thing I have ever done, and I wish you appreciated it more.”

But Miss Flint was again deep in her book, and made no reply.

Ladybird left the house, her enthusiasm somewhat impaired, but her purpose strengthened by a certain contrary stubbornness which her aunt’s indifference had aroused.

“I’m a martyr, Cloppy,” she said – “a perfectly awful martyr; but I’m not going to show it, for I detest people who act martyrish outside. Of course you can’t help what you feel inside.

“And, anyway, if I’m the martyr, Aunt Priscilla is the tyrant and the oppressor and the Spanish Inquisitor, and all those dreadful things, and that’s a great deal worse! I’m ground under her iron heel, and crushed beneath her yoke, and chastised with her scorpions; but I’ll bear it all cheerfully, and never even mention it. Because you see, Cloppy, we’re doing right; and it’s a great thing to do right, and very exciting.”

CHAPTER X

A SELF-MADE BURGLAR

Thus steadfastly pursuing the straight and narrow path of rectitude, Ladybird arrived at Mr. Bates’s farm and turned in at the gate.

Her purpose had begun to waver a little, but she bolstered it up with her determination and enthusiasm, and vigorously rang the Bates door-bell.

In a few moments a little girl tense with suppressed excitement, and a blinking, quivering dog sat facing a large, strong-looking man whose face betokened humorous as well as muscular Christianity.

“It’s a crisis, Mr. Bates,” began Ladybird; “it’s a perfectly awful crisis; but of course when crisises come they have to be met, and I’m fully prepared to meet it. I hate it, I hate it something fearful! But I’m going to do right, the whole right, and nothing but the right, and I want you to help me, Mr. Bates. Will you? I pause for a reply.”

Ladybird paused dramatically, and Mr. Bates, impressed with the spirit of the situation, placed his hand on his heart and replied:

“You have only to command me, madam; my time and talents are entirely at your service.”

“Well, you see it’s this way,” said Ladybird. “I have here a dog – a most beautiful and valuable dog – which I want to present to you.”

“To me?” said Mr. Bates, much astonished. “Don’t you care for him yourself?”

This simple question proved too much for Ladybird’s unstable, though carefully built structure of heroism.

“Don’t I care for him!” she repeated; and dropping her head on Cloppy’s fat back, she burst into one of her most spectacular storms of tears.

Mr. Bates, though much distressed, had sufficient tact to say nothing for a few moments. Had his wife been at home, he would have called her to minister to the sobbing child; but as it was, he sat regarding Ladybird with a grave and kindly sympathy.

“What is it, dear?” he said gently when there was a break in the storm and a pair of large dark eyes looked brightly through their wet lashes.

“Oh, it’s such a comfort to give way to your feelings, isn’t it?” said Ladybird, conversationally. “But I really ought to have a waterproof handkerchief; this one is perfectly soaked.”

Mr. Bates quietly took a folded handkerchief from his pocket, and shaking out the ample square of cambric, politely offered it to his visitor, who took it gratefully.

“It’s a beautiful October day,” he said, glancing out of the window, and desiring to introduce a commonplace subject.

“Yes,” said Ladybird; “October is one of my favorites. I think it is the prettiest-colored month of the whole year, except, perhaps, April. But I must proceed with my business; I’ll promise not to cry again: that’s over now; but you see I care so very much for my dog that I forgot myself. But my aunt, Miss Flint, doesn’t care for him just in the way I do, so she desires that I should give him away; and as it is my duty to do as she wishes me, I have brought the dog to you as a free-will offering.”

“How do you know I want him?” said Mr. Bates, a little quizzically.

“Oh, you couldn’t help wanting him! Why, in the first place, he has a wonderful pedigree: he’s a real Yorkshire; but besides all that, he’s the dearest, best, loveliest, sweetest dog in the whole world. Of course you couldn’t be supposed to feel intimately acquainted with him yet; but in a day or two you’ll name him but to praise.”

“And your Aunt Priscilla doesn’t like him? Why is that?”

“Well, sir, you see my aunt, Miss Flint, is a very handsome and dignified lady. She doesn’t admire such frivolous things as flippy-floppy little dogs, and they seem to interfere with her nerves. My aunt, Miss Flint, is of an old family and very exclusive, and has a great deal of what they call the – the infernal feminine.”