The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation Part 25

"Mrs. Moore will wonder what is keeping me," she said, as she turned the k.n.o.b. "Good-bye!"

With a lighter heart than Lloyd could have believed possible half an hour earlier, she went up to her room. Dropping the damp little ball of a handkerchief into her laundry-bag, she opened a drawer for a fresh one. By mistake she drew out, not her handkerchief-box, but one that in some previous haste had been pushed into its place,--the sandalwood box containing the pearl beads. She took up the uncompleted rosary and began slipping the beads back and forth over the string,--the string that would have been two-thirds full by this time if she could have gone on with school work. Suddenly she looked at it with widening eyes.

"I wondah," she said aloud, "I wondah if I couldn't slip one moah on for yestahday. She said herself that it ought to count for moah than school work. In a way she said it was like making 'undying music in the world.' And what was it old Bishop Chartley said at the carol service?"

She stood with a little pucker on her forehead, trying to recall his words about keeping the White Feast.

"So may we offer our pearls, days unstained by selfishness." That was it. She could go on with her rosary then, and, instead of perfect lessons at school, she could fill the string in token of days spent unselfishly at home. Days not stained by regrets and tears and idle repining for what could not be helped.

With a deep sigh of satisfaction, she slipped one more pearl bead down the string, and laid it back in the box.

"That is for yestahday. I can't count to-day, for I sat for an houah thinking about my troubles and pitying myself and making myself just as misahable as possible."

So the little string began to grow again, and, though she was half-ashamed of the childish pleasure it gave her, it did help when she could see every night a visible token that she had tried to live that 'day through unselfishly and well,--that she had kept tryst with the duty of cheerfulness which we all owe the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE RODE OVER TO ROLLINGTON"]

But not all her pearls were earned as easily as the one that marked her efforts for Agnes. One day, when she rode over to Rollington with some ill.u.s.trated magazines for the Crisp children, she was met by an announcement from Minnie, the oldest one, who had charge of the family in her mother's absence.

"Mis' Perkins said I was to tell you she didn't see why folks pa.s.sed her by when she liked wine jelly and good things just as well as some other people she knew."

"Who is Mrs. Perkins?" asked Lloyd, astonished by such a message.

Minnie nodded her towhead toward a weather-beaten house of two rooms across the street. "She lives over there. She's sick most of the time.

She saw you cooking in our kitchen that day that you came and got dinner, and ma sent her over a piece of the pie you made, and she's been sort of sniffy ever since, because n.o.body does such things for her."

Minnie seemed so anxious that Lloyd should include Mrs. Perkins in her visit that finally Lloyd agreed to be escorted over to see her. Wrapping the baby in a shawl, and staggering along under its weight, Minnie ordered the other children to stay where they were, and led the way across the street.

The tilt of Lloyd's dainty nose, as she went in, said more plainly than words, "Poah white tras.h.!.+" For the house had a stuffy smell of liniment and bacon grease. An old woman came forward to meet them in her stocking feet and a dirty woollen wrapper. Her uncombed gray hair straggled around her ears, and her wrinkled face was unwashed and grimy. Lloyd was thankful that she did not offer to shake hands. She sat down on the edge of a chair, breathing the stuffy air as sparingly as possible.

She had always been taught that old age must be respected, no matter how unlovely, and as Mrs. Perkins counted her aches and pains in a weak, whining voice, pity got the better of Lloyd's disgust. She began to feel sorry for this poor old creature, for whom no one else seemed to have any sympathy. She complained bitterly of her neighbours and the church-members who professed to be so charitable, but who left her to suffer.

Then she praised the lemon pie that Lloyd had made, until Lloyd gladly promised to make one for her. "I'll bring it down the last of the week,"

she promised, later, when she rose to go, and Mrs. Perkins introduced the subject again. But that was not what the old woman wanted.

"Why can't you come down here and make it in my kitchen?" she whined, "same as you did in Mrs. Crisp's. I get dreadful lonesome setting here, and it would be so much company to see you whisking around beating eggs and rolling out the crust. Then I could smell it baking, and eat it hot out of the oven. It's been many a long day since I've done a thing like that. It makes my mouth water, just thinking of it."

"Certainly I could do it heah, if you would like it bettah," promised Lloyd, rashly. "Is there anything I can do for you befoah I go?"

"Yes, there is," was the ready answer. "I didn't eat much dinner, and I'm that weak and faint I'd like if you'd make me a cup of tea."

"Certainly," answered Lloyd again. "If you'll just tell me where to find things."

"I'll be going on," said Minnie Crisp, beginning to wrap the baby up in its shawl again. "Those kids will be turning the house upside down if I'm not there to watch them."

n.o.body paid any attention to her departure, for Lloyd, hanging her coat over the back of a dusty chair, had gone into the kitchen before Minnie finished making a woollen mummy of the baby.

"The tea is in a paper bag in the corner cupboard," called Mrs. Perkins.

"Mrs. Moore sent it to me. It's green tea, and I never did care for any kind but black. I'd pretty nigh as soon have none as green. You might poach me an egg, too, if you feel like it, and make a bit of toast."

With a s.h.i.+ver of disgust, Lloyd looked around her. Everything was dirty.

She wished she dared run across the street and prepare the lunch in Mrs.

Crisp's immaculate kitchen. There everything shone from repeated scrubbings with soft soap and sand. She enjoyed cooking over there. As she opened the cupboard door a roach ran out, and she jumped aside with another s.h.i.+ver of disgust. She wanted a pan in which to poach the egg, but nothing looked clean enough to use. Finally she chose a battered saucepan, but dropped it when she discovered that a spider had woven a web inside.

Spiders had always been an abomination to Lloyd. It made her feel cold and creepy to touch a cobweb. But the story of Ederyn flashed through her thoughts, and she grasped the pan, determined to use it or die in the effort. She had started and she would not turn back. It was plainly her duty to minister to the wants of this complaining old invalid whom others neglected, and she would keep tryst at any cost. With many an inward shudder she went on with her task. As the water in the kettle was already steaming, it was not long before the lunch was ready, and she carried it in.

"It's simply impossible for me to come and make the pie in this dirty kitchen," thought Lloyd, "and I can't tell her so. Maybe I could ask Mrs. Crisp to invite her ovah and she could see it done there."

While she worried over the problem of introducing the subject tactfully, Mrs. Perkins herself opened the way. She hadn't been well enough to do any cleaning for several weeks, she said. If she could get a little stronger, she intended to do two things: to slick up the place a bit, and to go on a visit to Jane O'Grady's up near the black bridge. She had been wanting to spend the day with Jane all winter, but didn't have any way to get there. It was too far to walk. Lloyd saw her opportunity and seized it.

"Why, mothah will send the carriage for you, Mrs. Perkins, any day you set. She'd be glad to. Alec can drive you ovah early in the mawning, when he is out for the marketing, and go for you befoah dah'k."

"Then you may send to-morrow," said Mrs. Perkins, ungraciously. "I don't want to risk putting it off. Folks usually forget such promises overnight. So I'd best make sure of it."

Lloyd flushed angrily, but the next instant excused the old woman's rudeness on the score of her ill health. She had a plan that she was anxious to carry out, and she hurried home to begin, all a-tingle with her charitable impulses. She was surprised that her mother should treat it so lightly.

"Of course you can have the carriage," said Mrs. Sherman. "But, my good little Samaritan, I must warn you. That old woman is a pauper in spirit.

She hasn't a particle of proper pride. People have done too much for her. She'll take all she can get, and grumble because it isn't more. So you mustn't be disappointed if, instead of thanks, you get only criticism."

But Lloyd, full of the zeal of a true reformer, danced down to the servants' quarters to find May Lily, one of the cook's grandchildren.

May Lily, a neat-looking coloured girl of seventeen, had been one of Lloyd's most loyal followers since they made mud pies together on the Colonel's white door-steps, and the readiness to serve her now was prompted not so much by the promised dollar as the desire to still follow her lead. So next morning, soon after Mrs. Perkins's departure in the Sherman carriage, a mighty revolution began in the house she left behind her.

May Lily, strong and willing, went to work like a small cyclone. Under Lloyd's direction, she swept and scrubbed and scoured. The bed was aired, the stove was blacked, the windows washed, the tins polished till they shone like new. By four o'clock not a cobweb or a speck of dust was to be seen in either room. Lloyd sat down to wait for Mrs. Perkins's return. She felt that it was safe to breathe now, and she did not have to sit gingerly on the edge of the chair. Every piece of furniture had been washed and rubbed. She could keep her promise about the pie very comfortably now. Everything smelled so clean and wholesome to her that she was sure that Mrs. Perkins would notice the change at once and be pleased.

Mrs. Perkins did notice the change the moment she entered the door, but it was with a displeased face. "Hm! Hm!" she sniffed. "Smells mightily of soft soap in here. What have you been doing? I never could bear the smell of soft soap or lye. Hm! Hm!"

Then she turned accusingly on Lloyd. "Didn't you know better than to put stove-blacking on that stove? When it gets het up, it will smoke to fare-ye-well, and start my asthma to going again full tilt. Some folks are mighty thoughtless, never have no consideration for other people."

Lloyd shrank back, almost overcome by such a reception. It was like a dash of cold water in her face. She was angry and indignant.

"Well," continued Mrs. Perkins, still sniffing around the room, as she put her bonnet and shawl away. "Now you're here I'd like it if you would put on the teakettle and make me a good strong cup of coffee. Jane O'Grady gave me a pound, all parched and ground. I haven't had any before to-day for weeks. I'm plumb tuckered out with the visit."

Lloyd hurried to build up the fire, thankful that May Lily had spent much time scouring the old coffee-pot. Otherwise she could not have brought herself to touch it. It shone like new now. As she poured the water into it, three tiny streams spurted out of the side, hissing and sputtering over the stove.

"Now just see what you done!" scolded Mrs. Perkins. "You hadn't ought to have scoured that coffee-pot so. You'd ought to have let well enough be, for you might have known you'd rub holes in it and make it leak."

"I'll get you a new one in place of it at once," said Lloyd, stiffly, her indignation rising till she could hardly speak calmly. "I'll go this minute."

There was a small grocery store farther up the hill, where a little of everything was kept in stock, and Lloyd dashed out bareheaded, glad of an excuse to cool her temper. By the time she had made the coffee in the new pot, Alec drove up to the door for her.

"You'll come again to-morrow to make that lemon pie, won't you?" asked Mrs. Perkins, anxiously.

"No, I can't come till the day aftah."

"What? Thursday?" was the impatient answer. "Time drags awful slow for a body that can only sit and wait."

"I have an engagement to-morrow," said Lloyd, stiffly, remembering it was the day for Agnes Waring's music lesson. "But you can depend on me Thursday."

Mrs. Sherman only laughed when Lloyd repeated her day's adventure at home, but the old Colonel fairly snorted with indignation.