Kathie's Soldiers Part 10

CHAPTER V.

ONE OF THE SMALL DEEDS.

KATHIE'S lessons, even to her music, were perfect the next day. Indeed, Mr. Lawrence quite complimented her.

Mrs. Alston said, "Kathie, if you would like to come over after school and relieve me a little while, I should be very glad."

So Kathie went straight from school There was quite a crowd already.

Whole families had come in from the country, farmers with their wives and little ones.

"What taste you do see displayed!" Lottie remarked, sauntering to Kathie's vicinity. "Look at that woman's shawl with a yellow centre.

Isn't it hideously ugly? And that purple bonnet with red flowers! Why didn't she put blue, by way of contrast?"

The wearer of the purple bonnet glanced at the two girls with a flushed and rather indignant face,--a hard-featured countrywoman, neither young nor pretty.

"O don't," whispered Kathie. "She heard you."

"As if I cared! Any person who outrages taste in that manner is a fit subject for criticism. How horridly that gored skirt hangs! Home-made to the last thread. If I couldn't have a dressmaker I would not have any new dresses."

Kathie was feeling quite distressed. She disliked to have Lottie to stand here and make remarks on every one who pa.s.sed by.

"How do you make them 'ere things?" inquired a coa.r.s.e but fresh young voice at her side.

Lottie t.i.ttered, and put her handkerchief to her face.

"What?" asked Kathie, in great confusion.

"These 'ere," pointing to some very pretty moss and lichen brackets.

"The moss is fastened to a piece of wood just the right shape,--like this"; and she turned the bracket round.

"Pasted on?"

"You could use paste or glue,--anything that adheres quickly."

"Adheres?"--with a kind of wondering stare.

"Sticks!" exclaimed Lottie, in a peculiar tone.

"I wasn't talking to you," said the girl, rather gruffly.

Lottie tossed her head with a world of scorn, and moved a little lower down to speak to some stylish friends that she saw coming.

"Thinks she's dre'dful fine!" continued the girl. "You find them things in the woods. I have lots of 'em, but I never thought o' puttin' them up anywheres. I've some a good deal bigger 'n any you have here."

She was referring to the lichens now.

"They must be very fine," said Kathie.

"Some of 'em are pinky, and all streaked, in rows like this. Don't you s'pose I could put 'em up? And I know Jim'd make me some fine things to stick the moss on. He's powerful handy with tools. Means to be a carpenter."

She was a nice, wholesome-looking girl of fifteen or thereabout. Kathie wished that she dared to correct her words and sentences a little.

"You might make your parlor or your own room look very pretty with some of these adornments," she remarked, with quiet interest.

"The youngsters would soon smash 'em up in my room," she said, with rough good-nature; "but ma'am will let me fix up the parlor, I know. And if you'd only tell me--" The girl wriggled around with painful hesitation.

"Well?" Kathie went on, encouragingly.

"About them 'ere frames that look like straw."

"They are straw."

"There, I was sure of it! Ain't they han'some! Do you know how to make 'em?"

"Yes."

"S'pose you wouldn't like to tell me?"--bashfully.

"Why, yes," answered Kathie, smiling. "First, you find some nice, long pieces of straw that are smooth and round, and, holding them together this way,--four or five or six, as wide as you want your frame,--sew them backwards and forwards with a fine needle and cotton. When you have made your four pieces cross them so, and fasten them through on the pictures at the corner. Then you tie a little bow over the sewing."

"Well, now, it isn't hard, after all! I mean to make some. What's the price of that?"

"Fifty cents."

"I mean to have one of 'em. I'll hunt up mother and come back." With that the girl dashed into the crowd.

"Profitable customer!" sneered Lottie.

Just then there was a rush to the table, and Kathie was kept very busy for ten minutes or so, while Lottie went over to Mrs. Wilder's table and began to "take off" Kathie's young woman, as she called her. It sounded very funny to the group of girls, exaggerated a little by Lottie's love of a good story.

Half an hour afterwards, when Kathie had almost forgotten, the girl came dragging her mother rather unwillingly up to the table.

"Here she is! I've made her come, though she said fust she wouldn't. But you was so real sweet to me that I couldn't give it up."

Kathie recognized the identical purple bonnet and dull red roses, and she flushed a little at the woman's sharp scrutiny.

"You ain't the one that laughed awhile ago," she said, the features relaxing a little. "City gals may think themselves a heap finer than country folk, but I can see bad manners as quick as the next one."

"I was very sorry for it," exclaimed Kathie, in a low tone.

"Then my gal wouldn't give me any peace till I come back"--apparently much mollified. "Now, Sary Ann, where's the picter you want?"

"O, they're all so _bew_-tiful!" exclaimed the girl. "And I know I can make the frames after I go home. Look at this 'ere cross and this basket of flowers, and these roses! O dear!"--in despair.