Little Maid Marian, Amy Ella Blanchard [best e ink reader for manga txt] 📗

For a moment Marian looked pleased, then her face fell. "I should miss you so," she said.

"You dear child," returned Miss Dorothy, drawing her close. "So should I miss you, but I think I can arrange to come home every week now. It will mean very early rising on Monday morning in order to get here in time for school, but I can manage it, and I shall be able to reach home by six on Friday afternoon, so you see——"

"Oh, I do see, and I think that would be fine."

"My little Patty misses me, too, and so does[166] Father. Aunt Barbara is an excellent housekeeper and a good nurse when any one is ill, but she is not much of a companion for daddy nor for Patty. Then, too, I hate to be out of it all. I long to keep up with the college news and the home doings, so I shall try going home at the end of the week, for awhile, anyhow."

"And did grandma say I could go?"

"She actually did. I think she is a little afraid of taking whooping-cough herself, for she asked me yesterday if I had ever known of any grown person having it, and I do know of several cases. I had it myself when I was three years old, but your grandma cannot remember that she ever had."

"I'm glad she can't remember," returned Marian with a laugh. "Who is going to hear our lessons, Miss Dorothy?"

"My sister Emily. She is two years younger than I, and is still studying. She is taking special courses at college, but thinks she can spare an hour or so a day to you chicks, especially as she expects to teach after a while, and she will begin to practise on you."

"I will take little Patty with me," declared[167] Marian, picking up that person from where she was seated on a large grape leaf under a dahlia bush.

"So I would. I am sure she will like to visit Patty's dolls."

"Oh, Miss Dorothy, you are so nice," exclaimed Marian giving her a little squeeze. "Grandma never says such things. She doesn't ever like to make believe. She says the facts of life are so hard that there is no time to waste in pretending." Marian's manner as she said this was so like her grandmother's that Miss Dorothy could but smile. "I am glad you took some of the photographs for papa before I got the whoops," Marian went on; "the one at school and the one at Mrs. Hunt's. Oh, dear Mrs. Hunt will be sorry to have me go."

"She will, I know. She told me this morning that she was going to ask you to stay with her a while during the time you must be away from school. Should you like that better than going to Revell?"

"I'd like both," answered Marian truthfully.

"That is often the way in this world," returned Miss Dorothy. "It is frequently hard to[168] choose between two equally good things. I will bring you all the home news every week, and can tell you whether Ruth knew her lessons, whether Marjorie was late, how Mrs. Hunt's fall chickens are thriving, and what Tippy and Dippy do in your absence. I shall be quite a newsmonger."

"What is a monger?"

"One who deals or sells. You can look it up in the dictionary when you go back to the house."

The preparations for her departure went forward quickly, and by Friday morning, Marian's trunk was packed, and all was in readiness. Her grandfather actually kissed her good-bye and gave her five cents. As her grandmother did not happen to be on hand at that moment to require that Marian should deposit the nickel in her missionary box, the child pocketed it in glee, and, at Miss Dorothy's suggestion, bought a picture postal card to send her father, giving her new address. Miss Dorothy wrote it for her, addressed and mailed the card, so Marian was satisfied that her father would know where she was. "I don't like to have him not know," she told[169] Miss Dorothy. Mrs. Otway gave her granddaughter many charges to be a good girl and give no trouble, to take care of her clothes properly and not to forget to be obedient.

"As if I could forget," thought Marian.

Heppy had no remarks to make, but only grunted when Marian went to say good-bye to her. However as the child left the kitchen Heppy snapped out: "You'd better take along what belongs to you as long as you're bound to go."

"Take what?" asked Marian wonderingly, not knowing that she had left anything behind.

Heppy jerked her head in the direction of the table on which a package was lying.

"What is it?" asked Marian curiously.

"Something that belongs to you," said Heppy turning her back and taking her dish-towels out to hang in the sun.

Marian carried the package with her and later on found it contained some of Heppy's most toothsome little cakes. "It is just like her," Marian told Miss Dorothy. "She acts so cross outside and all the time she is feeling real kind inside."

[170]Miss Dorothy laughed. "I am beginning to find that out, but I shall never forget how grim she seemed to me when I first came."

Mr. Robbins' house was very near the college, and Marian thought it the prettiest place she had ever seen. As they walked up the elm-bordered street, the college grounds stretched away beyond them. The gray buildings were draped in vines bright with autumn tints, and the many trees showed the same brilliant colors. In front of the Robbins' door was a pretty garden where chrysanthemums were all a-bloom, and one or two late roses had ventured to put forth. A wide porch ran along the front and one side the house, and on this Patty stood watching for them. She was not long in spying them and hurried down to meet them. "I am so glad you have whooping-cough," she called out before they came up. Then as they met and embraced she went on: "Isn't it fine, Marian, that we both have whooping-cough and winter coats alike? We're most like twins, aren't we? Come right in. There is a fire in the library, Dolly, and Emily has tea there for you."

"Good!" cried her sister, "that will go to the[171] spot this chilly evening. Where are Aunt Barbara and dad?"

"Oh, puttering around somewhere."

"And the boys?"

"They went to practice for the game, but they ought to be home by now."

They entered the house and went into the library where a tall, dark-eyed girl was brewing tea. She looked up with a smile and Marian saw that she was a little like Miss Dorothy. "Here she is. Here is Marian," cried Patty.

Emily nodded pleasantly. "Come near the fire," she said. "It is quite wintry out. How good it is to see you, Dolly. I am so glad you are coming home every week."

"Oh, what are those?" said Miss Dorothy as her sister uncovered a plate.

"Your favorite tea cakes, but you mustn't eat too many of them or you will have no appetite for supper. It will be rather late to-night for the boys cannot get back before seven and they begged me to wait for them. I knew you would be hungry, though, and so I had tea, ready for you."

The two little girls, side by side, comfortably sipped some very weak tea and munched their[172] cakes while the older girls chatted. But Patty made short work of her repast. "Hurry up," she whispered to Marian, "I have lots of things to show you and we shall have supper after a while. Is your cough very bad?"

"Not yet."

"They say mine isn't but I hate the whooping part. I hope it won't get worse."

"I'm afraid it will, for we've only begun to whoop and they say it takes a long time to get over it."

"Oh, those old they-says always are telling you something horrid. Come, let me show you the boys' puppies before it gets too dark to see them; they're out in the shed."

"Oh, I'd love to see them." Marian despatched the remainder of her cake and was ready to follow Patty out-of-doors to where five tiny fox terriers were nosing around their little mother. They were duly admired, then Patty showed the pigeons and the one rabbit. By this time it was quite dark, so they returned to the house to see the family of dolls who lived in a pleasant room up-stairs.

"This is where we are to have lessons," Patty[173] told her guest. "Isn't it nice? Those two little tables are to be ours, and Emily will sit in that chair by the window. We arranged it all. These are my books." She dropped on her knees before a row of low book shelves.

"Oh, how many," exclaimed Marian. "I have only a few, and most of those are old-fashioned. Some were my grandparents' and some my father's."

"Doesn't your father ever get you any new ones?"

"He might if he were here," Marian answered, "but you see I don't know him."

"Don't know your father?" Patty looked amazed.

"No. He lives in Germany, and hasn't been home for seven or eight years."

"How queer. Isn't he ever coming?"

"I hope he is. I wrote to him not long ago."

"Why, don't you write to him every little while?"

"No, I haven't been doing it, but I am going to now," she said, then, as a sudden thought struck her, she exclaimed: "Oh, dear, I am afraid I can't."

[174]"Why not?" asked Patty.

"Because I used Miss Dorothy's typewriter at home. I don't write very well with a pen and ink, you know, though I can do better than I did."

"Oh, I expect you do well enough," said Patty consolingly, "and if you don't, dad has a typewriter, and maybe he will let you use that, and if he won't I know Roy will let you write with his. It is only a little one, but it will do."

"I think you are very kind," said Marian. "Is Roy your brother?"

"My second brother; his name is Royal. Frank is the oldest one and Bert the youngest of the three. There are six of us, you know; three girls and three boys. First Dolly and Emily, then the boys and then me."

"I should think it would be lovely to have so many brothers and sisters."

"It is, only sometimes the boys tease, and my sisters think I must always do as they say because they are so much older, and sometimes I want to do as I please."

"But oughtn't you to mind them?"

"Oh, I suppose so. At least when I don't and[175] they tell daddy, he always sides with them, so that means they are right, I suppose."

There was some advantage in not having too many persons to obey, Marian concluded, and when the three boys came storming in, one making grabs at Patty's hair, another clamoring to have her find his books, and the third berating the other two, it did seem to Marian that there were worse things than being the only child in the house.

However, the boys soon subsided, so the two little girls were left in peace and Patty displayed all the wonders in her possession; the delightful little doll house which the boys had made for her the Christmas before, the dolls who inhabited it, five in number, Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Montgomery, their two children and the black cook. "The coachman and nurse have to live in another house, there isn't room for them here," Patty informed Marian. "Which do you like best, hard dolls or paper ones?"

"Sometimes one and sometimes another," returned Marian. "I don't know much about paper dolls, though. Mrs. Hunt gave me some out of an old fashion book, but they got wet, and I haven't any nice ones now."

[176]"Emily makes lovely ones," Patty told her, "and I'll get her to do some for us; I know she will."

"How perfectly lovely," exclaimed Marian, beginning to feel that she had been very lucky when Dame Fortune sent the Robbins family her way.

"There is Emily calling now," said Patty. "I suppose supper is ready and we must go down. I will show you the rest of my things to-morrow. Coming, Emily," she answered as she ran down-stairs.

But it was because Marian's trunk had come that Emily wanted the little girls, and when this was unpacked and Marian felt that she was fairly established supper was announced. It was a plain but well cooked and hearty meal such as suited the appetites of six healthy young persons, three of them growing boys. As she saw the bread and butter disappear,