Laughing Last, Jane Abbott [the false prince .txt] 📗

before she let Mart clip her braids—not exactly asked permission but confided her intentions. That Mart might not perceive her moment’s perturbation she turned her attention to the clams.

“I ought not to have half for I didn’t find nearly as many as you did.”

“Oh, rats. Take ’em. All you want.” To Mart, who could dig clams faster than old Jake Newberry, an accurate division of their spoils meant nothing. To Sidney who dug awkwardly each clam was a treasure.

Her step lagged as she approached Aunt Achsa’s. She hoped Aunt Achsa would not be home. Then she wondered why she could not be as confidently defiant as Martie; she supposed it was the restraint of the League and the three sisters under whom she had had to live and Martie had not. But it was absurd to feel even apprehensive of Aunt Achsa’s displeasure when Aunt Achsa was such a little thing and so indefinite a relative.

Aunt Achsa was in the kitchen trimming the edge of a pie. She was holding it high on the tips of her fingers and skilfully cutting the crust with a small knife when under it she spied Sidney’s shorn head. She promptly dropped the pie upon the table upside down. A trickle of red cherry juice ran out over the spotless table.

“Why, I swum! Sidney Romley! Wh—what have you gone and done? What’s ever happened to you?”

“My hair was so hot and such a bother. I can swim now and won’t have to sit around for an hour drying it. I hated my braids—” All good arguments which rang true but did not seem to convince Aunt Achsa who continued to stare at Sidney with troubled eyes.

“It’s my hair, Aunt Achsa. If I look a sight it’s my own fault.”

“That ain’t it, child. Only—it’s so sudden. Your—doing it—without a word or—or anything. What’ll your folks say? I—I—kind a wish you’d just told me, you see.”

Sidney laughed with a lightness she did not feel. Aunt Achsa eyes were so reproachful, even hurt. “Why, I did not have time to tell you. I didn’t think of it myself until a few moments ago. And Mart offered to do it for me. It’s such a little thing to make any fuss about.”

The cherry juice went on dripping until a big round stain disfigured the tablecloth and still Aunt Achsa stared at Sidney with troubled eyes.

“It’s a little thing, of course. But I was thinkin’—Sidney, promise your Aunt Achsy you won’t go off and do anything else high-handed like without tellin’ me. I don’t want to be worryin’ or suspicionin’ what you’re up to or havin’ your sisters blame me for something that ain’t just right to their thinkin’. Mebbe we don’t do things same as you do but we know what’s right and what’s wrong same as anyone.” Which was a long and stern speech for Aunt Achsa. She gave a frightened gasp at the end and turned the poor pie right side up.

A dark flush had swept Sidney’s face. There was no such thing as freedom anywhere—there must always be someone in authority somewhere to warn and rebuke, even this absurd little old woman, who seemed so remotely related. She wished she could think of something very withering and at the same time dignified to retort.

“I think I am perfectly capable of knowing what is right and what is wrong and my sisters have perfect confidence in me,” she said slowly and with deep inward satisfaction. Then she added scornfully: “Of course it is very different here and if I don’t seem to get used to it you can’t blame me!” With which she stalked through the parlor to her room and slammed the door.

Aunt Achsa pattered after her.

“Child! Child!” she called through the door. “Here’s a letter for you. I was that taken back when I saw you I forgot to give it you.” She slipped the letter through the inch of opening that Sidney, now tearful, vouchsafed her.

The letter was from Trude. To poor Sidney this was the crowning humiliation; it was exactly as though Trude could look out from the pages and see the mutilated locks. Trude had always loved her hair and had often brushed it for her for the simple delight of fingering its wavy strands. More than once Trude had said: “You’re lucky to have this hair, kid. Look at mine.” Now she would gasp in horror as Aunt Achsa had done. “You should not have done it, Sidney—at least without consulting one of us.” It was not the deed itself even Trude would censure—it was her independence. Oh, how terribly difficult it was to be like Mart!

Trude had written to her almost daily, sketchy letters full of the news of what she was doing at the Whites. Sidney could not know that Trude purposely made them lively and wrote them often because she believed Sidney was homesick. In this letter her concern had reached the height of sacrifice.

“If you’re ready to go home, have had enough of Cape Cod, just say the word, little sister, and I’ll join you at Middletown. Perhaps you have been with Cousin Achsa long enough—you do not want to impose upon her hospitality. She may have other friends she wants to invite to her house. But you must decide at once for Mrs. White is making plans for the next few weeks and will want to know if I am going to be here. She is perfectly wonderful to me and I think she likes to have me here and that I help her a little, but if you want me to join you at home she will understand.

“Why in the world haven’t you written to me? I shall scold you soundly for that when we are together. Be a good girl and remember how much we all love you. I shall expect a letter within three days at most telling me what you want to do.”

Sidney gasped. Her barbered hair, Aunt Achsa, were forgotten for the moment. Go home—leave all her fun and Sunset Lane and Mart—and Lavender? Her consternation gave no room for the thought that two weeks had indeed worked a strange conversion. Why, she would sit right down and write to Trude that she did not want to go home. That was silly!

Then she thought of the hurt on Aunt Achsa’s face only a few moments before when she had flung her angry retort at her. And Aunt Achsa had been so good to her! Why, that cherry pie that had come to such a disastrous end Aunt Achsa was baking just because she had said she adored cherry pies. That was Aunt Achsa’s way of showing affection. That Aunt Achsa had trusted her—she had given her complete freedom in the two last whirlwind weeks because she had trusted her. And how ungrateful, now, Aunt Achsa must think her. Well, she had punished her own self for now, of course, Aunt Achsa would want her to go.