A Little Maid of Old Maine, Alice Turner Curtis [e book reader pdf .txt] 📗

thin and27 dark, and looked more like a little old lady than a ten-year-old girl.

“How do you do?” she said, bowing as ceremoniously as if Luretta and Anna were grown up people of importance.

“Come and sit down, Melly, and watch for the Polly,” said Anna.

“And tell us about the fine dolls that are on board for you,” added Luretta quickly.

A little smile crept over Melvina’s face and she took a step toward them, but stopped suddenly.

“I fear ’twould not be wise for me to stop,” she said a little fearfully; but before she could say anything more Anna and Luretta had jumped up and ran toward her.

“Look!” exclaimed Anna, pointing to a flock of white gulls that had just settled on the smooth water near the shore.

“Look, Melly, at the fine partridges!”

Melvina’s dark eyes looked in the direction Anna pointed. “Thank you, Anna. How white they are, and what a queer noise they make,” she responded seriously.

Anna’s eyes danced with delight as she heard Luretta’s half-repressed giggle at Melvina’s reply. She resolved that Luretta should realize of28 how little importance Melvina Lyon, with all her dolls, and her starched skirts like wheels, really was.

“And are those not big alder trees, Melly?” she continued, pointing to a group of fine pine trees near by.

Again Melvina’s eyes followed the direction of Anna’s pointing finger, and again the minister’s little daughter replied politely that the trees were indeed very fine alders.

Luretta was now laughing without any effort to conceal her amusement. That any little girl in Maine should not know a partridge from a gull, or an alder bush from a pine tree, seemed too funny to even make it necessary to try to be polite; and Luretta was now ready to join in the game of finding out how little Melvina Lyon, “the smartest and best-behaved child in the settlement,” really knew.

“And, Danna, perhaps Melvina has never seen the birds we call clams?” she suggested.

Melvina looked from Anna to Luretta questioningly. These little girls could not be laughing at her, she thought, recalling with satisfaction that it was well known that she could spell the names of every city in Europe, and repeat the list29 of all England’s kings and queens. She remembered, also, that Anna Weston was called a tomboy, and that her mother said it was a scandal for a little girl to have short hair. So she again replied pleasantly that she had never known that clams were birds. “We have them stewed very often,” she declared.

Anna fairly danced about the neat little figure in the well-starched blue linen skirt.

“Oh, Melly! You must come down to the shore, and we will show you a clam’s nest,” she said, remembering that only yesterday she had discovered the nest of a kingfisher in an oak tree whose branches nearly touched the shore, and could point this out to the ignorant Melvina.

“But I am to visit Lucia Horton this afternoon, and I must not linger,” objected Melvina.

“It will not take long,” urged Anna, clasping Melvina’s arm, while Luretta promptly grasped the other, and half led, half pushed the surprised and uncertain Melvina along the rough slope. Anna talked rapidly as they hurried along. “You ought really to see a clam’s nest,” she urged, between her bursts of laughter; “why, Melly, even Luretta and I know about clams.”30

Anna had not intended to be rude or cruel when she first began her game of letting Luretta see that Melly and her possessions were of no importance, but Melvina’s ignorance of the common things about her, as well as her neatly braided hair, her white stockings and kid shoes, such as no other child in the village possessed, made Anna feel as if Melvina was not a real little girl, but a dressed-up figure. She chuckled at the thought of Luretta’s calling clams “birds,” with a new admiration for her friend.

“I guess after this Luretta won’t always be talking about Melvina Lyon and her dolls,” she thought triumphantly; and at that moment Melvina’s foot slipped and all three of the little girls went sliding down the sandy bluff.

The slide did not matter to either Anna or Luretta, in their stout shoes and every-day dresses of coarse flannel, but to the carefully dressed Melvina it was a serious mishap. Her starched skirts were crushed and stained, her white stockings soiled, and her slippers scratched. The hat of fine-braided straw with its ribbon band, another “present” from the Boston relatives, now hung about her neck, and her knitting-bag was lost.31

As the little girls gathered themselves up Melvina began to cry. Her delicate hands were scratched, and never before in her short life had she been so frightened and surprised.

She pulled herself away from Anna’s effort to straighten her hat. “You are a rough child,” she sobbed, “and I wish I had not stopped to speak with you. And my knitting-bag with my half-finished stocking is lost!”

At the sight of Melvina’s tears both Anna and Luretta forgot all about showing her a “clam’s nest,” and became seriously frightened. After all, Melly was the minister’s daughter, and the Reverend Mr. Lyon was a person of importance; why, he even had a colored body-servant, London Atus by name, who usually walked behind the clergyman carrying his cloak and Bible, and who opened the door for visitors. Often Melvina was attended in her walks by London, who thought his little mistress far superior to the other children.

“Don’t cry, Melvina,” pleaded Luretta. “We will find your bag, and we will wash the stains from your stockings and dress, and help you back up the slope. Don’t cry,” and Luretta put a protecting arm about the frightened Melvina.32 “Your hat has only slipped from your head; it is not hurt at all,” she added consolingly.

Melvina was finally comforted, and Anna climbed up the slope to search for the missing bag, while Luretta persuaded Melvina to take off her stockings in order that they might be washed.

“They’ll dry in no time,” Luretta assured her. “I can wash them out right here in this clean puddle, and put them on the warm rocks to dry.” So Melvina reluctantly took off her slippers, and the pretty open-work stockings, and curling her feet under her, sat down on a big rock to watch Luretta dip the stockings in the little pool of sea water near by, and to send anxious glances toward the sandy bluff where Anna was searching for the missing bag.