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

"Scratched her face and tore her hair,
But still did not complain,"

and furthermore, like Phebe, when she came to a promising bush, she "picked with all her might," and really had a creditable amount to show when Stella said time was up. But alas, she had other[90] things to show besides blackberries and scratches, for she had worn a frock of light material, and by the time they were ready to leave the thicket, it was in slits and tears all over. Marian had been so excited over her novel employment that she had not seen what damage the briars were doing till Marjorie laughed out: "Oh, what a rag-bag you are!"

Then Marian looked down at the fringe of muslin which hung from her waist, at the stained waist itself, from which the trimming fell in festoons, and she was aghast. "Oh, what shall I do?" she breathed helplessly.

"You certainly do look a sight," said Stella, none too comfortingly, "but I wouldn't mind my clothes so much as my hands; just see how they are all scratched up, and your face isn't much better. You were too reckless; you ought not to have plunged in so far that you got caught in the worst of the brambles; we didn't any of us plunge around so as to get all mixed up that way."

"I know," returned Marian meekly, "I got too excited."

"I should think you did."

[91]"I can't go into town this way," said Marian miserably. "I look like a beggar girl."

"Anybody could see that you had been picking blackberries," said Alice consolingly.

"But with such a looking frock they will laugh at me," said Marian tearfully. "Oh, dear, I wish I had worn something that didn't tear."

"As the rest of us did," remarked Marjorie complacently.

"If you had only been careful and had kept on the edge of the thicket," Stella said, then seeing how distressed Marian really was, she went on: "You might take off your frock; I really think you would look better without than with it."

"Oh!" Marian's cheeks flamed. To appear before the world half-dressed was not to be thought of.

Stella looked her over critically. The frock she wore was a white muslin spotted with pink, too frail a garment for such an expedition.

"The waist isn't so terrible," said Alice examining it. "If we had some pins we could fasten the trimming on so it wouldn't show the tears much."

[92]"Take off your frock, Marian," decided Stella; "I know what we can do."

Marian obeyed the assured voice, and presently Stella was tearing the ragged skirt from the waist, afterward pinning the trimming of the waist in place. "Now come here," she said to Marian.

"What are you going to do?" the others asked in chorus.

"I am going to match your petticoat to your waist," said Stella, addressing Marian. "I will dot it with pink, and it will never be observed. You can wear the waist as it is, and have a skirt to match."

"What are you going to spot it with?" asked Alice curiously.

"You'll see," answered her sister, taking a blackberry from her basket and squeezing a little of the juice on Marian's petticoat. "It isn't exactly the color, but it is near enough, and will never be noticed unless you were very near. Now stand quite still, Marian."

The little girl obeyed and after some time Stella finished her work. "There!" she exclaimed with her head to one side to notice the[93] effect; "that is not bad at all. Walk off, Marian, and let me see; the spots aren't quite even, but then, as Mrs. Hunt says, 'they will never be seen on a galloping horse.'"

"I am sure they look very well," remarked Alice admiringly, "and I think you were very clever to think of it, Stella." And Marian, though still a little shamefaced, felt more at ease.

"We'd better start back," said Stella, "for the afternoons are not so very long now, and we have quite a distance to go."

"If we didn't have blackberries in the two buckets we might get some of that nice cold water from the spring and carry it with us," said Alice, "and then if we were thirsty we should have something to drink."

"It wouldn't be a bad plan," agreed Stella. "I'll tell you what we can do: Marjorie can pour her berries in our bucket and we can use hers for the water. Our bucket is so big that it will easily hold ours and hers, too."

"I'd like to see me do it," spoke up Marjorie. "I'd be sure not to get back as many as I put in."

Stella curled her lip and lifted her eyebrows scornfully. "You needn't be afraid," she said;[94] "nobody wants one of your old berries. If you are so particular, it is very easy to separate them by putting a layer of leaves on top of ours, and yours on top of that, and then there will be no mixing, and we shall be sure to get all that belongs to us."

Marjorie agreed to this arrangement, being quite ready to have a supply of water on hand, and so Stella carefully arranged the berries and said she would carry the bucket herself and that Marjorie and Alice could take turns in carrying the water. So, after everything was adjusted, they set off toward the town, following the dusty road by which they had come.

The way home did not seem as long as the morning's walk, and not a great deal of time had passed when the spires of the village churches appeared in the distance, then they reached the outlying houses, and finally the main street. "I'd just kite up the back way if I were you," said Stella to Marian; "it is a little bit shorter and you won't be likely to meet so many people. Good-bye. We turn off here, you know. I hope you won't get a scolding."

The fear of this, or worse, had been in Marian's[95] heart all along, though she had not mentioned it, and as she stole in the back gate and up the garden walk she hoped she would meet neither her grandmother nor Heppy. The little bucket of blackberries no longer seemed worth while, and she set it down near the apple tree, ran in the side door, past her grandfather's study, and on up-stairs, hoping she could get by the sitting-room without being seen.

But her hopes were in vain, for on the landing appeared her grandmother. "Is that you, Marian?" she asked. "Where have you been all day? Come in here and give an account of yourself."

For a second it was in Marian's thought to say that her nose was bleeding and to make her escape to her room, change her frock and then reappear, but she knew it was only putting off the evil day, for the frock's condition would be discovered sooner or later; and then she was a truthful child, and could not have brought herself to make a false excuse, even though the outcome might have been better for her. So she entered the sitting-room timidly and stood with drooping head before her grandmother.

[96]"Where have you been all day?" repeated her grandmother.

"Oh, didn't Mrs. Hunt tell you?" said Marian in a weak voice. "She said she would. I've been blackberrying."

"With whom?"

"Some of the girls."

"Who gave you permission?"

"Why—why—Mrs. Hunt didn't think you would mind, and—and——"

"Blackberrying! I should think so," exclaimed Mrs. Otway. "What a sight you are, all stained and scratched up. Go, wash your face and hands."

"I did try to get it off at the spring," returned Marian more cheerfully, hoping she was to be let off rather easily after all.

But she had not reached the door before her grandmother called her back. "What in the world have you done to your frock?" she asked, examining her costume in surprise.

"It got torn so and I was so ragged that Stella tore off the skirt," said Marian in faint explanation, "and—" she went on, "she thought she would try to make my petticoat look like a[97] frock; the spots are blackberry juice; they aren't quite the same color, but we all thought they looked pretty well, better than slits and snags."

"Then you have ruined not only your frock but your petticoat. Go to your room and do not come out till I tell you. I will speak to your grandfather and we will see what is to be done about this," said her grandmother in such a severe tone that Marian felt like the worst of criminals and crept to her room in dread distress.

She had not often been seriously punished, but those few times stood out very clearly just now. Once she had been compelled to receive ten sharp strokes from a ruler on her outstretched hand. At another time she had been shut up in a dark closet, and again she had been tied in a chair for some hours. Any of these was bad enough. The first was soonest over, but was the most humiliating, the second was terrifying and nerve racking, while the third tediously long and hard to bear. For some time the child sat tremblingly listening for her grandmother's footsteps, but evidently Mrs. Otway did not intend to use undue haste in the matter. After a while the whistle of the evening train announced that those who[98] had gone up to the city for a day's shopping were now returning, and not long after Miss Dorothy's door opened and Marian could hear the teacher singing softly to herself in the next room.

A new humiliation filled the child's breast. They would tell Miss Dorothy, and she would think of her little friend as some one desperately wicked, too wicked, no doubt, to associate with Patty. The tears stood in Marian's eyes at this possibility. It was very, very wrong, of course, to go off without asking leave, and it was worse to spoil her clothes. She well knew her grandmother's views upon this subject, and that of all things she disapproved of wastefulness. She would say that the clothes might have done good to the poor; they might have been sent in a missionary box to some needy child, and it was wicked and selfish to deprive the poor of something that could be of use.

Oh, yes, Marian knew very well all about the probable lecture in store for her.

She sat dolefully, with clasped hands and tearful eyes. But presently a happier thought came to her. She would tell Miss Dorothy before her grandmother had a chance to do so, and perhaps[99] Miss Dorothy would understand that she had not meant to do wrong in the first place, and that what came after was carelessness and not wilful wickedness. She had been ordered not to leave her room, and this she need not do to carry out her plan. So she softly crossed the floor and timidly knocked at the door between Miss Dorothy's room and her own. It was opened in a moment by her friend, who viewed the forlorn little figure first with a smile, and then with anxious interest. "Why, my dearie," she exclaimed, "what is the matter? Come into my room and tell me what is wrong."

"I can't come in," said Marian in a low tone, "for I mustn't leave my room till grandma bids me. But you can come in mine, can't you?" she added wistfully.

"To be sure I can," and suiting the action to the word, Miss Dorothy entered and sat down by the window, drawing Marian to her side and saying, "Now tell me all about it."

Marian poured forth her doleful tale, beginning with the visit to Mrs. Hunt and ending with the interview with her grandmother. "She wouldn't have minded so much except for the frock and[100] petticoat," she said in conclusion, "but when she found out about those, I could see that she was very, very much put out."

"That was the