CHAPTER II
A WEEK-END
Blue Bonnet came down to breakfast Monday morning a trifle uncertain asto whether the day was to be pleasant or profitable to her. She had avery clear conviction that it could not be both. In her experienceprofitable things were stupid--invariably!
It was raining--a condition of weather Miss Clyde hailed with delight.
"Just the very day to go through the linen closet," she said to BlueBonnet as they rose from the table. "I think we will begin there thismorning."
Blue Bonnet looked out at the lowering clouds and followed her auntmeekly. She, too, was glad that it was raining; otherwise she shouldhave longed to be galloping over the country roads on Chula.
Mrs. Clyde's linen closet was a joy to behold; a room of itself, lightand airy, with the smoothest of cedar shelves and deep cavernous drawersfor blankets and down comforts.
Blue Bonnet had been in the room occasionally, when she had been sentfor sheets for an unexpected guest. She had brought away the refreshingodor of sweet lavender in her nostrils, and a vision of the neatly piledlinen before her eyes.
To-day she watched her aunt as she opened drawers, took the white coversfrom blankets and comforts, inspected sheets and patch-work quilts withan eye to necessary darning.
What a dreadful waste of time to have cut up all those little patchesand have sewn them together, Blue Bonnet thought, as her aunt folded aquilt and returned it to its particular place on the shelf. She feltsure that Aunt Lucinda could have bought much prettier quilts with lessbother.
"It seems almost like a sanctuary, here," she said at last, leaningagainst the window and watching the proceedings with interest. "It's sobeautifully clean, and I adore that lavender smell. Where does it comefrom?"
Miss Clyde reached under a sheet and brought forth a small bag made ofwhite tarlatan filled with dried flowers and leaves.
Blue Bonnet buried her nose in it.
"Oh, I love it," she said. "I must get some and send it to Benita.Benita is very particular about our beds. She says my mother was."
"She could not have been a Clyde and escaped that, my dear. It is apassion with all of us--linen and fine china."
Blue Bonnet nodded brightly.
"When I have a home I shall have a linen closet just like this," shesaid, glancing about admiringly.
"Then you cannot begin too soon to learn how to take care of it. Fewthings require closer supervision than a linen closet, in any home. Youmust learn to mend; not ordinary mending, but fine darning."
Miss Clyde cast her eye over a pile of sheets. She opened one and handedit to Blue Bonnet, directing her attention to a rent which had beenskillfully repaired in one corner.
Blue Bonnet noted the stitches of gossamer fineness with absorbedinterest. Then she folded the sheet carefully and handed it back with asigh.
"I never could do it, Aunt Lucinda. Never, in a thousand years. I know Icouldn't. I hate sewing."
"Then I fear you could never have a linen closet like this, Blue Bonnet.Mending represents but a small part of the detail and system necessaryto good housekeeping."
"But, maybe, perhaps I could hire some one. Couldn't I, don't youthink?"
"You certainly could not instruct servants if you did not know how towork, yourself. That would be quite impossible. Could your teachers haveimparted their knowledge to you if they, themselves, had not beenstudents?"
The argument seemed plausible. Blue Bonnet's sigh deepened.
"I shall employ a trained housekeeper," she said, as if that settled thequestion.
"Then you will miss the joy that comes through laboring with your ownhands--the joy of accomplishment, Blue Bonnet. I hope you will changeyour mind."
Miss Clyde took a careful survey of a shelf where sheets were piled, andfrom it she filled her mending basket.
"Delia has overlooked these in my absence," she said, almostapologetically. "Linen should always be mended carefully before it isput away."
She straightened the window blinds to a correct line, closed all drawerscarefully, and ushering Blue Bonnet into the hall, locked the doorbehind them.
In the sitting-room the rain beat furiously at the window-panes, a coldeast wind rattled the casements, but a glowing fire in the grate offsetthe gloom.
Miss Clyde drew a chair up to the fire and took a piece from the basket.
"Bring up a small chair, Blue Bonnet. One without arms will be best."Blue Bonnet drew the chair up slowly.
Miss Clyde found her thimble and selected a proper needle.
"Go up and get your work-basket, Blue Bonnet."
When Blue Bonnet came down with her basket her aunt was holding a sheetup to the light.
"It is growing thin in places," she said, laying it on Blue Bonnet'sknee, "but a few stitches will preserve it for some time yet."
The next hour was one not soon to be forgotten by Blue Bonnet. Threadsknotted at the most impossible places; stitches were too long, sometimestoo short. Her hands grew hot and sticky. At the end of an hour hercheeks were flushed and her head ached.
Miss Clyde took the work from the tired and clumsy fingers and smoothedthe hair back from the warm brow.
"I think you have done very well for the first time, Blue Bonnet. Nexttime it will come easier. You would better rest now, and perhapsGrandmother will read to us until lunch time."
"Yes," Mrs. Clyde said, "I will indeed. What shall it be, Blue Bonnet?"
Blue Bonnet thought a minute, then she clapped her hands softly.
"I know, Grandmother. Thoreau! I read something of his this summer onthe ranch, and I liked it."
Mrs. Clyde went into the library, coming back presently with RobertLouis Stevenson's "Men and Books."
"Perhaps you would like to know something of Thoreau's life, BlueBonnet. Mr. Stevenson gives a fair glimpse of him. At least he does notspare his eccentricities. We view him from all quarters."
The lunch bell rang long before Blue Bonnet thought it time.
"Mark the place, Grandmother," she said, as they went into thedining-room. "I want to hear it all. I don't think I should have likedThoreau personally, but there certainly is a nice streak in him--the wayhe loved animals and nature--isn't there?"
About four o'clock in the afternoon the clouds began to break, and BlueBonnet in stout shoes and raincoat started off with Solomon for a run.
Her grandmother and aunt watched her as she turned her steps in thedirection of the schoolhouse.
"Blue Bonnet is a gregarious soul," Miss Clyde said, turning away fromthe window. "She loves companionship. She likes to move in flocks."
"Most girls do, Lucinda. I often wondered how her mother ever enduredthe loneliness of a Texas ranch, with her disposition. She seemed tofind room in her heart for all the world. But it is not a bad trait,"Mrs. Clyde added. "It is a part of the impulsive temperament."
The next few days passed much as Monday had, except that the duties, notto become too irksome, were varied. There was a morning in the kitchen,when Blue Bonnet was instructed into the mysteries of breadmaking andthe preparing of vegetables.
It was on this particular morning that Mrs. Clyde, going to the kitchendoor to speak with Katie, found Blue Bonnet, apron covered, standingbefore the immaculate white sink, her hands encased in rubber gloves,with a potato, which she was endeavoring to peel, poised on the extremeend of a fork.
For the first time in nearly twenty years of service, Katie permittedherself the familiarity of a wink in her mistress's direction, and Mrs.Clyde slipped away noiselessly, wearing a very broad smile.
But, if the mornings were tiresome, the afternoons more thancompensated. There were long rides on Chula; afternoons when Blue Bonnetcame in looking as rosy as one of the late peonies in her grandmother'sgarden.
"Grandmother!" she would call, dashing up the side drive and haltingChula at the door. "Grandmother, come and look at us!"
Mrs. Clyde would hasten to the door to find Blue Bonnet decked from hatbrim to stirrups with trailing vin
es in gorgeous hues, goldenrod andchrysanthemums tied in huge bunches to her saddle.
Nor was Chula neglected. Often she sported a flaming wreath--her manebunches of flowers.
"Take all the flowers in," Blue Bonnet would call to Delia. "This weekwill see the very last of them. The man at the Dalton farm says there issure to be frost most any night."
When the mail came on Saturday morning there was a pleasant diversion.Miss Clyde sorted the letters and handed a pamphlet to Blue Bonnet. Itproved to be a catalogue of Miss North's school, and interested BlueBonnet greatly. She seated herself in her favorite chair in thesitting-room and turned the pages eagerly.
"Oh, Aunt Lucinda, it's quite expensive, isn't it? A thousand twohundred dollars a year; and that doesn't include--let's see--'use ofpiano, seat in church, laundry, doctor's bills, music lessons, fencingand riding'--but then I wouldn't have to have all the extras. I couldcut out the fencing and riding, of course, and the seat in church--"
"Elizabeth!"
Blue Bonnet turned quickly. It was the first time she had heard herbaptismal name in months.
"I beg your pardon, Aunt Lucinda. I didn't think. Please excuse me."
"Certainly, Blue Bonnet. But remember that it is very bad taste to beirreverent."
Blue Bonnet brought the catalogue over to Miss Clyde, and together theylooked through it.
"It seems just the place for you, Blue Bonnet," Miss Clyde said. "Thelocation on Commonwealth Avenue is ideal. It is within walking distanceof most of the places where you will want to go. This is a greatadvantage."
Blue Bonnet curled herself up comfortably in the deep chair and lookedout through the window dreamily. Slowly a smile wreathed her lips.
"Aunt Lucinda," she said after a moment, "do you know what I'd just loveto do? I've been thinking of how much more I have than most girls, and Iwish I could pass some of the good things along. Now, there's CaritaJudson. Wouldn't she just adore a year in Boston? Why couldn't I ask herto go with me to Miss North's? There's that great big room I'm to havewith a bath, and all those advantages--" Blue Bonnet paused.
Miss Clyde was silent for a moment. Blue Bonnet's impulses bewilderedher sometimes, they were so stupendous.
Blue Bonnet was insistent.
"There's all that money coming to me that my father left," she went on,"and Uncle Cliff says that some day there will be more--from him. Whatever am I going to do with it? Carita Judson has an awfully poor sort ofa time, Aunt Lucinda, awfully poor. She mothers all those small childrenin the family--"
"I daresay for that very reason she could not well be spared."
Miss Clyde was more than half in sympathy with Blue Bonnet's idea; sheknew through her mother of Carita's fine father, of the girl'ssweetness and refinement in spite of her restricted means andsurroundings, but she did not wish to encourage Blue Bonnet in whatseemed an impossibility.
Blue Bonnet jumped up from her chair.
"I'm going to write to Uncle Cliff about it this very minute," she said,moving toward the door. "I know he'll think it is a perfectly splendididea."
"Would it not be better to wait until we have visited the school?" heraunt inquired tactfully. "There might not be room for Carita. The numberof pupils is limited, you know. Suppose you wait until Uncle Cliff comesat Christmas. You could consult him then. It would be very unwise to getCarita's hopes up and then disappoint her."
Blue Bonnet had not thought of this.
"But I shall ask him the minute he comes," she assured her aunt as sheleft the room, taking the catalogue with her. "Just the very minute! Iknow what he'll say, too, Aunt Lucinda. He'll say that happiness is thebest interest one can get out of an investment. I've heard him, no endof times!"
The week ended delightfully for Blue Bonnet.
"It's a sort of reward of merit for working so hard all these mornings,"she said, as her grandmother granted permission to follow out a plan ofAmanda Parker's.
Amanda's aunt had the second time invited the We Are Sevens for aweek-end at the farm.
The girls were to take the street car as far as it would carry them--tobe met at that point by a hay wagon.
Blue Bonnet was in high glee. A natural lover of the country, visions ofa glorious time rose before her eyes.
She appeared at the corner drug store, where the girls were to take theinterurban, a few minutes late. Aunt Lucinda had so many instructions atthe last moment that she had been delayed.
The girls were all gathered, looking anxiously down the street. WhenBlue Bonnet appeared in the snowiest of white sweaters andtam-o'-shanter, as jaunty and blooming as if she were out for anafternoon walk, they immediately protested.
"For ever more, why didn't you wear your old clothes, Blue Bonnet?"Kitty Clark inquired. "That sweater will be pot black before you go amile, and you'll be as freckled as a turkey egg without some shade foryour face."
"The sweater will wash, thank you, that's why I wore it, and I'm not thefreckly kind."
The shot was unintentional, but Kitty colored to the roots of her redgold hair.
"You are fortunate," she said. "I am."
"That's the penalty you pay for having such a peach of a complexion,"Blue Bonnet retorted, and the breach was healed.
At the end of the car line the hay-rack was waiting. The girls climbedon.
"Wait," Blue Bonnet shouted, jumping off quickly, "I almost forgot Iwant a picture of you."
While she adjusted the camera, the girls struck fantastic poses, Debbyperching herself airily on the end gate of the wagon.
There was a warning cry from the girls, which the staid and sober farmhorses misinterpreted. Off they started at a mad gallop, leaving thebewildered Debby a crumpled heap in the roadway.
She was on her feet before Blue Bonnet reached her, laughing and cryingin a breath.
"How stupid," she panted. "I might have known that gate would fly open.I guess I'm not hurt any."
Blue Bonnet felt Debby's arms and limbs and made her stretch herself.Then they fell in each other's arms and laughed until they were weak andhysterical.
"It's a good thing the roads are a bit soft," Blue Bonnet assured her,when she could get her breath. "You're something of a sight with allthat mud on you, but it broke your fall."
"Praise be!" Debby murmured, struggling to remove some of the dirt thatinsisted upon clinging to her skirts. "I'll take mud to a broken limb,any day."
The rest of the journey was made in safety. Once the wagon halted forSarah Blake to change her seat. Sitting just over the wheel was notaltogether desirable. Sarah's stomach rebelled. The whiteness of herlips spoke louder than words. Blue Bonnet changed places with hercheerfully, keeping strangely silent after the first half mile.
"What makes Blue Bonnet so still?" Kitty inquired, surprised.
"Take this seat and find out, Little Miss Why," Blue Bonnet retortedwith an effort. "Maybe you haven't as much regard for your tongue as Ihave. I want to keep mine whole."
The low, rambling farmhouse surrounded by green hills and ancient oaks,with cattle grazing peacefully on the gentle slopes, and the farm dogyelping frantically at the big gates, gave Blue Bonnet the worst pang ofhomesickness she had felt since she left the ranch.
Wreaths of blue smoke curled upward lazily from the kitchen chimney, andfrom the dooryard came the most tantalizing odors of chicken frying,coffee boiling, and fresh doughnuts.
Blue Bonnet jumped from the wagon and filled her lungs with thedelicious fragrance.
"Girls," she cried, "just smell! It's chicken and coffee and--"
"Doughnuts," Amanda finished with rapture. "Wait until you taste them!Aunt Priscilla is a wonder at cooking. She has the best things you everate in your life."
Aunt Priscilla appeared in the doorway at that moment, a wholesomesweet-faced woman of middle age, and took the girls in to the sparebedroom to lay off their things and wash before supper.
Blue Bonnet took off her cap and sweater and laid them lightly on thehigh feather bed with its wonderful patch-work quilt
--the "rising sun"pattern running riot through it.
"It's so clean I hate to muss it up with my things," she said, castingabout for a chair.
"I speak for this bed," Kitty said, depositing her things carelessly. "Islept in it the last time we came. It's as good as a toboggan. You keepgoing down and down and--"
"We're going to draw for it," Amanda announced from the wash-stand whereshe was wrestling with Debby's mud. "It will hold four; the other threegirls will have to go in the next room."
"Why couldn't we bring the other bed in here--I mean the springs andmattress?" Debby suggested. "Do you think your aunt would care, Amanda?"
Amanda volunteered to ask.
Blue Bonnet took her turn at the wash basin and then wandered into theparlor. She looked about wonderingly. Family portraits done in crayonadorned the walls. A queer little piano, short half an octave, occupiedone corner of the room, a marble-topped table, the other. A plushphotograph album, a Bible and a copy of Pilgrim's Progress lay on thetable. The carpet was green, bold with red roses; roses so vivid incoloring that they seemed to vie with the scarlet geraniums that filledthe south window to overflowing.
But over it all a spirit of peace and contentment rested--a homeyatmosphere, unmistakable and refreshing. Blue Bonnet gazed through theone unobstructed window of the little room wistfully. Twilight wasclosing in. Somewhere out in the field a cow bell tinkled, and a boy'svoice called to the cattle. How familiar it all was.
Amanda's voice broke the stillness.
"Why, Blue Bonnet Ashe," she said, coming in the room followed by heraunt with a lamp, "what are you doing in here all alone? You look as ifyou had seen a ghost. Come right out in the kitchen. Aunt Priscilla hassupper all on the table."
And such a supper as it was!
The chicken, and there seemed an endless amount, was piled high on anold blue platter that Blue Bonnet fancied her grandmother would havepaid almost any price for. Fluffy potatoes, flakey biscuits, goldencream and butter, preserves in variety--everything from a farmhouselarder that could tempt the appetite and gratify the taste.
"I feel as if I never could eat another mouthful as long as I live,"Blue Bonnet declared as she rose from the table.
"That's just the way I used to feel last summer on the ranch after oneof old Gertrudis' meals," Kitty said.
Amanda's aunt suggested a run down the lane.
Down the lane they ran, laughing and calling; old Shep, stirred from hisusual calm, barking and bounding at their heels.
It was too dark for a walk, so the girls soon retraced their steps,settling themselves in the parlor for a visit with the family beforegoing to bed.
"Do any of you play?" inquired Amanda's aunt, looking toward the oddlittle piano.
"Blue Bonnet does," Kitty announced promptly. "Come, 'little TommyTucker must sing for his supper.'"
Blue Bonnet went over to the piano. Kitty's remark served as a reminder.She was glad to repay Amanda's aunt for some of her kindness.
The piano was sadly out of tune, but it is doubtful if Amanda'srelatives would have enjoyed a symphony concert as much as Blue Bonnet'ssimple ballads--the familiar little airs which she gave unsparingly.
After she had quite exhausted her stock, there were clamors forrepetition, until Blue Bonnet felt that she had wiped out the debt ofthe entire "We Are Sevens."
Amanda's aunt was found to be quite reasonable about transferring thebed from the back room. Amanda and the small son of the householdundertook its removal, Kitty giving orders.
"Anybody would think you were going to sleep in it, Kitty, you're soparticular," Amanda objected. "Get busy and help some."
"I spoke for the big bed," Kitty reminded.
"Yes, and it was selfish of you. We're going to draw for the big bed. Itold you that before."
There was a shout of laughter a minute later when Kitty pulled the shortslip for the bed on the floor.
Sarah Blake offered to change with her, but the others objected.
"You're an obliging dear, Sarah," Kitty said appreciatively, "but I willstay where I'm put. I don't want to take your place."
Later in the night Sarah wished that she had. She wondered as she shrankto the edge of the bed and tried to make herself as small as possible,if three persons to a bed on the floor, wouldn't have been preferable tothe rail which fell to her lot.
It was long past midnight when the last joke was told, the last gigglesuppressed. The fun might have gone on indefinitely if, from somewherein the house, Amanda's uncle's boot hadn't fallen ominously, andAmanda's aunt cleared her throat audibly.
Morning found them up with the larks. There was a stroll down the shadylane before breakfast, and afterward, when the dishes were cleared awayand the bedrooms restored to proper order, Amanda's uncle insisted uponpiling them all in the big farm wagon and taking them to church.
"It seems to me that it is so much easier to be good--that is, to bereligious, in the country," Blue Bonnet said as they neared themeeting-house, and the bell in the small tower rang out slowly. "There'ssomething comes over you when you hear the bell calling, and see thepeople gathering--"
"'A sort of holy and calm delight,'"
Kitty quoted.
Blue Bonnet nodded.
"I reckon so--that's as near as you can come to it. There are feelingsthere aren't any words for, you know, Kitty--kind of indescribable."
The sight of seven pretty, attractive girls--city girls--in one pew,occasioned some comment in church; otherwise there was scarcely a rippleto disturb the calm that rested upon the congregation.
"Unless some one will kindly volunteer to play the organ to-day," theminister said, rising in the pulpit, "we shall have to sing withoutmusic. Our organist is sick."
Blue Bonnet glanced about her. No one seemed inclined to offer services.There was a silence of several seconds. The minister waited. ThenAmanda's aunt leaned over and whispered something in Blue Bonnet's ear.
Blue Bonnet rose instantly and went to the organ.
She was a little nervous. She knew that organs differed somewhat frompianos, and she wasn't familiar with them, but it never occurred to herto hesitate when she seemed to be needed. She found the hymn and startedout bravely. Sometimes the music weakened a little when Blue Bonnet,absorbed in the notes, forgot to use the pedals, but, on the whole, itwas not bad, and the minister's hearty handshake and radiant smile afterthe service more than compensated for any embarrassment she hadsuffered.
"It has been perfectly glorious," Blue Bonnet declared to Amanda's auntas they parted with her at daybreak Monday morning. "We've just lovedevery minute of our visit here, and would you mind--all of you--I wantthe whole family--standing out there by the big gate while I get apicture of you? I couldn't possibly forget you after the perfectlylovely time you've given us, but I'd like the picture to show toGrandmother and Aunt Lucinda."
"Oh, Blue Bonnet," Kitty complained, "haven't you enough pictures yet?You've been taking them for a year--and more!"
Blue Bonnet quite ignored the remark as she proceeded to line upAmanda's aunt and her family. She got several snaps, and as she put awayher kodak she promised to remember the group with pictures--a promisefulfilled, much to the delight of the farm people, later.
Blue Bonnet in Boston; or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's Page 2