When Caddie came panting back with several men from the store and tavern at Dunnville following her, Obediah and the boys had already succeeded in turning the fire aside. The schoolhouse stood safe and sound on a little island, surrounded by a trench and a ring of blackened and beaten grass. With the help of the men from Dunnville the rest of the fire was extinguished before it reached the town. Then the children came back to school. But there were no more lessons that day.
“Children,” said Miss Parker, “you have all been very brave, but one among you has been a hero today, and I want you to salute him. Obediah Jones, please come up here in front.”
Grinning a little sheepishly, Obediah came forward. His face was blackened with smoke and his hands were cut and burned, but he had lost his old hang-dog slouch. Obediah stood straight as a man. The little schoolhouse rang with the children’s cheers.
“You owe your lives to someone else, too, children,” said Miss Parker. She went to the door and opened it.
Indian John’s dog slunk in and came and put his head on Caddie’s lap. He knew that he did not belong inside, and yet here he was, and, strangely enough, everyone was petting him.
“I hope that you are all properly thankful,” said Miss Parker, “and now you may go home. We’ve had enough for one day.”
20. Alas! Poor Annabelle!
There were rains after that and things grew green again. And presently it was time for Cousin Annabelle to arrive on the Little Steamer. Mrs. Hyman and Katie had come out to help make the girls’ new summer dresses, and Clara and Mother had been in their element, turning the pages of the Godey’s Lady’s Book and talking of muslin, bodices, buttons, and braids.
“Of course,” said Clara sadly, “anything we can make here will be sure to be six months behind the fashions in Boston, to say the least; and I do wish I might have hoops for every day.”
“I don’t!” cried Caddie. “Good gracious, every time I sit down in hoops they fly up and hit me in the nose!”
“That’s because you don’t know how to manage them,” said Clara. “There’s an art to wearing hoops, and I suppose you’re too much of a tomboy ever to learn it.”
“I suppose so,” said Caddie cheerfully. But to herself she added: “I’m not really so much of a tomboy as they think. Perhaps I shall wear hoops some day, but only when I get good and ready.”
Then one day Cousin Annabelle came. The Little Steamer seemed full of her little round-topped trunks and boxes, and, after they had all been carried off, down the gangplank tripped Annabelle Grey herself in her tiny buttoned shoes, with her tiny hat tilted over her nose and its velvet streamers floating out behind. Clara and Caddie had been allowed to come with Mother and Father to meet her, and Caddie suddenly felt all clumsy hands and feet when she saw this delicate apparition.
“Dearest Aunty Harriet, what a pleasure this is!” cried Annabelle in a voice as cultivated as her penmanship. “And this is Uncle John? And these the little cousins? How quaint and rustic it is here! But, just a moment, let me count my boxes. There ought to be seven. Yes, that’s right. They’re all here. Now we can go”
Father piled the seven boxes in the back of the wagon and Clara and Caddie climbed in on top of them, while Annabelle sat between Mother and Father, her full skirts billowing over their knees. Above the rattle of the wagon wheels her cultivated voice ran on and on. Clara leaned forward to catch what they were saying and sometimes put in a word of her own, but Caddie sat tongue-tied and uncomfortable, conscious only of her own awkwardness and of a sharp lock on one of Annabelle’s boxes which hurt her leg whenever they went over a bump.
When they reached the farm Hetty, Minnie, and the boys ran out and stood in a smiling row beside the wagon. Tom held baby Joe in his arms.
“Dear me!” said Cousin Annabelle, “are these children all yours, Aunty Harriet?”
“There are only seven,” said Mother, “and every one is precious.”
“Of course! Mother told me there were seven. But they do look such a lot when one sees them all together, don’t they?”
“I picked you a nosegay,” said Hetty, holding out a rather wilted bunch of flowers which she had been clutching tightly in her warm hands for a long time.
“How very thoughtful of you, little girl,” said Annabelle. “But do hold it for me, won’t you? I should hate to stain my mitts. You’ve no idea what a dirty journey this has been, and what difficulty I have had in keeping clean.”
“You look very sweet and fresh, my dear,” said Mother, “but I’m sure that you must be tired. Come in and take a cup of tea.”
Caddie stayed outside a moment to put a quick arm about Hetty’s shoulders. “That was an awful pretty nosegay you made, anyway, Hetty,” she said.
Hetty’s downcast face suddenly shone bright again. “Yes, it was, wasn’t it, Caddie? Would you like it?”
“Why, yes, I would. I think it would look real nice here on my new dress, don’t you?”
“Oh, it would be lovely, Caddie!”
That evening everyone listened to Annabelle telling about Boston. Mother’s eyes shone and her cheeks were pinker than usual. It had been a good many years now since she had seen one of her own kin direct from home. Now she could find out whether Grandma Grey’s rheumatism was really better or whether they only wrote that to reassure her. She could find out what pattern of silk Cousin Kitty had chosen for her wedding gown, who had been lecturing in Boston this winter, what new books had come out since the end of the war, why Aunt Phœbe had forgotten to write to her, and a hundred other things that she longed to know, but could never get them to put into letters. From time to time Father glanced at her happy face, over the old newspapers which Annabelle had brought him. It was only at moments such as this that Father understood how much Mother had given up when she left Boston to come with him to Wisconsin.
But after an hour or so of Boston gossip, Tom grew restless. Both he and Caddie were well tired of Annabelle’s city airs.
“Well, I guess Boston’s a pretty good place all right, but how about Dunnville?” Tom said.
Cousin Annabelle’s silvery laughter filled the room. “Why, Tom, Boston is one of the world’s great cities—the only one I’d care to live in, I am sure; and Dunnville—well, it’s just too quaint and rustic, but it isn’t even on the maps yet.”
“Why, Tom,” echoed Hetty seriously, “you hadn’t ought to have said that. I guess Boston is just like—like Heaven, Tom.” Everyone burst out laughing at this, and Cousin Annabelle rose and shook out her flounces, preparatory to going to bed.
“But really, Tom,” she said, “I want you to show me everything in your savage country. I want to be just as uncivilized as you are while I am here. I shall learn to ride horseback and milk the cows—and—and salt the sheep, if that is what you do—and—turn somersaults in the haymow—and—what else do you do?”
“Oh, lots of things,” said Tom, and suddenly there was an impish twinkle in his eyes.
“And you, Caroline,” said Annabelle, turning to Caddie. “I suppose that you do all of those amusing things, too?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do, Cousin Annabelle,” replied Caddie. She tried to avoid Tom’s eyes, but somehow it seemed impossible, and for just an instant an impish twinkle in her own met and danced with the impish twinkle in Tom’s.
“You must begin to teach me tomorrow,” said Annabelle sweetly. “I’m sure that it will be most interesting, and now, if you will excuse me, I am really quite fatigued.”
“Yes, of course, dear Annabelle, and you’re to sleep with me,” said Clara, linking her arm through Annabelle’s and leading her upstairs.
The next morning Tom, Caddie, and Warren had a brief consultation behind the straw stack. They ran through the list of practical jokes which they were used to playing when Uncle Edmund was among them.
“We can make up better ones than most of those,” said Tom confidently. “It’ll do her good.”
“Let’s see,” said Caddie dreamily. “She w
ants to ride horseback and salt the sheep and turn somersaults in the haymow. Yes, I think that we can manage.”
“Golly! What fun!” chirped Warren, turning a handspring.
When they entered the house, Annabelle had just come bouncing down the stairs, resolved upon being uncivilized for the day. She wore a beautiful new dress which was of such a novel style and cut that Mother and Clara could not admire it enough. Up and down both front and back of the fitted bodice was a row of tiny black jet buttons that stood out and sparkled at you when you looked at them.
“Golly!” said Warren, “you don’t need all those buttons to fasten up your dress, do you?”
“Of course not,” laughed Annabelle. “They are for decoration. All the girls in Boston are wearing them now, but none of them have as many buttons as I have. I have eight and eighty, and that’s six more than Bessie Beaseley and fourteen more than Mary Adams.”
“You don’t say!” said Tom, and once again he and Caddie exchanged a twinkling glance.
“When shall I have my riding lesson?” asked Annabelle after breakfast.
“Right away, if you like,” said Caddie pleasantly.
Clara stayed to help Mother, and Minnie was playing with baby Joe, but Hetty came with the others.
“Hadn’t you better stay with Mother, Hetty?” said Tom in his kindest voice.
But, no, Hetty wanted to see the riding lesson.
Annabelle chattered vivaciously of how much better everything was done in Boston, while Tom went into the barn to bring out the horse.
“Why, Tom,” cried Hetty, when he returned, “that’s not Betsy, that’s Pete.”
Pete was perfectly gentle in appearance, but he had one trick which had kept the children off his back for several years.
“Hetty,” said Caddie firmly, “we must have perfect quiet while anyone is learning to ride. If you can’t be perfectly quiet, we’ll have to send you right back to the house.”
“I suppose he bucks,” said Cousin Annabelle. “All Western horses do, don’t they? Shall I be hurt?”
“He’s pretty gentle,” said Tom. “You better get on and you’ll find out.”
“Bareback and astride?” quavered Annabelle. “Dear me! How quaint and rustic!”
Caddie and Tom helped her on.
“He hasn’t started bucking yet,” said Annabelle proudly. “I knew that I should be a good rider!”
“Just touch him with the switch a little,” advised Tom.
At the touch of the switch, Pete swung into a gentle canter, but instead of following the road, he made for a particular shed at the back of the barn. It was Pete’s one accomplishment.
“How do I pull the rein to make him go the other way?” queried Annabelle, but already Pete was gathering momentum and, before they could answer, he had swung in under the low shed, scraped Annabelle neatly off into the dust, and was standing peacefully at rest inside the shed picking up wisps of hay.
Annabelle sat up in a daze. The little straw sun hat which she had insisted on wearing was over one ear and she looked very comical indeed.
“I don’t yet understand what happened,” she said politely. “I thought that I was going along so well. In Boston, I’m sure the horses never behave like that.”
“Would you like to try another horse?” said Tom.
“Oh no!” said Annabelle hastily. “Not today, at least. Couldn’t we go and salt the sheep now, perhaps?”
“Do you think we could, Tom?” asked Caddie doubtfully.
“Why, yes, I believe we could,” said Tom kindly. “Here let me help you up, Cousin Annabelle.”
“I’ll get the salt,” shouted Warren, racing into the barn.
Hetty looked on in silence, her eyes round with surprise. Annabelle rose, a bit stiffly, and brushed the back of her beautiful dress.
“She’s not a crybaby at any rate,” thought Caddie to herself. “Maybe it’s kind of mean to play another trick on her.”
But Warren had already returned with the salt, and he and Tom, with Annabelle between them, were setting out for the woodland pasture where Father kept the sheep. Caddie hastened to catch up with them, and Hetty, still wondering, tagged along behind.
“Will they eat out of my hand, if I hold it for them?” asked Annabelle, taking the chunk of salt from Warren.
“Sure,” said Tom, “they’re crazy about salt.”
“But you mustn’t hold it,” said Hetty, coming up panting. “You must lay it down where the sheep can get it.”
“Now, Hetty,” said Caddie, “what did I tell you about keeping perfectly quiet?”
“You do just as you like, Annabelle,” said Tom kindly.
“Well, of course,” said Annabelle, “I should prefer to hold it and let the cunning little lambs eat it right out of my hands.”
“All right,” said Tom, “you go in alone then, and we’ll stay outside the fence here where we can watch you.”
“It’s so nice of you to let me do it,” said Cousin Annabelle. “How do you call them?”
Tom uttered a low persuasive call—the call to salt. He uttered it two or three times, and sheep began coming from all parts of the woods into the open pasture.
Annabelle stood there expectantly, holding out the salt, a bright smile on her face. “We don’t have sheep in Boston,” she said. But almost immediately the smile began to fade.
The sheep were crowding all around her, so close that she could hardly move; they were treading on her toes and climbing on each other’s backs to get near her. Frightened, she held the salt up out of their reach, and then they began to try to climb up her as if she had been a ladder. There was a perfect pandemonium of bleating and baaing, and above this noise rose Annabelle’s despairing shriek.
“Drop the salt and run,” called Tom, himself a little frightened at the success of his joke. But running was not an easy matter with thirty or forty sheep around her, all still believing that she held the salt. At last poor Annabelle succeeded in breaking away and they helped her over the fence. But, when she was safe on the other side, everybody stopped and looked at her in amazement. The eight and eighty sparkling jet buttons had disappeared from her beautiful frock. The sheep had eaten them!
“Oh! my buttons!” cried Annabelle. “There were eight and eighty of them—six more than Bessie Beaseley had! And where is my sun hat?”
Across the fence in the milling crowd of sheep, the wicked Woodlawns beheld with glee Annabelle’s beautiful sun hat rakishly dangling from the left horn of a fat old ram.
21. Father Speaks
If Annabelle had rushed home crying and told Mother, the Woodlawn children would not have been greatly surprised. But there seemed to be more in Annabelle than met the eye.
“What a quaint experience!” she said. “They’ll hardly believe it when I tell them about it in Boston.” Her voice was a trifle shaky, but just as polite as ever, and she went right upstairs, without speaking to Clara or Mother, and changed to another dress. That evening she was more quiet than she had been the night before and she had almost nothing to say about the superiority of her native city over the rest of the uncivilized world. Caddie noticed with remorse that Annabelle walked a little stiffly, and she surmised that the ground had not been very soft at the place where Pete had scraped her off.
“I wish I hadn’t promised Tom to play that next trick on her,” Caddie thought to herself. “Maybe he’ll let me off.”
But Tom said, no, it was a good trick and Annabelle had asked for it, and Caddie had promised to do her part, and she had better go through with it.
“All right,” said Caddie.
After all it was a good trick and Annabelle had asked for it.
“Let’s see,” said Tom the next day. “You wanted to turn somersaults in the haymow, didn’t you, Cousin Annabelle?”
“Well, I suppose that’s one of the things one always does on a farm, isn’t it?” said Cousin Annabelle, a trifle less eagerly than she had welcomed their suggestions of the day before.
The beautiful eight-and-eighty-button dress had not appeared today. Annabelle had on a loose blouse over a neat, full skirt. “Of course, I never turn somersaults in Boston, you understand. It’s so very quaint and rustic.”
“Of course, we understand that,” said Caddie.
“But out here where you have lots of hay—”
“It’s bully fun!” yelled Warren.
“Now, Hetty,” directed Tom, “you better stay at home with Minnie. A little girl like you might fall down the ladder to the mow and hurt herself.”
“Me fall down the haymow ladder?” demanded Hetty in amazement. “Why, Tom Woodlawn, you’re just plumb crazy!”
“Well, run into the house then and fetch us some cookies,” said Tom, anxious to be rid of Hetty’s astonished eyes and tattling tongue. Hetty departed reluctantly with a deep conviction that she was missing out on something stupendous.
When she returned a few moments later with her hands full of cookies, she could hear them all laughing and turning somersaults in the loft above. She made haste to climb the ladder and peer into the loft. It was darkish there with dust motes dancing in the rays of light that entered through the chinking. But Hetty could see quite plainly, and what she saw was Caddie slipping an egg down the back of Annabelle’s blouse, just as Annabelle was starting to turn a somersault.
“I can turn them every bit as well as you can already,” said Annabelle triumphantly, and then she turned over, and then she sat up with a surprised and stricken look upon her face, and then she began to cry!
“Oh, it’s squishy!” she sobbed. “You’re horrid and mean. I didn’t mind falling off the horse or salting the sheep, but oh, this—this—this is squishy!”
Hetty climbed down from the haymow and ran to the house as fast as she could go.
Caddie Woodlawn Page 14