Nancy and Plum

by Betty Macdonald

  Nancy said, “No, she’s not going to have striped hair. I’ll make it yellow like yours, Plum.”

  Plum said, “I was really only fooling. I don’t want Nanela to have striped hair. Why not make it brown like Eunice’s?”

  Eunice said, “I think Nanela’s hair had better be any color yarn we can get.”

  A voice from the doorway said, “Why aren’t you down helping Katie and what is the meaning of this mess?”

  Nancy said, “You told us to stay in our rooms.”

  Mrs. Monday glared at the children, then at the hay, sawdust and little sticks that littered the floor. She said, “What on earth have you been doing? This place looks like a barn.”

  Plum said, “I was trying to make a bird’s nest for natural history at school.”

  Mrs. Monday said, “Eunice, I told you to stay in your room. Why are you in here?”

  Plum said quickly, “She has to make a bird’s nest, too. We were working together.”

  Mrs. Monday said, “Well, pick up this mess at once. I’ll be back later to talk to you.”

  When she had gone Nancy said, “Plum, you shouldn’t tell things that aren’t true. It’s better to tell the truth and be punished than to tell a lie.”

  Plum said, “If we had told Mrs. Monday about Nanela she would have taken her and burned her and you know it.”

  Nancy said, “Yes, but what you said wasn’t the truth at all.”

  Plum said, “I’ll make it the truth then. I’ll go down and get some more hay and I’ll make Eunice and me each a bird’s nest and we’ll take them to school tomorrow and surprise Miss Waverly.”

  Nancy said, “Oh, Plum, that’s a wonderful idea. Then you’ll have told the truth and your heart won’t turn black.”

  “What do you mean her heart won’t turn black?” Eunice asked.

  Nancy said, “Katie told us that every lie you tell makes a black spot on your heart.”

  “And,” Plum said, “Nancy’s afraid my heart’s pitch-black already.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not,” Nancy said, “but you’re so much braver than I am and you talk to Mrs. Monday more than I do and she seems to make it necessary to tell lies.”

  Plum said, “Don’t worry, Nancy, we’re smarter than Mrs. Monday and Marybelle, and we can figure out a way to keep our hearts from getting all spotty.”

  Nancy said, “Well, the first thing we had better do is to clean up this room.”

  Plum said, “You start while I get the hay to make the bird’s nests.” Grabbing the sack, she opened the window and climbed out again.

  Later, when Mrs. Monday made her promised visit, the room was clean, Nancy and Plum were in bed and on the study table by the window were two bird’s nests made of thread and hay.

  The next day when Eunice and Plum presented Miss Waverly with the nests she was pleased but quite surprised.

  She said, “They’re such nice nests that I think it would be a good idea for some of the boys to climb up and put them in that big apple tree outside the schoolroom window. Then if the birds do build in them we can watch them. If they don’t use our nests, at least they’ll be good examples of bird architecture. Did you make one, too, Nancy?”

  Nancy said no and then because Miss Waverly was her favorite teacher and the person she liked best in all the world, she told her the whole story of Quince Face and Nanela. When she was telling about Marybelle and Mrs. Monday, Nancy noticed that Miss Waverly’s eyes blazed. When she told about Quince Face, Eunice’s only Christmas present, Miss Waverly’s eyes filled with tears. Nancy didn’t mention the empty box and Marybelle’s two new dolls or the fact that she and Plum had spent Christmas alone because those things didn’t have anything to do with the bird’s nests.

  When she finished, Miss Waverly put her arm around her and said, “Would you like me to help you with Nanela?”

  Nancy said, “Oh, yes, I’ve been so worried about getting the face right.”

  Miss Waverly said, “You bring Nanela to school tomorrow and I’ll take her home with me and see if I can’t give her a face and some hair.”

  Nancy said, “But how will I get her to school without Marybelle seeing her?”

  Miss Waverly said, “I’ll come down to the Boarding Home and get her, this very afternoon. I’ll tell Mrs. Monday that you have been making something for me and then even if she does see the doll, it won’t make any difference.”

  Nancy said, “Oh, thank you, Miss Waverly,” and Plum and Eunice said, “Thank you, Miss Waverly,” and then it was time to ring the bell.

  True to her word, Miss Waverly picked up the doll that afternoon and took her home with her. Nancy and Plum and Eunice, with the impatience of children, were sure that she would be finished the next day or, at the very latest, in two days. But weeks went by and Miss Waverly not only didn’t bring the doll but didn’t mention it. Because Miss Waverly was their teacher and they were quite timid, Eunice and Nancy didn’t dare ask her if she was working on the doll and when it would be finished.

  Unfortunately, Plum, who would have been glad to ask Miss Waverly about Nanela, was so busy helping Old Tom build a calf pen for Buttercup’s calf that was to be born on May Day, that she forgot all about Nanela. She didn’t forget about Quince Face, however, and every day she saved the shaving curls from Tom’s planing and every night pinned them on Quince Face and turned her into Marybelle Whistle, the main character in her continued play Revenge. During the course of the play, Marybelle was pinched, hit, tossed in the air, stamped on, run over, drowned, dropped off cliffs, scalped by Indians and dragged behind galloping horses until finally she lost one leg and one arm and it was impossible to tell her front from her back.

  All the children loved Plum’s play, especially as she always spoke so sweetly to Marybelle, begging her pardon very politely as she pushed her in front of a train or pointed out a beautiful flower growing right in the path of an avalanche.

  One night when Marybelle was on the edge of a burning building (really Nancy and Plum’s bureau) screaming for help and Plum as the Fire Chief with his siren going full blast was hurrying to the fire so that he could get Marybelle to jump off the one-hundred-story building into a net with a hole in it, Mrs. Monday came in and wanted to know what in the world was going on and what was all the noise. Plum said, truthfully, that she was giving a play.

  Mrs. Monday said, “If you are giving a play, why wasn’t Marybelle invited?”

  Plum said, “But she was. She has the best part.” And Mrs. Monday could not understand why all the children giggled.

  That night Mrs. Monday ordered them all to bed but the next night she sent Marybelle up to join them and so Plum changed her play to a very dull lesson on how to build a calf pen. Fortunately Marybelle, who didn’t care for animals, grew bored quickly, left and never returned, and Plum was able to continue with Revenge until Old Tom finally finished the calf pen and there were no more shaving curls.

  By this time, Quince Face had been reduced to nothing but a dirty lump with no arms or legs. Nancy and Plum used her as a bean bag until the day that Mrs. Monday told Nancy and Plum they couldn’t be in the Maypole dance at school and Plum, in a fit of anger, threw Quince Face out the window and over the high fence.

  The very next day when the children got to school, Miss Waverly took them in the cloak room and handed Eunice her finished doll. They understood then why she had taken so long. Nanela was Beautiful. She had bangs and braids of soft brown yarn, a painted face with embroidered-on eyelashes and eyebrows that looked almost real, large blue eyes with a very merry expression, red smiling lips, a complete outfit of clothes, even to shoes and socks, a sweater which Miss Waverly had knitted, a white ruffled pinafore with a handkerchief in the pocket, a darling blue-and-white-checked school dress and white lacy underwear. Eunice was so excited she couldn’t speak. She just hugged Nanela, touched her pretty clothes and smiled at Miss Waverly.

  Nancy said, “Miss Waverly, I think Nanela is the most beautiful doll in the world. Thank you for
fixing her and making all those lovely clothes.”

  Miss Waverly said, “I haven’t had so much fun in years, Nancy.”

  Nancy said, “Miss Waverly, just one thing. Will you please tell Mrs. Monday about Nanela so she and Marybelle won’t try and take her away from Eunice.”

  Miss Waverly said, “I certainly will. This very afternoon,” and she did.

  Mrs. Monday said, “Of course, it was most kind of you to make the doll, Miss Waverly, but I’m afraid that you have wasted your time. Eunice is a very careless child and really cares nothing for dolls. Here is the proof.”

  She reached in a drawer in her desk and brought out the last remains of Quince Face, which Old Tom had found that morning and had given to Mrs. Monday thinking that perhaps it was the battered but favorite toy of one of the littler children. Mrs. Monday held Quince Face up in two disdainful fingers and said, “This is what is left of a lovely doll that one of Eunice’s aunts made for her for Christmas. You can see the care it has had.”

  Miss Waverly took Quince Face, brushed her off, looked at the squinty, crooked face up high on the forehead and the thick, lumpy body and knew that this doll had never been anything but as ugly and unloveable as Nancy and Plum had described her. She said, “No doubt Eunice’s aunt had the best intentions in the world when she made this doll, but though it certainly has had bad treatment, the original face is still here and it is hideous.”

  Mrs. Monday said, “I saw the doll when it was new and I thought it was charming.”

  Miss Waverly said, “I suppose that is a matter of taste. Anyway, I have made Nanela for Eunice and I wish her to keep her. If, in the past, she has been careless with her toys, perhaps having something that her teacher has made will make her more careful.”

  Mrs. Monday said, “I doubt it.” But Miss Waverly knew that she wouldn’t dare take Nanela away from Eunice.

  5

  The Sunday-School Picnic

  EVERY SUNDAY MORNING at eight-fifty-five, Mrs. Monday’s eighteen little boarders lined up in the front hall for inspection before Sunday School. Down the line went Mrs. Monday, checking ears, necks, fingernails, teeth and hair. She paid no attention to the clothes, which were all hand-me-downs and always either too large or too small, but she was most particular about straight parts, neat braids and polished shoes even when the shoes were so worn out that, as Plum said, “It was just like polishing your feet.”

  As the boarders passed inspection, and some of them were sent back upstairs as many as three or four times to wash necks, straighten parts or brush teeth, they were handed a penny for collection and sent out to the front gate to wait for Old Tom and the delivery truck.

  None of the children looked forward to the ride to and from Sunday School for they had to ride in the back of the truck, which was dark and smelled of the feed and chickens Old Tom hauled in it. Not only that, but the seats along the sides were very hard and very narrow and when the truck went over bumps, which it did all the way to the church, the children either had to lean forward and take a chance of falling off the narrow seat or lean back and have their heads banged against the hard sides. Then, too, there was the usual amount of pinching and hair pulling, which, because of the darkness, always resulted in the wrong person being slapped.

  Nancy and Plum hated the ride in the truck, with Marybelle in her pretty clothes riding in the front seat with Old Tom and the others crowded in the back and shaken around like popcorn in a popper. And they hated Miss Gronk, their Sunday-School teacher, who was old and parched, taught Sunday School because it was her duty and believed in long homework assignments in the way of memorizing verses from the Bible.

  When they were reciting the Beatitudes, one of the children said:

  “Blessed are the neat for they shall clear up the earth,” instead of

  “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,”

  and the other children laughed and Miss Gronk rapped with her pencil on the back of the pew and said, “Religiod is do laughig batter. Mariad bade an error and we should feel sorry for her. To bake sure there are do bore errors bade, I want you all to write the Beatitudes ted tibes ad brig theb to be next Sudday.”

  All winter long Miss Gronk had terrible head colds and called Nancy and Plum “Dadcy and Plub” and asked Marybelle how her dear aunt “Bisus Bodday was gettig alog.”

  Naturally Miss Gronk liked Marybelle and blamed all of Marybelle’s wiggling and whispering on somebody else. Whenever Marybelle didn’t know her Bible verses, which she never did, Miss Gronk would say, “Berrybell has bid sick, class, so the poor little thig could dot study.” This of course made the members of the class who lived at Mrs. Monday’s and knew that Marybelle had not been sick perfectly furious.

  Once Plum said, “Miss Gronk, why do you always excuse Marybelle? She wasn’t sick at all last week.”

  Miss Gronk said, “Pabbela Rebsod, I ab ruddig this Sudday-School class.”

  The other Sunday-School teachers were always having little parties for the children, picnics in the spring and summer, taffy pulls and skating parties in the winter, the accounts of which Nancy and Plum listened to with great longing.

  “Out of all the teachers in that Sunday School why did we have to get that old ‘Biss Grok,’ ” Plum said furiously one day as they were standing around waiting for church to begin and the other children were telling about a wonderful picnic their teacher had planned for them.

  “I like Miss Gronk,” Marybelle said, smoothing the fingers of her new white gloves.

  Plum said, “Well, I hate her. She talks like she was stuffed with cotton, she smells like horse liniment and she acts like it was a sin to be alive.

  “ ‘I’ll dot tolerate smilig in by class, Pabbela,’ she told me this morning. I said, ‘I wasn’t smiling. My lips just go that way,’ and she said, ‘Codtrol your lips, thed, Pabbela, we bust look dowdcast in the house of the Lord.’ ”

  Mr. Conrad, the Sunday-School superintendent, who happened to overhear this conversation, had quite a time controlling his lips but he resolved to speak to Miss Gronk about her doleful attitude and the fact that she never had any little parties for her class.

  So the next Sunday, Miss Gronk announced that on the following Saturday the class would have a picnic. “We will all beet at by house,” she said. “You will each brig your owd lunch, we will go for a dice walk, eat the luch and returd hobe. Wear warb clothig and rebeber I will dot tolerate any wild akshuds such as racig or loud talk.”

  “Or smilig,” Plum whispered to Nancy.

  “Well, at least it’s better than nothing,” Nancy said to Plum as they were getting dressed Saturday morning.

  “I’m not so sure,” Plum said as she jerked the elastic off one of her braids. “She’ll probably make us sit in a patch of nettles and write Bible verses.”

  Nancy said, “Oh, maybe we can get her to take us up to Lookout Hill. The kids at school say it’s just beautiful up there. They say you can see for miles and miles and there are some tame squirrels that will eat out of your hand.”

  Plum said, “I suppose I should be glad because it’s Saturday and we’re getting away from Mrs. Monday and going on a picnic, but if only we weren’t going with Miss Gronk!”

  Nancy said, “Oh, come on, let’s hurry with our work. It’s a beautiful spring day and we can have a good time, in spite of Miss Gronk and Marybelle.”

  But when Old Tom let them off in front of Miss Gronk’s little gray house, she thought she had never seen such a dreary looking place. All the blinds were drawn, there was a sign on the front steps “No solicitors” and a sign on the doorbell “Do not ring.” Silently the children climbed the creaking steps to the front porch.

  “Do you suppose she’s home?” Eunice whispered to Nancy.

  “It certainly doesn’t look like it,” Nancy said.

  Marybelle said, “Oh, she’s home. She always keeps her shades down. She says the sunshine fades her carpets.” Boldly she strode up to the front door and knocked. />
  No one came. Marybelle knocked again, louder, and finally from the back of the house they heard shuffling feet and Miss Gronk opened the front door a crack and whispered hoarsely, “By cold’s buch worse ad I shouldn’t go but a probise is a probise. I’ll be right out. Do doise dow—Baba’s dot well.” She shut the door.

  Plum said, “I feel sad as though I was going to a funeral instead of a picnic.”

  Nancy said, “Well, anyway, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s start a dandelion chain.”

  Quickly the girls jumped off the porch and began picking the fat, golden dandelions growing along Miss Gronk’s fence. A robin watched them from a fence post until Miss Gronk’s big white cat climbed up on another fence post to watch the robin.

  Marybelle said, “Let’s make a dandelion chain for Miss Gronk.”

  Plum said, “She won’t like it.”

  Marybelle said, “Oh, she will, too. Miss Gronk’s awfully sweet. I’m going to make her a dandelion necklace.”

  When Miss Gronk emerged from the house she was so bundled up, so wrapped in sweaters, scarves, coats and shawls that only her watery eyes were visible.

  “Cob od, girls,” she croaked, “pick up your luch bags and let’s get started.”

  Marybelle ran up to her and said, “Bend down, Miss Gronk. I want to slip this beautiful dandelion chain around your neck.”

  Miss Gronk said, “Heaveds do, Barybelle, dadeliods give be hay fever.” She turned to the other children who wore dandelion crowns, necklaces and bracelets. “I’ll have to ask you to throw away all those dadeliods,” she said. “I’b allergic to dadeliods.”

  Morosely the girls took off their crowns, bracelets and necklaces and threw them away.

  “All right, lide up,” Miss Gronk commanded. “Barybelle will walk with be. The rest of you stay in sigle file. Dow barch.”

  Like a funeral procession they started. First the old clothes bundle that was Miss Gronk, and Marybelle, then the ten little girls of the Sunday-School class, then Nipper, Miss Gronk’s half-blind, very old dog.