Nancy and Plum

by Betty Macdonald

  “And that,” said Miss Appleby, “is the end of The Secret Garden. ”

  “May I take it home and read it over again?” asked Nancy.

  “But, Nancy,” Miss Appleby said, “you’ve read The Secret Garden four times already.”

  Nancy said, “I don’t care. When I read it I forget I live at Mrs. Monday’s and I run on the moors with Dickon and I go through those hundred rooms with Mary and I look at books with Colin.”

  Miss Appleby said, “That’s the wonderful thing about reading. You can go anywhere in the world, you can live a hundred, even a thousand different lives, you can learn about everything.”

  Plum said, “To be a librarian do you have to read every book there is?”

  Miss Appleby said, “Goodness no. But I have read a great many. Probably more than a thousand.”

  Plum said, “How many books had you read when you were almost nine, like me?”

  Miss Appleby said, “Well, when I was nine years old I lived with my grandmother and grandfather, who were very, very strict, very, very industrious people who didn’t believe in wasting a single minute. Unfortunately they considered reading wasting time, and so I had to do all my reading secretly. I went to a little country school and the teacher, who was very understanding, used to keep me after school supposedly to clean the blackboards, but in reality so that I could curl up by the stove and read. She loaned me all of her books and I read Black Beauty, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Treasure Island, Heidi, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Anne of Green Gables, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, The Jungle Book, The Water Babies, Timothy’s Quest, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Dandelion Cottage, The Live Dolls, Sara Crewe, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Toby Tyler, The Secret Garden, Pinocchio, Robinson Crusoe, King Arthur, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and, of course, all of the fairy tales.”

  Nancy said, “Did your grandfather find out?”

  Miss Appleby said, “Yes he did. One day a blizzard was blowing up and he came to school to get me and found me curled up in a chair by the stove reading Sara Crewe. He said, ‘Evangeline Appleby, you are a wicked little girl and you have deliberately deceived me. You led your grandmother and me to believe that you had to stay after school to help the teacher and now I find you wasting your time reading. I am going to give you a whipping when you get home.’

  “Ordinarily I was scared to death of my grandfather, who was a tall, stern old man. But this day I had just gotten to the part in Sara Crewe after Sara’s father dies, when Miss Minchin is being horrible to Sara and Sara is up in the attic hungry and cold, talking to her doll Emily and she says, ‘When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word—just to look at them and think … there’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in, that’s stronger.’ I knew that my grandfather was very, very angry because his voice shook when he spoke to me, his face was mottled, blue veins stood out on his temples and his blue eyes had turned almost black. But I stood up and faced him and I wasn’t Evangeline Appleby, the fat little girl who shivered and got tears in her eyes every time her grandfather spoke to her, I was Sara Crewe facing Miss Minchin and I was brave and strong. I said, ‘Grandfather, reading is not wasting time. Reading is learning and you may whip me if you like but I am going to read every chance I get.’

  “Well, my grandfather looked very surprised. He said, ‘Have you been reading here all winter?’ and I said, ‘I certainly have. I have read about twenty books.’ My grandfather just said, ‘Twenty books?’ and I said, ‘Maybe more.’ He said, ‘Twenty books is an awful lot of reading for one little girl.’

  “My teacher, who had been sitting quietly at her desk correcting some papers, spoke up then and said, ‘Twenty books is a lot of reading and a lot of learning, Mr. Appleby, and that is why we are skipping Evangeline to the fifth grade.’

  “When we got in the sleigh to go home, the wind was whining and it was snowing awfully hard and Grandfather told me to keep the robe tucked tight around me. That’s all he said. Not a word about the reading or skipping to the fifth grade. Old Charlie, the horse, seemed in a hurry to get home and we flew along, the snow stinging our faces, the wind screaming and jerking at the robe. Darkness was creeping in over the mountains and the road got harder and harder to make out. Once we went over a big bump and Grandfather said, ‘That was a fallen log. We must be off the road.’ He stopped the horse and got out of the sleigh and felt around in the snow with his hands. When he got back in he said, ‘We may be lost. I can’t make out a thing in this storm.’

  “I said, ‘What do you think we had better do, Grandfather?’ and he said, ‘Just keep on driving. That’s all we can do. If we stand still we’ll freeze to death.’ His voice was thin and worried, so I said, ‘Would you like me to tell you a story, Grandfather? The story of one of those books I’ve been reading?’

  “He said, ‘Well, it might help to keep us awake.’

  “So I told him the story of King Arthur and the Round Table. I chose that one because it was history and I thought he might approve of history and anyway I had read it just before Sara Crewe and could remember it very well. I told about the knights and the jousting and the wicked Sir Mordred and Lancelot and The Holy Grail and Elaine and Guinevere and I grew so interested I forgot all about the snowstorm and the rough, raw wind and my feet like lumps of ice under the robe. I guess Grandfather got very interested, too, because I noticed that he let the reins go slack while he asked me questions about the drawbridges and the castles and the knights’ armor.

  “Then suddenly our horse stopped. ‘Giddayup,’ Grandfather shouted above the wind, but the horse wouldn’t move.

  “I was scared. ‘Oh, Grandfather,’ I wailed. ‘Charlie is standing still and we’ll freeze to death.’

  “ ‘Giddayup, you old fool!’ Grandfather yelled again, slapping Charlie hard with the reins. But Charlie just stood there.

  “Grandfather jumped out of the sleigh, put his hand on Charlie’s flanks to guide himself, so he could walk ahead to try and find out why Charlie was balking. He was bending over, rummaging around in the snow up by Charlie’s head, when suddenly a lantern appeared out of the darkness and Grandmother’s voice said, ‘What in the world’s the matter, Hector?’

  “Grandfather straightened up and he felt pretty foolish. You see, Charlie the horse had brought us home. Charlie really saved our lives but Grandfather gave all the credit to the story of King Arthur I had told him. He said that if I hadn’t gotten him so interested in the Knights of the Round Table he would never have let the reins go slack and given old Charlie his head and we might still be out in that blizzard. From that day on as long as I lived with them, he and Grandmother drove me to the library every single Saturday and for every Christmas and birthday they gave me a new book.”

  Plum said quietly to Nancy, “I wish I could get Mrs. Monday out in a sleigh in a blizzard. I wouldn’t tell her a story, I’d push her out of the sleigh.”

  Nancy said, “That was a wonderful story, Miss Appleby. You know, I used to read books and then tell the stories to the children during darning and sock-mending time and it made the work go so much faster and the children just loved it.”

  Miss Appleby said, “Do you still tell them stories, Nancy?”

  Nancy said, “No, Mrs. Monday said that telling stories slowed up my mending too much.”

  Plum said, “Every single time I get to an interesting part in a book, Mrs. Monday says, ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do’ and makes me hem napkins.”

  Miss Appleby said, “Perhaps I should call on Mrs. Monday and see if I can interest her in reading. Maybe I should invite her to these story-telling sessions.”

  Plum said, “Oh, don’t, please don’t. She’d make us all sit bolt upright with our hands folded in our laps and every time you’d get to a terribly exciting part she’d interrupt and say, ‘Pamela, time to bring up the coal for my sitting-room fire …’ or, ‘Nancy, start polishing the brass immediately.’ ”r />
  Plum’s imitation of Mrs. Monday was so perfect that Miss Appleby laughed, but Marybelle said, “I’m going to tell on you, Plum Remson. I’m going to tell Aunty Marybelle that you mocked her.”

  Miss Appleby said, “Plum didn’t mean any harm, Marybelle. She was just explaining that Mrs. Monday might be bored by our reading aloud.”

  Marybelle said, “She mocked her. I heard her.”

  Miss Appleby said quickly, “What is your favorite book, Marybelle?”

  Marybelle said, “Oh, any one with a lot of pictures. I don’t like to read, I just like to look at the pictures.”

  Plum said, “If you’d look in a mirror you’d see the funniest picture of all.”

  Miss Appleby said, “Come, come, girls. Hurry and choose your books or I’ll be driving home in the dark just like Grandfather.”

  Because Nancy and Plum were intelligent, imaginative children and because she had a fair idea of the atmosphere in the Boarding Home, Miss Appleby always recommended to them the stories that she had loved when she was a child on her grandfather’s farm. She knew that after reading Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or Anne of Green Gables, Nancy and Plum would find their lot at Mrs. Monday’s not quite so hard.

  Miss Appleby loved Nancy’s dreamy gentleness and recognized it by giving her special little girl books such as Dandelion Cottage and The Live Dolls. She also admired Plum’s daring and quick humor and always saved her books about pioneer children who fought Indians or little Rebels who were spies in the Civil War.

  Next to Miss Waverly, the children loved Miss Appleby more than anyone in the whole world and Nancy decided that when she grew up she was going to be a librarian.

  She said, “Imagine sitting all day long in a room filled with hundreds and hundreds of books.”

  Plum said, “And all the fine-money for your very own. I’d fine everybody and I’d buy a great big bag of candy every day.”

  Miss Appleby said, “But the fine-money doesn’t belong to the librarian, Plum, it belongs to the library and is used to help keep up the books. A fine is just a little reminder not to be selfish. That somebody else would like to read the book you have.”

  Plum said, “If I was a librarian and Mrs. Monday came in to get a book, I’d say, ‘I’m sorry, Madam, but the only book we have left is this great big huge dictionary,’ and then I’d drop it on her toes.”

  Miss Appleby said, “I really think that Nancy would make the best librarian, Plum, why don’t you be a cowgirl?”

  Plum said, “That’s just what I was going to be. I’ll ride my horse up to Nancy’s library and lasso the books right off the shelves.”

  Miss Appleby laughed and said, “Well, whatever you and Nancy decide to be when you grow up, I know that you’ll be happy because you have discovered the comfort and joy of reading.”

  7

  A Letter to Uncle John

  AS THE MORNING BELL SOUNDED its harsh clang! clang! clang! Plum jumped out of bed and ran to the window to see what kind of a day it was. Pushing aside a branch of the maple, whose limp, shining leaves looked as if they had been cut out of green oilcloth, she saw that the valley was wrapped in a mist as thick and white as a caterpillar’s cocoon. A mist that hid all of the barn but its roof, all of the orchard but a few upper branches, and made the familiar early morning sounds of chuffing mail train, mooing cows, cackling hens, peeping birds and crowing roosters, muffled and choky like Miss Gronk clearing her throat.

  Plum looked all around, breathed in deep breaths of the cool, damp air and waited for the sun. When it came up finally, round and orange and thinly coated with white, Plum thought it looked like a giant poached egg but she knew it would clear the mist and make another beautiful day.

  She turned and called to Nancy, “Hey, Nancy, get up. The sun’s up and it’s going to be a beauty day.”

  Nancy rolled over, burrowed her head in the pillow and said nothing.

  Plum said, “Oh, look, here’s our robin to say good morning. Good morning, Robbie Robin. My, you’re getting fat. Mrs. Monday’s bread pudding must agree with you.”

  Turning again toward Nancy, Plum said, “Today’s the first of June. It’s summer and next Friday’s the program and the school picnic. Come on, Nancy, get up. It’s our turn to set the breakfast table and we’d better be prompt or Mrs. Monday will keep us home from the picnic.”

  Nancy said, “I don’t want to get up. I never want to get up again.”

  Plum said, “What’s the matter. Are you sick?”

  Nancy said, “No, I’m not sick but I hate everything.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow but she sounded as if she might be crying.

  Plum peered at her anxiously. “Nancy,” she said, “are you sure you aren’t sick?”

  Nancy lifted her head and she was crying. She said, “Oh, Plum, what will I do? Miss Waverly wants me to sing a solo on the program for the last day of school and I can’t get up before the whole school in my fadey short old school dress and my worn-out shoes. I’ll look just hideous. All long, thin legs, like a stork with red hair.”

  Plum said, “Maybe you could borrow one of Eunice’s dresses.”

  Nancy said, “Her clothes are as bad as mine and anyway I’m taller than she is now.”

  Plum said, “My clothes are awfully short too and my shoes have such big holes I’m afraid my feet will wear out but of course I’m only going to be in that old spelling match.”

  Nancy said, “I’ll just die if I have to stand on the platform in that awful blue middy dress. It’s been two years since I had a new school dress and even then it wasn’t new, it was a hand-me-down of Marybelle’s.”

  Plum said, “I know, I’ll write to Uncle John.”

  Nancy said, “What good will that do? He never answered any of our other letters.”

  Plum said, “Maybe he never got ’em. Maybe Mrs. Monday never mailed them.”

  Nancy said, “Well, how can you be sure he’ll get this one?”

  Plum said, “You write the letter. Tell Uncle John about school and how you have to have a new dress and right after breakfast I’ll sneak out and mail it.”

  Nancy said, “How will you get out? It’s Saturday and you know Mrs. Monday keeps all the gates locked and you can’t climb over that spiked fence. I wish it was Library Day.”

  Plum said, “I’ll go under the fence.”

  Nancy said, “Jimmy tried to dig a hole under the fence and he said it is all cement.”

  Plum said, “I wish I had some firecrackers, I’d take out all the powder and blast my way out.”

  Nancy said, “Have you ever looked to see if the fence is broken any place?”

  Plum said, “I haven’t but the other kids have, lots of times.”

  Nancy said, “Uncle John must be paying for us or Mrs. Monday wouldn’t keep us here. Maybe Uncle does send us clothes and Mrs. Monday never gives them to us.”

  Plum said, “You’d better get up or we’ll be late setting the table and you know how anxious Mrs. Monday is to find an excuse to keep us home from the picnic.”

  Nancy said, “If you’ll set my share of the table I’ll stay up here and write the letter.”

  Plum said, “All right, but you better hurry. We have to braid our hair, remember.”

  Nancy ran into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face and jerked on her play clothes. She and Plum combed and braided each other’s hair and then Plum ran downstairs to set the table.

  Nancy sat down at their study table, got out her school tablet, found a clean page, wet her pencil with her tongue so that the writing would be nice and black like ink and began:

  Dear Uncle John:

  Plum and I are very well and we hope you are too. We don’t like to bother you but we are going to be in a program at school, I am going to sing a solo and Plum is going to be in a spelling match—she is the best speller in school although only in the fifth grade—and our school clothes are all worn out and much too short and we wonder
if you would ask Mrs. Monday to buy us something new to wear. Just nice school dresses and new shoes. Remember I have red hair and can’t wear pink and Plum looks terrible in green. Please have Mrs. Monday get the dresses long enough and we would both like full skirts. I have written to you several times but I guess you have been too busy to answer.

  Your loving niece,

  Nancy Remson

  Nancy addressed the letter to Mr. John Remson, Croquet Club, Central City, and put it down inside her blouse. She was in her place at the dining-room table before Mrs. Monday and Marybelle emerged from their suite.

  As they bowed their heads for grace, Nancy showed Plum a corner of the letter. While they were eating their oatmeal, she asked, “Do you have any good ideas?”

  Plum said, “Yes, I’m going to tie the letter around a big rock and I’m going to stand by the gate and throw it into a car that is driving past.”

  Nancy said, “Oh, that’s a wonderful idea. The rock will break the windshield and hit the driver in the head and he’ll run off the road and bang into the fence and we’ll escape through the hole in the fence.”

  They both laughed and Plum was glad because she knew then that Nancy felt better.

  Nancy said, “You could give the letter to Old Tom to mail.”

  Plum said, “I wouldn’t dare. He’s our friend and he is nice to us but he’s afraid of Mrs. Monday and he does just what she tells him to. I wish we had a pigeon.”

  “What for?” Nancy asked.

  “To be a carrier pigeon,” Plum said. “You know how they send messages tied to pigeons’ legs.”

  “Well, we don’t have a pigeon,” Nancy said, “so we’ll have to think of some other plan. Oh, we just have to mail that letter, Plum. We can’t go to the school program looking like scarecrows.”

  Plum said, “I have to help Tom clean out the chicken house this morning, but you give me the letter and maybe I’ll think of something.”

  After breakfast, Nancy was just about to hand Plum the letter when Marybelle came sauntering up.