Marion Ames Taggart

“ You tried to make me live in Blissylvania, but it has been no use. I am going away."
"Oh! not forever," cried Trix, while Amy's lips quivered, and Jack stooped to lace his boot.
Mr. Dean did not answer.
"You'll all write me, and we shall be friends wherever I am," he said instead.
But Margery, unstrung by her previous joy and this keen sorrow, threw her magazine from her in a passion of tears. "You shan't go, you can't go!" she screamed. "What's the use of being famous, or writing poetry, or doing anything, if you can't have the people you love?" ”

“ Tommy Traddles, the striped cat, sat before a plump little girl on the floor, whose sunny face no amount of bad weather could cloud, watching the hearth-brush in her hand, which she occasionally whisked to and fro for his amusement, and making uncatlike cooings in his throat if she forgot him for too long. Jack Hildreth, the boy on the rug, said he was a cat with a canary-bird attachment.
On the edge of a chair opposite the cheery little girl on the floor sat a long-limbed, dark-eyed girl, holding her gypsy face in her hands, her elbows on her knees, listlessly watching Amy Tracy and the cat. ”

“ And each adding a bit of information, the story of the post-office was told him. Mr. Dean laughed heartily over the names.
"What fun you must have!" he exclaimed. "If I come to return your call, will you show me the post-office?"
"Oh, yes," cried Margery. "I am post-mistress this week. And, you know, we have one honorary member, and she's Miss Isabel, and her name is the Lady Alma Cara. No matter what we do, we always have Miss Isabel, because we can't get on without her."
"It is not easy, my little maid, to get on without Miss Isabel," said Mr. Dean gently. ”

“ Where did you find it?"
"Oh, need I be Sir Percival any more? It's so hard to talk that way. I can't tell you unless I can be myself," implored Amy.
"Oh, pshaw! you can't pretend worth a cent," said Jack in disgust; but Miss Isabel said, "Why, of course; we don't want to do anything for fun when it is no longer fun. Tell on, Amy." ”

“ The parlor was darkened, and their host went to the window and threw open the blind. The light revealed a room furnished in the taste of more than fifty years ago. Haircloth chairs were ranged at intervals around the walls, a carpet strewn with immense roses covered the floor, and the wall-paper in panels representing a tiger hunt so fascinated Jack's wondering gaze that he became quite lost in its contemplation. Margery had perched herself on the haircloth sofa, which was so slippery that she had to hold herself on by the bolster-like ends, for her feet did not nearly reach the floor. ”

“ The children went down the street in wondering silence, which Amy was the first to break.
"Miss Isabel's sick," she said.
"She didn't care one bit about our visit to the Dismals," said Trix.
"And she always cared for everything we cared for," complained Jack. "She's not one bit like our Miss Isabel; I guess she thinks Mr. Dean's bad."
"No," said Margery decidedly; "Miss Isabel's good to bad people. Never mind; she loves us just as much. I think Miss Isabel's not happy to-day. I wonder why nice people are not always happy? ”

“ Dean.
Jack nodded. "If you don't think we're too little for you," he added.
"I should be delighted," replied Mr. Dean, rising to bow. "It is rather if you don't think I am too big for you. But I'll tell you a secret. I grew up outside, but inside I stayed a boy—do you see?"
"Yes, I see," cried Amy. "What a lovely way to grow up! I mean to be a woman that way, too."
"That's like Miss Isabel," remarked Trix, but Jack, with an eye solely on the business in hand, said:
"We'd like lots to have you join if you will." ”

“ Margery continued.
"I am very sorry that I am not friends with Miss Isabel," Mr. Dean repeated gravely.
"Now I think Miss Isabel doesn't know," said Margery.
"Doesn't know what, little dove?" Mr. Dean asked.
"I don't know, but she doesn't know something," Margery replied. "Miss Isabel's this way: if anybody does anything she doesn't like, she always forgives them right away, before they ask her to, and if anybody's bad she says maybe they aren't what they seem. ”

“ Trix fidgeted and wriggled down in the chair, and pulled herself up, watching the clock the while.
"Margery, it's such an interesting thing," she said plaintively at last.
"In ten minutes," sang Margery to the accompaniment of the scale. "Play with Tommy Traddles while you wait."
"Oh, Margery, won't you stop?" cried Trix, after three minutes had passed. No answer but arpeggios. "Margaret Gresham, you're chewing gum," cried Trix, resorting to strategy.
"I am not," said Margery, coming down in flat contradiction and a false chord at one and the same time. "I'm chewing the side of my tongue." ”

“ I'd like to be Mary Queen of Scots."
"Oh, I'll be Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert!" cried Jack, who in his twelfth year was beginning to taste the joy Sir Walter has to give an imaginative child, and revelled in constantly repeated reading of "Ivanhoe."
"I'll be Anthony Wayne, because I'd love to ride down the steps," said Trix enthusiastically; "or Lafayette, or Light Horse Harry, or Napoleon."
"O Trix, you can't be a man," expostulated Margery. ”

“ Dean wrote it," began Margery, very much frightened. "He is going away, and we can't bear it, and he wants you to be friends, and so do we, for then he would stay, and he has told you all about it, so that you'll be nice to him, as you are to everybody else, even—even worms," said Margery, inspired to this comparison by looking down at the lilies' roots. "Please, please don't be angry with him any more, Miss Isabel. You're the nicest of anybody in the whole world, except mamma, and he's the next nicest." ”

“ And last night we decided that Blissylvania was to be a real [42] republic, with every one equal! Look up, little Marguerite; you are a daisy too wet with rain just now. Don't make mountains of molehills, children; it is much wiser to make molehills of the mountains we have to climb in life. Now, I think each would better be postmaster a week at a time, and draw lots for the order of serving. Or, perhaps, it would be better still to have the term of office last but three days, for then the terms will come around quicker. ”

“ But you'd have to ask Alma Cara and Mr. Oliver Twist first, Jack, because they're members. You go there, and while you're gone I'll write the ode."
"First let's vote on whether we burn it or not," said Jack. "All in favor of burning the post-office please signify it by saying aye."
"Aye," said Trix and Margery unanimously.
"How do you vote when you want to and don't want to?" asked Amy.
"You decide which you want more," said Margery.
"O Amy, you goose, we'll have another next summer, if we want one, and what's the use of a post-office without Jack," said Trix impatiently. ”

“ I'll make a slit in the top of the box, though, if you like."
"Don't be a goose, Jack," replied Trix, with dignity. "You know I meant that."
"We ought to have a name for our club," said Amy.
"Yes; I've been thinking of that underneath all the time we were talking," said Margery.
Jack stooped down and peeped under the sofa.
"I don't see how you could have thought underneath, Margery," he said; "I see only Tommy Traddles there."
"Now, Jack, don't be funny," said Margery, "and look out for smartness. You know aunty says you are troubled with smartness sometimes. ”

“ I am deeply sensible of the honor you do me, ladies and gentleman, in inviting me to join the club, and I accept with joy and gratitude." And Miss Isabel took her pink skirts in each hand, and dropped them a real dancing-school courtesy.
"Might one ask what names you have chosen?" she said.
"We were going to be people in history," said Margery. "I was going to be Mary Queen of Scots, and Trix wanted to be Anthony Wayne, or Lafayette, or Napoleon, or something else." ”

“ Dean's while I write an ode," said Margery, and Jack went.
"They say give it up till next summer, and then decide whether to begin again," announced Jack, returning out of breath. "They say better not drag on if it's burdensome. I'm going down to the orchard to get the post-office."
"How shall we burn it?" asked Amy, when Jack came back.
"I've been thinking of the ceremonies on the way," Jack replied, depositing the post-office on the floor. "I say we all march around it three times in silence, and then each of us lay our hand on it once for farewell. ”

“ The Dismals is rented!"
"The Dismals" was the children's name for a very large, untenanted place called the Evergreens.
"Why, the Dismals is never rented!" cried Margery. "It hasn't had any one in it since we were born."
"Yes; but it has now," replied Trix. "There is a man there, and he lives all alone. Our waitress, Katie, told me about it last night. I thought I'd never go to sleep for thinking about him. Katie knows a girl that saw him go through the hedge and disappear under the Dismals' pine-trees. There is something queer about him; Katie says so. ”

“ The moon peeped in a little later and saw a small figure in its white night dress kneeling by the bed, and praying very hard for the success of the plan that might give happiness to the two friends whom Margery loved best. It was long before she went to sleep, and when she did it was to dream that Tommy Traddles had joined the club, and that instead of wearing the dove badge, he had two white wings growing from his striped back, and was flying over the orchard to take Mr. Dean a message from the President, saying that he had been appointed postmaster of Blissylvania, at Miss Isabel's request. ”

“ We can be postmistress, and it's all the same," said Amy, speaking sharply for her.
"I should think it was more a man's place," continued Jack.
"It's a place for a girl that is strong and quick, and like a boy," said Trix hastily.
"I live right here, where I could look after it," said Margery, bringing the discussion from abstract views on suitability to the [37] personal application they were all secretly making.
"That's the very reason why you shouldn't be postmistress!" cried peace-loving Amy, ruffling her feathers. "You shouldn't have everything." ”

“ Luncheon made one of the hours pass a little better, but after luncheon Trix's restlessness became uncontrollable. She wandered in and out of the house; she accepted Amy's proposition to make a visit to the church and pray for her mother, but, as Amy remarked, "did not seem to feel any better after it." She [111] quarrelled with Jack, and almost fell out with Margery, for she teased Tommy Traddles till that confiding cat fled in terror, and altogether led her friends such a life that no prisoners could long for freedom more eagerly than they longed for three o'clock to come. ”

“ The duty of preparing the gum for the badges was unanimously appointed to Jack, and honor forbade his chewing longer than the flavor lasted, which was an agreeable circumstance, and one that made him entertain secret doubts as to his being a worthy member of the league.
[10]
"No, not like the A. G. L.," said Margery, replying to Amy's question. "The A. G. L. has a noble end, for chewing gum is a bad habit; but this would be more of a club, and only be for fun, though I think it would improve us."
"Oh, what is it anyway?" cried Trix impatiently. ”