Sophie May

“ Well, then, now for a race from here to the sweet-apple tree. One, two, three, begin!” And Preston started off at the top of his speed, Mary just before him, her face aglow, her hair streaming in the wind. As she skimmed over the ground, shouting and laughing, she seemed for all the world like a little girl, and not in the least like a young lady. She was soon caught and obliged to surrender the hammer, whereupon Preston nailed the curtains neatly, and went whistling about the house, giving finishing touches here and there to the rickety furniture. ”

“ There’s Grandma Hyde now; if we had her black Venus, and her black Mary, and her yellow Thomas, I shouldn’t have to dust parlors and run of errands! Mamma is always talking to me about being useful. Little girls are never talked to in that way; it’s we older [81] girls who have to bear all the brunt. It tires me to death to sew, sew, sew! Now it’s such fun to run in the woods. Mr. Lee says we ought to admire nature, and I’m going after flag-root this afternoon instead of mending my stockings—I think it’s my duty!”
As Mary rattled on in this way, little Ethel listened most attentively. ”

“ Camp Comfort, with its merry, careless child-tenants and abundance of food, seemed an earthly paradise to wretched little Pecy. She had never ventured so boldly into any other house, even the humble Browns and Pecks, as into this one, which had no responsible grown people in it; nobody really old enough to command her to leave.
“Is this here your dog, Lucy?” said she, caressing the pug. “His nose turns up some like yours. I never see such a queer dog.”
[132]
“And I never saw such a queer girl,” said Lucy, reddening. “Are you the protector of this family, Preston Gray? ”

“ Mary was feeling of late that there were many old times in her life, and that she had lived a long while. She had been quite a traveller, had seen and known a variety of people, but nobody—outside her [44] own family—that is, no grown person,—was so dear to her as this excellent young lady, who was known among strangers as “the homely Miss Pike.” Mary had attended her school at Hilltop with Milly Allen, and afterward Miss Pike had been a governess in Dr. Gray’s family, and still later had spent a winter with the Grays at Washington. ”

“ And we’ll make the boys stir the ice cream,” said Lucy, the head housekeeper.
There was an ice-house connected with their cottage, and ice cream was to be permitted on Sundays, and lemonade at pleasure.
“But where are the lemons?” said Mary, flying about in everybody’s way.
“Oh, we shall buy fresh lemons every morning of our grocer who comes to our door,” said Lucy grandly. “What I want to know is, if my hammock was packed?—Children, did you see three hammocks in that push-cart?—Boys, I hope you’ll hang up those hammocks before we get there! ”

“ Tea was over, and everybody had left the dining-room but Mary and cousin Fred. Mary had just parted the curtains to look out, as people always do on a windy night, when Fred startled her by saying, in a whisper, “Flaxie, come here.”
[60]
She dropped the curtain hastily, and crossed the room. What could Fred be wanting of her, and why should he whisper when they two were alone, and the wind outside was making such a noise?
“Put your ear down close to my mouth, Flaxie. You mustn’t tell anybody, now remember.”
“Why not, Fred? It isn’t best to make promises beforehand. Perhaps I ought to tell.” ”

“ And, as if her own presence were not unwelcome enough, she was followed by a large, formidable-looking bee.
“Don’t you be scared,” said Pecielena, as the children all screamed. “I’ll catch him and kill him.”
[130]
“No, no,” cried Mary. “I belong to the society for cruelty to animals. I can’t let you kill him.”
But Pecy had already caught the bee and crushed him against the table-cloth with the broom-handle.
Sadie looked at Lucy, the “lady abbess,” to see how long she meant to allow such behavior to go on; but Lucy had become discouraged, and was retreating to the kitchen. ”

“ Preston gazed in inward consternation at the ruinous white flood; but he was not going to confess his sins to cousin Lucy.
“That’s the proper way to serve rice pudding,” said he. “Always serve hot, and make it go as far as you can. Now let the children pick out the plums.”
“But our pudding’s gone.”
“I’ll cook a pie,” replied he, with alacrity. “I cooked ’em last summer at the lakes fit to set before a king.”
Laughing was the very mainspring of life at Camp Comfort; but the girls had never laughed yet as they did now, to see Buttons in full swing preparing to “cook a pie.” ”

“ And nobody has a dog but Fanny, and we shouldn’t want any servants,” cried Mary Gray, whose views of labor seemed to have changed materially.
“We intend to do our own work,” remarked Fanny. Whereupon everybody laughed; and General Townsend asked again who the girls were? “Oh, Flaxie Frizzle and Blanche [94] Jones and I, papa; that makes three, rather young; and then Sadie Patten and Lucy Abbott, they’re rather old; that makes five. Sadie and Lucy will be the mothers,—I mean if you let us go.” ”

“ The twigs are soon crackling under the pail. He points his finger disdainfully at the poor squaw, who cannot make a fire. She looks so brow-beaten and discouraged at this, so unlike the spirited Flaxie Frizzle of real life, that the audience laugh. ”

“ Fling had not gone to Canada, Fred knew that well enough; he had only “dropped in” at somebody’s house and forgotten to come out.
“The people, wherever he is, ought to send him home,” said James Hunnicut sympathetically.
“That’s so,” assented two or three others. “It’s abominable to go ’round calling with a borrowed horse and sleigh.”
[54]
So much pity was galling to both Mary and Fred, making them feel like young children, who ought not to have been trusted without a driver. Why wouldn’t everybody go away and leave them. ”

“ Neither was Mary conscious this evening of her own looks and appearance. Her tresses “of crisped gold” floated unheeded, and she never once looked down at her new dress to admire the color. Her thoughts were not of herself but of others.
“Dr. Gray,” said Miss Pike in a low tone, “don’t you agree with me that this last year has been the best year of Mary’s life? I believe she will grow up to be a thoughtful, unselfish woman.”
“Flaxie Growing Up!” said Dr. Gray, blinking and rubbing his eyes. ”

“ Gray only said,—
“Yes, my daughter, the missionaries are doing their best; but everything can’t be done in a day.”
“But it ought to be done this very minute, mamma.”
Mary’s whole face glowed; and Mrs. Lee, who sat directly in front of her, could not refrain from leaning over the pew and kissing her.
“We ought to bring more money, seems to me,” suggested good, moon-faced Blanche Jones, pressing her fat hands together.
“Yes, a cent every Sunday is too little,” said one of Mrs. Gray’s little boys.
“Yes, a cent is too little,” agreed Fanny Townsend earnestly. ”

“ Ethel nodded her sheared head silently.
“Oh, you dreadful child. When I was trying so hard to interest you! I didn’t want to read to you! And to think you must go and do this! What do people mean by calling you good? I never cut off my hair, but nobody ever called me good!”
Mary was seized again with laughter, but, recovering, added sternly:—
“It’s very hard that I can’t shut you in the closet, but you’ll get there fast enough! Yes, I shall report you, and into the closet you’ll go, Miss Snippet. Oh, you needn’t cry; you’re the worst-looking creature in town, but the blame always falls on me! ”

“ But it was far superior to Lucy’s spider-pie, and a vote was taken on the spot for a change of cooks.
Preston was jubilant, for was not this his second victory for the day?
The weather was sultry, and after dinner everybody would gladly have reclined in the hammocks under the shade, if Lucy had not suddenly remembered that ice-cream always suggests cake. Lemon-cake was made and burned; but the ice-cream party did not come off on account of a heavy shower which rose about six o’clock. ”

“ When she went into the house with Mary the girls began to talk about Pecielena. They [181] were rather “in fancy” with her since Miss Pike had taken her up.
“You don’t know how she has improved, auntie, since we came here,” said Lucy. “She used to be saucy; but somehow she’s afraid of us now, and we never see her unless we meet her, or go where she is.”
“And she doesn’t look the same in the new calico dress, does she, Miss Pike?” said Sadie. “She isn’t handsome, but she has soft, graceful ways like a kitten, and like a swan, and like a gazelle; and you ought to see her row a boat! ”

“ I wish Preston was here, and he’d take me out in the sleigh. Miss Pike would let our family go, of course.”
“I want to ask you—” said little Ethel again.
“Why, Ethel, child, I thought you were in the other room,” said Mary impatiently. “Don’t you see, I want to hear about the spelling-school; and it’s so thoughtful and kind of little girls to give big girls a chance to speak!” ”

“ She was strict with her little pupil, and found frequent occasion for sermonettes, but Ethel got on famously, and Mary received and deserved high praise as teacher.
She missed her cousin Fred when he went home at last, not to return, but she told Lady Fotheringay (Blanche Jones) in confidence that she “could improve her mind better when he was gone.” Moreover, Preston would soon be home for his summer vacation.
She was beginning to question what she was made for. Something grand and wonderful, no doubt; something much better than studying, reading, sewing, and doing errands. ”

“ Blanche, Fanny, and the two older girls in the class,—Sadie Patten and Lucy Abbott,—were silent. They knew that Mary’s pin-money amounted to four dollars a month, and though they had thought of doing something themselves, this brilliant offer discouraged them at once: they could not make up their minds to anything so munificent. ”

“ To be sure Julia’s headache might be over [18] to-morrow, and Julia could then attend to Ethel; but Mary was quite sure it would not do to wait an hour or a minute; the case must be attended to now. “It is my duty, and I will not shrink from it. I’ll try to act exactly as mamma always does,—not harsh, but sad and gentle,—Ethel, my child, come here.”
“Don’t want to,” said Ethel, approaching slowly and sullenly, drawing her little chair behind her.
“Not that way, dear; mamma never allows you to go all doubled up, dragging your chair like a snail with his house on his back. ”

“ There were secret signs and mysterious allusions in this new journal, however, the letters “C. C.” recurring again and again in all sorts of places, without any apparent meaning or connection. She evidently enjoyed scribbling them, and no harm was done, since nobody but “we girls” knew what they meant. “C. C.” was a precious secret, which we may pry into for ourselves by-and-by.
Mary was now in her thirteenth year, and though she still enjoyed hanging May-baskets, driving hoops, skipping the rope, and even playing dolls, her growing mind was never idle. ”

“ Townsend is looking at me, and wishing Fanny were more like me. Nobody else of my age sits as still as I do, except Sadie Stockwell, and she has a stiff spine. There’s Major Patten, I remember he said once to father, ‘Dr. Gray, your second girl is a child to be proud of.’ I know he did, for I was coming into the room and heard him.”
Directly after morning services came Sunday school, and Mary was in Mrs. Lee’s class. Mrs. Lee was an enthusiastic young woman, fond of all her scholars, but it was easy to see that Mary was her prime favorite. ”