Sara Crewe

“ Captain Crewe had a splitting headache when he read this letter in his bungalow in India. The table before him was heaped with papers and letters which were alarming him and filling him with anxious dread, but he laughed as he had not laughed for weeks.
“Oh,” he said, “she’s better fun every year she lives. God grant this business may right itself and leave me free to run home and see her. What wouldn’t I give to have her little arms round my neck this minute! What wouldn’t I give!”
The birthday was to be celebrated by great festivities. ”

“ The Indian gentleman leaned forward and struck the table with a long, wasted hand. [158]
“Carmichael,” he said, “I must find her. If she is alive, she is somewhere. If she is friendless and penniless, it is through my fault. How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind? This sudden change of luck at the mines has made realities of all our most fantastic dreams, and poor Crewe’s child may be begging in the street!” ”

“ In writing a book one relates all that one remembers at the time, and if one told all that really happened perhaps the book would never end. Between the lines of every story there is another story, and that is one that is never heard and can only be guessed at by the people who are good at guessing. The person who writes the story may never know all of it, but sometimes he does and wishes he had the chance to begin again.
When I wrote the story of “Sara Crewe” I guessed that a great deal more had happened at Miss Minchin’s than I had had time to find out just then. ”

“ If there was time only for a few words, they were always friendly, merry words that put heart into one; and if there was time for more, then there was an instalment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered afterward and sometimes lay awake in one’s bed in the attic to think over. Sara—who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better than anything else, Nature having made her for a giver—had not the least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart ”

“ Sara was to be what was known as "a parlor boarder," and she was to enjoy even greater privileges than parlor boarders usually did. She was to have a pretty bedroom and sitting room of her own; she was to have a pony and a carriage, and a maid to take the place of the ayah who had been her nurse in India.
"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain Crewe said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted it. "The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. ”

“ Carmichael repeated, and he could not help adding, with a rather sly, unlawyer-like smile: "There are not many princesses, Miss Minchin, who are richer than your little charity pupil, Sara Crewe, will be. Mr. Carrisford has been searching for her for nearly two years; he has found her at last, and he will keep her." ”

“ He died delirious, raving about his little girl—and didn’t leave a penny.” [82]
Now Miss Minchin understood, and never had she received such a blow in her life. Her show pupil, her show patron, swept away from the Select Seminary at one blow. She felt as if she had been outraged and robbed, and that Captain Crewe and Sara and Mr. Barrow were equally to blame.
“Do you mean to tell me,” she cried out, “that he left nothing! That Sara will have no fortune! That the child is a beggar! That she is left on my hands a little pauper instead of an heiress?” ”

“ LOTTIE If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for the next ten years would not have been at all good for her. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. If she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child, she might have become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would have learned nothing. ”

“ On such days the windows of the house of the Large Family always looked delightfully cosey and alluring, and the study in which the Indian gentleman sat glowed with warmth and rich color. But the attic was dismal beyond words. There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara. The clouds hung low over the skylight and were either gray or mud-color, or dropping heavy rain. At four o’clock in the afternoon, even when there was no special fog, the daylight was at an end. ”

“ He only knew that the men were invading the silence and privacy of the attic; and as the one with the dark face let himself down through the aperture with such lightness and dexterity that he did not make the slightest sound, Melchisedec turned tail and fled precipitately back to his hole. He was frightened to death. He had ceased to be timid with Sara, and knew she would never throw anything but crumbs, and would never make any sound other than the soft, low, coaxing whistling; but strange men were dangerous things to remain near. ”

“ She had had a hard day and had been staring out of the windows with hot eyes.
“You can see all sorts of things you can’t see down-stairs,” she said.
“What sort of things?” demanded Lottie, with that curiosity Sara could always awaken even in bigger girls.
“Chimneys—quite close to us—with smoke curling up in wreaths and clouds and going up into the sky,—and sparrows hopping about and talking to each other just as if they were people,—and other attic windows where heads may pop out any minute and you can wonder who they belong to. ”

“ Sara knitted her brows a moment.
“Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t,” she said stoutly. “But when I can I’m all right. And what I believe is that we always could—if we practised enough. I’ve been practising a good deal lately, and it’s beginning to be easier than it used to be. When things are horrible—just horrible—I think as hard as ever I can of being a princess. I say to myself, ‘I am a princess, and I am a fairy one, and because I am a fairy nothing can hurt me or make me uncomfortable.’ You don’t know how it makes you forget,”—with a laugh. ”

“ Sara advanced a step toward her.
“I want her because I know she will like to see the presents,” she explained. “She is a little girl, too, you know.”
Miss Minchin was scandalized. She glanced from one figure to the other. [74]
“My dear Sara,” she said, “Becky is the scullery-maid. Scullery-maids—er—are not little girls.”
It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that light. Scullery-maids were machines who carried coal-scuttles and made fires.
“But Becky is,” said Sara. “And I know she would enjoy herself. Please let her stay—because it is my birthday.” ”

“ This, at least, was what Sara gathered from his letters. It is true that any other business scheme, however magnificent, would have had but small attraction for her or for the school-room; but “diamond-mines” sounded so like the “Arabian Nights” that no one could be indifferent. Sara thought them enchanting, and painted pictures, for Ermengarde and Lottie, of labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the [59] earth, where sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange, dark men dug them out with heavy picks. ”

“ Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper.
“As to starving in the streets,” he said, “she might have starved more comfortably there than in your attic.”
“Captain Crewe left her in my charge,” Miss Minchin argued. “She must return to it until she is of age. She can be a parlor-boarder again. She must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf.”
“Come, come, Miss Minchin,” Mr. Carmichael interposed, “the law will do nothing of the sort. If Sara herself wishes to return to you, I dare say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it. But that rests with Sara.” ”

“ Sara simply sat down, and looked, and looked again.
“It is exactly like something fairy come true,” she said; “there isn't the least difference. I feel as if I might wish for anything—diamonds and bags of gold—and they would appear! That couldn't be any stranger than this. Is this my garret? Am I the same cold, ragged, damp Sara? And to think how I used to pretend, and pretend, and wish there were fairies! The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true. I am living in a fairy story! I feel as if I might be a fairy myself, and be able to turn things into anything else!” ”

“ Ermengarde quite beamed with delight.
“Oh, Sara!” she whispered joyfully. “It is like a story!”
“It is a story,” said Sara. “Everything’s a story. You are a story—I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story.”
And she sat down again and talked until Ermengarde forgot that she was a sort of escaped prisoner herself, and had to be reminded by Sara that she could not remain in the Bastille all night, but must steal noiselessly down-stairs again and creep back into her deserted bed. ”

“ You talk about Melchisedec as if he was a person.”
“He is a person,” said Sara. “He gets hungry and frightened, just as we do; and he is married and has children. How do we know he doesn’t think things, just as we do? His eyes look as if he was a person. That was why I gave him a name.”
She sat down on the floor in her favorite attitude, holding her knees.
“Besides,” she said, “he is a Bastille rat sent to be my friend. I can always get a bit of bread the cook has thrown away, and it is quite enough to support him.”
“Is it the Bastille yet?” asked Ermengarde, eagerly. ”

“ That there does seem real now, doesn’t it? The missus is more like the head jailer every day she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. The cook she’s like one of the under-jailers. Tell me some more, please, miss—tell me about the subt’ranean passage we’ve dug under the walls.”
“I’ll tell you something warmer,” shivered Sara. “Get your coverlet and wrap it round you, and I’ll get mine, and we will huddle close together on the bed, and I’ll tell you about the tropical forest where the Indian gentleman’s monkey used to live. ”

“ But Sara gave him leave at once.
“Can you get across?” she inquired.
“In a moment,” he answered her.
“Then come,” she said; “he is flying from side to side of the room as if he was frightened.”
Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound. Then he turned to Sara [144] and salaamed again. The monkey saw him and uttered a little scream. Ram Dass hastily took the precaution of shutting the skylight, and then went in chase of him. ”

“ The queer little sad smile was on Sara’s lips again.
“I sleep in the attic, next to the scullery-maid,” she said. “I run errands for the cook—I do anything she tells me; and I teach the little ones their lessons.”
“Question her, Carmichael,” said Mr. Carrisford, sinking back as if he had lost his strength. “Question her; I cannot.”
The big, kind father of the Large Family knew how to question little girls. Sara realized how much practice he had had when he spoke to her in his nice, encouraging voice. ”

“ They were accustomed to being rich and comfortable, and as Sara’s frocks grew shorter and shabbier and queerer-looking, and it became an established fact that she wore shoes with holes in them and was sent out to buy groceries and carry them through the streets in a basket on her arm when the cook wanted them in a hurry, they felt rather as if, when they spoke to her, they were addressing an under servant.
“To think that she was the girl with the diamond-mines,” Lavinia commented. “She does look like an object. And she’s queerer than ever. ”

“ Ermengarde did not know why a lump came into her throat and her eyes felt as if tears were in them.
“Lavinia and Jessie are ‘best friends,’” she said rather huskily. “I wish we could be ‘best friends.’ Would you have me for yours? You’re clever, and I’m the stupidest child in the school, but I—oh, I do so like you!”
“I’m glad of that,” said Sara. “It makes you thankful when you are liked. Yes. We will be friends. And I’ll tell you what”—a sudden gleam lighting her face—“I can help you with your French lessons.” ”

“ After a while she raised her face and looked at Emily, [134] who seemed to be gazing at her round the side of one angle, and, somehow, by this time actually with a kind of glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse overtook her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile.
“You can’t help being a doll,” she said with a resigned sigh, “any more than Lavinia and Jessie can help not having any sense. We are not all made alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best.” And she kissed her and shook her clothes straight, and put her back upon her chair. ”

“ Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child’s voice and her manner was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that Veronica Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys (who was really called Nora) leaned forward to listen.
But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He thrust the sixpence into her hand.
“Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!” he insisted stoutly. “You can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!” ”

“ Almost every day something new was done. Some new comfort or ornament appeared each time Sara opened the door at night, until in a short time the attic was a beautiful little room full of all sorts of odd and luxurious things. The ugly walls were gradually entirely covered with pictures and draperies, ingenious pieces of folding furniture appeared, a book-shelf was hung up and filled with books, new comforts and conveniences appeared one by one, until there seemed nothing left to be desired. When Sara went down-stairs in the morning, the remains of the supper were on the table ”