CHAPTER XVI
A FAIR ENCOUNTER
For poor little Caroline the moment was tragic.
Quite sincerely she expected Jacqueline to step up to her and say in aloud voice:
"_I_ am Jacqueline, and you are Caroline. Take off that dress of mine,and go away with this horrid little staring red-haired boy. _I_ shall gohome with Cousin Penelope in the limousine."
What else could Caroline expect? Why _should_ any living child continueto wear clumsy, hateful Peggy Janes, with patches, too, when she couldhave a beautiful muslin, with yellow roses? No, Jacqueline surely wouldnever go on with the deception, now that she saw with her own eyes theglories of which she had deprived herself!
But to Jacqueline the encounter that to Caroline was tragic seemeddownright funny. To think of her, standing there in Caroline's PeggyJanes, and Caroline in her muslin, and that prim-looking Cousin Penelope(whom Jacqueline disliked at sight!) innocently lavishing attention onthe wrong child. So good a joke it was that Jacqueline wanted it to lasta little longer, and she was afraid that Caroline, with her shockedface, was going to give it all away.
So the moment Cousin Penelope spoke to Miss Crevey--and she spoke to heralmost instantly, for the two children had taken stock of each other infar less time than it has taken to tell--Jacqueline edged up alongsideCaroline.
"Hello!" she spoke softly, like a child who wanted to scrapeacquaintance.
Caroline stared at her dumbly. Her lips quivered. If she should begin tobawl, she certainly _would_ spill the beans, thought Jacqueline, andacted with a wisdom that was almost inspired.
"My name is Caroline Tait," said Jacqueline, slowly and emphatically.Like the Ancient Mariner, she held Caroline with a glittering eye.
Caroline drew a fluttering breath--the first she had drawn since hereyes fell on the Peggy Janes. If Jacqueline said that, why, perhapsJacqueline meant still to keep on being Caroline!
"I live at my aunt's farm, down to the Meadows," went on Jacquelinecalmly. "What's your name?"
"C-C----" clucked Caroline helplessly, and quailed before Jacqueline'sfurious eye. "C--Jacqueline," she achieved the name with something likea sneeze.
Cousin Penelope suddenly became aware of the by-play going on at herelbow. She turned and looked coldly at the dusty little girl in theuncouth, shabby clothes, who had been so rude as to address her darling.Caroline trembled, just as she had trembled when she first saw CousinPenelope. But Jacqueline looked up at Cousin Penelope coolly and withoutterror, and even with her chin slightly tilted.
"Hello!" she addressed the august lady.
Cousin Penelope's violet eyes looked through Jacqueline, quite as if shehadn't been there. Then she turned with a smile to Caroline.
"Come, Jacqueline," she addressed Jacqueline's substitute. "You musthelp me buy this thread."
Deliberately she turned her back on Jacqueline, and made Caroline turnwith her, as if she snatched her little charge from contamination.
Jacqueline laughed outright. It was rude and horrid of her, althoughCousin Penelope had herself been rude. But Jacqueline really hadn'tmeant to laugh. Only Cousin Penelope struck her as funny, and the wholesituation, too, was funny.
A slight flush rose to Cousin Penelope's cheeks. Of course it wasfoolish to let one's self be annoyed by the bad manners of a countrychild.
"Who is that bold little girl?" she asked Miss Crevey.
Her voice was louder than she meant it to be, or Jacqueline's ears weresharper. Jacqueline overheard, and hugged herself for joy, the naughtything!
"It's one of the Conway children from down in the Meadows," lisped MissCrevey, as she tied up the little parcel of thread and pins. "Callagain, Miss Gildersleeve. Sorry I didn't have no shoelaces, but peoplebuy 'em off me so fast I jes' give up keepin' 'em."
Cousin Penelope nodded graciously, and with the parcel in one hand andCaroline's limp fingers clasped in the other, walked out of the shop.When they were once more shut in the limousine, away from the vulgarherd, she turned to Caroline and saw that she was quite pale andtrembling.
"You don't like strangers, do you, any more than I," Cousin Penelopesaid sympathetically.
Caroline nodded. She really didn't know what else to do.
"That was a very rude, coarse, pushing little girl," Cousin Penelopespoke with more heat than she realized. "I don't want you to haveanything to do with such people. She belongs to a quite ordinary familydown in the Meadows--and blood, you know, will always tell."
She smiled as she said the words. How blood _had_ told in this charminglittle quiet girl beside her, who was all Gildersleeve! Cousin Penelopesmiled and was glad when she saw Caroline smile at last in answer.
"You know there are some nice little girls, here in town," said CousinPenelope. "As soon as you feel at home with us, I'll give a little partyfor you and ask them to meet you."
"Oh-h!" cried Caroline softly, a real little trill of rapture. She hadnever had a party in her life, nor expected to have one. How good CousinPenelope was to her, and Jacqueline, too, who was going to keep on withthis precious play! The world was beautiful once more, as beautiful asit had been when she went into Miss Crevey's shop. All the way home shechattered again, almost volubly, with kind Cousin Penelope.
While Caroline was rolling homeward to The Chimnies in the limousine,Jacqueline was trudging along the same road on foot. She and Neil hadmade their purchases. The little red and white candies, in the bag thatJacqueline had insisted upon having, in spite of Miss Crevey'sgrumbling, were in the breast pocket of the Peggy Janes. The stick ofcandy was in the stomachs of Jacqueline and Neil, all except thatportion of the moist chocolate that was round their mouths. Neil went inmanful silence, lost in pleasant memories of the departed sweet. ButJacqueline now and again chuckled to herself.
"What you snickering at?" Neil challenged at last.
"Aw, nothing," said Jacqueline.
"Only fools laugh at nothing."
"Well," said Jacqueline unabashed, "_I_ was laughing at a fool. Wheredoes she live?"
"Who?"
"That stuck up old thing, Miss Gildersleeve, that we saw in the shop.Gee! I'd hate to have her bossing me."
"She's an old hen," said Neil. "You'd ought to 'a' heard her bawl meout, time I run acrost her old lawn with the cream Mother forgot toleave. Mother won't like it though if you sass her."
"I will if I like," Jacqueline answered calmly. "Where does she hangout?"
"We're most there now," said Neil. "It's that big white house with thehedge."
"Shucks!" said Jacqueline. (She had added to her vocabulary already atthe farm.) "That isn't half as big as Buena Vista."
"What's Boona Vister?"
To herself Jacqueline said: "You most put your foot in it that time!"Aloud she told Neil airily: "Oh, it's a place where I was once."
"Is it like the amusement park at the Pines with the puzzle-house?" Neilasked hopefully. "I was there once."
"Something like, I guess," Jacqueline answered vaguely.
She was busy staring at the Gildersleeve place, as they skirted the tallhedge. The sort of place where you mustn't step on the lawn or pick theflowers. The sort of house where there wouldn't be enough sunshine, andyou must walk softly. She thought of Cousin Penelope, who had snubbedher, and she made the sort of face she was going to practice now forCousin Penelope's benefit. Then she thought of Caroline, the dear littlesilly, and she chuckled again.
"Aw, say," said Neil, "you got bats in your belfry?"
"I'll say I have--not," Jacqueline threw off, with cheerful unconcern.
Wasn't it funny that Caroline should have put on the muslin with theyellow roses? Jacqueline hated that dress above all dresses. She hadonly brought it in her trunk because Aunt Edith, who had selected thedress, had made her. She hated the floppy hat, too, and those nasty oldgreen and blue and yellow beads of Cousin Penelope's that it always madeher feel seasick just to look at. If she had claimed her rightful placetha
t Caroline was filling, she might have had to wear those odiousclothes. Hateful clothes and bossy old Cousin Penelope, against dishwashing and bed making. On the whole she preferred the latter--for atime.
"Hey! Hey!" Neil suddenly broke in upon her reverie with a mighty yell.
A bronzed raggedy man in a little truck, which was creeping past them ona flat tire in a scuff of dust, heard the call and checked his clumsyvehicle.
"Come on!" Neil cried to Jacqueline.
She didn't pause to ask any questions. She flew at his heels across thewide green sward that skirted the sidewalk, and into the dust of theroad. She swarmed after him in the accommodating Peggy Janes, up intothe body of the truck. Here was a heap of dusty sacks on which shedropped herself at his side.
"Gee! This is luck," Neil panted. "It's John Zabriski that used to workfor Father. He's got the farm the other side of ours. He'll take us allthe way home."
Jacqueline stretched herself upon the dirty sacks. The dust was risinground them in a golden cloud as the truck rolled down Longmeadow Street.The branches of the elms met overhead, and through them, as she lay onher back, she gazed into the unfathomable cobalt of the sky. There wouldbe creamed codfish for supper, and Johnny-cake, and dried-apple pie. Shehad heard Grandma and Aunt Martha planning the meal. She could scufflein the hammock with Neil and Dickie, in the warm, star-set evening, andtomorrow she meant to walk the highest beam in the barn. No one toforbid her--no one to remind her to be a lady--no starched and stuck upCousin Penelope to give her orders.
"Gee!" murmured Jacqueline. "This sure is the life!"
The Turned-About Girls Page 17
