Hetty said to Minnie, “You remember about Adelaide’s Christmas costume?”
“Oh, yes,” said little Minnie.
“I wonder if there’ll be one this year. I don’t think Aunt Molly had started it before Grandpa got sick.”
“Poor Adelaide!” said Minnie.
“Poor Aunt Molly, too,” said Hetty. “You remember what she said? If ever she’d forget a Christmas, she said, she’d feel sadder than Adelaide.”
“I know,” said little Minnie.
“Minnie!” Hetty said. “What if we—Oh, Minnie, I wonder if we could!”
“Do you mean that we should make a costume?” asked Minnie, her eyes wide with astonishment.
“You know there was some wine-colored alpaca left from Clara’s Sunday dress. If she would let us have it!”
“Clara or Caddie would help us, maybe,” said Minnie.
“No,” said Hetty. She was very decided upon this point. “No. We’re the ones who have had all the good times with Adelaide. We must do it ourselves. Remember the red calico dress Aunt Molly made the first time? Some of the stitches were pretty uneven in that. And we would try as hard as we could.”
“But how would we know the right size?”
“We must borrow one of the costumes and bring it home with us.”
“But how would we get it?”
“We must go with Mother next time she goes.”
Clara gave them the wine-colored alpaca without any difficulty, but it was not so easy to persuade Mother to let them accompany her. She put on her shawl that afternoon and wrapped a clean towel about a kettle of soup which was still warm from the fire.
“No, no,” Mother said. “You would just be in the way, girls. This is no time for play.”
“Mother, we promise,” said Hetty. “We won’t be any bother—not any. If we could just go for a minute into the parlor where Adelaide sits.”
Clara looked at Mother and smiled. Perhaps their wanting the scraps of alpaca had given Clara an idea.
“Honestly, Mother, I’d let them go,” she said. “I don’t think they’ll do any harm.”
And so Mother had relented, and they had been able to get one of Adelaide’s dresses without anybody else knowing. It had almost seemed as if Adelaide’s eyes had questioned them as she sat so sedately on her sofa in the cold parlor with its drawn shades. Perhaps she was wondering why there was no tea today, and why there had been no party for a long time. Was she, perhaps, beginning to dream of Christmas? Was she thinking, “Well, it will be different after I get my new costume”?
“It’s going to be all right, Adelaide, I think,” Hetty whispered, and little Minnie gave Adelaide a kiss.
They did not see Aunt Molly, and Hetty noticed that the many calendars and almanacs in the kitchen still read November. Aunt Molly had not remembered to tear off or fold back the November pages.
And now began a very trying time in the lives of Hetty and Minnie. The difficulty of cutting and sewing a costume for the first time was equaled only by the difficulty of keeping a secret. At last it seemed as if they would never be done by Christmas unless they took someone into their confidence; for the first bodice they made was too small when the seams were taken up, and the sleeves turned backwards instead of forwards as sleeves should do. And so one day they told Clara what they were trying to do.
Clara did not seem at all surprised. It was almost as if she had been waiting for them to ask her advice; and now she showed them how much larger one should cut a garment than it would appear to be when it was finished, and how the sleeves would be all right if they were only reversed. Luckily there was enough material.
Usually Clara was not one to tell things, but somehow the news of what Hetty and Minnie were doing got around the family circle. No one plagued or teased them about it. But the day before Christmas, when they were still taking turns at setting in the tiny stitches (which sometimes grew larger for very desperation), and when the end seemed very nearly in sight, Tom and Warren came in from the woods with a doll-sized Christmas tree. It was really a little beauty, of a most perfect shape, and they had risked their necks in the swampland to get it out for Adelaide. And then it seemed that Clara had baked tiny star-shaped cookies with loops of thread baked into them for hanging them upon the tiny branches, and Caddie had been carving and gilding tiny hazelnut baskets and stringing red cranberries.
Suddenly Adelaide’s Christmas had become more important to the Woodlawn children than their own.
Hetty and Minnie grew so excited that the last few stitches on the hem were set in with reckless abandon, but even in spite of that the wine-colored alpaca costume was something to delight the eye.
Mother knew about the preparations now, but she was quite reluctant to encourage them.
“I can’t—I really can’t have you bothering them,” she said, “until we know that Mrs. Nightingale’s father is better.”
Then, miraculously, about four o’clock in the afternoon Father came in, stamping the fresh snow from his boots in the back entryway, and he said, smiling around at all of them, “Well, I have good news for you.”
“What is it, Father? What is it?”
“I just met Dr. Nightingale on the road, and he says that Grandpa’s out of danger.”
“He’s going to get well?”
“He’s going to get well! Furthermore,” said Father, looking around at Hetty and Minnie with a twinkle in his eye, “it seems that he’s been asking for the little girls who used to help him feed the chickens—Emily and Mildred, the doctor says he called them; but Mrs. Nightingale told him those were the little Woodlawn girls and he should let them know that they might come and see Grandpa for a very few minutes if they were nice and quiet.”
Caddie and Clara and Tom and Warren all went across the snowy fields with Hetty and Minnie to help them carry the roast fowl Mother had sent and the Christmas tree with all the decorations—and the Christmas costume.
“We’ll wait for you out by the barn,” Clara said, “so we won’t be any bother and so you’ll have somebody to walk home with you after dark.”
But first the older ones helped the two little girls put the tree in order and light the one candle which they had tied to the topmost branch. Even in her excitement Hetty felt sorry that Caddie and Clara and Tom and Warren were going to be left outside. Her conscience hurt her now because they had never yet seen Adelaide, nor the parlor, nor the cabinet.
Then Aunt Molly was opening the door for them, and crying out with surprise at sight of the little Christmas tree.
“No! It’s never Christmas surely!”
“Yes, it is!” cried Hetty. “Merry Christmas, Aunt Molly!”
And little Minnie said, “Yes, it is, Aunt Molly!”
Aunt Molly’s face had lost the white, troubled look which it had worn for the last month. Her little black eyes sparkled. She was almost beautiful.
“And you have brought us a tree!” she cried.
“The roast fowl is for Grandpa and you and Dr. Nightingale,” said Hetty, “but the tree is for Adelaide.”
“Adelaide?” said Aunt Molly. Suddenly her bright face clouded again. “Adelaide! Why, it’s Christmas, isn’t it? The first Christmas I ever forgot all about Adelaide. How very odd! I never thought I should—”
“Aunt Molly,” Hetty said in an excited rush of words, “I hope you won’t be angry with us, but we went ahead and did it. It isn’t very good; but Minnie and me, we made the Christmas costume.”
“You made the Christmas costume?” said Aunt Molly.
There was something strange in her face, and they could not be sure whether she was glad or sorry. She drew them into the kitchen and closed the door. Then she opened the package they held out, and looked very carefully at the wine-colored alpaca costume without saying a word. She turned the hem inside out and looked at the stitches they had made, some that were very small and neat and some that were in a hurry. Hetty stood inside the kitchen holding the little tree with the candle, and
Minnie clung to the back of Hetty’s cloak, and they were suddenly afraid that maybe they had done the wrong thing.
“It isn’t very good,” Hetty repeated hesitantly.
“We got in kind of a hurry,” Minnie said.
“What do you mean it isn’t very good!” snapped Aunt Molly. “It’s ever so much better than I did on my first one!”
Then Hetty saw that there was a glint of tears in Aunt Molly’s eyes, and she knew that Aunt Molly had taken so long to speak because she had wanted to cry instead. It was quite strange. But when Aunt Molly kissed them, they knew that everything was all right—because she had never kissed them before, and this was a happy kiss.
The light of the Christmas candle was bright on Adelaide’s china cheeks. It seemed to make her eyes dance, and the costume fitted perfectly.
“Papa,” Aunt Molly said to Grandpa later when she had taken the girls to see him for a moment, “Papa, I forgot Adelaide’s Christmas costume, but these little girls did not. They made her a beautiful one.”
Grandpa smiled his little smile as if he knew a secret.
His voice seemed far away and strange, but he said, “Molly, take them in to the cabinet. Let them choose—let Gertrude and Emily choose whatever they like out of it, for a Christmas present from me.”
“Anything, Papa?” asked Mrs. Nightingale.
“Anything they want,” said Grandpa.
So in a moment they found themselves standing before the cabinet with the magical power to choose gifts for themselves from its wonderful shelves.
Hetty looked at the dressed fleas, at the pin with the Lord’s Prayer engraved on the head, at the little china ballet dancer.
Then she thought, “Caddie would take the ostrich egg, Tom would want the boat in the bottle, Warren would want the petrified wood.”
Doubtfully she looked at Minnie.
“What do you want, Minnie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go on. Decide.”
“I don’t know,” said Minnie again. She looked as if she were going to cry. She never liked to have to make up her mind by herself. “You choose for me, Hetty.”
Suddenly Hetty turned around to Aunt Molly, who was watching them from the parlor doorway.
“Aunt Molly—” she said.
“Take your time,” said Aunt Molly. “It’s Papa’s cabinet. He said you could have anything.”
“But I like it better here,” blurted Hetty, not exactly understanding what she meant herself. “I don’t want to take anything away. Oh, Aunt Molly, what I want is for Tom and Caddie and Clara and Warren to see it—just like it is.”
“Why, that’s easy,” said Aunt Molly. “Bring them over tomorrow.”
“Aunt Molly, they’re outside now. If they were very quiet—”
“Dear me!” said Aunt Molly. “They’re outside? Of course they may come in.”
Little Minnie was smiling now, too.
“And they never saw Adelaide, either, did they, Hetty?”
“No,” said Hetty.
“Well, Henrietta, go and call them in, child.” “Henrietta!” thought Hetty.
Once the others were all in the house, grown-up Henrietta Woodlawn would be gone again and only Hetty would be left. And yet tonight, on Christmas eve, it was worth losing that other self to see the older brothers and sisters drinking in the wonders of the cabinet.
Hetty ran to the kitchen door to call them, and her heart was thumping hard with happiness.
TWELVE
Caddie Gets a Bargain
CADDIE SAT on the high seat of the wagon beside Father and looked down at the other children grouped around the wagon wheel.
“Be sure and get something nice, Caddie,” said Clara. “Something he can use.”
“Something he can wear,” said Hetty.
“Something he can eat,” said Warren, but a chorus of no’s drowned this suggestion.
“Something he will like,” everybody agreed.
“And be sure to get a bargain, Caddie,” called Tom as the wagon started. “Remember, we all chipped in on the dollar.”
As they drove out of the farmyard Father looked at Caddie and smiled.
“Quite a responsibility you have, eh, daughter?” Caddie sighed.
“If it was just my own money to buy a present for baby Joe’s second birthday, that would be easy—but when you have to suit everybody! I’m pretty near sorry it was my turn to go.”
“No,” said Father. “Just do the best you can and don’t let it worry you. In that way you’ll have a clear conscience and a tranquil heart.”
Father’s words were reassuring and Caddie settled herself to enjoy the drive into Durand, and the prospect of a half day to herself in a town which was larger than Dunnville or Eau Galle.
A trip to Durand was always a coveted adventure which the children took by turns. Father would be occupied with the business of the mill and, except for the noon meal with him at the hotel, Caddie would have to amuse herself. She felt confident that she could do that.
The big steamer from St. Louis came up the Mississippi and Chippewa rivers as far as Durand, and then one had to take the “little steamer” or lumber keelboat from there up the Red Cedar River to Dunnville unless he wished to drive as she and Father were doing today. The big steamer brought all sorts of things to Durand which never went on as far as Dunnville. There were little high-heeled boots and feather-trimmed bonnets, gold watches with chains and hair bracelets with gold clasps and wax flowers under glass globes; you could even have your tintype taken if you did not mind having to sit still with your head in a vise for so Jong.
The Woodlawn children had formed the opinion that whatever was worn in Durand must be the height of fashion, and Clara had particularly begged Caddie to keep her eyes open for any changes of fashion which she should see there on the streets or in the hotel. Caddie was never as acutely aware of fashion as Clara or their cousin Anna-belle from Boston. The fine leather bridles in the harness shop, trimmed with little bright-colored pictures under rounded glass, were more to her taste than the latest thing in bonnets. But she knew that, being so fortunate as to make this trip with Father, she must not forget the requests of the brothers and sisters who were left behind. So she remembered to look for changes of fashion as well as a birthday gift for baby Joe.
It seemed to Caddie that the ladies of Durand looked very much like those of Dunnville. There was only one who impressed her as looking different and more fashionable than the others. This was a lady who sat at dinner in the dining room of the hotel at a table near the one where Caddie and Father settled themselves for refreshment after they had left the horses at the livery stable.
The lady was all in black, a novelty in itself, for most well-dressed ladies seemed to prefer color, and she wore a very smart little black bonnet with fully a yard of black crepe hanging behind it. It was a fashion with which Caddie was quite unfamiliar, and she was sure that Clara would be interested. The lady was accompanied at dinner by a fashionable-looking gentleman in a frock coat and sideburns, and other impressive gentlemen came up to her during the meal and bent over the hand which she extended in greeting in a most romantic manner. Caddie was so impressed with this glimpse of high society and fashion that she could already see in her mind’s eye Mother, Clara, Hetty, and herself all dressed in similar costumes with yards of black crepe floating out behind and gentlemen with sideburns crowding about to kiss their hands.
Father was seated with his back to the delightful lady, and the meal was nearly over before he began to wonder why Caddie was staring.
“You’d better eat your dinner,” Father said. “It’ll be a long time till supper. If eyes could eat, you’d be well filled. Better set your mouth to work now. What do you find so interesting?”
“It’s a lady,” Caddie said. “Father, do you know her?”
Mr. Woodlawn half turned and glanced over his shoulder.
“Well, not to speak to,” he said, “but it’s Mrs. Langdon. She�
�s a rich widow.”
“Rich!” Caddie thought as she hastily finished her meal. “Then what she wears is sure to be the height of fashion.”
When they had dined, Father went about his business with a parting warning, “Have a good time, and meet me at the livery stable at half past three. Don’t keep me waiting.”
Clutching her small, homemade purse with its burden of pennies and nickels contributed by the brothers and sisters for baby Joe’s present, Caddie began to walk up and down the main street of Durand to feast her eyes on the windows.
There was a rattle with little silver bells on it in the jeweler’s window, but Joe was really too big for a rattle now and this one would be sure to cost much more than a dollar. In the window of the dry-goods store there were some little boots; but Caddie did not know the size and they would be expensive, too.
She had thought of a spotted wooden horse with a hemp tail, such as she had seen once in St. Louis; but, when she went into the dry-goods store to inquire, the lady behind the counter said, “Land, no! We only have our toys out at Christmastime.”
“What else would you have for a baby, ma’am?”
“I could sell you socks or mittens.”
“No, Mother knits him those. We wanted something special—something for a dollar.”
“Vests?” suggested the lady. “Safety pins? Two yards of embroidery to trim his petticoats?”
Caddie shook her head.
“Maybe I’ll be back later,” she said.
Up the street she saw several people going into the millinery store. She was beginning to feel discouraged about the birthday present, but at least she could see what was going on in town.
There seemed to be a great many people crowded into the small millinery shop among the caps and bonnets, and a man’s voice could be heard crying “What am I bid, ladies and gentlemen? What am I bid on this beautiful leghorn bonnet with the artificial cherries?”
Several ladies’ voices cried out, “Fifty cents!” “Six bits!” “A dollar!” “Two and a half!”
Caddie Woodlawn's Family Page 11
