The Little Colonel at Boarding-School

by Annie F. Johnston

  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE PRINCESS OF THE PENDULUM

  THERE were literary exercises in the chapel the following Fridayafternoon. It was the day for the reading of the _Seminary Star_, amonthly paper to which all the grades contributed. As a humourousaccount of the Hallowe'en celebrated was to be one of the chieffeatures, spiced by many personal allusions, its appearance was lookedfor eagerly.

  Little Magnolia Budine was the only one in the room impatient for theexercises to close. She sat near a front window looking out at everysound of approaching wheels, to see if the old carryall had stopped atthe high green gate in front of the seminary. She had been hoping allafternoon that her father would come for her earlier than usual, and shehalf-expected that he would. The chill November days were short, and sheknew that he would want to reach home before dark.

  It was not that she failed to appreciate the interesting articles in the_Star_, but she was in a hurry for the ten-mile drive to be over. Thereason for her impatience was packed away in the old carpet-bag, waitingoutside in the hall. Unless she reached home before dark, a certainpleasure she had in store would have to be delayed till morning. Sointent was she on listening for the sound of wheels, that she failed tohear the title of a short poem, which one of the editors announced aswritten by E. L. L. When Elise nudged her, whispering, "That's aboutyou, Maggie," she turned with a start and blush to find every onelooking at her. She was so confused she heard only the last verse:

  "Not only did he steal the tarts Made by the gracious queen, He captured all the schoolgirls' hearts-- That little knave--on Hallowe'en."

  The applause which followed was loud and long. Her heart gave a proud,glad throb at this public compliment, but her face felt as if it were onfire, and she longed to drop under her desk out of sight. It was just atthis moment that Mrs. Clelling told her in a low tone that her fatherhad come and she might be excused. How she ever got to the door with allthose eyes fastened on her was more than she could tell. She felt as ifeach foot weighed a ton, and that she was an hour travelling the shortspace.

  Snatching her hat from the cloak-room and pinning a big gray shawlaround her, she caught up the carpet-bag and ran down to the gate. Anoccasional snowflake, like a downy white feather, floated through theair. The wind was raw and damp, and she was glad to climb in behind thesheltering curtains of the old carryall and lean up against her father'srough, warm overcoat.

  "Well, Puss, how goes it?" he asked, pulling an old bedquilt up over hisknees and tucking it well around her.

  "_Fine_, daddy!" she answered, squeezing his arm in both her mittenedhands and snuggling up to him like a contented kitten. "I think now it'sthe nicest school in the world, and I like it better and better everyday."

  "Got a good report this week?"

  "Yes, I haven't missed a single word in spelling. Mrs. Clelling had toshow me nearly two hours about borrowing in subtraction, but I don'thave any more trouble with it now, and I had a longer list of adjectiveson my language-paper than anybody else in the class."

  There was a look of pride in the old farmer's weather-beaten face. Hehad had little education himself. He had barely learned to read andwrite in the few short terms he had been able to attend school when hewas a boy. He couldn't have told an adjective from any other part ofspeech, and his wonder at her amount of learning was all the greater onthat account. He patted her hand affectionately. "That's right! That'sright!" he exclaimed. "The family's dependin' on you, Puss, to do us allcredit." Then he began repeating what she had heard a hundred timesbefore. He never failed to tell her the same story as they joggedhomeward every Friday night and back again the following Monday morning.She had heard it so often that it sounded in her ears like the familiarrefrain of an old song to which she need pay no heed. She only waitedpatiently until he had finished.

  "The older children didn't have no chance when they was young like you.We were too far away from the public schools to send 'm except just aspell spring and fall, and we couldn't afford the pay schools, but afterwe moved up here and Marthy got married and Tom and Hilliard was bigenough to do for 'emselves and getting good wages, times was easier. Masays to me, 'We'll give the baby a fair start in the world, anyhow,'and I says, 'She'll have the best diplomy that Lloydsboro Seminary cangive if I have to carry her there and home again on my back every daytill she gets it.'"

  There was much more in the same strain to which Magnolia listened,waiting for her turn to speak, as one would wait for an alarm clock torun down when it was striking. The moment he paused she began, eagerly,"I've got something right now that mammy will be proud to see."

  Diving under the quilt for the carpet-bag, she opened it and took out abook which lay on top of her clothes.

  "Now put on your spectacles, daddy," she ordered, gaily, "or maybe youwon't be able to tell who it is." She slipped a photograph from the bookand held it up before him. Holding the reins between his knees, hepulled off one glove, felt in various pockets, and finally fished up apair of steel-bowed spectacles, which he slowly adjusted.

  "Miss Katherine Marks took it," she explained, "and she painted itafterward, so you can tell exactly how I looked at the masquerade-party."

  "If it ain't my little magnolia blossom!" exclaimed the old man,proudly, holding the beautifully tinted photograph off at arm's lengthfor a better view. "Wherever did you get all those fine gew-gaws? Why,Puss, you're prettier than a posy. Sort of fanciful and trimmed up, butthat's your little face natural as life. I should say your mammy will beproud!"

  It took all the time while they were driving the next six miles forMagnolia to tell of that memorable afternoon and night. How LloydSherman had taken her over to Clovercroft, and all the Marks family hadhelped to make her costume. How beautiful it was, and how the girls hadpraised it, and even published a poem about her in the _Seminary Star_;and next day Miss Katherine had taken her picture, and the day afterthat had sent for her to come over to her studio, and had given her acopy of it to take home.

  "Seems to me as if we ought to do something nice for those people whohave been so kind to you," said her father, musingly, when she had toldhim the whole story. "You say if it hadn't been for Miss Katherine you'dhave had to miss the party. If you'd have missed that you wouldn't havehad that poetry about you in the paper. I'm proud of that, Puss. Seemsas if my little girl is mighty popular--a sort of celebrity, to getinto the paper. I'd like to show that young lady that I appreciate whatshe's done to make you happy. I wonder how she'd like a crock of yourmammy's apple butter. There ain't no better apple butter in all OldhamCounty, and I should think she'd be glad to get it. I'll speak about itwhen we get home, and if your mammy's willing, I'll carry a crock of itto the young lady when I take you back to school Monday morning."

  Magnolia was not sure of the propriety of such a gift, and he turned thematter over in his slow mind all the rest of the way home. They joggedalong in silence, for she also was busy with her thoughts. She wasthinking of another picture in the library book which she had not showedher father. It was an unmounted photograph of Lloyd Sherman which MissKatherine had taken the year before.

  She had photographed all the children who took part in the play of the"Rescue of the Princess Winsome," and they were arranged on a panel onher studio wall. There were several of Lloyd; one at the spinning-wheel,one with her arms around Hero's neck, and one with the knight kneelingto take her hand from the old king's. But the most beautiful one of allwas the one of the Dove Song. That picture hung by itself. It was justa little medallion, showing the head of the Princess with the white dovenestled against her shoulder. The fair hair with its coronet of pearlsmade a halo around the sweet little face, and Magnolia stood gazing atit as if it had been the picture of an angel. She had no eyes foranything else in the studio, and Miss Flora, seeing her gaze of raptadmiration, looked across at her sister and smiled significantly.

  "Haven't you a copy of that you could give her, Katherine?" she asked,in a low tone. "I never saw a child's face express such wist
ful longing.It makes me think of some of the little waifs I have seen at Christmastime, gazing hungrily into the shop windows at the toys and bon-bonsthey know can never be for them."

  Miss Katherine opened a table drawer, and, after searching a few minutesamong the unmounted photographs it contained, took out one, regarding itcritically.

  "This was a trifle too light to suit me," she said, "but too good todestroy." She crossed the room and held it out to Magnolia, who stillstood gazing at its duplicate on the wall.

  Such a look of rapture came into the child's face when it was finallymade clear to her that she was to have the picture to keep that no onenoticed the omission of spoken thanks. She was too embarrassed to sayanything, but she took it as if it were something sacred.

  "I suppose because Lloyd happens to be the goddess just now to whom sheburns incense," said Miss Katherine when she had gone. "These littleschoolgirl affairs are very amusing sometimes. They're so intense whilethey last."

  Maggie could not have told why she did not show the picture of thePrincess to her father. In an undefined sort of way she felt that hewould look at it as he would look at the picture of any little girl, andthat he would not understand that she was so much finer and better andmore beautiful and different in every way from all the other girls inthe world. But Corono would understand. For two days Magnolia had lookedforward to the pleasure of showing it to her.

  "Can't you get old Dixie out of a walk, daddy?" she exclaimed at last."I'm mighty anxious to get home before sundown. I want to stop atRoney's with this library book, and show her the picture, too."

  Aroused from his reverie the old farmer clucked to his horse, and theywent bumping down the stony pike at a gait which satisfied even Maggie'simpatient desire for speed.

  "I reckon Roney will be mighty glad to see you," he remarked, as hestopped the horse in front of an old cabin a short distance from his ownhome. "She's been worse this week. You'll have half an hour yet beforesundown," he added, as he turned the wheel for her to climb out of thecarryall.

  "I'll stay till supper-time," she called back over her shoulder, "for Ihave so much to tell her this week."

  With the library book tucked away under the old gray shawl, she ran downthe straggling path to the little whitewashed cabin.

  Roney would understand. Roney had always understood things from the timethey had first been neighbours on a lonely farm near Loretta. That waswhen Magnolia was a baby, and Corono, six years older, without aplaymate and without a toy, had daily borrowed her and played with heras if she had been a great doll. It was Corono who had discovered herfirst tooth, and who had coaxed her to take her first step, and hadtaught her nearly everything she knew, from threading a needle and tyinga knot, to spelling out the words on the tombstones in the nuns'graveyard. Corono could often tell what she was thinking about, evenbefore she said a word. She was the only one at home to whom Magnoliaever mentioned the Princess.

  Several years before the two families had moved away together from theold place. In that time Corono's mother had died, and her father hadbecome so crippled with rheumatism that he could no longer manage to dothe heavy work on the farm he had rented. They were glad to accept theirold neighbour's offer of an empty cabin on his place. After that, whenCorono was not at the farmhouse helping Mrs. Budine with her cleaning orsewing or pickle-making, Magnolia was at the cabin, following at thelittle housekeeper's very heels, as she went about her daily tasks. Butnow for several months Corono had been barely able to drag from one roomto another. Whether it was a fall she had had in the early summer whichinjured her back, or whether it was some disease of the spine past hisskill to discover, the doctor from the crossroads could not decide.

  Her father had to be housekeeper now, and they would have had meagrefare oftentimes, had not a generous share of every pie and pudding bakedin the Budine kitchen found its way to their table.

  The weeks would have been almost unbearably monotonous to Corono afterMagnolia started to school had she not looked forward to the Fridays,when her return meant the bringing of a new library book, and anotherdelightfully interesting chapter of her life at the seminary.

  These glimpses into a world so different from her own gave her somethingto think about all week, as she dragged wearily about, trying to helpher father in his awkward struggles with the cooking and cleaning. Shethought about them at night, too, when the pain in her back kept herawake. Betty and Lloyd and Allison, Kitty and Elise and Katie Mallard,were as real to her as they were to Maggie. They would have stared inastonishment could they have known that every week a sixteen-year-oldgirl, whom they had never seen, and of whom they had barely heard, waswaiting to ask a dozen eager questions about them.

  Maggie ran in without knocking, bringing such a breath of fresh air andfresh interest with her that Corono's face brightened instantly. She waslying on the bed with a shawl thrown over her.

  "I've been listening for you for more than an hour," said Corono,propping herself up on her elbow. "I thought the time never would pass.I counted the ticking of the clock, and then I tried to see how much ofBetty's play I could repeat. I've read it so many times this week that Iknow it nearly all by heart."

  She picked up the book which lay beside her on the bed. It was thelibrary copy of "The Rescue of the Princess Winsome," which Maggie hadbrought to her the previous Friday. It had been in such constant demandsince the opening of school that she had been unable to obtain itearlier.

  Maggie, about to plunge into an account of her Hallowe'en experiences,checked herself as Corono winced with pain and her face grew suddenlywhite. "What's the matter?" she asked, sympathetically. "Do you feelvery bad?"

  To her astonishment Corono buried her face in her pillow to hide thetears that were trickling down her cheeks, and began to sob.

  "I'll run get mammy," said the frightened child, who had never seenCorono give way to her feelings in such fashion before.

  "No, don't!" she sobbed. "I'll be all right--in a minute. I'm justnervous--from the pain--I haven't slept much--lately!"

  Maggie sat motionless, afraid to make any attempt at consolation, evenso much as patting her cheek with her plump little hand. Roney was theone who had always comforted _her_. She did not know what to do, nowthat their positions were suddenly reversed. She was relieved when Roneypresently wiped her eyes and said, with an attempt at cheerfulness,"There! You never saw me make a baby of myself before! Did you! But Icouldn't help it. Sometimes when it gets this way I wish I could die.But I've just _got_ to keep on living for daddy's sake. I don't supposeany one ever told you, and you couldn't understand unless you knew.

  "It's this way. My mother's family never wanted her to marry daddy, andthey disowned her when she did, because he wasn't educated and rich andall that, as they were. They never spoke to her afterward, but when mygrandfather came to die, I reckon he was sorry for the way he'd done,for he wanted to send for her. It was too late, though. She had diedthat spring. Then he tried to make it up in a way, by being good to me,and he left me an annuity. I can't explain to you just what that is, butevery year as long as I live his lawyer is to pay me some money. Itisn't much, but it is all that daddy and I have had to live on since hehasn't been able to work. When I die the money will stop coming, so Ifeel that I _must_ keep on living even when every breath is agony, as itis sometimes. I don't think I can stand it much longer. There are dayswhen I just have to grit my teeth and say I _won't_ give up! I will hangon for poor daddy's sake. Sometimes I believe that is all that keeps mealive."

  She stopped abruptly, seeing the tears of distress in Maggie's eyes, andmade an attempt to laugh.

  "There!" she exclaimed. "Now that I've poured out all my troubles andeased my mind, I feel better. Tell me about the girls. What have theybeen doing this week?"

  Much relieved, Maggie produced the photograph of herself, and began anenthusiastic account of her Hallowe'en experiences. She began with thevisit to Clovercroft, and as she described the handsomely furnishedmusic-room, with its luxurious rugs and grand
piano, and the pricelesspictures that had been brought from over the sea, its lace curtains andwhite tiled hearth and andirons that shone like gold, it seemed to herthat the little cabin had never looked so bare. Its chinked walls andpuncheon floor stood out in pitiful contrast. The only picture in theroom was an unframed chromo tacked above the mantel.

  As she described the masquerade frolic, she contrasted Roney's lonelyshut-in life with her own and the other girls' at the seminary. Arealization of its meagreness and emptiness stole over her till shecould hardly keep the tears back. A great longing sprang up in her warmlittle heart to do something that would compensate as far as possiblefor all that she had missed. Acting on that impulse, as she reached theclimax of her story and drew out the cherished photograph of thePrincess, she thrust it into Roney's hand, saying, hurriedly, "Here, youcan have it, Roney. I'd rather you would have it than me."

  Corono held the picture eagerly, studying every detail of the beautifullittle medallion. The fair hair with its coronet of pearls, the whitedove nestled against her shoulder, as she had held it when she sang"Flutter and fly, flutter and fly, bear him my heart of gold,"--allseemed doubly attractive now with the play fresh in her mind. Besides,it was the most beautiful picture she had ever seen in all the sixteenyears of her lonely, unsatisfied life.

  The intuition that always helped her to understand her little friendmade her understand now in a way that the gift meant a sacrifice, andshe exclaimed, impulsively, "Oh, Maggie! I don't feel as if I ought totake it from you. You keep it, and just lend it to me once in awhile."

  "No, I want you to have it," said Maggie, drawing the old shawl uparound her. "Goodness me! It's getting dark. I'll have to run," andbefore Corono could make another protest she rushed away.

  As she ran along the path that crossed the pasture between the cabin andthe farmhouse, there was a tremulous smile on her face, but the fainttwilight also showed tears in her eyes. The smile was for the joy sheknew she had given Roney, but the tears were for herself. Nobody knewhow much of a sacrifice she had made in giving up the picture of thePrincess. Even Roney had not guessed how great it was. But she had noregret next morning when she came back to the cabin. Roney greeted hereagerly.

  "Look!" she cried, pointing to the old wooden clock which stood on themantel. "I didn't have a frame to put the picture in, and I was afraidit would get spoiled without glass over it. While I was looking aroundthe room wondering what to do, I happened to notice that it was thesame size as the pendulum. Daddy lifted it down for me, and I fastenedthe picture on that. So there it is all safe and sound behind the glassdoor, and I can see it from any part of the room.

  "And, oh, Maggie, you don't know how it helped me last night. It madethe play seem so real to me. As I lay here watching the pendulum, itstopped saying 'Tick tock, tick tock.' It seemed to me that the Princesswas looking straight at me, saying, instead, '_For love--will find--away!_' Then I knew that she meant me. That love would help me bear thepain for daddy's sake; that my living along as bravely as I could waslike spinning the golden thread, and that I mustn't think about thegreat skein that the weeks and months were piling up ahead for me to do;I must just spin a minute at a time. I can stand the pain when I countit with the pendulum. Even when the fire died down and I couldn't seeher any longer, I could hear her saying it over and over, 'Forlove--will find--a way.' And I lay there in the dark and pretended thatI was a princess, too, spinning love's golden thread, and that my dovewas a little white prayer that I could send fluttering up to God, askinghim to help me find the way to be brave and patient, and to hang on tolife as long as I possibly can for daddy's sake."

  Little did the Shadow Club dream that day how far their shadow-selveswere reaching. But Betty's song brought comfort and courage for many anhour into Roney's lonely life, and the greatest solace in her keenestsuffering was the smiling face of the Princess, swaying back and forthupon the pendulum.