The nurse did leave the room next day for a minute, and Flaxie ran up to the bed and nestled close to her mother. “Now I’ll tell you all about it. I wanted to see you so, my heart ached and ached, and once I ran away home.” “You did, darling? I’m glad I didn’t know it,” said mamma, kissing her. “I didn’t tell anybody—much,” returned Flaxie. “I thought ’twasn’t polite. And then auntie bought me some red worsteds, and I made some mittens for a sick girl named Lucy, that can’t wipe her mouth, “That was right. Of course it made you happy to forget yourself and help somebody else.” “Yes’m, I know all about that!” replied Flaxie, with a wise look. She had learned a deep lesson from those mittens. “But I don’t ever want to go away again,” said she, dropping a tear on the pillow, “for there isn’t any you and Dr. Papa anywhere else.” “Oh, some time you’ll want to.” “No, mamma. When I said I’d go there to school with Milly I didn’t know about my baby sister. I ought to stay and take care of her, and never go away any more as long as I live,—not till I die, and go to heaven.” But three months passed, and Flaxie had forgotten all this. She was always fond of The world looked dark to Flaxie, for she was sick that spring, and a long while getting well. It was a queer sort of illness too. First it made her look yellow and then pea-green, and Julia had to sing and smile a great deal in order to keep her at all comfortable. “After dandelions, buttercups, sang Julia one evening, when Flaxie was making ready to take her medicine. “Now, Flaxie dear, swallow it like a lady.” “Yes. Dr. Papa knows a great deal, and It was a comfort to see her take her medicine for once without crying, and Preston shouted “Hurrah!” She was pea-green at this time, and oh, so cross! For supper she had had three slices of bread and butter, and cried because she couldn’t have the fourth. “If the poor little thing wasn’t so cross we’d send her to Aunt Charlotte’s for a change,” said Dr. Papa in a low voice to his wife; but Flaxie heard it. “Oh, mamma, do lemme go to Aunt Charlotte’s, and go to school with Milly; she has such a dear teacher! And Milly’s my twin cousin, born just the same month. And I won’t be cross if they don’t give me enough to eat; and I’ll take a whole bushel o’ pills!” “Let her go,” laughed papa; “the bushel of pills settles it.” Flaxie was six and a half years old, and could have gone to Hilltop alone—almost; but as Captain Jones happened to be travelling that way, Dr. Papa thought he would pretend to put her in his charge. “Did you ever go in the cars alone, Ninny, with your own valise, and a check in your pocket?” asked Flaxie in glee, as she rode up to the station; “and oh, a umbrella, too!” “No, I never did—at your age,” replied Ninny, who was now a young lady of twelve. “You see Uncle Ben will be there to meet me when we get to Hilltop,” said Miss Frizzle, fluttering her darling umbrella against the captain’s spectacles; “and won’t he laugh when he sees me coming all alone, with a check in my pocket?” “Good-bye, curly-head; take care of that “Let’s see, where is Hilltop, and how will you know when you get there?” asked the captain, before Flaxie had time to cry. “Oh, it’s where Uncle Ben lives and Aunt Charlotte,” replied the little traveller, who had a vague idea that the house was in the middle of a snow-drift, with roses in the front yard and strawberries behind it. “Their name is Allen.” “Well, I’m glad you’ve told me all the particulars,” said the captain gravely. “And I shall be easy, for we can’t miss it.” Flaxie smiled and looked at her check. She felt the whole care of the journey, but it didn’t trouble her at all, for the captain would tell her when to stop. She “’membered” all about Hilltop just as well as could be, but she didn’t ’xactly know where it was! It was a pleasant ride on that beautiful spring day, and the captain would have been very agreeable, only he seemed to have a perfect horror of “pinnuts,” the very things Flaxie had dreamed about and expected to eat all the way. He shook his head at the peanut boys, and told her he “wished they would keep away with their trash!” If he had only gone into a smoking-car and left her, she might have bought some, for she had her red portemonnaie with her; but then he never thought of leaving her, for he really had no idea she was travelling alone. She had said Uncle Ben would laugh at meeting her; and so he did. He threw up both hands and cried, “Bless me! what’s all this?” for it is not every day one sees a little girl of just that color; but he looked sober the next minute. “Poor little thing, you’ve had a hard time.” “Oh no, sir, not very,” said Flaxie, thinking he meant the journey. “I like to travel alone.” Captain Jones, who was putting the little umbrella into the carriage, laughed, and said he wished he had known that before. “Good-bye,” said he, kissing his hand to her. “I shall miss you very much, for I don’t like to travel alone!” Then Flaxie drove off with her uncle in the nice easy carriage, and found Aunt Charlotte and all her cousins delighted to see her, as she had known they would be. She had told the captain they were “elegant cousins;” but when Johnny exclaimed, “Hullo! Miss Frizzle, you look like a pickled lime,” she blushed a sort of pinkish-green blush, and thought he had grown very disagreeable. “Well, I didn’t mean anything. I’ve seen folks look worse’n you do—a good deal,” “I’ll tell you who looks worse,” he broke in again, as they were all seated at supper; “it’s our teacher, Miss Pike. She isn’t the same color by a long shot, but she’s awful homely.” “Is she? Well, I guess I shan’t go to school.” “Johnny ought not to speak in that way of his dear teacher,” said Aunt Charlotte gravely; “it is not her fault that she is not pretty; and everybody loves her, for she has a beautiful soul.” “Oh, yes, everybody loves her,” said Master Freddy; “but didn’t Jemmy Glover send her a mean valentine last winter? ‘Old Miss Pike, she’s ninety-nine, “If she looks so bad, why don’t she let “Oh, Miss Pike isn’t sick; she was born so, and medicine wouldn’t help her any,” said Johnny, trying hard not to laugh at his simple little cousin. “I’ll take you to see her to-morrow.” Flaxie set her teeth firmly into a cookie, resolving that she would not see such a monster of ugliness, much less go to school to her, not if Johnny should drag her to the schoolhouse by a rope. After tea she sat on the front doorsteps awhile in Milly’s lap. The little friends had a way of sitting in each other’s lap, and it was a droll sight, as they were just of a size. “Where’s Lucy, that I made the mittens for?” asked Flaxie. “Oh, she’s at home, but her sister Hatty goes to school.” “Well, I shan’t have to make mittens or anything this time, ’cause you’re at home, Milly. I like to be with my twin cousin in a twin house,” said Flaxie, twisting her neck to look at Mrs. Hunter’s door-stone. It was just like Aunt Charlotte’s, only there were flower-pots on it. “Guess what I dreamed last night,” returned Milly. “I dreamed you were my sister; and then I woke up and thought how queer it is that God always sends brothers to this house, and not any sisters.” “Why so he does; for Johnny and Freddy are both boys, and so is Ken,” said Flaxie, struck with a new idea. “It’s real-too-bad!” “But now you’ve come, and we’ll go to school together, and it’s just as well,” said Milly, kissing her pea-green friend in rapture. “Oh, I didn’t say I’d go to school, Milly Allen.—Why, who’s that coming?” “Hush! that’s my teacher and her sister.” “Which is the sister?” “The big one.” “Well, she’s got the dropsies.” “Oh, no, she hasn’t; she teaches the singing in our school.” “But she has got the dropsies, Milly Allen, for a fat woman has ’em where I live, and my papa takes care of her; so don’t I know?” Milly said no more, for her papa was not a doctor; so what right had she to give an opinion concerning diseases? The two ladies nodded and smiled in passing. “Oh, how homely!” whispered Flaxie, in amazement; “I mean the other one, not the sister.” There was no doubt about it. I really suppose Miss Pike was one of the ugliest women Milly, who had always known her, did not mind her looks. Indeed, so little can children judge of the beauty of those they love, that I dare say she might have thought her dear teacher quite handsome if she had not heard everybody speak of her as “that homely Miss Pike.” “We don’t have such looking folks keep school where I live,” said Flaxie, in scorn. “I can’t help it if you don’t,” returned Milly, slipping her cousin off her lap with much indignation. “God made her so, and my mamma says you mustn’t notice how anybody looks when they have a beautiful soul.” “Well, you won’t get me to go to school, not if you give me five million thousand dollars, Flaxie kept her word, and Milly went off next morning half crying; but little Freddy confided to his mother that he was “glad Flaxie wouldn’t go to school, for the scholars would laugh at her, true as you live.” It was rather dull, all alone with Aunt Charlotte and little Ken, who was cutting his teeth and cried a great deal; but Flaxie held out for a whole week. This was fortunate, as it gave time for the greenish color to fade out of her face, and her own natural pink and white to come back again as beautiful as ever. “I guess I will go to school with you, Milly, if you want me to so much,” said she at last one morning, when her cousins had all stopped teasing her. “I just despise Miss Pike, but I like the one that has the dropsies, and I want to hear her sing.” Such a hugging and kissing followed this remark that Flaxie felt as if she had said a very fine thing, and started off with Milly, carrying her head very high. The schoolhouse was white, with green blinds, and stood on the bank of the river, shaded by trees. Burdocks, milkweed, rushes, dandelions, and buttercups, were sprinkled around, while close down by the river was a narrow strip of clay bank, very nice to cut into with penknives,—as you would think if you had seen the pretty images some of the children made and spread out on boards in the sun. Inside the schoolhouse it was nice and cool, with a large entry and recitation-room, and flowers on the desks and tables. The teacher, “that homely Miss Pike,” moved about softly, and spoke in low, sweet tones, smiling, and showing even white teeth. “I s’pose her soul will fly right out of her when she dies,—and that won’t have a red nose,” thought Flaxie, gazing at her with curiosity mingled with awe. Somehow there was a happy feeling all over the schoolroom because Miss Pike was in it, and Flaxie’s thoughts grew pleasant, she could not have told why. But one thing she did know, she wanted to be a good girl,—not pretty good, but the very best in the world,—that that sweet woman might love her. |