  Ladybird hated school. Not the lessons, they were learned quickly enough, and with but little study; but the out-of-doors child grew very restive in the restraint and confinement of the school-room, and her whole touch-and-go nature rebelled at the enforced routine. Many battles were fought before she consented to go at all; but though Ladybird was strong-willed, Miss Priscilla Flint was also of no pliable nature, and she finally succeeded in convincing her fractious niece that education was desirable as well as inevitable. So Ladybird went to school—to a small and not far distant district school—whenever she could not get up a successful excuse for staying at home. With her sun-dial-like capability of marking the bright hours only, she eliminated as much as was possible of the ugly side of school life. She enjoyed the walks to and from the school-house, across the fields and through the lanes, and she enjoyed them so leisurely that she was a half-hour late nearly every morning, thus escaping the detestable “opening exercises.” During school hours, when not studying or reciting her lessons she read fairy-tales or else worked out puzzles. Though this was not exactly in line with the teacher’s methods of discipline, yet it was overlooked after several experimental endeavors which showed unmistakably what was the better part of valor. Also, Ladybird always kept fresh flowers on her desk, and kept lying in her sight any new toy or trinket which she might have recently acquired. She would have been fairly happy during school hours if she could have had her dog with her; but the teacher’s discretion did not extend as far as this, and so Cloppy was left at home each day to add to the gaiety of Primrose Hall. “Ladybird at school” “Ladybird at school” One day after he had added gaiety with especial assiduity, Miss Priscilla announced that she was at the end of her rope, and the dog must go. It happened that Ladybird came in from school that day in an unusually docile frame of mind. To begin with, it was Friday afternoon and the next day was a holiday. Furthermore, she had wrested a good half-hour from the long school afternoon, with its horrid “general exercises,” by the simple method of rising from her seat and walking out at the door. The teacher saw her do this, but allowed her feeling of relief to blunt her sense of duty. Not but what she liked Ladybird: no one could know the child and not like her; but when one is teaching a district school it is easier if the disturbing element be conspicuous by its absence. And so, with her course unimpeded, Ladybird marched out of school into the fields, and drawing a long breath, sauntered slowly and indirectly home. “I had a beautiful time,” she announced to her aunts. “There’s the loveliest afternoon outdoors you ever saw, and I’ve walked all around it. Such a big, fair, soft afternoon, and the sunlight is raining down all over it, and it’s full of trees, and sticks, and fences, and dry leaves; and where’s Cloppy? I’m going out in the orchard.” “Wait a moment, Lavinia,” said Miss Flint, “I wish to talk to you; sit down in your chair.” “Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird, dropping into a chair suddenly, “And hurry up your talking For I want to go a-walking.” “That will do, Lavinia, I’m in no mood for foolishness; I want to say that that wretched dog of yours cannot stay here any longer.” “Is that so, aunty?” said Ladybird, with her most exasperating air of polite interest. “Well, now I wonder where we can stay? Would they take us to board down at the hotel? I don’t know. Or perhaps Mrs. Jacobs would take us, if I helped her with the housework and sewing.” “That is enough nonsense, Lavinia. I tell you that dog is to be put away.” “I understand that, Aunt Priscilla; I’m not stupid, you know; I’m only wondering where we can go, for whithersoever Cloppy goest, I’m going, and there will I be buried.” “Very well, you may go if you choose; but that dog shall not remain in this house another day.” “You don’t like him, do you aunty?” said Ladybird, leaning her chin on her hand and gazing thoughtfully at her aunt. “Now I wonder why.” “He’s always under foot,” said Miss Priscilla, “and he’s such a moppy, untidy-looking affair!” “He’s a smart dog,” said Ladybird, meditatively. “That’s just it,” said Miss Flint, “he’s too smart: he looks at you just like a human. Why, when I scold him for anything, he sits up and stares at me, and those brown eyes of his blink through that ridiculous fringe of hair, and he never says a word, but sits there, and looks and looks at me until I feel as if I should just perfectly fly.” “Aunt Priscilla,” said Ladybird, looking at Miss Flint very steadily, “you haven’t been doing anything wrong, have you?” “What do you mean?” said her aunt, angrily. “Oh, nothing, but when I think Cloppy’s looking at me like that, it’s really my conscience inside of me telling me I’ve done wrong, when I think it’s only a little dog blinking.” Miss Flint sat quiet for a moment. Then the fact that there was a modicum of truth in her niece’s remarks caused her annoyance to find vent in sarcasm. “I did not know, Lavinia, that you ever thought you had done wrong.” “Oh, aunty, what a foolishness! Of course I know when I’ve done wrong, and you know I know it; and you know I’m as sorry as sorry as sorry! But sometimes I don’t know it until I see that Cloppy-dog staring at me, and then I realize what’s up; and so you see, aunty, I have to keep my little blinky doggy as a sort of a conscience. And now we’ll consider that matter settled.” “You may consider what you choose,” said Miss Priscilla, looking at her niece very sternly; “I consider it is not settled, and will not be until the dog is disposed of permanently, and if you don’t attend to it, I shall.” “Aunt Priscilla,” said Ladybird, rising from her chair with great dignity, “I will go to my room and think this matter over.” “Do,” said Miss Priscilla, dryly, “and take your conscience with you.” “Come on, Conscience,” said Ladybird to Cloppy, and swinging the dog up to her shoulder, she went to her room. She was not in one of her stormy moods; she closed her chamber door quietly behind her and gently deposited Cloppy on his favorite cushioned chair. She then seated herself on a low ottoman directly in front of him, and resting her chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, she gazed intently at the dog. “It seems to me, Cloppy,” she began, “that something is going to happen. You heard what Aunt Priscilla said, and I have learned my Aunt Priscilla well enough to know that when she clicks her teeth and waggles her head over her glasses like that she’s made up her mind most especial firmly, and it is ours but to do or die. Now, Clops, the whole question is, shall we do or die?” Save for an occasional blink, the dog’s brown eyes gazed straight through his wispy locks of hair at Ladybird, who gazed steadily back at him also through stray, straight wisps of hair, and also blinking now and then. “You see, Cloppy-dog, it’s a crisis; like the heroes in the history book, you’ve got to cross the Rubicon or cut the Gordian knot, or something. Of course I sha’n’t let you go away from me; you know that as well as I do. Why, I’d rather have you than all the aunts in the world, yes, or uncles either, or man-servants, or maid-servants, or cattles or strangers within our gates. Why, Cloppy, if they tried to take you away from me, I’d—I’d kill them! Yes, I would! I’d kill them all, and burn the house down, and I’d—oh, I’d even break the buds off of Aunt Priscilla’s Lady Washington geranium! Cloppy, don’t sit there staring at me like that! Don’t you think so too? Wouldn’t you kill and murder and massacre anybody that tried to take me away from you? Stop it, Cloppy; stop looking at me in that reproachful way! I’m not naughty; Aunt Priscilla is naughty: she says you’ve got to go—go, do you understand, GO!” “‘You see, Cloppy-dog, it’s a crisis’” “‘You see, Cloppy-dog, it’s a crisis’” By this time Ladybird was on her knees in front of the dog, alternately caressing and shaking him to emphasize her remarks; but Cloppy, being used to his emotional mistress, continued to gaze at her without sharing her excitement. “Dog! if you don’t stop looking at me like that I’ll tie a bandage over your eyes. I know perfectly well what you mean, but I won’t pay a bit of attention to it: you mean that I ought not to let my angry passions rise; but I guess you would too if you had an Aunt Priscilla like mine! Suppose you had an old aunt dog with gray hair and spectacles, who wouldn’t let you have anything you wanted, wouldn’t you get mad at her, I’d like to know? “Oh, I understand you; don’t trouble yourself to put it into words: you mean that aunty does let me have some things that I want,—most things, in fact,—and you mean I’m a bad, ungrateful girl to act like this, and you mean that no decent dog would act so. Well, I suppose they wouldn’t; I suppose I am worse than a dog, or a cat, or a hyena. But I’m sorry, Cloppy, I am sorry, and I guess I’ll be good. Yes, I believe I will be good!” As this high and noble resolve formed itself in Ladybird’s mind, the glory of it appealed to her, and she began at once to elaborate upon it. “Now will you stop piercing me with those daggery eyes of yours? I’m going to do right; I’m going to honor and obey my Aunt Priscilla Flint; and though I shall be a martyr in the cause, I sha’n’t mention that, because it would spoil all the goodness of my deed. Of course my duty is to my aunt—my dear aunt who feeds and clothes me, and lends me her roof to keep off the rain; and though she has asked me for the apple of my eye and the apple-core of my heart, I will give them. I will sacrifice them on the altar of duty, even though they are my dear little dog. And now I shall go right straight down and tell my aunt before I change my mind.” Buoyed up by the elation of her noble resolve, and enveloped in an atmosphere of conscious rectitude, Ladybird gathered up Cloppy and marched down-stairs, with her head erect and her eyes shining. “Aunty,” she announced, “I am ready to obey you; I’m going to take Cloppy away, and you will never see him again.” “What’s that, child?” said Miss Priscilla, looking up from an article she was reading, and in which she was deeply absorbed. “I say,” repeated Ladybird, with dignity, “that since you say Cloppy must go, he is going.” “That’s a good girl,” said Miss Priscilla, half absent-mindedly, and she returned to her reading. “I am a good girl,” said Ladybird; “but this is the goodest thing I have ever done, and I wish you appreciated it more.” But Miss Flint was again deep in her book, and made no reply. Ladybird left the house, her enthusiasm somewhat impaired, but her purpose strengthened by a certain contrary stubbornness which her aunt’s indifference had aroused. “I’m a martyr, Cloppy,” she said—“a perfectly awful martyr; but I’m not going to show it, for I detest people who act martyrish outside. Of course you can’t help what you feel inside. “And, anyway, if I’m the martyr, Aunt Priscilla is the tyrant and the oppressor and the Spanish Inquisitor, and all those dreadful things, and that’s a great deal worse! I’m ground under her iron heel, and crushed beneath her yoke, and chastised with her scorpions; but I’ll bear it all cheerfully, and never even mention it. Because you see, Cloppy, we’re doing right; and it’s a great thing to do right, and very exciting.” |
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