  As the weeks and months went on, life at Primrose Hall adjusted itself to the new conditions made necessary by the addition of a child and a dog to its hitherto unrippled routine. Miss Priscilla lived with her usual energy; Miss Dorinda existed a little more calmly, and Ladybird lived and moved and had her excited being with all sorts of variations, from grave to gay, from lively to severe, ad libitum. The winter passed much in its usual way, and after that the spring came, laughing. April tumbled into May, and May danced into June, bringing ecstasy to one little heart, for with late June days came the summer vacation from school. “My aunties,” said Ladybird, looking up from a lesson she was studying, “who is the governor of this State?” “Hyde,” replied her Aunt Priscilla. “Governor Horace E. Hyde.” “Is he a nice man?” asked Ladybird, drumming on the table with both hands, and on the floor with both feet. “Do stop that fearful noise, Lavinia. Yes, he is a fine, capable governor, and a true gentleman. Why?” “Are you studying your history lesson, dear?” asked Aunt Dorinda. “Is it about the governor?” “I’m studying my history lesson, but it isn’t about the governor,” answered Ladybird, truthfully. “I only asked because I wanted to know.” “That is right, Lavinia,” said Miss Priscilla, approvingly. “It is wise to inquire often concerning such matters of general information; by such means one may acquire much valuable knowledge.” “Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird. “Where is his office?” “Whose, the governor’s? Oh, in the State House, I suppose, though he would doubtless have a private office at home.” “Yes, ’m,” said Ladybird. That same afternoon Ladybird collected some apples and cookies, and with a pad of paper and a pencil in her hand, and Cloppy hanging over her arm, she remarked that she was going down to the orchard, and went. “You see, Cloppy,” she said as they walked along, “we’ve just got to help Stella,—my pretty Stella; she has no one to help her but you and me. She’s a damsel in distress, and we’re a brave knight. Of course we can’t fight for her with spears and lancets; but we can do better than that. The pen is mightier than the sword, and, Cloppy, I’ve got the very elegantest scheme. I’m going to write to the governor—the governor of the State, you know. He can do anything, and if I write him a nice letter, I’m sure he’ll send a duke, or a belted earl, or something that’s nicer than Charley Hayes, anyway. But oh, Cloppy-dog, how I do hate to write a letter! I can’t write very good, and I can’t spell very good, and I’m scared to death of the governor. You know he’s an awful big man, Cloppy, a great man, with a white wig and a cocked hat; but I’m going to do it, and I won’t tell my aunties, because I’m ’most sure they wouldn’t let me. But I must do something to rescue my beautiful Stella from dire dismay.” “Writing the letter” “Writing the letter” Ladybird climbed one of her favorite apple-trees, settled Cloppy comfortably in her lap, and placing her paper pad on him as on a desk, prepared to write. A puckered brow was for a long time the only outward and visible sign of her inward and spiritual resolve to help her friend. “Oh,” she said at last, “it is harder even than I thought it would be; but I’ll do it for my Stella.” “Of course,” she thought, “‘Dear Mr. Governor’ must be the way to begin it, because there isn’t any other way.” After writing the three words, she paused again, trying to remember what her language lessons had taught her. “I only remember one rule,” she said to herself, talking aloud, as she was in the habit of doing, “and that is: ‘Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.’ But goodness me! if I can’t begin a sentence, it doesn’t make much difference what I use to end it with; does it, Clops?” She poked the dog with her pencil, to which he responded by a series of wriggles. “Do keep still, Cloppy, or I’ll never get my letter done. Now let me see. I think another rule was something like, ‘If you have a story to tell, state it clearly, and in as few words as you can’t get along without.’ Now I’m not going to tell any story; it’s the solemn truth; but I suppose the rule’s the same for that.” After long and hard work, and much scratching out and putting in again, Ladybird succeeded in producing the following epistle:
“Now, Cloppy,” said Ladybird, as she finished reading her work of art, “I do really think that’s a very nice letter, and I do really believe the governor will send a perfectly lovely young man for my Stella, and then Charley Hayes can go and marry somebody else.” Cloppy wagged his tail, and blinked his eyes in his usual bored fashion, and Ladybird scrambled down from the apple-tree and trotted off to the post-office to mail the important letter. She stamped it carefully, and addressed it to “Governor Hyde, State House.” “Now,” she said, as she walked home in great satisfaction, “I just guess I’ve done something for my friend, and I wish the answer would come quick.” It is not remarkable that Ladybird’s letter should have safely reached its destination. It was opened among the other mail by Gilbert Knox, the governor’s private secretary. As letters of a similar type had been received before, and found no favor in the governor’s eyes, not even as interesting curiosities, young Knox was about to toss it into the waste-basket, when his chum Chester Humphreys came into the office. “Hello, Chester,” he said; “you like odd tricks. Here’s a letter that may interest you. Want to read it?” Chester Humphreys read Ladybird’s letter. “You might go down to Plainville,” said Gilbert Knox, “and personate the earl.” “I don’t think I care for the lovely Stella,” returned Humphreys; “besides, I’m not an earl. But I’d like to see the kid that wrote that letter. I think I’ll write and make an appointment with her just for fun.” “Do,” said the secretary; “that is, if you see any fun in hunting up a little freckle-faced child, who will probably be too shy to speak to you after you get there.” “I don’t see anything in this letter,” said Humphreys, scanning it again, “to make me inevitably deduce freckles, nor yet shyness. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I think that baby’s a genius; and anyway, I’ve nothing to do, and it’s lovely country down there, and I’m going to chance it.” “All right,” said Knox. “You’d better write her that you’re coming.” “I will. Give us a pen.” And that’s how it happened that in due time Ladybird received a letter which set her eyes and heart dancing. It caused no comment when old Matthew handed her the precious document, for the child often had letters—often, too, from distant cities, where she exchanged souvenir-cards with other young collectors. Stopping only to catch up Cloppy, she ran to the orchard and tore open the envelope. Over and over again she read these lines:
“Oh,” said Ladybird, with a sigh of rapturous delight, “isn’t it grand! I can’t understand hardly a word of his letter, but he says he’ll come to see me about it, and that’s all I want to know. Now I suppose I’ll have to write him again. It’s awful hard work, but to think what it may mean to Stella!” With a little sigh, she went to fetch paper and pencil, and, returning, composed the third document in the case.
“He may not be an earl,” she thought, “but then he may; and if he is, it will be dreadful if I don’t tell him so.” |
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