Back Aa

Adopting of Rosa Marie

Close

<h2>CHAPTER XXIII Taking a Walk</h2> "PHEW!" gasped Jean, wheeling as the north wind, sweeping round the corner, caught her square in the face. "I don't think much of that! It's like ice." "Ugh!" groaned Marjory, "I wish I'd stayed home." "Mercy!" gulped Henrietta, "it's blowing my skin off." After that, no one had very much to say. The girls needed their breath for other purposes. With heads down and jackets pulled tightly about them, they started up the long hill with the wind in their faces. It was not a pleasant wind. Cold and cutting, it flung icy particles of snow against their cheeks, nipped their unprotected ears, stung their fingers and found the thin places in their garments. It rushed down their throats when they opened their mouths to speak, wrapped their petticoats so tightly about them that they had to keep unwinding themselves in order to walk at all, heaped the whirling snow in drifts and filled the air so full of flakes that it was only between gusts that the houses were visible. Worst of all, the way was very much uphill, and Mabel, besides being short of breath, was burdened with the basket of eggs. The snow seemed to take a delight in piling itself directly in front of them. "Ugh!" gasped Henrietta, "I wish my stockings were fur-lined. They thawed out in Mrs. Malony's and now they're frozen stiff. I don't like 'em." "Mine, too," panted Mabel. "And all my skirts," groaned Marjory. "The edges are like saws and they're scraping my knees." "How do you like a real storm?" queried Jean, steering Henrietta through a mighty drift. "Not so well as I thought I should," admitted Henrietta. "I miss my blizzard clothes." The streets, when the girls finally reached the top of the hill, were deserted. Even the sides of the houses looked like solid walls of snow, for the wind had hurled the big flakes in gigantic handfuls against the buildings until they were all nicely coated with a thick frosting; and so, all the world was white. And, by the time the five girls reached Jean's house, for they finally accomplished that difficult feat, they, too, were nicely plastered from head to heels with the clinging snow. They looked like animated snow men as they piled thankfully into Mrs. Mapes's parlor. The girls themselves were warm and glowing from the unusual exercise, but their stockings and cotton skirts were frozen stiff. "Henrietta will simply have to stay all night," said Mrs. Mapes, discovering the wet stockings. "I sent the coachman home half an hour ago for the sake of the horses. I'll telephone Mrs. Slater that you're safe. You other girls must go home at once and change your clothes before they thaw. And, Jean, you and Henrietta must get into bed at once. I'll bring you a hot supper inside of five minutes." "That'll be fun," declared Jean, seizing Henrietta's hand and making for the stairs. "Good-night, girls." "I guess," said Marjory, when the Mapes's door had closed behind Bettie, Mabel and herself, "Jean and Henrietta are going to be great chums." "I'm afraid so," sighed Bettie. "I like Henrietta; but, dear me, I don't want Jean to like her better than she does me." "She won't," comforted Marjory. "Henrietta's all right for a little while at a time, but you're always nice." Thanks to Mrs. Mapes's instructions, none of the girls caught cold; but their mothers were so afraid that they might that not one of them was permitted to poke her nose out of doors the next day. To Henrietta's delight, the drifts reached the fence tops; and, until a huge plow, drawn by six horses arranged in pairs, had cleared the way, the roads were impassable. The wind, after raging furiously all night, had quieted down; but the snow continued to fall in big, soft, clinging flakes, every tree and shrub was weighted down with a heavy burden and all the world was white. To Henrietta, who had never before seen snow in such abundance, it was a most pleasing spectacle. Bettie, however, was sorely troubled. There was Jean shut in with attractive Henrietta and getting "chummier" with her every minute. There was Bettie, a solitary prisoner in a fuzzy red wrapper and bed slippers, sighing for her beloved Jean. To be sure, Bettie had brothers of assorted sizes and complexions, but not one of them could fill Jean's place in Bettie's troubled affections. Had Bettie but known it, however, Jean was not having an entirely comfortable day. It happened to be one of Henrietta's "Frederika" days. The lively girl tormented bashful Wallace by pretending that she herself was excessively shy, and, as shyness was not one of her attributes, her victim was covered with confusion. She teased and bewildered Roger by chattering so rapidly in French that he couldn't understand a word she said, although he had studied the language for three years under Miss McGinnis and was proud of his progress. A number of times she became so witty at Jean's expense that "Sallie" had to rush to the rescue with profuse apologies. Also, she disturbed both Mr. and Mrs. Mapes by her extreme restlessness. "My sakes," confided Mrs. Mapes, in the privacy of the kitchen, whither she had fled for the sake of quiet, "I'm glad that girl doesn't belong to me; she isn't still a minute." "Perhaps," said Roger, who had escaped on the pretext of blacking his shoes, "it's because she has traveled so much. Maybe she feels as if she had to keep going." "Bettie's certainly a great deal quieter," agreed Jean, who looked tired, "and she doesn't talk all night when a body wants to sleep; but Henrietta's more fun. You see, you never know what she's going to do next, but Bettie's always just the same." At dinner time that day, Mrs. Mapes asked her husband if he knew whether the School Board had accomplished anything at the meeting held the night previously. "No," replied Mr. Mapes, a tall, thin man with a preoccupied air. "And they never will as long as each one of them wants to put that schoolhouse in a different place. They can't come to any sort of an agreement." Indeed, the poor School Board was having a perplexing time. The citizens that lived at the north end of the town wanted the new school built there. Other tax-payers declared that the southern portion of Lakeville, being more densely populated, offered a more suitable site. Then, since the town stretched westward for a long distance, a third group of persons were clamoring for the building in their part of the town. Besides all these, there were persons who declared that the old site was the only place for a school building. As the Board itself was divided as to opinion, it began to look as if Lakeville would have to get along without a schoolhouse unless it could afford to build four, and the tax-payers said it couldn't do that. "I wish," said Mrs. Mapes, "that I could find a first-class girls' school within a reasonable distance. If they don't have a proper building in Lakeville by next September I'll send Jean away. That Baptist cellar is damp, and I know it. Besides, I went to a good boarding school myself and I'd like Jean to have the experience—I'll never forget those days." "Send her," suggested Henrietta, "to the school I'm going to." "Which one is that?" asked Mrs. Mapes. "I don't know; but Grandmother says it mustn't be too far away. She wants me within reach." "I think," said Mrs. Mapes, reflectively, "I'll send for some catalogues." The next morning the sun shone brightly on a glittering world. Henrietta went into ecstasies over it, for even the tree trunks seemed incrusted with diamonds—or at least rhine-stones, Henrietta said. The coachman arrived with the Slater horses a little before nine o'clock and the two girls were carried off to school in state. They waved their hands to Bettie as they passed her trudging in the snow; and poor Bettie was suddenly conscious of a sharp twinge of jealousy. Now that Henrietta had been properly called on and had returned the call, she became a permanent part of all the Cottagers' plans. Thereafter, there was hardly a day when one or another of the four girls did not see the fascinating maid of many names. They always found her interesting, attractive and entertaining. Yet, there were days when she teased them almost to the limit of their endurance, times when they could not quite approve her and moments when she fairly roused them to anger; but, in spite of her faults, they could not help loving her, because, with all her impishness and her distressing lack of repose, she was warm-hearted, loyal and thoroughly true. And, although she possessed dozens of advantages that the other girls lacked, although she was beautifully gowned, splendidly housed and bountifully supplied with spending money, never did she show, in any way, the faintest scrap of false pride. She mentioned her life abroad, in a simple, matter-of-fact way (as if it were a mere incident that might have happened to anybody), but never in any boasting spirit. Her prankishness, however, kept her from being too good or too lovable; for, as her Grandmother said, she spared no one; sometimes even Jean, who was a model of patience, found it hard to forgive fun-loving Frederika, the Disguised Duchess. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2