The sympathy and excitement now were intense. One girl sniffed out from behind her handkerchief, "I--I should have--thought you would--have died--Miss Salisbury."
"Ah!" said Miss Salisbury, with a sigh, "you will find, Helen, as you grow older, that the only thing you can do to repair in any way the mischief you have done, is to keep yourself well under control, and endure the penalty without wasting time on your suffering. So I just made up my mind now to this; and I sat up straight, determined not to give way, whatever happened.
"It was very hard when the impatient pa.s.sengers would come back into the car to ask each other, "How soon do you suppose we will get to Mayville?" That was where I was to take the stage.
""Not till night, if we don"t start," one would answer, trying to be facetious; but I would torture myself into believing it. At last the conductor came through, and he met a storm of inquiries, all asking the same question, "How soon will we get to Mayville?"
"It seemed to me that he was perfectly heartless in tone and manner, as he pulled out his watch to consult it. I can never see a big silver watch to this day, girls, without a shiver."
The "Salisbury girls" shivered in sympathy, and tried to creep up closer to her.
"Well, the conductor went on to say, that there was no telling,--the railroad officials never commit themselves, you know,--they had telegraphed back to town for another engine (he didn"t mention that, after that, we should be sidetracked to allow other trains their right of way), and as soon as they could, why, they would move. Then he proceeded to move himself down the aisle in great dignity. Well, my dears, you must remember that this all happened long years ago, when accidents to the trains were very slowly made good. We didn"t get into Mayville until twelve o"clock. If everything had gone as it should, we ought to have reached there three hours before."
"Oh my goodness me!" exploded Alexia.
"By this time, the snow had piled up fast. What promised to be a heavy storm had become a reality, and it was whirling and drifting dreadfully.
You must remember that I had on my little thin jacket, instead--"
"Oh Miss Salisbury!" screamed several girls, "I forgot that."
"Don"t tell any more," sobbed another--"don"t, Miss Salisbury."
"I want you to hear this story," said Miss Salisbury quietly. "Remember, I did it all myself. And the saddest part of it is what I made others suffer; not my own distress."
"Sister, if you only _won"t_ proceed!" Miss Anstice abruptly leaned over the outer fringe of girls.
"I am getting on to the end," said Miss Salisbury, with a smile. "Well, girls, I won"t prolong the misery for you. I climbed into that stage, it seemed to me, more dead than alive. The old stage-driver, showing as much of his face as his big fur cap drawn well over his ears would allow, looked at me compa.s.sionately.
""Sakes alive!" I can hear him now. "Hain"t your folks no sense to let a young thing come out in that way?"
"I was so stiff, all I could think of was, that I had turned into an icicle, and that I was liable to break at any minute. But I couldn"t let that criticism pa.s.s.
""They--they didn"t let me--I"ve come from school," I stammered.
"He looked at me curiously, got up from his seat, opened a box under it, and twitched out a big cape, moth-eaten, and well-worn otherwise; but oh, girls, I never loved anything so much in all my life as that horrible old article, for it saved my life."
A long-drawn breath went around the circle.
""Here, you just get into this as soon as the next one," said the stage-driver gruffly, handing it over to me where I sat on the middle seat. I needed no command, but fairly huddled myself within it, wrapping it around and around me. And then I knew by the time it took to warm me up, how very cold I had been.
"And every few minutes of the toilsome journey, for we had to proceed very slowly, the stage-driver would look back over his shoulder to say, "Be you gittin" any warmer now?" And I would say, "Yes, thank you, a little."
"And finally he asked suddenly, "Do your folks know you"re comin"?" And I answered, "No," and I hoped he hadn"t heard, and I pulled the cape up higher around my face, I was so ashamed. But he had heard, for he whistled; and oh, girls, that made my head sink lower yet. Oh my dears, the shame of wrong-doing is so terrible to bear!
"Well, after a while we got into Cherryfield, along about half-past three o"clock."
"Oh dear!" exclaimed the young voices.
"I could just distinguish our church spire amid the whirling snow; and then a panic seized me. I must get down at some spot where I would not be recognized, for oh, I did not want any one to tell that old stage-driver who I was, and thus bring discredit upon my father, the clergyman, for having a daughter who had come away from school without permission. So I mumbled out that I was to stop at the Four Corners: that was a short distance from the centre of the village, the usual stopping place.
"One of the pa.s.sengers--for I didn"t think it was necessary to prolong the story to describe the two women who occupied the back seat--leaned forward and said, "I hope, Mr. Cheesewell, you ain"t goin" to let that girl get out, half froze as she"s been, in this snowstorm. You"d ought to go out o" your beat, and carry her home."
""Oh, no--no," I cried in terror, unwinding myself from the big cape and preparing to descend.
""Stop there!" roared Mr. Cheesewell at me. "Did ye s"pose I"d desert that child?" he said to the two women. "I"d take her home, ef I knew where in creation "twas."
""She lives at the parsonage--she"s th" minister"s daughter," said one of the women quietly.
"I sank back in my seat--oh, girls, the bitterness of that moment!--and as well as I could for the gathering mist in my eyes, and the blinding storm without, realized the approach to my home. But what a home-coming!
"I managed to hand back the big cape, and to thank Mr. Cheesewell, then stumbled up the little pathway to the parsonage door, feeling every step a misery, with all those eyes watching me; and lifting the latch, I was at home!
"Then I fell flat in the entry, and knew nothing more till I found myself in my own bed, with my mother"s face above me; and beyond her, there was father."
Every girl was sobbing now. No one saw Miss Anstice, with the tears raining down her cheeks at the memory that the beautiful prosperity of all these later years could not blot out.
"Girls, if my life was saved in the first place by that old cape, it was saved again by one person."
"Your mother," gasped Polly Pepper, with wet, shining eyes.
"No; my mother had gone to a sick parishioner"s, and father was with her. There was no one but the children at home; the bigger boys were away. I owe my life really to my sister Anstice."
"_Don"t!_" begged Miss Anstice hoa.r.s.ely, and trying to shrink away. The circle of girls whirled around to see her clasping her slender hands tightly together, while she kept her face turned aside.
"Oh girls," cried Miss Salisbury, with sudden energy, "if you could only understand what that sister of mine did for me! I never can tell you. She kept back her own fright, as the small children were so scared when they found me lying there in the entry, for they had all been in the woodshed picking up some kindlings, and didn"t hear me come in. And she thought at first I was dead, but she worked over me just as she thought mother would. You see we hadn"t any near neighbors, so she couldn"t call any one. And at last she piled me all over with blankets just where I lay, for she couldn"t lift me, of course, and tucked me in tightly; and telling the children not to cry, but to watch me, she ran a mile, or floundered rather--for the snow was now so deep--to the doctor"s house."
"Oh, that was fine!" cried Polly Pepper, with kindling eyes, and turning her flushed face with pride on Miss Anstice. When Miss Salisbury saw that, a happy smile spread over her face, and she beamed on Polly.
"And then, you know the rest; for of course, when I came to myself, the doctor had patched me up. And once within my father"s arms, with mother holding my hand--why, I was forgiven."
Miss Salisbury paused, and glanced off over the young heads, not trusting herself to speak.
"And how did they know at the school where you were?" f.a.n.n.y broke in impulsively.
"Father telegraphed Mrs. Ferguson; and luckily for me, she and her party were delayed by the storm in returning to the school, so the message was handed to her as she left the railroad station. Otherwise, my absence would have plunged her in terrible distress."
"Oh, well, it all came out rightly after all." Louisa Frink dropped her handkerchief in her lap, and gave a little laugh.
"_Came out rightly!_" repeated Miss Salisbury sternly, and turning such a glance on Louisa that she wilted at once. "Yes, if you can forget that for days the doctor was working to keep me from brain fever; that it took much of my father"s hard-earned savings to pay him; that it kept me from school, and lost me the marks I had almost gained; that, worst of all, it added lines of care and distress to the faces of my parents; and that my sister who saved me, barely escaped a long fit of sickness from her exposure."
"Don"t, sister, don"t," begged Miss Anstice.
"_Came out rightly_? Girls, nothing can ever come out rightly, unless the steps leading up to the end are right."
"Ma"am,"--Mr. Kimball suddenly appeared above the fringe of girls surrounding Miss Salisbury,--"there"s a storm brewin"; it looks as if "twas comin" to stay. I"m all hitched up, "n" I give ye my "pinion that we"d better be movin"."
With that, everybody hopped up, for Mr. Kimball"s ""pinion" was law in such a case. The picnic party was hastily packed into the barges,--Polly carrying the little green botany case with the ferns for Phronsie"s garden carefully on her lap,--and with many backward glances for the dear Glen, off they went, as fast as the horses could swing along.