"Yes, it is true; but you can never see it," said her mother, "for the next year the store was built up a story or two higher, and the play-house on the roof was no more."
"There"s the lunch bell," said Kristy, "will you tell me some more after lunch?"
"Dear me, Kristy," said her mother, with a sigh, "you are certainly incorrigible; don"t you _ever_ get tired of stories?"
"Never!" said Kristy emphatically; "I could listen to stories all day and all night too, I guess."
Mrs. Crawford hesitated; Kristy went on.
"Won"t you tell me stories as long as it rains?"
"Well, yes," began Mrs. Crawford, who had noted signs of clearing. But Kristy interrupted, shouting, "It"s a bargain! it"s a bargain! you said yes! Now let"s go to lunch; I"m in a hurry to begin the next story."
"Well," said Mrs. Crawford, when they returned to the sitting-room after lunch, "if I"m to tell stories all day, you certainly should do something, too; it isn"t fair for me to do all the work."
"I will," said Kristy laughing; "I"ll listen."
"Do you call that work?" asked her mother.
"N--o!" said Kristy, thinking a moment. "Well, I"ll tell you! I"ll get my knitting;" and she ran out of the room and in a minute or two came back with some wool and needles with a very little strip of knitting, all done up in a clean towel. She had set out to knit a carriage-blanket for a baby she was fond of, but she found it slow work, for as soon as she became interested in anything else the knitting was forgotten. Now she took her seat in a low chair and began to knit. "Now begin," she said, as her mother took up her sewing.
"Did I ever tell you, Kristy, how I learned to knit?"
"No," said Kristy; "I suppose your mother taught you."
"She did not. I was taught by my grandmother, my father"s mother, one winter that I spent with her, when my mother was ill."
"Wasn"t your grandmother very queer?" asked Kristy. "Did she look like that picture in your room?"
"Yes; that"s a good likeness, but she wasn"t exactly queer. She was a very fine woman, but she had decided notions about the way girls should be brought up, and she thought my mother was too easy. So when she had the whole care of me, she set herself to give me some good, wholesome training."
"Poor little mamma!" said Kristy. "What did she do? It seems so funny to think of you as a little girl being trained!"
"Well, it was not at all funny, I a.s.sure you. I thought I was terribly abused, and I used to make plans to run away some night and go home.
But every night I was so sleepy that I put it off till another night; and indeed I had a bit of common sense left, and realized that I had no money and did not know the way home, and couldn"t walk so far anyway; though I did run away once"--
"Oh, tell me about that"--cried Kristy, laughing; "you run away! how funny! tell me!"
"I"ll tell you the story of my naughty runaway, but first I must tell you about my grandmother and why I wanted to run away."
CHAPTER VI
HOW MAMMA RAN AWAY
My mother was not a very strong woman, while I was a healthy strong girl, so when she tried to teach me to knit and sew, I always managed to get out of it, and she was too weak to insist. So when I went to my grandmother"s to spend the winter, and her first question was, "What sewing have you on hand now?" I was struck with horror.
"Why none"--I stammered, and seeing the look of surprise in her face, I hastened to add, "I never have any on hand."
"Do you never sew?" she asked, in her sternest tone.
"Why--not very often," I faltered. "I don"t like to sew."
"Hm!" said my grandmother, "I shall have to teach you then; I am surprised! ten years old and not know how to sew! At your age, your Aunt Emily was almost an expert needlewoman; she could do overhand, hemming, felling, backst.i.tching, hemst.i.tching, running, catst.i.tching, b.u.t.tonholes, and a little embroidery."
I was aghast. Had I got to learn all these mysteries of the needle! My grandmother went on.
"We"ll begin at the beginning then; I"ll prepare some patchwork for you."
My heart sank; patchwork was the thing my mother had tried to have me do, and I hated it. I remember now some mussed up, dirty-looking blocks, stuffed behind a bureau at home--to have them lost.
True to her word, my grandmother brought out her "piece-bag" and selected a great pile of bits of colored calico and new white cotton cloth, which she cut into neat blocks about four inches square, and piled up on the table, the white pieces by themselves, the pink and the blue in separate piles, and the gray and dull colored also by themselves.
Then taking needle and thread, she began basting them for sewing, a white and colored one together. Oh, what a pile there was of basted pieces, ready for me to learn overhand, or "over "n over" as I used to call it. I thought there was enough for a quilt. Should I have to sew it all? I was in despair. But my grandmother was much pleased with the show. "There!" she said, "when you finish those, I shall prepare some more, and if you are industrious, you will have enough for a quilt by spring, and then I will have a quilting and you can take home to your mother a sample of the work you have done."
Somehow this picture did not allure me. I thought only of the weary, weary hours of sewing I should have to do.
Well, that very day she sent to the store and had a thimble bought for me, and that afternoon after school I began my quilt under her eye. I must have a regular "stint," she said, and it was to be--at first--one of those dreadful blocks, at least four inches of over-and-over st.i.tches! This was to be done the first thing after school, before I could go out to play.
I won"t tell you of the tears I shed over those blocks, of the bad st.i.tches I had to pick out and do over, of the many times I had to go and wash my hands because of dirty thread. I thought my grandmother the most cruel taskmaster in the world.
And the patchwork was not all. When she found that I could not even knit, and that I was accustomed at home to read all the long winter evenings before my bedtime at eight, she said at once that so much reading was not good for me, and I must have some knitting. So she had some red yarn bought, and some steel needles, and "set up" a stocking big enough for my little brother, cheering me, as she thought, by telling me that if I paid proper attention to it, I could knit a pair of stockings for him before spring. My evening "stint" was six times around the stocking-leg.
These two tasks, which my grandmother never failed to exact from me, made life a burden to me. How I hated them! how naughty I was! How I used to break my needles and lose my spool of thread, and ravel my knitting to make a diversion in the dreary round, forgetting that all these hindrances only prolonged my hours of labor, for every st.i.tch of my task must be finished before she would release me.
I brooded over my hardships till I became really desperate, and so was in a fit state to agree to a plan proposed by a schoolmate--to run away. She too had troubles at home; her mother made her help in the housework; she had to wash dishes when she wanted to play out of doors.
We compared notes and made up our minds that we were persecuted and abused, and we wouldn"t stand it any longer. We were not quite so silly as to think of a serious runaway, but we wanted to get rid of our tasks for one day at least; and besides it was spring now and the woods were full of flowers, which I loved, next to books, best of anything in the world.
So after school one day we started for the woods instead of for home.
We felt very brave and grown-up when we turned into the path that led into the woods, but before the afternoon was over our feelings changed, and we began to feel very wicked, and to dread going home. I thought of my grandmother"s sharp eyes fixed on me, and dreaded what punishment she might inflict, for I knew she believed in punishments that terrified me, such as doubling my daily task, shutting up in a dark closet, and even, I feared, the rod.
Moreover my fault was made worse by the fact that I had lost my schoolbooks which I was taking home for the study-hour in the morning.
I had laid them down on a log and was unable to find them again, though we spent hours--it seemed to me--in looking for them.
We did not enjoy our freedom after all, for the sense of guilt and dread took all the pleasure out of everything; besides, we had one great fright. We heard some great animal rustling among the bushes and were sure it was a bear. We turned and fled, running as hard as we could, looking fearfully back to see if we were pursued, stumbling over logs, and tearing our clothes on bushes. I lost one shoe in a muddy place, and Jenny lost her sunbonnet.
We picked flowers, and when the frail things wilted in our hot hands, we threw them away, and not till it began to grow dark did we get up courage to turn towards the village.
The piece of woods was not large, and we did not really get lost, and before it was quite dark, two very tired, shamefaced girls, with torn dresses and generally disreputable looks, stole into the back doors of their respective homes.
I never knew what happened to Jenny--she never would tell me; but I met the stern face of my grandmother the moment I stepped into the kitchen. I had tried to slip in and go to my room to wash and brush myself, and try to mend my dress before she saw me, but the moment I entered, her eye was upon me.
After one look of utter horror, she seized me by the shoulders, and walked me into the sitting-room, where the family were gathered,--my uncle who lived with my grandmother, and my three cousins, all older, and not playmates for me.
She left me standing in the middle of the room, while all eyes were turned in reproof upon me.