When at last she stood on the stone steps of the schoolhouse, her courage returned, and, without hesitation, she thrust the key in the lock of the door.
It turned with a harsh, grating sound, and the little girl"s heart beat rapidly as she pushed open the heavy door. The hall was as black as a dungeon, but by groping around she found the banister rail, and so made her way upstairs.
Her resolution was undaunted, but the awful silence of the empty, dark place struck a chill to her heart. She ran up the stairs, and tried to sing in order to break that oppressive silence. But her voice sounded queer and trembly, and it made echoes that were worse than no sound at all.
She had to go up two flights of stairs, and as she reached the top of the second flight she was near her own cla.s.sroom. As she turned the doork.n.o.b, the street door, downstairs, which she had left open, suddenly slammed shut with a loud bang. The sound reverberated through the building, and Midget stood still, shaking with an unconquerable nervous dread. She didn"t know whether the door blew shut or had been slammed to by some person. She no longer pretended to herself that she was not frightened, for she was.
"I know I"m silly," she thought, as two big tears rolled down her cheeks, "but if I can just get that book, and get out of here, won"t I run for home!"
Feeling her way, she stumbled into the cla.s.sroom. A faint light came in from the street, but not enough to allow her to distinguish objects clearly. Indeed, it cast such wavering, ghostly shadows that the total darkness was preferable.
Counting the desks as she went along, she came at last to her own, and felt around in it for her speller.
"There you are!" she exclaimed, triumphantly, as she clutched the book.
And somehow the feeling of the familiar volume took away some of the loneliness.
But her trembling fingers let her desk-cover fall with another of those resounding, reechoing slams that no one can appreciate who has not heard them under similar circ.u.mstances.
By this time Marjorie was thoroughly frightened, though she herself could not have told what she was afraid of. Grasping the precious speller, she started, with but one idea in her mind,--to get downstairs and out of that awful building as quickly as possible.
She groped carefully for the newel-post, for going down was more dangerous than coming up, and she feared she might fall headlong.
Safely started, however, she almost ran downstairs, and reached the ground floor, only to find the front door had a spring-lock, which had fastened itself when the door banged shut.
Marjorie"s heart sank within her when she realized that she was locked in the schoolhouse.
She thought of the key, but she had stupidly left that on the outside of the door.
"But anyway," she thought, "I don"t believe you have to have a key on the inside. You don"t to our front door at home. You only have to pull back a little bra.s.s k.n.o.b."
The thought of home made a lump come into poor Marjorie"s throat, and the tears came plentifully as she fumbled vainly about the lock of the door.
"Oh, dear," she said to herself, "just s"pose I have to stay here all night. I _won"t_ go upstairs again. I"ll sit on the steps and wait till morning."
But at last something gave way, the latch flew up, and Marjorie swung the big door open, and felt the cool night air on her face once more.
It was very dark, but she didn"t mind that, now that she was released from her prison, and, after making sure that the door was securely fastened, she put the key safely in her pocket, and started off toward home.
The church clock struck eight just as she reached her own door, and she could hardly believe she had made her whole trip in less than an hour.
It seemed as if she had spent a whole night alone in the schoolhouse.
She rang the bell, and in a moment Sarah opened the door.
"Why, Miss Marjorie, wherever have you been?" cried the astonished maid.
"I thought you was up in your own room."
"I"ve been out on an errand, Sarah," answered Midge, with great dignity.
"An errand, is it? At this time o" night! I"m surprised at ye, Miss Marjorie, cuttin" up tricks just because the folks is away."
"h.e.l.lo, Mopsy!" cried Kingdon, jumping downstairs three at a time. "What have you been up to now, I"d like to know."
"Nothing much," said Marjorie, gaily. Her spirits had risen since she found herself once again in her safe, warm, light home. "Don"t bother me now, King; I want to study."
"Mother"ll study you when she knows that you"ve been out walking alone at night."
"I don"t want you to tell her, King, because I want to tell her myself."
"All right, Midge. I know it"s all right, only I think you might tell me."
"Well, I will," said Midget, in a sudden burst of confidence.
Sarah had left the room, so Marjorie told King all about her adventure.
The boy looked at her with mingled admiration and amazement.
"You do beat all, Mopsy!" he said. "It was right down plucky of you, but you ought not to have done it. Why didn"t you wait till I came home, and I would have gone for you."
"I didn"t mean to go, you know, at first. I just went all of a sudden, after I had really started to come home. I don"t think Mother"ll mind, when I explain it to her."
"You don"t, hey? Well, just you wait and see!"
It was not easy to settle down to studying the speller, after such an exciting adventure to get it, but Marjorie determinedly set to work, and studied diligently till nine o"clock, and then went to bed.
Next morning her father awakened her at an early hour, and a little before seven father and daughter were seated at a cozy little _tete-a-tete_ breakfast.
At the table Marjorie gave her father a full description of her experiences of the night before.
Mr. Maynard listened gravely to the whole recital.
"My dear child," he said, when she finished the tale, "you did a very wrong thing, and I must say I think you should have known better."
"But I didn"t think it was wrong, Father."
"I know you didn"t, dearie; but you surely know that you"re not allowed out alone at night."
"Yes; but this was such a very unusual occasion, I thought you"d excuse it. And, besides King was out at night."
"But he"s a boy, and he"s two years older than you are, and then he had our permission to go."
"That"s just it, Father. I felt sure if you had known all about it, you would have given me permission. I was going to telephone and ask you if I might go to Mr. Cobb"s, and then I thought it would interrupt the dinner party. And I didn"t think you"d mind my running around to Mr.
Cobb"s. You know when I went there, I never thought of going to the schoolhouse last night."
"How did you come to think of it?"
"Why, I wanted my speller so much, and when I saw the schoolhouse roof sticking up above the trees, it made me think I could just as well run over there then, and so have my book at once."
"And you had no qualms of conscience that made you feel you were doing something wrong?"