Tabitha at Ivy Hall.
by Ruth Alberta Brown.
CHAPTER I
THE HATEFUL NAME
"She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will.
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country"s flag," she said."
The black eyes of the little speaker burned with fiery indignation as she hurled these words of defiance at a ten-quart pail of blackberries standing in the middle of the dusty road where she had set it when the emotion of her recital had overcome her to such a degree that mere words were no longer effective and gestures had become absolutely necessary.
She was living it herself. What did it matter that there was no rebel army confronting her, what did it matter that the town of Frederick lay hundreds of miles away, what did it matter that she was merely a slip of a girl living fifty years after the terrible scenes of war which inspired the words she was reciting?
The whole picture lay as vividly before her as if she had been Dame Barbara herself, and she entered into the spirit of the production with such vim that her actual surroundings were forgotten. Her thin, peaked face, browned by sun and wind, was glorified with patriotism, and her voice rang sharp with the intensity of feeling. Having no flag to shake in the face of the approaching enemy, she pulled a mullein stalk growing among the tall gra.s.s and flaunted it so vigorously that in leaning over her imaginary window-sill she lost her balance and was nearly capsized into her pail of luscious berries.
A rude laugh interrupted her and she was brought to earth with a suddenness that left her breathless and crimson with embarra.s.sment beside the road, digging her bare toes into the gray dust and waiting for the jeers she knew were to follow.
Then her face changed and the defiance flashed back into the big black eyes. Her tormentor was not the person she had evidently expected it to be, and her courage rose accordingly. Again the boy laughed insolently and the girl"s fists clenched involuntarily as she looked up into the sneering face above her and realized that after all she could do him no harm for he was perched in the branches of a tree just out of reach over her head. His bare legs dangled tantalizingly among the green leaves, and all she could do to show her fierce hatred was to grimace at him.
The effect was most startling. Her tormentor lost his hold on the upper bough and slid from his seat. There was a lively scratching and clawing among the branches; while below, the black-eyed girl held her breath in expectancy. Oh, if only he would tumble! But he did not fall, and her expression of jubilation changed to disappointment.
Carefully he righted himself on the limb where he had landed, and, peering down at the child in the road, tauntingly cried,
"Don"t we think we are smart, Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt? Don"t we think we are smart?"
The girl"s lips curved scornfully, but her hard fists tightened until her knuckles stood out like white b.a.l.l.s.
"How"s Thomas Catt today?" continued the boy, swinging his feet dangerously near the tattered sunbonnet, which half concealed the angry little face below.
Still she deigned no reply, though her eyes blazed furiously and her breath came quick and short. She took a step nearer the tree and he cautiously drew his feet up to the branch on which he sat; but apparently she did not notice this move, as she stood measuring the distance from the ground to the limbs above and wondering whether or not she could reach him and give him the drubbing he deserved before he had a chance to escape or call for help. She could climb like a squirrel and run like a deer, but in the pasture beyond this fringe of trees was the boy"s big brother, and she had no desire to meet him, having once had a taste of his great whip.
Perhaps the boy in the tree guessed her thoughts, for once more he lowered his feet and kicked viciously at her as he chanted:
"Tabby Catt, Tabby Catt, Drink some milk and make you fat, Skinny, scrawny Tabby Catt."
The faded calico bonnet caught on his toes and he tossed it high in the air, letting it fall far out in the dust of the road. Never pausing to see what was the fate of her possessions, the child let out one scream of animal rage, and with a tiger-like spring caught the feet of her enemy and jerked the coward off his perch.
Taken off his guard, he fell heavily into the road, crushing her beneath him, and raising such a cloud of dust that both were nearly smothered; but with a dexterous twist she freed herself, and, unconscious of the dust, the boy"s screams or the sound of answering shouts in the pasture nearby, she fell to pummelling her helpless victim with relentless fists, all the while screaming at the top of her voice,
"I am a Tabby Catt, am I? I am scrawny and skinny, am I? Well, you"re a coward, a good-for-nothing coward, and so is your big brother. He wouldn"t dare fight Tom, and you wouldn"t dare say such things to me if Tom was anywhere near. You"re a bully, an overgrown baby, a "fraid-cat!
Yes, that"s what you are! _I_ may be a Tabby Catt, but I"m _not_ a "fraid-cat. I may be skinny and scrawny now, but I reckon you will be, too, when I get through with you, Joe Pomeroy! You"re the sneakin"est sneak that ever lived--except your brother. "Fraid-cat, sneak, sneak, sneak, s-n-e-a-k--"
Words failed her. What could she say mean enough to express her contempt for the howling coward almost twice her size pinned under her knees, making no attempt to defend himself against the rain of blows falling wherever the avenging fists could strike?
Suddenly she felt herself s.n.a.t.c.hed from the back of her victim, held high in the air so her feet did not touch the ground, and shaken to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat. She twisted and turned and writhed and squirmed to free herself, thinking this must be the big brother punishing her for the drubbing she had given hapless Joe, and expecting any instant to feel the lash of his heavy herder"s whip. But no whip struck her, and with one great tug she broke loose from the hand that gripped her shoulder, and confronted--not Sneed Pomeroy, the bully, but a tall, swarthy-faced man with a long beard and snapping black eyes, very much like her own, had she taken the time to notice it, who held her transfixed for a moment with his angry gaze. Amazed to find Joe"s rescuer--for such he appeared to her--some one other than the big brother Sneed, and angered at the vigorous shaking he had given her, the child found vent for her outraged feelings in a horrible grimace at the stalwart man in front of her. With an exclamation of anger the stranger raised his hand as if to strike the girl, but she dodged the blow, and screamed in disdainful defiance:
"Slap, if you dare, you old gray head, I"ll scratch like a--cat--till you"ll wish you were dead."
She hesitated a moment before choosing that word, and as it fell from her lips, she glanced apprehensively at the blubbering Joe still lying in the dust, and saw for the first time that this rescuer, whoever he might be, was evidently unknown to Joe, for the coward"s b.l.o.o.d.y face was even more scared than when she had been pounding it, and he looked as if he, too, expected to receive some punishment from the hands of the mysterious stranger.
"Tabitha Catt!"
She whirled toward the man in frightened silence, and her clenched hands dropped nerveless at her side. It was her father! What a change the heavy beard made in his appearance; and then besides, it was almost a year since she had seen him. No wonder she had failed to recognize him in her anger. It would have taken more than one glance had she met him under ordinary circ.u.mstances.
"Put on your bonnet and march home. We will settle matters there."
His words sounded so ominous that she hastily did as he bid, wondering dully whether at last her day of reckoning had come.
"Here, boy, take your berries and be off, but if I ever catch you hec--"
"Those are my berries," Tabitha found courage to say, suddenly remembering the pail heaped full of the fruit she had toiled all the morning to pick; and the man, glancing down at her bony hands, scratched and scarred by blackberry thorns, thrust the heavy pail into her arms and without a word followed her in the dusty march toward the house a quarter of a mile distant; nor did he once offer to help her with her load, though the way was rough, the day intensely hot, and the weight too much for the slender shoulders of the child. Once she stubbed her toe, and he pulled her roughly to her feet, but released his hold on her arm when she fixed her black eyes full of scorn and anger upon his face; and a grim smile played an instant about his lips, but was gone again before the child could see it.
The house was reached at last, and with a sigh of relief Tabitha dropped her burden in the doorway and sank down beside it.
At the sound of steps on the gravel walk, a fussy, fidgety little woman appeared from the room beyond, and stopped in astonishment at sight of the giant coming up the steps. Before she had a chance to express her surprise, however, he spoke, addressing the panting child fanning herself with her bonnet:
"Close that screen. Can"t you see those flies coming in? Go to my room, I want to have an understanding with you. Maria, Tabitha isn"t to have a taste of those berries. I just found her in the middle of the road down here fighting with a boy, like the rowdy she is."
Accustomed to obey this stern father, Tabitha had withdrawn into the house, and started for the room where punishment awaited her. At his command in regard to the berries, however, she paused; then turned to where the pail stood just inside the screen, seized it, and before either of the two spectators understood what she was about, she flung bucket, berries and all into the dooryard and ground the shining fruit into the sand with her bare feet.
"There, Manx Catt," she exclaimed, "I reckon you won"t have a taste of them either!"
A gasp of dismay escaped the frightened woman, but again the grim smile flitted across the face of the father, though he looked like a thunder cloud as he roared at the child, "Go straight to your room and to bed!
You shall not have a thing to eat today!"
With her feet stained a dirty purple, Tabitha marched into the house and upstairs, rushed to her little bed in the corner, and threw herself full length on the counterpane, regardless of the fact that drops of berry juice still dripped from her brown legs. For fully ten minutes she lay there, fighting back the angry tears and battling with the fierce rage against her father.
"I hate him, I hate him!" she told herself over and over again. "It"s bad enough to have him name me Tabitha without his acting so hateful every time he comes home. I wish he would go off to the mines and stay forever. He might take Aunt Maria, too, though she ain"t so bad. We could get along with her all right; sometimes she is splendid, even if she is so fussy. Oh, dear, why can"t we have a nice mother like other children have? I reckon ours wouldn"t have died if she had known Aunt Maria would have to take care of us and Dad would be so horrid."
Her list of woes was fast increasing, and the tears were very near the bubbling-over point, when she heard heavy steps on the stairs.
"Oh, my sakes! that"s Dad. Wonder if he will lick me this time. I "spect he will some day, and Tom says he licks awful hard. Wonder if he will use a whip like sneaky Sneed Pomeroy. Wisht I was as big as Tom; he don"t get licked any more, he"s too big. Dad told me to go to bed and I ain"t undressed. Maybe it"s just as well if he"s going to lick me."
The steps had reached the upper floor now, and she cowered in a trembling heap in the middle of her bed waiting for the door to open and let her father enter. But they continued down the hall without so much as pausing before her door, and now as her heart began to beat normally again, she heard Aunt Maria"s voice saying, "There"s a dreadful clutter to move if we take everything. Some of those boxes we brought from Dover have never been opened though we"ve been here two years now. Doesn"t seem as if we had to take all that truck with us wherever we go. There hasn"t been a thing in the stuff that we"ve needed."
"Then don"t take it," cut in the man"s heavy voice. "Where is it?"
Cautiously creeping off the bed, Tabitha pressed her ear to the keyhole to catch the rest of this interesting conversation, but as she listened, her face paled and a rebellious look came into the expressive black eyes.
So they were going to move away! Where would they go this time? It seemed to her that moving was all they ever did. Not that she minded the moving part of it--that was fun--but--. Here the tears came in earnest.
It was her dreadful name that she minded. It didn"t make any difference where they went, everyone made fun of her name, and folks no sooner got used to seeing her odd little figure and hearing her still odder name than they moved to some other town, and the same thing had to be lived over. Oh, it was too bad!
All the hot afternoon father and aunt busied themselves in the adjoining rooms, tearing open boxes, sorting, re-packing, and bundling things around generally, until finally the noise became so great that only an occasional word of the conversation could be heard by the little listener at the keyhole. As the day waned, however, and the supper hour approached, both workers ceased their pounding and went downstairs, leaving Tabitha alone with her tearful reflections in the gathering dusk. Here Tom found her, still huddled in a heap beside the door.
"Oh, Tom," she greeted him, "I thought you would never come. What made you so late? Did you know Dad had come home again? Haven"t you something in your pocket to eat? I"m hungry as a wolf."
"Hush!" he said, slipping inside the door and closing it softly behind him. "Dad would be awfully mad if he knew I was here. I just got home.