Miss Sarah was at the farther end of the room setting copies slowly, very slowly. She did not look up, and Miss Pike had no time to go and speak to her; the only thing she could do was to walk quietly up to the desk and ring the bell. That meant, "Put up your books." A strange order while a cla.s.s was reciting; but it was obeyed instantly.
"Star-spangled Banner," said Miss Pike, calmly. She could see the little tongues of flame running along the ceiling now, but she looked as if she was thinking of nothing but music and waiting for Miss Sarah to pitch the tune. Miss Sarah dropped her pen and did it of course, wondering why; and all the sixty voices joined in it, clear and loud, as they had often done before; while in time to the music the whole sixty children marched in orderly file out of the room.
"_Now, run!_" cried Miss Pike, the moment the last child was in the entry, "run and tell everybody the schoolhouse is on fire!"
She had a pail of water in her hand. The children rushed through the streets screaming; the bells began to ring; the Hilltop fire-engine came out; and all the people and horses and dogs in the village. But Miss Pike was the first to pour water on the flames, and everybody said it was she who saved the schoolhouse.
There was a black hole in the wall, and another in the roof; the books were, many of them, soaked and ruined; the floor an inch deep with water, and it would take a whole week to set things to rights. But the schoolhouse was saved.
"Why, how did it take fire?" asked Uncle Ben, who had been out of town and did not come back till all was over.
The boys looked another way, the twin cousins hung their heads. Aunt Charlotte did not answer. She was wondering which child would speak first.
It was Flaxie Frizzle. Her face was very pale, and her eyes were fixed on the carpet.
"We"ve got something _orful_ to tell you," said she, her voice trembling; "we baked our biscuits, and Johnny built a house out there with a stove-pipe in, and we oughtn"t to taken any matches. You better believe we cried!"
"Well, well, you young rogues; so _you_ set the schoolhouse afire? And who saved it?"
"Miss Pike!" broke forth all the children in chorus.
"Yes," said Johnny; "but she marched us all out first, so the little ones wouldn"t get burnt. Never said a word about the fire till we got out!"
"She always does things just right. She"s one of G.o.d"s girls," cried Freddy.
"Yes," broke in Flaxie, strongly excited; "I don"t care if I can"t see her soul. I"ve seen it shine! Oh, it"s beautiful to be homely!"
n.o.body smiled--they all thought Flaxie was right.
"Yes, it is beautiful to be homely in just Miss Pike"s way," said Aunt Charlotte.
And then they went out to supper, and, as the twin cousins looked broken-hearted, nothing more was said about the house that Jack built.
"Oh, Flaxie, _do_ you s"pose we"ve suffered enough?" asked little Milly that night after they had said their prayers and were lying in bed looking at the pure soft moonlight which shone on the far-away hills.
"I don" know. I feel as if I had a pain, don"t you? Oh dear!"
"Yes, that"s just the way I feel; a pain way in deep," replied Milly, heaving a sorrowful sigh. "And I ought to, I"m glad of it."
"Glad, Milly Allen? How queer! Why, _I_ don"t like to feel bad!"
"I don"t either," said Milly, sitting up in bed and speaking very earnestly. "But don"t you "member what Auntie Prim said that time we ran away from the party? She said children ought to suffer for their naughtiness; it"s the only way they can learn to behave better."
"Well, any way," said Flaxie, rolling her eyes uneasily, ""twas Johnny that put in the stove-pipe, and he ought to feel the worst. I"m going to ask Preston about that, see "f I don"t."
Two days after this Flaxie went home, and her little frizzled head was not seen at Hilltop any more till the next December. Then her dear Grandma Gray had rheumatic fever, and though Flaxie pitied her all she could, she made too much noise in the house, and had to be sent away.
But I will tell you about that in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII.
HILLTOP AGAIN.
"Little red riding hood, where are you going?"
"Going to see my grandmother," replied Flaxie Frizzle, peeping out from under her scarlet hood. "And here"s a pat of b.u.t.ter for her in this wee, wee basket."
"My dear Red Riding Hood, your grandmother is too sick to eat b.u.t.ter.
Shut the door, walk very softly, and bring me my writing-desk. I"m going to write Aunt Charlotte, and ask her if she wants you at Hilltop."
"Oh, mamma, how elegant! Is it "cause grandma"s sick?" cried Flaxie, dropping her wee, wee basket, b.u.t.ter and all. She ought to have been ashamed to find she was so noisy that she had to be sent away from home; but she never thought about that. She did try to keep still, but as she had said to Julia that very morning, "there wasn"t any still in her!"
"Oh, let me write it myself to Milly; please let me write it myself."
Flaxie was seven years old now, and had actually learned how to scribble pretty fast. She was very proud of this, for Milly could do nothing but print.
She seized a postal card, ruled it downhill with a pencil, and wrote on it a few cramped-up words, huddled close together like dried apples on a string:
"Dear Twin Little Cousin: My Mamma is going to let me go to your House and go to school to your Dear teacher, becaus I make too much noise, and Grammy is sick with Something in her back and Ime glad but not unless your Mamma is willing. Wont you please to write and say so. My lines are unstraight, and its real too bad Good by FLAXIE FRIZZLE."
Mrs. Gray smiled when her little daughter asked how to spell _unstraight_, and smiled again when she saw the card and read, "Dear twin little cousin."
"Oh, I know better than that," explained Flaxie, blushing: "we"re not twins a bit, and couldn"t be if we should try, and we"ve known it for quite a long time; but you see, mamma, we"re _make-believing_, just for fun."
"I never saw such a child for "make-believing,"" said Mrs. Gray, kissing Flaxie, who skipped gayly out of the room to pack her valise.
She always packed it, if there was the least thing said about going away. She didn"t mind the trouble, it was such a pretty valise,--made of brown canvas, with leather straps like a trunk. And she knew Aunt Charlotte would want her at Hilltop,--people always do want little girls, and can"t have too many of them,--and it was best to be ready in season.
So she looked up her little umbrella, with F. F. painted on it in white letters, her school-books that she had been playing school with all over the house, and a half bushel or so of her best dolls. But as she did not go for a week, she had time to lose these things over and over, and some of them were never found any more.
"Now, darling," said mamma, when Flaxie had bidden good-bye to papa and Preston, and Ninny and the baby, and was just entering the car behind her friend Mrs. Prim. "Now, darling, don"t be troublesome to dear Aunt Charlotte, and if you"ll learn to be good and orderly and sweet like your Cousin Milly, I shall be so glad."
Flaxie pondered upon this speech as she sat rattling along in the cars, munching peanuts, while Mrs. Prim took care of the sh.e.l.ls.
"Troublesome. Oh, my! "s if _I_ ever troubled anybody! "Cept Grandma Gray; and that"s "cause she"s got something in her back. But mamma _always_ thinks Milly is nicer than me! Queer what makes mammas _never_ like their own little girls!--I mean, not much. Now Aunt Charlotte thinks I"m the nicest. She scolds to Milly sometimes, but she don"t scold to ME!"
Hilltop had been green when Flaxie left it, but now it was white, and seemed lovelier than ever, for Johnny had a new sled, and was "_such_ a kind-hearted boy!" That is, he was always ready to draw the twin cousins on the ice till they were half frozen and begged him to stop, and I hardly see how he _could_ have been kinder than that!
Then the school was "perfickly elegant," taught by that same dear teacher, Miss Pike. What if her nose _was_ red, and her mouth so large that little Betty Chase called her "the lady that can"t shut her face"?
She was just lovely for all that, and Flaxie and Milly couldn"t forget that she had saved the schoolhouse when it was set on fire by mistake.
After that she hadn"t looked homely a minute,--only "a beautiful homely," that is ever and ever so much better than handsome;--and the little girls fairly adored her.
Now Flaxie was quick to learn, but as a general thing she didn"t study very hard, I am obliged to confess. When she couldn"t spell her lessons she said to Milly, "It"s "cause you don"t have the same kind of books we have where I live. The words look so queer in your books!"
If Flaxie was noisy at Laurel Grove, what was she at Hilltop? Sometimes in the evening, when she played the piano and sang, Aunt Charlotte was really afraid she would disturb Mrs. Hunter, who lived in the other half of the house.