"Yes, there is. Mine is just as good," declared Rose, twinkling away a little tear-drop from her own eyes. "Now don"t cry, honeys. Your papa"s an angel, there"s no doubt about it. I never saw such pretty chains in my life,--never. As for the children, they"re little ducks.
You certainly are a wonderful family. Katy, I"m dying to know what is in the blue parcel."
The blue parcel was from Cecy, and contained a pretty blue ribbon for Clover. There was a pink one also, with a pink ribbon for Katy.
Everybody had thought of the girls. Old Mary sent them each a yard measure; Miss Finch, a thread-case, stocked with differently colored cottons. Alexander had cracked a bag full of hickory nuts.
"Did you ever?" said, Rose, when this last was produced. "What a thing it is to be popular! Mrs. Hall? Who"s Mrs. Hall?" as Clover unwrapped a tiny carved easel.
"She"s Cecy"s mother," explained Clover. "Wasn"t she kind to send me this, Katy? And here"s Cecy"s photograph in a little frame for you."
Never was such a wonderful box. It appeared to have no bottom whatever. Under the presents were parcels of figs, prunes, almonds, raisins, candy; under those, apples and pears. There seemed no end to the surprises.
At last all were out.
"Now," said Katy, "let"s throw back the apples and pears, and then I want you to help divide the other things, and make some packages for the girls. They are all disappointed not to have their boxes. I should like to have them share ours. Wouldn"t you, Clover?"
"Yes, indeed. I was just going to propose it."
So Clover cut twenty-nine squares of white paper, Rose and Katy sorted and divided, and pretty soon ginger-snaps and almonds and sugar-plums were walking down all the entries, and a gladsome crunching showed that the girls had found pleasant employment. None of the snowed-up boxes got through till Monday, so except for Katy and Clover the school would have had no Christmas treat at all.
They carried Mrs. Nipson a large slice of cake, and a basket full of the beautiful red apples. All the teachers were remembered, and the servants. The S. S. U. C. was convened and feasted; and as for Rose, Louisa, and other special cronies, dainties were heaped upon them with such unsparing hand that they finally remonstrated.
"You"re giving everything away. You"ll have none left for yourselves."
"Yes, we shall,--plenty," said Clover. "O Rosy! here"s such a splendid pear! You must have this."
"No! no!" protested Rose; but Clover forced it into her pocket. "The Carrs" Box" was always quoted in the Nunnery afterward, as an example of what papas and mammas could accomplish, when they were of the right sort, and really wanted to make school-girls happy. Distributing their treasures kept Katy and Clover so busy that it was not until after dinner that they found time to open the smaller box. When they did so, they were sorry for the delay. The box was full of flowers, roses, geranium-leaves, heliotrope, beautiful red and white carnations, all so bedded in cotton that the frost had not touched them. But they looked chilled, and Katy hastened to put them in warm water, which she had been told was the best way to revive drooping flowers.
Cousin Helen had sent them; and underneath, sewed to the box, that they might not shake about and do mischief, were two flat parcels wrapped in tissue paper, and tied with white ribbon, in Cousin Helen"s, dainty way. They were glove-cases, of quilted silk, delicately scented, one white, and one lilac; and to each was pinned a loving note, wishing the girls a Merry Christmas.
"How awfully good people are!" said Clover. "I do think we ought to be the best girls in the world."
Last of all, Katy made a choice little selection from her stores, a splendid apple, a couple of fine pears, and handful of raisins and figs, and, with a few of the freshest flowers in a wine-gla.s.s, she went down the Row and tapped at Miss Jane"s door.
Miss Jane was sitting up for the first time, wrapped in a shawl, and looking very thin and pale. Katy, who had almost ceased to be afraid of her, went in cheerily.
"We"ve had a delicious box from home, Miss Jane, full of all sorts of things. It has been such fun unpacking it! I"ve brought you an apple, some pears, and this little bunch of flowers. Wasn"t it a nice Christmas for us?"
"Yes," said Miss Jane, "very nice indeed. I heard some one saying in the entry that you had a box. Thank you," as Katy set the basket and gla.s.s on the table. "Those flowers are very sweet. I wish you a Merry Christmas, I"m sure."
This was much from Miss Jane, who couldn"t help speaking shortly, even when she was pleased. Katy withdrew in high glee.
But that night, just before bed-time, something happened so surprising that Katy, telling Clover of it afterward, said she half fancied that she must have dreamed it all. It was about eight o"clock in the evening: she was pa.s.sing down Quaker Row, and Miss Jane called and asked her to come in. Miss Jane"s cheeks were flushed, and she spoke fast, as if she had resolved to say something, and thought the sooner it was over the better.
"Miss Carr," she began, "I wish to tell you that I made up my mind some time since that we did you an injustice last term. It is not your attentions to me during my illness which have changed my opinion,-- that was done before I fell ill. It is your general conduct, and the good influence which I have seen you exert over other girls, which convinced me that we must have been wrong about you. That is all. I thought you might like to hear me say this, and I shall say the same to Mrs. Nipson."
"Thank you," said Katy, "you don"t know how glad I am!" She half thought she would kiss Miss Jane, but somehow it didn"t seem possible; so she shook hands very heartily instead, and flew to her room, feeling as if her feet were wings.
"It seems too good to be true. I want to cry, I am so happy," she told Clover. "What a lovely day this has been!"
And of all that she had received, I think Katy considered this explanation with Miss Jane as her very best Christmas box.
CHAPTER XII. WAITING FOR SPRING.
School was a much happier place after this. Mrs. Nipson never alluded to the matter, but her manner altered. Katy felt that she was no longer watched or distrusted, and her heart grew light.
In another week Miss Jane was so much better as to be hearing her cla.s.ses again. Illness had not changed her materially. It is only in novels that rheumatic fever sweetens tempers, and makes disagreeable people over into agreeable ones. Most of the girls disliked her as much as ever. Her tongue was just as sharp, and her manner as grim.
But for Katy, from that time forward, there was a difference. Miss Jane was not affectionate to her,--it was not in her nature to be that,--but she was civil and considerate, and in a dry way, friendly, and gradually Katy grew to have an odd sort of liking for her.
Do any of you know how incredibly long winter seems in climates where for weeks together the thermometer stands at zero? There is something hopeless in such cold. You think of summer as of a thing read about somewhere in a book, but which has no actual existence. Winter seems the only reality in the world.
Katy and Clover felt this hopelessness growing upon them as the days went on, and the weather became more and more severe. Ten, twenty, even thirty degrees below zero, was no unusual register for the Hillsover thermometers. Such cold half frightened them, but n.o.body else was frightened or surprised. It was dry, brilliant cold. The December snows lay unmelted on the ground in March, and the paths cut then were crisp and hard still, only the white walls on either side had risen higher and higher, till only a moving line of hoods and tippets was visible above them, when the school went out for its daily walk. Morning after morning the girls woke to find thick crusts of frost on their window-panes, and every drop of water in the wash-bowl or pitcher turned to solid ice. Night after night, Clover, who was a chilly little creature, lay shivering and unable to sleep, notwithstanding the hot bricks at her feet, and the many wraps which Katy piled upon her. To Katy herself the cold was more bracing than depressing. There was something in her blood which responded to the sharp tingle of frost, and she gained in strength in a remarkable way during this winter. But the long storms told upon her spirits. She pined for spring and home more than she liked to tell, and felt the need of variety in their monotonous life, where the creeping days appeared like weeks, and the weeks stretched themselves out, and seemed as long as months do in other places.
The girls resorted to all sorts of devices to keep themselves alive during this dreary season. They had little epidemics of occupation.
At one time it was "spattering," when all faces and fingers had a tendency to smudges of India ink; and there was hardly a fine comb or tooth-brush fit for use in the establishment. Then a rage for tatting set in, followed by a fever of fancy-work, every one falling in love with the same pattern at the same time, and copying and recopying, till n.o.body could bear the sight of it. At one time Clover counted eighteen girls all at work on the same bead and canvas pin- cushion. Later there was a short period of _decalcomanie;_ and then came the grand alb.u.m craze, when thirty-three girls out of the thirty- nine sent for blank books bound in red morocco, and began to collect signatures and sentiments. Here, also, there was a tendency toward repet.i.tion.
Sally Austin added to her autograph these lines of her own composition:--
When on this page your beauteous eyes you bend, Let it remind you of your absent friend.
Sally J. Austin, Galveston, Texas.
The girls found this sentiment charming, at least a dozen borrowed it, and in half the alb.u.ms in the school you might read,--
"When on this page your beauteous eyes," &c.
Esther Dearborn wrote in Clover"s book: "The better part of Valor is Discretion." Why she wrote it, n.o.body knew, or why it was more applicable to Clover than to any one else; but the sentiment proved popular, and was repeated over and over again, above various neatly written signatures. There was a strife as to who should display the largest collection. Some of the girls sent home for autographs of distinguished persons, which they pasted in their books. Rose Red, however, out-did them all.
"Did I ever show you mine?" she asked one day, when most of the girls were together in the school-room.
"No, never!" cried a number of voices. "Have you got one? Oh, do let us see it."
"Certainly, I"ll get it right away, if you like," said Rose, obligingly.
She went to her room, and returned with a shabby old blank book in her hand. Some of the girls looked disappointed.
"The cover of mine isn"t very nice," explained Rose. "I"m going to have it rebound one of these days. You see it"s not a new alb.u.m at all, nor a school alb.u.m; but it"s very valuable to me." Here she heaved a sentimental sigh. "All my friends have written in it,"
she said.
The girls were quite impressed by the manner in which Rose said this.
But, when they turned over the pages of the alb.u.m, they were even more impressed. Rose had evidently been on intimate terms with a circle of most distinguished persons. Half the autographs in the book were from gentlemen, and they were dated all over the world.