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Page 89
So Sharley had the table to set, and the biscuit to bake, and the tea to
make, and the pears to pick over; she must run upstairs to bring her
mother a handkerchief; she must hurry for her father's clothes-brush
when he came in tired, and not so good-humored as he might be, from his
store; she must stop to rebuild the baby's block-house, that Moppet had
kicked over, and snap Moppet's dirty, dimpled fingers for kicking it
over, and endure the shriek that Moppet set up therefor. She must
suggest to Methuselah that he could find, perhaps, a more suitable
book-mark for Robinson Crusoe than his piece of bread and molasses, and
intimate doubts as to the propriety of Nate's standing on the
table-cloth and sitting on the toast-rack. And then Moppet was at that
baby again, dropping very cold pennies down his neck. They must be made
presentable for supper, too, Moppet and Nate and Methuselah,--Methuselah,
Nate, and Moppet; brushed and washed and dusted and coaxed and scolded
and borne with. There was no end to it. Would there ever be any end to
it? Sharley sometimes asked of her weary thoughts. Sharley's life, like
the lives of most girls at her age, was one great unanswered question.
It grew tiresome occasionally, as monologues are apt to do.
"I'm going to holler to-night," announced Moppet at supper, pausing in
the midst of his berry-cake, by way of diversion, to lift the cat up by
her tail. "I'm going to holler awful, and make you sit up and tell me
about that little boy that ate the giant, and Cinderella,--how she lived
in the stove-pipe,--and that man that builded his house out of a bungle
of straws: and--well, there's some more, but I don't remember 'em just
now, you know."
"O Moppet!"
"I am," glared Moppet over his mug. "You made me put on a clean collar.
You see if I don't holler an' holler an' holler an' keep-a-hollerin'!"
Sharley's heart sank; but she patiently cleared away her dishes, mixed
her mother's ipecac, read her father his paper, went upstairs with the
children, treated Moppet with respect as to his buttons and boot-lacing,
and tremblingly bided her time.
"Well," condescended that young gentleman, before his prayers were over,
"I b'lieve--give us our debts--I'll keep that hollerin'--forever 'n
ever--Namen--till to-morrow night. I ain't a--bit--sleepy, but--" And
nobody heard anything more from Moppet.
The coast was clear now, and happy Sharley, with bright cheeks, took her
little fall hat that she was trimming, and sat down on the front
doorsteps; sat there to wait and watch, and hope and dream and flutter,
and sat in vain. Twilight crept up the path, up to her feet, folded her
in; the warm color of her plaided ribbons faded away under her eyes, and
dropped from her listless fingers; with them had faded her bit of a hope
for that night; Hal always came before dark.
"Who cares?" said Sharley, with a toss of her soft, brown head. Somebody
did care nevertheless. Somebody winked hard as she went upstairs.
However, she could light a lamp and finish her hat. That was one
comfort. It always _is_ a comfort to finish one's hat. Girls have
forgotten graver troubles than Sharley's in the excitement of hurried
Saturday-night millinery.
A bonnet is a picture in its way, and grows up under one's fingers with
a pretty sense of artistic triumph. Besides, there is always the
question: Will it be becoming? So Sharley put her lamp on a cricket, and
herself on the floor, and began to sing over her work. A pretty sight it
was,--the low, dark room with the heavy shadows in its corners; all the
light and color drawn to a focus in the middle of it; Sharley, with her
head bent--bits of silk like broken rainbows tossed about her--and that
little musing smile, considering gravely, Should the white squares of
the plaid turn outward? and where should she put the coral? and would it
be becoming after all? A pretty, girlish sight, and you may laugh at it
if you choose; but there was a prettier woman's tenderness underlying
it, just as a strain of fine, coy sadness will wind through a mazourka
or a waltz. For who would see the poor little hat to-morrow at church?
and would he like it? and when he came to-morrow night,--for of course
he would come to-morrow night,--would he tell her so?
When everybody else was in bed and the house still, Sharley locked her
door, furtively stole to the bureau-glass, shyly tied on that hat, and
more shyly peeped in. A flutter of October colors and two great brown
eyes looked back at her encouragingly.
"I should like to be pretty," said Sharley, and asked the next minute to
be forgiven for the vanity. "At any rate," by way of modification, "I
should like to be pretty to-morrow."
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