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Page 40
CHAPTER IX
THE NEW CLOTHES FAIL
All the little girls went early to school the next day, eager for the
first glimpse of 'Lias in his new clothes. They now quite enjoyed the
mystery about who had made them, and were full of agreeable excitement
as the little figure was seen approaching down the road. He wore the
gray trousers and the little blue shirt; the trousers were a little too
long, the shirt a perfect fit. The girls gazed at him with pride as he
came on the playground, walking briskly along in the new shoes, which
were just the right size. He had been wearing all winter a pair of cast-
off women's shoes. From a distance he looked like another child. But as
he came closer ... oh! his face! his hair! his hands! his finger-nails!
The little fellow had evidently tried to live up to his beautiful new
raiment, for his hair had been roughly put back from his face, and
around his mouth and nose was a small area of almost clean skin, where
he had made an attempt at washing his face. But he had made practically
no impression on the layers of encrusted dirt, and the little girls
looked at him ruefully. Mr. Pond would certainly never take a fancy to
such a dreadfully grimy child! His new, clean clothes made him look all
the worse, as though dirty on purpose!
The little girls retired to their rock-pile and talked over their bitter
disappointment, Ralph and the other boys absorbed in a game of marbles
near them. 'Lias had gone proudly into the schoolroom to show himself to
Miss Benton.
It was the day before Decoration Day and a good deal of time was taken
up with practising on the recitations they were going to give at the
Decoration Day exercises in the village. Several of the children from
each school in the township were to speak pieces in the Town Hall. Betsy
was to recite Barbara Frietchie, her first love in that school, but she
droned it over with none of her usual pleasure, her eyes on little
'Lias's smiling face, so unconscious of its dinginess.
At noon time the boys disappeared down toward the swimming-hole. They
often took a swim at noon and nobody thought anything about it on that
day. The little girls ate their lunch on their rock, mourning over the
failure of their plans, and scheming ways to meet the new obstacle.
Stashie suggested, "Couldn't your Aunt Abigail invite him up to your
house for supper and then give him a bath afterward?" But Betsy,
although she had never heard of treating a supper-guest in this way, was
sure that it was not possible. She shook her head sadly, her eyes on the
far-off gleam of white where the boys jumped up and down in their
swimming-hole. That was not a good name for it, because there was only
one part of it deep enough to swim in. Mostly it was a shallow bay in an
arm of the river, where the water was only up to a little boy's knees
and where there was almost no current. The sun beating down on it made
it quite warm, and even the first-graders' mothers allowed them to go
in. They only jumped up and down and squealed and splashed each other,
but they enjoyed that quite as much as Frank and Harry, the two seventh-
graders, enjoyed their swooping dives from the spring-board over the
pool. They were late in getting back from the river that day and Miss
Benton had to ring her bell hard in that direction before they came
trooping up and clattered into the schoolroom, where the girls already
sat, their eyes lowered virtuously to their books, with a prim air of
self-righteousness. THEY were never late!
Betsy was reciting her arithmetic. She was getting on famously with
that. Weeks ago, as soon as Miss Benton had seen the confusion of the
little girl's mind, the two had settled down to a serious struggle with
that subject. Miss Benton had had Betsy recite all by herself, so she
wouldn't be flurried by the others; and to begin with had gone back,
back, back to bedrock, to things Betsy absolutely knew, to the 2x2's and
the 3x3's. And then, very cautiously, a step at a time, they had
advanced, stopping short whenever Betsy felt a beginning of that
bewildered "guessing" impulse which made her answer wildly at random.
After a while, in the dark night which arithmetic had always been to
her, Betsy began to make out a few definite outlines, which were always
there, facts which she knew to be so without guessing from the
expression of her teacher's face. From that moment her progress had been
rapid, one sure fact hooking itself on to another, and another one on to
that. She attacked a page of problems now with a zest and self-
confidence which made her arithmetic lessons among the most interesting
hours at school. On that day she was standing up at the board, a piece
of chalk in her hand, chewing her tongue and thinking hard how to find
out the amount of wall-paper needed for a room 12 feet square with two
doors and two windows in it, when her eye fell on little 'Lias, bent
over his reading book. She forgot her arithmetic, she forgot where she
was. She stared and stared, till Ellen, catching the direction of her
eyes, looked and stared too. Little 'Lias was CLEAN, preternaturally,
almost wetly clean. His face was clean and shining, his ears shone pink
and fair, his hands were absolutely spotless, even his hay-colored hair
was clean and, still damp, brushed flatly back till it shone in the sun.
Betsy blinked her eyes a great many times, thinking she must be
dreaming, but every time she opened them there was 'Lias, looking white
and polished like a new willow whistle.
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