Little Friend Lydia Part 9

"I smell the pig," whispered Mary Ellen.

Lydia nodded.

Sammy, the venturesome, pushed round the corner of the house, and beckoned with a grimy hand for them to follow.

"The woodshed," he exclaimed in a stage whisper. "Look, full of things."

On a bench in the woodshed stood a row of kettles, each full of a colored liquid. Sammy stuck his finger in one and drew it out dripping with yellow dye.

"Whiz!" muttered Sammy. "Looka!"

In went another finger-this time it came out purple.

"Try it," urged Sammy; "this is great."

The girls shrank away at Sammy's approach. Unfortunately, they leaned against the bench, and how were they to know that this particular bench had a weak leg? Over it went, with a frightful clas.h.i.+ng and cras.h.i.+ng of kettles, and a perfect flood of gay color streamed over the woodshed floor, generously splas.h.i.+ng shoes and stockings in spite of a hurried rush outside.

But at the corner of the house, the children almost wished they had stayed in the woodshed, and allowed themselves to be drowned in a sea of dye. For a dreadful figure rose before them, a figure whose hands dripped red, whose face was marked with red, whose ap.r.o.n bore the print of scarlet hands-and the dripping red hands were shaken angrily at them, and a hoa.r.s.e voice called words to them they were too frightened to hear. It was only the rug woman, summoned by the noise from her task of re-dipping the faded red church carpet, but the sight of her almost stopped the children's hearts from beating, and made their breath come quick.

Sammy, the boaster, he who often bragged that one day he would dispose single-handed of six red Indian braves on the war-path, even Sammy quailed, and, with not a thought of his companions, made a dash for Maggie, gazing over the fence with inquiring eyes, and with one bound seated himself in the cart. The girls made haste to follow, Mary Ellen with her arm about Lydia, for the lame ankle had received a cruel wrench, and tears were rolling down Lydia's cheeks as she hopped and hobbled and stumbled along in her haste to be gone.

But at last they were safely in the cart, and Maggie, excited no doubt by Sammy's shouts and the woman's angry cries, broke into a canter that speedily took them out of sight and sound of the catastrophe. On sped Maggie, through the hot summer afternoon, past the mill, round the curve, down the broad road toward home.

And there a short distance from Friend Morris's gate came running toward them Friend Deborah and Alexander. Poor Friend Deborah held a hand to her aching face, but she was able to gasp, "Oh, children, how thee has frightened me!"

"And exasperated me," added truthful Alexander, as his eye traveled from panting little Maggie, with foam-flecked mouth, to the once neat little cart, now covered with dust, and badly stained within by spots and splashes of dye.

Good Quaker that he was, he said no more, but he looked grave as he listened to the story the children had to tell.

"Has thee stopped to think at all of the trouble and the loss thee has caused the poor rug woman, who never did thee any harm?" he inquired soberly.

The children hung their heads and did not answer. At last Mary Ellen, twisting the end of her braid, murmured, "I will give her my spending money until I've paid her back," and Sammy nodded in agreement. As they each had a penny a week for spending money Alexander's lips twitched, but this the children did not see.

"And look at thy shoes and stockings," said Friend Deborah, who had been surveying the three culprits as they stood before her. "What must be the state of thy feet? Will thee ever wash them white again?"

This was too much for Lydia. Her lip had been trembling for some time, and now the thought of red and green and blue feet upset her completely.

She broke into loud sobs, and cast herself down upon the roadside gra.s.s.

"My foot hurts, my foot hurts, and no one loves me." And she buried her face in the friendly clover, and cried despairingly.

Sammy was winking hard, and Mary Ellen was biting her lip and digging a hole in the dust with the tip of her strange green and purple shoe.

Alexander's kind heart melted at the sight.

"Ye cannot have gray heads on green shoulders," said he; and as Friend Deborah carried the weeping Lydia into the house for a bath and bed, Alexander helped the other two travelers upon a pa.s.sing wagon and rode with them to Robin Hill.

Lydia and Mary Ellen and Sammy never knew how Mr. Blake laughed when he heard the story. He himself went to see the rug woman, and his visit was so satisfactory that when he left, the rug woman held out her hand, purple this time, and invited him to come again.

"You are a gentleman, sir," said she, "and you have more than paid for what I lost. Bring your little girl the next time you come."

But Lydia had no desire to pay that visit.

For a long time, Father's favorite question was, "Lydia, what color feet do you prefer?" But Lydia could never see anything funny in that joke.

She quite agreed, however, with Friend Morris, who said when she heard the story:

"I think the most sensible member of the party was Maggie Medicine, who took thee safely there and back."

And to this Friend Lydia always nodded "yes."

CHAPTER IX-Cobbler, Cobbler, Mend My Shoe

"Lydia," called Mrs. Blake one morning, from the lower porch where she sat sewing, "what makes you walk on the side of your foot?"

Lydia was carrying the heavy watering-can round to her garden-bed. There had been no rain for weeks, and the leaves and the gra.s.s and the flowers all bore a coating of fine dust. Last night Lydia had forgotten to water her garden, and now she was hurrying to do it before the sun crept round the corner of the house.

But at the sound of her mother's voice, she set the can on the gravel path and sat herself down beside it.

"Because, Mother, there's a hole in my shoe, and the pebbles get in,"

she answered. "Look," and she lifted her foot so that Mother could see the sole of her little canvas shoe.

"Sure enough, I see it," said Mrs. Blake. "Go in and change your shoes, Lydia, and then run up to the shoemaker's, and see whether he can mend this old pair. But water your garden first, and be sure you put the can away."

Lydia hurried through her task, and then, stealing softly behind Mrs.

Blake, put her arms about her mother's neck.

"Mother," she whispered, "may I wear my 'brown bettys'? I'll be so careful of them."

"Brown bettys" was Lydia's affectionate name for her new bronze slippers, slippers worn only on Sunday or upon special occasions, and Mrs. Blake raised her eyebrows at this request.

"Your best slippers?" said she. "Why should you wear them to the shoemaker's? No, Lydia, I couldn't consider it. It wouldn't be suitable."

"It would suit me very much," pouted Lydia. "The shoemaker would like to see them, and maybe I'll meet the minister. I want to wear them. I do."

And Lydia, with a frown on her face, stood kicking the piazza railing and scowling at her mother.

Mrs. Blake sewed for a moment without speaking. Then she looked down the path to the river.

"Here comes your father," she said quietly. "Don't let him see you with such a look on your face. Go in at once, and put on your black 'criss-cross' shoes, and when you come out I will tell you how to go to the shoemaker's."

As Lydia disappeared, Mr. Blake came slowly up the path, and threw himself into a porch hammock.

"Hot work, painting a masterpiece," said he, with a yawn, and before Lydia came out in her black "criss-cross" shoes, as she called her strapped slippers, her father had fallen asleep.

Every morning, before the clock struck three, Mr. Blake was on his way up the river, and by the time the sun rose he was already hard at work upon his picture, for the subject of "the masterpiece" was Dawn on the River, and must be painted at dawn and at no other time. Naps followed such early rising as a matter of course, and Lydia, after a peep, came tiptoeing out on the porch as softly as could be for fear of wakening him. Her ill-humor had vanished, and she listened to her mother's directions with not a cloud on her face.