Prudence of the Parsonage Part 6

"Oh, I am sure Miss Prudence will give me a pencil and paper, and I'll copy them in the book as soon as ever I get home."

"Yes, indeed," said Prudence. "There is a tablet on that table beside you, and pencils, too. I thought we might need them."

Then the president made a few remarks, but while she talked, Miss Carr was excitedly opening the tablet. Miss Carr was always excited, and always fluttering, and always giggling girlishly. Carol called her a sweet old simpering soul, and so she was. But now, right in the midst of the president's serious remarks, she quite giggled out.

The president stared at her in amazement. The Ladies looked up curiously. Miss Carr was bending low over the tablet, and laughing gaily to herself.

"Oh, this is very cute," she said. "Who wrote it? Oh, it is just real cunning."

Fairy sprang up, suddenly scarlet. "Oh, perhaps you have one of the twins' books, and they're always scribbling and----"

"No, it is yours, Fairy. I got it from among your school-books."

Fairy sank back, intensely mortified, and Miss Carr chirped brightly:

"Oh, Fairy, dear, did you write this little poem? How perfectly sweet!

And what a queer, sentimental little creature you are. I never dreamed you were so romantic. Mayn't I read it aloud?"

Fairy was speechless, but the Ladies, including the president, were impatiently waiting. So Miss Carr began reading in a sentimental, dreamy voice that must have been very fetching fifty years before. At the first suggestion of poetry, Prudence sat up with conscious pride,--Fairy was so clever! But before Miss Carr had finished the second verse, she too was literally drowned in humiliation.

"My love rode out of the glooming night, Into the glare of the morning light.

My love rode out of the dim unknown, Into my heart to claim his own.

My love rode out of the yesterday, Into the now,--and he came to stay.

Oh, love that is rich, and pure, and true, The love in my heart leaps out to you.

Oh, love, at last you have found your part,-- To come and dwell in my empty heart."

Miss Carr sat down, giggling delightedly, and the younger Ladies laughed, and the older Ladies smiled.

But Mrs. Prentiss turned to Fairy gravely. "How old are you, my dear?"

And with a too-apparent effort, Fairy answered, "Sixteen!"

"Indeed!" A simple word, but so suggestively uttered. "Shall we continue the meeting, Ladies?"

This aroused Prudence's ire on her sister's behalf, and she squared her shoulders defiantly. For a while, Fairy was utterly subdued. But thinking it over to herself, she decided that after all there was nothing absolutely shameful in a sixteen-year-old girl writing sentimental verses. Silly, to be sure! But all sixteen-year-olds are silly. We love them for it! And Fairy's good nature and really good judgment came to her rescue, and she smiled at Prudence with her old serenity.

The meeting progressed, and the business was presently disposed of. So far, things were not too seriously bad, and Prudence sighed in great relief. Then the Ladies took out their sewing, and began industriously working at many unmentionable articles, designed for the intimate clothing of a lot of young Methodists confined in an orphans' home in Chicago. And they talked together pleasantly and gaily. And Prudence and Fairy felt that the cloud was lifted.

But soon it settled again, dark and lowering. Prudence heard Lark running through the hall and her soul misgave her. Why was Lark going upstairs? What was her errand? And she remembered the wraps of the Ladies, up-stairs, alone and unprotected. Dare she trust Lark in such a crisis? Perhaps the very sight of Prudence and the Ladies' Aid would arouse her better nature, and prevent catastrophe. To be sure, her mission might be innocent, but Prudence dared not run the risk.

Fortunately she was sitting near the door.

"Lark!" she called softly. Lark stopped abruptly, and something fell to the floor.

"Lark!"

There was a muttered exclamation from without, and Lark began fumbling rapidly around on the floor talking incoherently to herself.

"Lark!"

The Ladies smiled, and Miss Carr, laughing lightly, said, "She is an attentive creature, isn't she?"

Prudence would gladly have flown out into the hall to settle this matter, but she realized that she was on exhibition. Had she done so, the Ladies would have set her down forever after as thoroughly incompetent,--she could not go! But Lark must come to her.

"Lark!" This was Prudence's most awful voice, and Lark was bound to heed.

"Oh, Prue," she said plaintively, "I'll be there in a minute. Can't you wait just five minutes? Let me run up-stairs first, won't you?

Then I'll come gladly! Won't that do?"

Her voice was hopeful. But Prudence replied with dangerous calm:

"Come at once, Lark."

"All right, then," and added threateningly, "but you'll wish I hadn't."

Then Lark opened the door,--a woeful figure! In one hand she carried an empty shoe box. And her face was streaked with good rich Iowa mud.

Her clothes were plastered with it. One shoe was caked from the sole to the very top b.u.t.ton, and a great gash in her stocking revealed a generous portion of round white leg.

Poor Prudence! At that moment, she would have exchanged the whole parsonage, bathroom, electric lights and all, for a tiny log cabin in the heart of a great forest where she and Lark might be alone together.

And Fairy laughed. Prudence looked at her with tears in her eyes, and then turned to the wretched girl.

"What have you been doing, Lark?"

The heart-break expressed in the face of Lark would have made the angels weep. Beneath the smudges of mud on her cheeks she was pallid, and try as she would, she could not keep her chin from trembling ominously. Her eyes were fastened on the floor for the most part, but occasionally she raised them hurriedly, appealingly, to her sister's face, and dropped them again. Not for worlds would she have faced the Ladies! Prudence was obliged to repeat her question before Lark could articulate a reply. She gulped painfully a few times,--making meanwhile a desperate effort to hide the gash in one stocking by placing the other across it, rubbing it up and down in great embarra.s.sment, and balancing herself with apparent difficulty. Her voice, when she was able to speak, was barely recognizable.

"We--we--we are making--mud images, Prudence. It--it was awfully messy, I know, but--they say--it is such a good--and useful thing to do. We--we didn't expect--the--the Ladies to see us."

"Mud images!" gasped Prudence, and even Fairy stared incredulously.

"Where in the world did you get hold of an idea like that?"

"It--it was in that--that Mother's Home Friend paper you take, Prudence." Prudence blushed guiltily. "It--it was modeling in clay, but--we haven't any clay, and--the mud is very nice, but--Oh, I know I look just--horrible. I--I--Connie pushed me in the--puddle--for fun.

I--I was vexed about it, Prudence, honestly. I--I was chasing her, and I fell, and tore my stocking,--and--and--but, Prudence, the papers do say children ought to model, and we didn't think of--getting caught."

Another appealing glance into her sister's face, and Lark plunged on, bent on smoothing matters if she could. "Carol is--is just fine at it, really. She--she's making a Venus de Milo, and it's good. But we can't remember whether her arm is off at the elbow or below the shoulder----" An enormous gulp, and by furious blinking Lark managed to crowd back the tears that would slip to the edge of her lashes.

"I--I'm very sorry, Prudence."

"Very well, Lark, you may go. I do not really object to your modeling in mud, I am sure. I am sorry you look so disreputable. You must change your shoes and stockings at once, and then you can go on with your modeling. But there must be no more pus.h.i.+ng and chasing. I'll see Connie about that to-night. Now----"

"Oh! Oh! Oh! What in the world is that?"

This was a chorus of several Ladies' Aid voices,--a double quartette at the very least. Lark gave a sharp exclamation and began looking hurriedly about her on the floor.

"It's got in here,--just as I expected," she exclaimed. "I said you would be sorry, Prue,--Oh, there it is under your chair, Mrs. Prentiss.

Just wait,--maybe I can shove it back in the box again."

This was greeted with a fresh chorus of shrieks. There was a hurried and absolute vacation of that corner of the front room. The Ladies fled, dropping their cherished sewing, shoving one another in a most Unladies-Aid-like way.

And there, beneath a chair, squatted the cause of the confusion, an innocent, unhappy, blinking toad!