Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building Part 52

Clarabel's mother looked doubtful as she read the message. Such gloves were an extravagance even for best--and mittens were warmer. But when she encountered Clarabel's s.h.i.+ning eyes she smiled and gave in.

So Clarabel took the gloves to her room that night, and slept with them on the foot-board of her bed, where she could see them the first thing when she waked; and in the morning she put them on and started for school.

One hand was held rigidly by her side, but the other was permitted to spread its fingers widely over the book she carried. Both were well in view if she looked down just a little. Pa.s.sers-by might see; all Amity Street might see; best of all, Josephine might see!

But Josephine, waiting at the corner, beheld and was impressed to the point of speechlessness. Whereupon Clarabel dropped her book, and had to pick it up with both hands. The furry wrists revealed themselves fully.

Josephine found her voice.

"You've got some new gloves," she said.

"Yes; my Aunt Bessie sent them."

"Aren't they pretty!"

"I think so, and they're lots nicer than mittens. I'm not going to wear my mittens again."

Josephine looked down at her own chubby hands. Her mittens were red this winter, with a red-and-green fringe around the wrists. Only that morning she had admired them. Now they looked fat and clumsy and altogether unattractive; but she wasn't going to admit that to any one else.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CLARABEL DROPPED HER BOOK, AND HAD TO PICK IT UP WITH BOTH HANDS."]

"I like mittens best," she said stoutly,--"for school, anyway," she added, and gave Clarabel more of the sidewalk.

"My Aunt Bessie said specially that these were to wear to school." And Clarabel walked nearer the fence.

Josephine was hard put to it--Clarabel's manner had become so superior.

"I don't think your Aunt Bessie knows everything, even if she does teach school in a big city. My mother says she's too young to--"

What she was too young to do was not allowed to be explained; for Clarabel, with a color in her face that rivaled Josephine's mittens, had faced her.

"My Aunt Bessie's lovely, and I won't listen to another word against her, not another one--so there!"

Then she turned, with a queer feeling in her throat, and ran down the street to catch up with another little girl who was on ahead.

Josephine swung her books and walked as if she didn't care.

Clarabel overtook the little girl, who was all smiling appreciation of the new gloves, and was overtaken by other little girls who added themselves to the admiring group. But somehow her triumphal progress was strangely unsatisfactory; the glory was dimmed.

At recess, Josephine paired off with Milly Smith, who stood first in geography and wore two curly feathers in her hat. Clarabel shared her cookies with Minnie Cater, because it didn't matter who helped eat them if it wasn't Josephine. Neither spoke to the other, and at noontime they walked home on different sides of the street.

Perhaps that was why in the afternoon Clarabel lost her place in the reader and failed on so many examples in arithmetic that she was told she must stay after school.

Usually there would have been several to keep her company, but on this day there was no one else,--even Angelina Maybelle Remington had got through without disaster,--and Clarabel, wistful-eyed, saw the other girls file out.

At another time Josephine would have stayed; she always did when Clarabel had to, as Clarabel did when she was in like need. But to-night she filed out with the rest, and Clarabel, with a sense of desertion, bent over her problems of men and hay to mow, men and potatoes to dig, men and miles of railroad to build.

The noise of scurrying feet grew fainter, the sound of children's voices died away. The room settled into stillness, except for the solemn tick of the clock and the scratching of Clarabel's pencil on the slate. There were fractions in the problems, and fractions were always hard for Clarabel. Her pencil stopped often while she frowned at the curly-tailed figures. In one of these pauses the door squeaked open a little way. It squeaked again, and some one sidled into the room; it was Josephine.

"Please may I go to my seat?" she asked.

"Certainly," said the teacher, and watched her curiously.

She tiptoed to the back seat, fumbled for a few minutes in her desk, then slipped to a seat a few rows farther in front; then to another and another, till she had reached the row in which Clarabel sat.

Clarabel, though she was bending over her slate, had heard every hesitating move, and when the last halt was made she shook her curls back from her eyes, looked around, and dimpled into smiles.

The teacher, watching, waited to see what would happen next. Nothing did, except that the two little girls sat and smiled and smiled and smiled as if they never would stop.

Presently the teacher herself smiled and spoke. She had a very sweet voice sometimes--one that seemed to hint at happy secrets. That was the way it sounded now.

"Would you like to help Clarabel, Josephine?" she asked. "You may if you wish to."

"If she'll let me," answered Josephine, her eyes fixed on Clarabel's face.

"I would love to have her," said Clarabel, _her_ eyes on Josephine. And instantly the one narrow seat became large enough for two.

For ten minutes more there was great scratching of slate-pencils and much whispering and some giggling. Then with cheerful clatter the slate was borne to the platform. The teacher looked at the little girls more than at the examples. "I'm sure they're right," she said. "Now, off to your homes--both of you!"

"Good night," said Clarabel.

"Good night," said Josephine.

"Good night, dear little girls," said the teacher.

There was a soft swish of dresses and the children had reached the dressing-room. Within its familiar narrowness, Josephine hesitated and fingered her cloak-b.u.t.tons.

"I think your Aunt Bessie"--it was very slow speech for Josephine--"is ever so nice and knows a lot."

"Oh!" bubbled Clarabel, joyously, "I do love the color of your mittens!

Don't you--don't you"--she finished with a rush--"want to let me wear them home and you wear my gloves?"

Josephine put aside the dazzling offer.

"Your gloves are prettier and you ought to wear them."

Clarabel thought a minute, a shadow in her eyes.

"I know what," she declared, the shadow vanis.h.i.+ng. "You wear one glove and mitten and I'll wear the other glove and mitten!"

"Oh!" said Josephine, with a rapturous hug, "that will be splendid!"

And thus they scampered home, the two mittened hands holding each other tight, while the two gloved hands were gaily waved high in the air with each fresh outburst of laughter from the little schoolmates.

A VERY LITTLE STORY OF A VERY LITTLE GIRL

BY ALICE E. ALLEN