Rosemary Part 10

"Go on out and play, do," she now advised Sarah. "How can I get my work done with you buzzing around me like a fly! Well what do you suppose struck the child that minute--" Winnie broke off in amazement. Sarah had dashed around to the front of the house, banging the screen door noisily behind her. Not curious enough to speculate further, Winnie went on with her task of scrubbing the table top already immaculate in its snowy purity.

Aunt Trudy was descending the front stairs leisurely an hour or two later, pleasantly contemplating the nearness of the lunch hour, when the door bell rang sharply. Really it sounded as though someone had jabbed it viciously. Aunt Trudy approached the door with reproving dignity.

"You're Miss Wright, aren't you?" said a rasped voice. "Well, I'm Mrs. Anderson and I want to tell you that something has got to be done to Sarah; that child is simply unbearable. She slapped the face of my Ray this morning and the poor lamb came into the house crying with pain. He's only four years old, and I think when a great girl of nine takes to slapping babies' faces, she needs a sound whipping.

No, I won't come in, but I was determined you should know about it.

That child will end up in prison if her temper isn't curbed."

"No one ever spoke to me like that, Hugh," complained Aunt Trudy tearfully to her nephew when he came in a few minutes later. "She didn't give me a chance to say a word. I'm sure I don't approve of Sarah slapping any one's face."

"Of course you don't," agreed the doctor soothingly. "Where is the culprit? We'll see what she has to say for herself. Look here, Sarah," he opened fire as that young person came up the porch steps and into the hall, "Mrs. Anderson says you slapped Ray's face this morning."

"Well?" inquired Sarah coolly.

"Did you?" said the doctor matching her briefness.

"I certainly did," Sarah a.s.sured him. "He is a bad, cruel boy and I wish I had slapped him harder. He was stepping on poor baby ants!"

Aunt Trudy stared in astonishment, but something pathetic in Sarah's defiant little figure touched Doctor Hugh. She so evidently considered she had vindicated herself.

"That wasn't being kind, was it?" he said gently, "but, Sarah, slapping his face didn't teach him not to step on ants--it merely taught him that one of his neighbors was a very impolite little girl. I want you to go over now and apologize to Mrs. Anderson."

"But I slapped Ray," hedged Sarah cannily.

"Well Ray is so little he probably doesn't hold malice," explained Doctor Hugh seriously. "It is Mrs. Anderson's feelings that are hurt; don't you think you are a little ashamed, Sarah, to know you struck a child so much younger than you are?"

"Go and tell her you are sorry, dearie," suggested Aunt Trudy.

"I won't say I am sorry, because that would be a lie," said Sarah virtuously.

"If you are not sorry you slapped Ray you ought to be, because such an act is the height of discourtesy," declared the doctor. "However, if you apologize, I don't doubt that will be satisfactory. Go right away, Sarah."

"I think Mrs. Anderson should apologize to us," announced Sarah with explosive suddenness. "She came over here telling tales and that is the meanest thing any one can do. You hate tale-bearers, you said so Hugh."

The doctor's long-suffering patience snapped.

"What Mrs. Anderson does is no concern of yours," he said testily.

"If you do not go to her house immediately and apologize, Sarah, I'll march you over there and wait while you do it. I've listened to all the argument I intend to."

"I'll go," surrendered Sarah sullenly.

What she said could only be conjectured but apparently Mrs. Anderson was mollified for peace reigned the remainder of the week. Sunday afternoon though, a fresh storm broke, with Sarah again the center.

"Where's Sarah?" Doctor Hugh demanded, meeting Rosemary in the hall on his return from a round of calls.

Rosemary was dressed in white and ready for a sedate walk with Aunt Trudy.

"She's in your office, reading," she answered. "She likes the goat skin rug, you know."

"All right," nodded the doctor, "run along, chick, and tell Aunt Trudy to keep on the shady side of the street. The sun is blazing."

Sarah was not visible from the door, but walking around his desk, her brother discovered her stretched full length in her favorite reading att.i.tude, on the white goat skin rug. Her book dealt with the health of cats.

"Sarah," began the doctor looking down at her, "did you take a telephone message from Mrs. Anderson yesterday morning?"

Sarah looked obstinate.

"Did you?" her brother insisted. "Answer me," he commanded, pulling her to her feet.

"Yes I did," muttered Sarah. "Rosemary was busy practising and Winnie's bread was in the oven."

"Why didn't you tell me she wanted me to call there Sat.u.r.day night?"

demanded the doctor sternly.

"'Cause," murmured Sarah uneasily.

"You're ashamed to tell me, and I don't wonder," Doctor Hugh said crisply. "You'd let a miserable little thing like an apology you were forced to make her, interfere with your loyalty to service. I thought you were bigger than that, Sarah," he added.

Sarah said nothing.

"If you were a nurse in a hospital or a doctor's office, you'd be dismissed," her brother went on, "for all you know I might have been needed seriously. As it happened, no harm was done, but that doesn't excuse you. Hereafter you are not to answer the phone under any circ.u.mstances. You can't be trusted to deliver the messages you receive."

If he had only known it, Doctor Hugh had delivered a severe blow to Sarah's pride. She had been extremely proud of her ability to answer the telephone and welcomed the rare opportunities when Rosemary was out or busy with her beloved music. But she said nothing and after a day or two the doctor realized that she was not on "speaking terms"

with him.

"She ought to be spanked," he confided to Winnie, "but I don't believe in that form of punishment for children as old as she is."

"It wouldn't do any good," said Winnie, "your mother spanked her years ago when she'd take these silent fits. It only made her more obstinate. You can do more with Sarah, Hughie, by helping her out of a tight place than any way I know. She's always getting into trouble and she never forgets the ones that stand by her. You keep your eyes open and the chance will come."

The opportunity came sooner than either of them expected. For nearly a week Jack Welles had been storming, to any one who would listen to him, about the "low-down" thief who nightly took his can of fis.h.i.+ng worms.

"Plumb lazy, I call it," grumbled Jack, "to cart away the worms a fellow breaks his back digging. Some worthless tramp is catching fish with my worms and I intend to catch him."

His wails had reached the ears of Doctor Hugh, himself an ardent fisherman when time permitted and his sympathies were entirely with the defrauded one.

"Sit up some night and watch," he advised the lad. "Put the can in the usual place--where do you keep it--on the back step?--all right, put it there, and then hide back of the willow tree. You say it is done sometime between ten and twelve, for you go to bed at ten and your father comes home at midnight and finds the can empty? That ought to make it easy for you, for you know when to watch for the thief."

Jack's father was engaged in some delicate electrical experiments that were conducted in his factory at night to escape the vibration caused by the heavy machines.

Coming home from the Jordan office a little after then the next night after he had given Jack his advice, Doctor Hugh remembered what he had said and wondered if the boy had been successful in detecting the thief. As he neared the Welles house he heard loud and angry voices.

CHAPTER IX

WHEN PATIENCE SLIPS

"If I ever catch you touching my can of worms again, I'll--I'll--"