Caddie Woodlawn (21 page)

Miss Parker took a hasty look out of the window. “Now,” she said, “gather your things together and get ready to pass out in the usual way. No running or pushing—just as usual. One—two—three—march!” When they were outside, they broke ranks and scattered before the little licking red tongues of flame that were running through the dry grass toward the schoolhouse.

“Run to Dunnville for help,” cried Teacher. “We must save the schoolhouse if we can.” Caddie caught the command and raced for Dunnville, with John's dog racing beside her. Miss Parker took up the bucket of water that stood by the schoolroom door. However, one bucket of water does not go very far in a prairie fire, and the spring was some distance down the road.

But a fire fighter was already at work. Obediah, his head down, the smoke swirling all about him, had caught up a flat board and was beating out the fire as fast as he could. When his brother Ashur saw what he

was doing, he caught up a board, too, and ran to join him. The other boys, forgetting their panic in a common purpose, began to imitate the two Jones boys.

“Hey, you,” shouted Obediah to Tom, “get a shovel or sumpin' to dig with.” In the schoolhouse Tom found the shovel they used to make a path through the snow in winter. He knew what Obediah wanted, and he began to dig and scrape the dry grass away in a trench between the oncoming fire and the schoolhouse. The ground was baked almost as hard as rock and the shovel was not sharp. It was slow work and the sweat stood out all over Tom's round face after a few moments of digging.

“Here!” said Obediah, and he grasped the shovel and thrust his board into Tom's hands. The board was already charred and smoking, but Tom seized it and fell to beating back the fire, while Obediah threw his strength into clearing a trench around the schoolhouse before the fire reached it. Obediah's great, hulking frame, which fitted so badly into the school benches and desks, seemed splendid at last. No grown man could have done braver or harder work than Obediah did that day to save his schoolhouse.

When Caddie came panting back with several men from the store and tavern at Dunnville following her, Obediah and the boys had already succeeded in turning
the fire aside. The schoolhouse stood safe and sound on a little island, surrounded by a trench and a ring of blackened and beaten grass. With the help of the men from Dunnville the rest of the fire was extinguished before it reached the town. Then the children came back to school. But there were no more lessons that day.

“Children,” said Miss Parker, “you have all been very brave, but one among you has been a hero today, and I want you to salute him. Obediah Jones, please come up here in front.”

Grinning a little sheepishly, Obediah came forward. His face was blackened with smoke and his hands were cut and burned, but he had lost his old hang-dog slouch. Obediah stood straight as a man. The little schoolhouse rang with the children's cheers.

“You owe your lives to someone else, too, children,” said Miss Parker. She went to the door and opened it.

Indian John's dog slunk in and came and put his head on Caddie's lap. He knew that he did not belong inside, and yet here he was, and, strangely enough, everyone was petting him.

“I hope that you are all properly thankful,” said Miss Parker, “and now you may go home. We've had enough for one day.”

There were rains after that and things grew green again. And presently it was time for Cousin Annabelle to arrive on the Little Steamer. Mrs. Hyman and Katie had come out to help make the girls' new summer dresses, and Clara and Mother had been in their element, turning the pages of the
Godey's Lady's Book
and talking of muslin, bodices, buttons, and braids.

“Of course,” said Clara sadly, “anything we can make here will be sure to be six months behind the fashions in Boston, to say the least; and I do wish I might have hoops for every day.”

“I don't!” cried Caddie. “Good gracious, every time I sit down in hoops they fly up and hit me in the nose!”

“That's because you don't know how to manage them,” said Clara. “There's an art to wearing hoops, and I suppose you're too much of a tomboy ever to learn it.”

“I suppose so,” said Caddie cheerfully. But to herself she added: “I'm not really so much of a tomboy as they think. Perhaps I
shall
wear hoops some day, but only when I get good and ready.”

Then one day Cousin Annabelle came. The Little Steamer seemed full of her little round-topped trunks and boxes, and, after they had all been carried off, down the gangplank tripped Annabelle Grey herself in her tiny buttoned shoes, with her tiny hat tilted over her nose and its velvet streamers floating out behind. Clara and Caddie had been allowed to come with Mother and Father to meet her, and Caddie suddenly felt all clumsy hands and feet when she saw this delicate apparition.

“Dearest Aunty Harriet, what a pleasure this is!” cried Annabelle in a voice as cultivated as her penmanship. “And this is Uncle John? And these the little cousins? How quaint and rustic it is here! But, just a moment, let me count my boxes. There ought to be seven. Yes, that's right. They're all here. Now we can go”

Father piled the seven boxes in the back of the
wagon and Clara and Caddie climbed in on top of them, while Annabelle sat between Mother and Father, her full skirts billowing over their knees. Above the rattle of the wagon wheels her cultivated voice ran on and on. Clara leaned forward to catch what they were saying and sometimes put in a word of her own, but Caddie sat tongue-tied and uncomfortable, conscious only of her own awkwardness and of a sharp lock on one of Annabelle's boxes which hurt her leg whenever they went over a bump.

When they reached the farm Hetty, Minnie, and the boys ran out and stood in a smiling row beside the wagon. Tom held baby Joe in his arms.

“Dear me!” said Cousin Annabelle, “are these children all yours, Aunty Harriet?”

“There are only seven,” said Mother, “and every one is precious.”

“Of course! Mother told me there were seven. But they do look such a lot when one sees them all together, don't they?”

“I picked you a nosegay,” said Hetty, holding out a rather wilted bunch of flowers which she had been clutching tightly in her warm hands for a long time.

“How very thoughtful of you, little girl,” said Annabelle. “But do hold it for me, won't you? I should hate to stain my mitts. You've no idea what a dirty
journey this has been, and what difficulty I have had in keeping clean.”

“You look very sweet and fresh, my dear,” said Mother, “but I'm sure that you must be tired. Come in and take a cup of tea.”

Caddie stayed outside a moment to put a quick arm about Hetty's shoulders. “That was an awful pretty nosegay you made, anyway, Hetty,” she said.

Hetty's downcast face suddenly shone bright again. “Yes, it was, wasn't it, Caddie? Would you like it?”

“Why, yes, I would. I think it would look real nice here on my new dress, don't you?”

“Oh, it would be lovely, Caddie!”

That evening everyone listened to Annabelle telling about Boston. Mother's eyes shone and her cheeks were pinker than usual. It had been a good many years now since she had seen one of her own kin direct from home. Now she could find out whether Grandma Grey's rheumatism was really better or whether they only wrote that to reassure her. She could find out what pattern of silk Cousin Kitty had chosen for her wedding gown, who had been lecturing in Boston this winter, what new books had come out since the end of the war, why Aunt Phœbe had forgotten to write to her, and a hundred other things that she longed to know, but could never get them to put into letters.
From time to time Father glanced at her happy face, over the old newspapers which Annabelle had brought him. It was only at moments such as this that Father understood how much Mother had given up when she left Boston to come with him to Wisconsin.

But after an hour or so of Boston gossip, Tom grew restless. Both he and Caddie were well tired of Annabelle's city airs.

“Well, I guess Boston's a pretty good place all right, but how about Dunnville?” Tom said.

Cousin Annabelle's silvery laughter filled the room. “Why, Tom, Boston is one of the world's great cities—the only one
I'd
care to live in, I am sure; and Dunnville—well, it's just too quaint and rustic, but it isn't even on the maps yet.”

“Why, Tom,” echoed Hetty seriously, “you hadn't ought to have said that. I guess Boston is just like—like Heaven, Tom.” Everyone burst out laughing at this, and Cousin Annabelle rose and shook out her flounces, preparatory to going to bed.

“But really, Tom,” she said, “I want you to show me
everything
in your savage country. I want to be just as
uncivilized
as you are while I am here. I shall learn to ride horseback and milk the cows—and—and salt the sheep, if that is what you do—and—turn somersaults in the haymow—and—what else do you do?”

“Oh, lots of things,” said Tom, and suddenly there was an impish twinkle in his eyes.

“And you, Caroline,” said Annabelle, turning to Caddie. “I suppose that you do all of those amusing things, too?”

“Yes, I'm afraid I do, Cousin Annabelle,” replied Caddie. She tried to avoid Tom's eyes, but somehow it seemed impossible, and for just an instant an impish twinkle in her own met and danced with the impish twinkle in Tom's.

“You must begin to teach me tomorrow,” said Annabelle sweetly. “I'm sure that it will be most interesting, and now, if you will excuse me, I am really quite fatigued.”

“Yes, of course, dear Annabelle, and you're to sleep with me,” said Clara, linking her arm through Annabelle's and leading her upstairs.

The next morning Tom, Caddie, and Warren had a brief consultation behind the straw stack. They ran through the list of practical jokes which they were used to playing when Uncle Edmund was among them.

“We can make up better ones than most of those,” said Tom confidently. “It'll do her good.”

“Let's see,” said Caddie dreamily. “She wants to ride horseback and salt the sheep and turn somersaults
in the haymow. Yes, I think that we can manage.”

“Golly! What fun!” chirped Warren, turning a handspring.

When they entered the house, Annabelle had just come bouncing down the stairs, resolved upon being uncivilized for the day. She wore a beautiful new dress which was of such a novel style and cut that Mother and Clara could not admire it enough. Up and down both front and back of the fitted bodice was a row of tiny black jet buttons that stood out and sparkled at you when you looked at them.

“Golly!” said Warren, “you don't need all those buttons to fasten up your dress, do you?”

“Of course not,” laughed Annabelle. “They are for decoration. All the girls in Boston are wearing them now, but none of them have as many buttons as I have. I have eight and eighty, and that's six more than Bessie Beaseley and fourteen more than Mary Adams.”

“You don't say!” said Tom, and once again he and Caddie exchanged a twinkling glance.

“When shall I have my riding lesson?” asked Annabelle after breakfast.

“Right away, if you like,” said Caddie pleasantly.

Clara stayed to help Mother, and Minnie was playing with baby Joe, but Hetty came with the others.

“Hadn't you better stay with Mother, Hetty?” said Tom in his kindest voice.

But, no, Hetty wanted to see the riding lesson.

Annabelle chattered vivaciously of how much better everything was done in Boston, while Tom went into the barn to bring out the horse.

“Why, Tom,” cried Hetty, when he returned, “that's not Betsy, that's Pete.”

Pete was perfectly gentle in appearance, but he had one trick which had kept the children off his back for several years.

“Hetty,” said Caddie firmly, “we must have perfect quiet while anyone is learning to ride. If you can't be perfectly quiet, we'll have to send you right back to the house.”