GRANDMA'S ATTIC SERIES (10 page)

Whether she did or not, I don't know; but very shortly the rain stopped, and the sun came out. We hurried as far away from the house as possible for the rest of the morning.

When dinnertime approached, I had to think of some way to stay away from Ma.

"Sarah Jane, why don't you run up to the house and ask Ma if we can have some sandwiches for a picnic?"

"Oh, I can't," Sarah Jane said. "I promised Ma I'd be home by dinnertime. I'll have to hurry now, or I'll be late. I'll try to come back this afternoon."

I sat on a rock and watched Sarah Jane run across the field. There was no need for her to rush back, I thought glumly. There probably wouldn't be anything left of me to visit.

I sat there as long as I dared. I knew Ma would send one of the boys to find me if I didn't come when the dinner bell rang the second time, so I trudged slowly toward the house, hoping against hope that Ma would be too busy to notice me. I arrived at the door just as everyone sat down at the table.

Ma glanced at me and said, "I thought you'd be gone home with Sarah Jane. Hurry and wash. We're ready to eat now."

I dawdled with the washing as long as possible, then slipped into my chair. Pa asked the blessing, and Ma began to dish up the food.

"Haven't you forgotten something, Mabel?" Pa asked. "No, I don't think so, Pa."

"You've still got your bonnet on, silly," said Roy.

"Oh, that," I said quickly. "I'm going right back out after dinner. I thought I'd save time by not having to put it on again."

I bent my head over my plate and began to eat quickly., Since no one said anything, I ventured to look up. Everyone

was looking at me in a strange way. Roy continued to stuff food into his mouth while keeping his eyes on me, but the others had stopped eating. I put my head down again.

"Mabel," said Ma, "is there something you ought to tell us?"

"Oh, no, Ma. It's just that Sarah Jane will be back after dinner, and we are doing something special down by the brook."

That would not have been the end of the matter, I am sure, except that at just that moment our neighbor, Mr. Hobbs, drove into the yard. Pa went out to meet him, and Ma hurried to set another place at the table. With a sigh of relief, I continued my dinner.

Mr. Hobbs came in and sat down, and after a few words with Pa about the crops, he said, "Well, Jim, do you have a young lady visiting you today?"

"This is just me, Mr. Hobbs," I said.

"Oh, so it is!" Mr. Hobbs exclaimed. "Why, with that fancy bonnet, I was sure it must be a fine lady from town."

Ma returned to the table with more food, and she looked at me with disgust. "Mabel, go take off that sunbonnet. You look ridiculous."

"I'm through eating now, Ma," I said. "Couldn't I please go outside?"

If Mr. Hobbs had not been there, Ma would have insisted that I obey her. But since he was, and I had finished my dinner, she allowed me to leave. Thankfully I ran back to the brook to wait for Sarah Jane. Finally she arrived, breathless, and dropped into the grass.

"What did your ma say?" she asked.

"She doesn't know yet. I didn't take off my bonnet. I was just lucky Mr. Hobbs came." And I told Sarah Jane what had happened.

She sat up and looked at me in amazement. "Now you will be in for it. I've found that no matter how bad you are, you end up being twice as bad if you hide it from your folks. My ma always says, 'Be sure your sin will find you out,' and it always does."

"Well, you're not much comfort," I retorted. "It's easy for you to say that, since it isn't your hair that's cut off."

"Take off your bonnet, and let's see it again," Sarah Jane said. "Maybe it doesn't look as bad as we thought it did."

I pulled off my sunbonnet, and Sarah Jane gazed at my tangled curls.

"It looks as bad as we thought it did," she said dismally. "I don't know how you're going to cover it up."

"It's a sure thing I can't go around wearing my sunbonnet until it grows out. I won't get away with that again. You'll have to think of something else."

"I will!" Sarah Jane cried. "It's your hair—" Then she stopped. "I guess you're right. It was my fault for wanting to put a curl in my locket. The only thing to do is go tell your ma what happened, and let her punish me too." She sighed. "When do you want to do it?"

"I won't have any fun sitting here thinking about it all afternoon," I replied glumly. "We might as well go now."

Slowly I replaced my bonnet, and Sarah Jane and I started for the house.

"What do you think she'll do?" Sarah Jane asked. "Will she spank us?"

I considered that for a moment. "No, I don't think so. Ma doesn't spank me very often, and she wouldn't ever spank you. It will be something worse than that. We probably won't be able to play together for a long time."

Ma was sitting on the porch, shelling peas for supper. As we approached, she looked up and smiled. "Did you girls have a nice time at the brook?" she asked. "I thought you'd be back up to the house before you went home, Sarah Jane. You forgot something."

Ma pulled Sarah Jane's locket and my curls from her apron pocket!

We gazed at them in silence. This was not at all what we had expected.

"I hope you've learned something today, girls," Ma said. "The hurting of your own uneasy conscience is worse than any punishment anyone else can give you."

She looked at my sunbonnet. "Covering something up doesn't make it go away. You knew I would see what had happened sooner or later, didn't you, Mabel?"

I nodded miserably.

"Well, come on," Ma said kindly. "Let's wash your hair and see if we can part it on the other side until that place grows out. I think you've suffered enough. We won't have to let Pa and the boys know what happened." '

"And that's what we did," Grandma said. "Sarah Jane and I never forgot that lesson. Fortunately, hair grows back again. Everything isn't that easily repaired, however."

"And did Sarah Jane get the curl for her locket?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," Grandma laughed. "Ma let her keep it. But she really didn't need it to remember me or that day."

Grandma was getting ready to prepare some corn for supper when I came into the kitchen and plopped down on a chair. I reached for an ear of corn and viciously pulled off the husks.

"I hate that mean old Tommy Rice," I said.

Grandma looked at me in surprise. "You hate him? Surely you don't mean that."

"Well, I do. You don't know what he did today."

"No, I don't. But it couldn't be anything bad enough to make you hate him. Do you know what the Bible says about hating your brother?"

"He's not my brother," I muttered, but I knew that the Bible meant any other person when it said brother.

Grandma ignored that comment and reached for her Bible. She quickly turned to the place she wanted and handed it to me. "Why don't you read this verse?" She pointed to the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of I John.

"For every one who hates his brother is a murderer, and no murderer as you know, has eternal life within him."

"A murderer!" I said. "I don't hate him that much. I just don't like him—not one little bit."

Grandma nodded her head. "I can understand that. We're not likely to think much of people who are mean to us. But the Bible tells us what we can do about that too."

"It does? ... What does it say?"

"It says to love your enemies and pray for those that despitefully use you."

I thought about that for a moment. "That's a pretty hard thing to ask someone to do. I guess I could pray for Tommy, but I know I'd never love him!"

Grandma laughed. "You'd be surprised. It's awfully hard to dislike someone when you really pray for them. In fact, the person you pray for could turn out to be one of your best friends. That happened to me once."

"I want to hear about that," I said, so while I pulled strings of silk from the corn, Grandma began the story.

'It was the year I was in the third reader at school. My best friend Sarah Jane and I had shared a desk all through the years, and, of course, we shared everything else too. Then one morning I arrived at school to find someone else sitting on my side of the desk.

Miss Gibson was our teacher that year. She saw how surprised I looked. "Mabel, this is Alice. She is going to be here for the rest of the year. I didn't think you'd mind sitting in the extra seat so she wouldn't be alone."

Alice smiled at me, and right away I knew I didn't like her. I did mind giving up my seat, but I couldn't tell Miss Gibson that.

"Why don't you tell Miss Gibson that you don't want me to be moved?" I whispered to Sarah Jane as soon as I had the chance.

"I told her," Sarah Jane whispered back. "But she said she didn't think you'd care."

All morning I watched as Sarah Jane helped Alice find the place in the book, or showed her where to sit when we recited. The more I watched, the unhappier I became, and the less I liked Alice.

At recess they walked around the school yard together and talked to the other girls. When I could get Sarah Jane off by herself, I let her know how I felt.

"You like that new girl better than you do me," I stormed. "You've forgotten all about being my friend."

Sarah Jane looked hurt. "Why, no, I haven't, Mabel. You know I'd never forget that we're best friends. I have to be nice to Alice because she's new and doesn't know anyone."

I tossed my head and turned up my nose. "I don't have to be nice to her, and I won't either. She has no business coming here and taking my place."

I stalked off before Sarah Jane could reply, and at lunchtime I ate by myself, even though the girls urged me to eat with them.

As the days went by, I continued to snub Alice and be irritable with Sarah Jane. I had to admire the new girl, though. She was so pretty, with delicate features and long, shiny curls. I had curls too but I was definitely not delicate. And to make matters worse, Alice wore fluffy dresses with big sashes—it seemed like a new one every day. The contrast between her dresses and the plain ones with pinafores that I wore was almost more than I could stand.

One morning after Alice had been there for several weeks, I decided to change matters. I appeared at the breakfast table in my best Sunday dress.

"Where in the world are you going?" Ma asked.

"To school," I replied haughtily.

"Not in that dress," Ma said decidedly.

"But, Ma . . ." I began

"No buts," she replied firmly. "Back to your room and put on your school dress. Then come here and let me tie your ribbon."

"She wants to look like the new girl," Roy snickered.

"Alice wears a Sunday dress every day."

"Well, Mabel doesn't," Ma said. "I have better things to do than iron fancy dresses."

I glared at Roy, but I had no choice but to change my dress. I had already started the day off badly, and I was hardly surprised when it kept getting worse.

Almost the first thing I did at school was to fall over Alice's feet as I carried some books to the front of the room. The books flew every way, and, of course, the children laughed.

"She put her foot out there on purpose," I complained loudly.

"Oh, I'm sure she didn't," Miss Gibson said. "It was just an accident. Let's not even think about it again." She patted me on the back.

Maybe Miss Gibson didn't think about it again, but I certainly did. The longer I thought, the more convinced I was that Alice had deliberately tried to humiliate me. I rushed home after school to tell Ma the story.

"She did that on purpose to embarrass me, and I'll never forgive her for it, not ever!" I meant it too. But that evening at family prayer, Pa read some verses that sounded as though they had been written just for me.

"And when you stand praying, if you have a grievance against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive the wrongs you have done."

I looked at Ma, but she was listening, and didn't act as though she remembered what I had said. I was ashamed, and when it was my turn to pray, I asked the Lord to bless Alice. I felt better that night than I had anytime since she had been at school.

The next morning, Ma put some extra cookies in my lunch pail. "To share with your friends," she said.

I knew what she meant. And from that day on I began to find out what a lovely girl Alice really was. She became one of my best friends that year. I guess nobody really wants enemies.'

Grandma gathered up the corn to put it on the stove, and I wandered out to the barn to look for Uncle Roy. Grandma was right, I thought. And you don't have to have enemies either. If you pray for them, they turn into friends!