On Monday Joy went to school. Gypsy had been somewhat astonished, a little hurt, and a little angry, at hearing her say, one day, that she "didn't think it was a fit place for her to go—a high school where all the poor people went."
But, fit or not, it was the the only school to be had, and Joy must go. Perhaps, on some accounts, Mrs. Breynton would have preferred sending the children to a private school; but the only one in town, and the one which Gypsy had attended until this term, was broken up by the marriage of the teacher, so she had no choice in the matter. The boys at the high school were, some of them, rude, but the girls for the most part were quiet, well-behaved, and lady-like, and the instruction was undoubtedly vastly superior to that of a smaller school. As Gypsy said, "you had to put into it and study like everything, or else she gave you a horrid old black mark, and then you felt nice when it was read aloud at examination, didn't you?"
"I wouldn't care," said Joy.
"Why, Joyce Miranda Breynton!" said Gypsy. But Joy declared she wouldn't, and it was very soon evident that she didn't. She had not the slightest fancy for her studies; neither had Gypsy, for that matter; but Gypsy had been brought up to believe it was a disgrace to get bad marks. Joy had not. She hurried through her lessons in the quickest possible fashion, anyhow, so as to get through, and out to play; and limped through her recitations as well as she could. Once Gypsy saw—and she was thoroughly shocked to see—Joy peep into the leaves of her grammar when Miss Cardrew's eyes were turned the other way.
Altogether, matters did not go on very comfortably. Joy's faults were for the most part those from which Gypsy was entirely free, and to which she had a special and inborn aversion. On the other hand, many of Gypsy's failings were not natural to Joy. Gypsy was always forgetting things she ought to remember. Joy seldom did. Gypsy was thoughtless, impulsive, always into mischief, out of it, sorry for it, and in again. Joy did wrong deliberately, as she did everything else, and did not become penitent in a hurry. Gypsy's temper was like a flash of lightning, hot and fierce and melting right away in the softest of summer rains. When Joy was angry she sulked . Joy was precise and neat about everything. Gypsy was not. Then Joy kept still, and Gypsy talked; Joy told parts of stories, Gypsy told the whole; Joy had some foolish notions about money and dresses and jewelry, on which Gypsy looked with the most supreme contempt—not on the dresses, but the notions. Therefore there was plenty of material for rubs and jars, and of all sad things to creep into a happy house, these rubs and jars are the saddest.
One day both the girls woke full of mischief. It was a bracing November day, cool as an ice-cream and clear as a whistle. The air sparkled like a fountain of golden sands, and was as full of oxygen as it could hold; and oxygen, you must know, is at the bottom of a great deal of the happiness and misery, goodness and badness, of this world.
"I tell you if I don't feel like cutting up!" said Gypsy, on the way to school. Gypsy didn't look unlike "cutting up" either, walking along there with her satchel swung over her left shoulder, her turban set all askew on her bright, black hair, her cheeks flushed from the jumping of fences and running of races that had been going on since she left the house, and that saucy twinkle in her eyes. Joy was always somewhat more demure, but she looked, too, that morning, as if she were quite as ready to have a good time as any other girl.
"Do you know," said Gypsy, confidentially, as they went up the schoolhouse steps, "I feel precisely as if I should make Miss Cardrew a great deal of trouble to-day; don't you?"
"What does she do to you if you do?"
"Oh, sometimes she keeps you after school, and then again she tells Mr. Guernsey, and then there are the bad marks. Miss Melville—she's my old teacher that married Mr. Hallam, she was just silly enough!—well, she used to just look at you, and never open her lips, and I guess you wished you hadn't pretty quick."
It was very early yet, but quite a crowd was gathered in the schoolhouse, as was the fashion on cool mornings. The boys were stamping noisily over the desks, and grouped about the stove in No. 1. No. 1. was the large room where the whole school gathered for prayer. A few of the girls were there—girls who laughed rudely and talked loudly, none of them Gypsy's friends. Tom never liked to have Gypsy linger about in No. 1, before or after school hours; he said it was not the place for her, and Tom was there that morning, knotting his handsome brows up into a very decided frown, when he saw her in the doorway, with Joy peeping over her shoulder. So Gypsy—somewhat reluctantly, it must be confessed, for the boys seemed to be having a good time, and with boys' good times she had a most unconquerable sympathy—went up with Joy into Miss Cardrew's recitation room. Nobody was there. A great, empty schoolroom, with its rows of silent seats and closed desks, with power to roam whithersoever you will, and do whatsoever you choose, is a great temptation. The girls ran over the desks, and looked into the desks, jumped over the settees, and knocked down the settees, put out the fire and built it up again, from the pure luxury of doing what they wanted to, in a place where they usually had to do what they didn't want to. They sat in Miss Cardrew's chair, and peeped into her desk; they ate apples and snapped peanut shells on the very platform where sat the spectacled and ogre-eyed committee on examination days; they drew all manner of pictures of funny old women without any head, and old men without any feet, on the awful blackboard, and played "tag" round the globes. Then they stopped for want of breath.
"I wish there were something to do," sighed Gypsy; "something real splendid and funny."
"I knew a girl once, and she drew a picture of the teacher on the board in green chalk," suggested Joy; "only she lost her recess for a whole week after it."
"That wouldn't do. Besides, pictures are too common; everybody does those. Boys put pins in the seats, and cut off the legs of the teacher's chair, and all that. I don't know as I care to tumble Miss Cardrew over—wouldn't she look funny, though!—'cause mother wouldn't like it. Couldn't we make the stove smoke, or put pepper in the desks, or—let me see."
"Dress up something somehow," said Joy; "there's the poker."
Gypsy shook her head.
"Delia Guest did that last term, 'n' the old thing—I mean the poker, not Delia—went flat down in the corner behind the stove—flat, just as Miss Melville was coming in, and lay there in the wood-pile, and nobody knew there was a single sign of a thing going on. I guess you better believe Delia felt cheap!—hark! what's that?"
It was a faint miaow down in the yard. The girls ran to the window and looked out.
"A kitten!"
"I'm going right down to get her."
Down they ran, both of them, in a great hurry, and brought the creature up. The poor thing was chilled, and hungry, and frightened. They took her up to the stove, and Gypsy warmed her in her apron, and Joy fed her with cookies from her lunch-basket, till she curled her head under her paws with a merry purr, all ready for a nap, and evidently without the slightest suspicion that Gypsy's lap was not foreordained, and created for her especial habitation as long as she might choose to remain there.
"Joy," said Gypsy, suddenly, "I've thought of something."
"So have I."
"To dress her——"
"Up in a handkerchief."
"And things."
"I know it."
"And put her——"
"Yes! into Miss Cardrew's desk!"
"Won't it be just——"
"Splendid! Hurry up!"
They "hurried up" in good earnest, choking down their laughter so that nobody downstairs might hear it. Joy took her pretty, purple-bordered handkerchief and tied it over the poor kitten's head like a nightcap, so tight that, pull and scratch as she might, pussy could not get it off. Gypsy's black silk apron was tied about her, like a long baby-dress, a pair of mittens were fastened on her arms, and a pink silk scarf around her throat. When all was done, Gypsy held her up, and trotted her on her knee. Anybody who has ever dressed up a cat like a baby, knows how indescribably funny a sight it is. It seemed as if the girls could never stop laughing—it does not take much to make girls laugh. At last there was a commotion in the entry below.
"It's the girls!—quick, quick!"
Gypsy, trying to get up, tripped on her dress and fell, and away flew the kitten, all tangled in the apron, making for the door as fast as an energetic kitten could go.
"She'll be downstairs, and maybe Miss Cardrew's there! Oh! "
Joy sprang after the creature, caught her by the very tip end of her tail just as she was preparing to pounce down the stairs, and ran with her to Miss Cardrew's desk.
"Put her in—quick, quick!"
"O-oh, she won't lie still!"
"Where's the lunch-basket? Give me some biscuit—there! I hear them on the stairs!"
The kitten began to mew piteously, struggling to get out with all her might. Down went the desk-cover on her paws.
"There now, lie still! Oh, hear her mew! What shall we do?"
Quick footsteps were on the stairs—halfway up; merry laughter, and a dozen voices.
"Here's the biscuit. Here, kitty, kitty, poor kit-ty, do please to lie still and eat it! Oh, Joy Breynton, did you ever?"
"There, she's eating!"
"Shut the desk—hurry!"
When the girls came in, Joy and Gypsy were in their seats, looking over the arithmetic lesson. Joy's book was upside down, and Gypsy was intensely interested in the preface.
Miss Cardrew came in shortly after, and stood warming her fingers at the stove, nodding and smiling at the girls. All was still so far in the desk. Miss Cardrew went up and laid down her gloves and pushed back her chair. Joy coughed under her breath, and Gypsy looked up out of the corners of her eyes.
"Mr. Guernsey is not well to-day," began Miss Cardrew, standing by the desk, "and we shall not be able to meet as usual in No. 1 for prayers. It has been thought best that each department should attend devotions in its own room. You can get out your Bibles."
Gypsy looked at Joy, and Joy looked at Gypsy.
Miss Cardrew sat down. It was very still. A muffled scratching sound broke into the pause. Miss Cardrew looked up carelessly, as if to see where it came from; it stopped.
"She'll open her desk now," whispered Joy, stooping to pick up a book.
"See here, Joy, I almost wish we hadn't——"
"We will read the fourteenth chapter of John," spoke up Miss Cardrew, with her Bible in her hand. No, she hadn't opened her desk. The Bible lay upon the outside of it.
"Oh, if that biscuit'll only last till she gets through praying!"
"Hush-sh! She's looking this way."
Miss Cardrew began to read. She had read just four verses, when—
Gypsy and Joy were trying very hard to find the place. Miss Cardrew looked up and around the room. It was quite still. She read two verses more.
"Mi-aow! mi-aow-aow!"
Miss Cardrew looked up again, round the room, over the platform, under the desk, everywhere but in it.
"Girls, did any of you make that sound?"
Nobody had. Miss Cardrew began to read again. All at once Joy pulled Gypsy's sleeve.
"Just look there!"
"Where?"
"Trickling down the outside of the desk!"
"You don't suppose she's upset the——"
"Ink-bottle—yes."
Miss Cardrew was in the tenth verse, and the room was very still. Right into the stillness there broke again a distinct, prolonged, dolorous—
And this time Miss Cardrew laid down her Bible and lifted the desk-cover.
It is reported in school to this day that Miss Cardrew jumped.
Out flew the kitten, like popped corn from a shovel, glared over the desk in the nightcap and black apron, leaped down, and flew, all dripping with ink, down the aisle, out of the door, and bouncing downstairs like an India-rubber ball.
Delia Guest and one or two of the other girls screamed. Miss Cardrew flung out some books and papers from the desk. It was too late; they were dripping, and drenched, and black. The teacher quietly wiped some spots of ink from her pretty blue merino, and there was an awful silence.
"Girls," said Miss Cardrew then, in her grave, stern way, "who did this?"
Nobody answered.
"Who put that cat in my desk?" repeated Miss Cardrew.
It was perfectly still. Gypsy's cheeks were scarlet. Joy was looking carelessly about the room, scanning the faces of the girls, as if she were trying to find out who was the guilty one.
"It is highly probable that the cat tied herself into an apron, opened the desk and shut the cover down on herself," said Miss Cardrew; "we will look into this matter. Delia Guest, did you put her in?"
"No'm—he, he! I guess I—ha, ha!—didn't," said Delia.
"Next!"—and down the first row went Miss Cardrew, asking the same question of every girl, and the second row, and the third. Gypsy sat on the end of the fourth settee.
"Gypsy Breynton, did you put the kitten in my desk?"
"No'm, I didn't," said Gypsy; which was true enough. It was Joy who did that part of it.
"Did you have anything to do with the matter, Gypsy?" Perhaps Miss Cardrew remembered that Gypsy had had something to do with a few other similar matters since she had been in school.
"Yes'm," said honest Gypsy, with crimson face and hanging head, "I did."
"What did you do?"
"I put on the apron and the tippet, and—I gave her the biscuit. I—thought she'd keep still till prayers were over," said Gypsy, faintly.
"But you did not put her in the desk?"
"No'm."
"And you know who did?"
"Yes'm."
Miss Cardrew never asked her scholars to tell of each other's wrong-doings. If she had, it would have made no difference to Gypsy. She had shut up her lips tight and not another word would she have said for anybody. She had told the truth about herself, but she was under no obligations to bring Joy into trouble. Joy might do as she liked.
"Gypsy Breynton will lose her recesses for a week and stay an hour after school tonight," said Miss Cardrew. "Joy, did you put the kitten in my desk?"
"No, ma'am," said Joy, boldly.
"Nor have anything to do with it?"
"No, ma'am," said Joy, without the slightest change of color.
"Next!—Sarah Rowe."
Of course Sarah had not, nor anybody else. Miss Cardrew let the matter drop there and went on with her reading.
Gypsy sat silent and sorry, her eyes on her Testament. Joy tried to whisper something to her once, but Gypsy turned away with a gesture of impatience and disgust. This thing Joy had done had shocked her so that she felt as if she could not bear the sight of her face or touch of her hand. Never since she was a very little child had Gypsy been known to say what was not true. All her words were like her eyes—clear as sunbeams.
At dinner Joy did all the talking. Mrs. Breynton asked Gypsy what was the matter, but Gypsy said "Nothing." If Joy did not choose to tell of the matter, she would not.
"What makes you so cross?" said Joy in the afternoon; "nobody can get a word out of you, and you don't look at me any more than if I weren't here."
"I don't see how you can ask such a question!" exploded Gypsy, with flashing eyes. "You know what you've done as well as I do."
"No, I don't," grumbled Joy; "just 'cause I didn't tell Miss Cardrew about that horrid old cat—I wish we'd let the ugly thing alone!—I don't see why you need treat me as if I'd been murdering somebody and were going to be hung for it. Besides, I said 'Over the left' to myself just after I'd told her, and I didn't want to lose my recess if you did."
Gypsy shut up her pink lips tight, and made no answer.
Joy went out to play at recess, and Gypsy stayed in alone and studied. Joy went home with the girls in a great frolic after school, and Gypsy stayed shut up in the lonely schoolroom for an hour, disgraced and miserable. But I have the very best of reasons for thinking that she wasn't nearly as miserable as Joy.
Just before supper the two girls were sitting drearily together in the dining-room, when the door-bell rang.
"It's Miss Cardrew!" said Joy, looking out of the window; "what do you suppose she wants?"
Gypsy looked up carelessly; she didn't very much care. She had told Miss Cardrew all she had to tell and received her punishment.
As for her mother, she would have gone to her with the whole story that noon, if it hadn't been for Joy's part in it.
"What is that she has in her hand, I wonder?" said Joy uneasily, peeping through a crack in the door as Miss Cardrew passed through the entry; "why, I declare! if it isn't a handkerchief, as true as you live—all—inky!"
When Miss Cardrew had gone, Mrs. Breynton came out of the parlor with a very grave face, a purple-bordered handkerchief in her hand; it was all spotted with ink, and the initials J. M. B. were embroidered on it.
"Joy."
Joy came out of the corner slowly.
"Come here a minute."
Joy went and the door was shut. Just what happened that next half hour Gypsy never knew. Joy came upstairs at the end of it, red-eyed and crying, and gentle.
Gypsy was standing by the window.
"Gypsy."
"Well."
"I love auntie dearly, now I guess I do."
"Of course," said Gypsy; "everybody does."
"I hadn't the least idea it was so wicked—not the least idea . Mother used to——"
But Joy broke off suddenly, with quivering, crimson lips.
What that mother used to do Gypsy never asked; Joy never told her—either then, or at any other time.
"Tis, too."
"It isn't, either."
"I know just as well as you."
"No you don't any such a thing. You've lived up here in this old country place all your life, and you don't know any more about the fashions than Mrs. Surly."
"But I know it's perfectly ridiculous to rig up in white chenille and silver pins, when anybody's in such deep mourning as you. I wouldn't do it for anything."
"I'll take care of myself, if you please, miss."
"And I know another thing, too."
"You do? A whole thing?"
"Yes, I do. I know you're just as proud as you can be, and I've heard more'n one person say so. All the girls think you're dreadfully stuck up about your dresses and things—so there!"
"I don't care what the girls think, or you either. I guess I'll be glad when father comes home and I get out of this house!"
Joy fastened the gaudy silver pins with a jerk into the heavy white chenille that she was tying about her throat and hair, turned herself about before the glass with a last complacent look, and walked, in her deliberate, cool, provoking way, from the room. Gypsy got up, and—slammed the door on her.
Very dignified proceedings, certainly, for girls twelve and thirteen years old. An unspeakably important matter to quarrel about—a piece of white chenille! Angry people, be it remembered, are not given to over-much dignity, and how many quarrels are of the slightest importance?
Yet the things these two girls found to dispute, and get angry, and get miserable, and make the whole family miserable over, were so ridiculously petty that I hardly expect to be believed in telling of them. The front side of the bed, the upper drawer in the bureau, a hair-ribbon, who should be helped first at the table, who was the best scholar, which was the more stylish color, drab or green, and whether Vermont wasn't a better State than Massachusetts—such matters might very appropriately be the subjects of the dissensions of young ladies in pinafores and pantalettes.
Yet I think you will bear me witness, girls, some of you—ah, I know you by the sudden pink in your cheeks—who have gone to live with a cousin, or had a cousin live with you, or whose mother has adopted an orphan, or taken charge of a missionary's daughter, or in some way or other have been brought for the first time in your life into daily and hourly collision with another young will just as strong and unbending as yours—can't you bear me witness that, in these little contests between Joy and Gypsy, I am telling no "made-up stories," but sad, simple fact?
If you can't, I am very glad of it.
No, as I said before, matters were not going on at all comfortably; and every week seemed to make them worse. Wherein lay the trouble, and how to prevent it, neither of the girls had as yet exerted themselves to think.
A week or two after the adventures that befell that unfortunate kitten, something happened which threatened to make the breach between Gypsy and Joy of a very serious nature. It began, as a great many other serious things begin, in a very small and rather funny affair.
Mrs. Surly, who has been spoken of as Gypsy's particular aversion, was a queer old lady with green glasses, who lived opposite Mr. Breynton's, who felt herself particularly responsible for Gypsy's training, and gave her good advice, double measure, pressed down and running over. One morning it chanced that Gypsy was playing "stick-knife" with Tom out in the front yard, and that Mrs. Surly beheld her from her parlor window, and that Mrs. Surly was shocked. She threw up her window and called in an awful voice —
"Jemima Breynton!"
Now you might about as well challenge Gypsy to a duel as call her Jemima; so—
"What do you want?" she said, none too respectfully.
"I have something to say to you, Jemima Breynton."
"Say ahead," said Gypsy, under her breath, and did not stir an inch. Distance certainly lent enchantment to the view when Mrs. Surly was in the case.
" Does your ma allow you to be so bold as to play boys' games with boys, right out in sight of folks?" vociferated Mrs. Surly.
"Certainly," nodded Gypsy. "It's your turn, Tom."
"Well, it's my opinion, Gypsy Breynton, you're a romp. You're nothing but a romp, and if I was your ma——"
Tom dropped his knife just then, stood up and looked at Mrs. Surly. For reasons best known to herself, Mrs. Surly shut the window and contented herself with glaring through the glass.
Now, Joy had stood in the doorway and been witness to the scene, and moreover, having been reproved by her aunt for something or other that morning, she felt ill-humored, and very ready to find fault in her turn.
"I think it's just so, anyway," she said. " I wouldn't be seen playing stick-knife for a good deal."
"And I wouldn't be seen telling lies!" retorted Gypsy, sorry for it the minute she had said it. Then there followed a highly interesting dialogue of about five minutes' length, and of such a character that Tom speedily took his departure.
Now it came about that Gypsy, as usual, was the first ready to "make up," and she turned over plan after plan in her mind, to find something pleasant she could do for Joy. At last, as the greatest treat she could think of to offer her, she said:
"I'll tell you what! Let's go down to Peace Maythorne's. I do believe I haven't taken you there since you've been in Yorkbury."
"Who's Peace Maythorne?" asked Joy, sulkily.
"Well, she's the person I love just about best of anybody."
"Best of anybody!"
"Oh, mother, of course, and Tom, and Winnie, and father, and all those. Relations don't count. But I do love her as well as anybody but mother—and Tom, and—well, anyway, I love her dreadfully."
"What is she, a woman, or a girl, or what?"
"She's an angel," said Gypsy.
"What a goose you are!"
"Very likely; but whether I'm a goose or not, she's an angel. I look for the wings every time I see her. She has the sweetest little way of keeping 'em folded up, and you're always on the jump, thinking you see 'em."
"How you talk! I've a good mind to go and see her."
"All right."
So away they went, as pleasant as a summer's day, merrily chatting.
"But I don't think angels are very nice, generally," said Joy, doubtingly. "They preach. Does Peace Maythorne preach? I shan't like her if she does."
"Peace preach! Not like her! You'd better know what you're talking about, if you're going to talk," said Gypsy, with heightened color.
"Dear me, you take a body's head off. Well, if she should preach, I shall come right home."
They had come now to the village, where were the stores and the post-office, the bank, and some handsome dwelling-houses. Also the one paved sidewalk of Yorkbury, whereon the young people did their promenading after school in the afternoon. Joy always fancied coming here, gay in her white chenille and white ribbons, and dainty parasol lined with white silk. There is nothing so showy as showy mourning, and Joy made the most of it.
"Why, where are you going?" she exclaimed at last. Gypsy had turned away from the fashionable street, and the handsome houses, and the paved sidewalk.
"To Peace Maythorne's."
" This way?"
"This way."
The street into which Gypsy had turned was narrow and not over clean; the houses unpainted and low. As they walked on it grew narrower and dirtier, and the houses became tenement houses only.
"Do, for pity's sake, hurry and get out of here," said Joy, daintily holding up her dress. Gypsy walked on and said nothing. Red-faced women in ragged dresses began to cluster on the steps; muddy-faced children screamed and quarreled in the road. At the door of a large tenement building, somewhat neater than the rest, but miserable enough, Gypsy stopped.
"What are you stopping for?" said Joy.
"This is where she lives."
"Here?"
"I just guess she does," put in a voice from behind; it was Winnie, who had followed them on tiptoe, unknown to them, all the way. "She's got a funny quirk in her back, 'n' she lies down pretty much. That's her room up there to the top of the house. It's a real nice place, I tell you . They have onions mos' every day. Besides, I saw a little boy here one time when I was comin' 'long with mother, 'n' he was smokin' some tobaccer. He said he'd give it to me for two napples, and mother just wouldn't let me."
" Here —a cripple!" exclaimed Joy.
"Here, and a cripple," said Gypsy, in a queer tone, looking very straight at Joy.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" broke out Joy, "playing such a trick on me. Do you suppose I'm going into such a place as this, to see an old beggar—a hunch-backed beggar?"
Gypsy turned perfectly white. When she was very angry, too angry to speak, she always turned white. It was some seconds before she could find her voice.
" A hunch-backed beggar! Peace? How dare you say such things of Peace Maythorne? Joy Breynton, I'll never forgive you for this as long as I live—never!"
The two girls looked at each other. Just at that moment I am afraid there was something in their hearts answering to that forbidden word, that terrible word—hate. Ah, we feel so safe from it in our gentle, happy, untempted lives, just as safe as they felt once. Remember this, girls: when Love goes out , Hate comes in. In your heart there stands an angel, watching, silent, on whose lips are kindly words, in whose hands are patient, kindly deeds, whose eyes see "good in everything," something to love where love is hardest, some generous, gentle way to show that love when ways seem closed. In your heart, too, away down in its darkest corner, all forgotten, perhaps, by you, crouches something with face too black to look upon, something that likewise watches and waits with horrible patience, if perhaps the angel, with folded wing and drooping head, may be driven out. It is never empty, this curious, fickle heart. One or the other must stand there, king of it. One or the other—and in the twinkling of an eye the change is made, from angel to fiend, from fiend to angel; just which you choose.
Joy broke away from her cousin in a passion. Gypsy flew into the door of the miserable house, up the stairs two steps at a time, to the door of a low room in the second story, and rushed in without knocking.
"Oh, Peace Maythorne!"
The cripple lying on the bed turned her pale face to the door, her large, quiet eyes blue with wonder.
"Why, Gypsy! What is the matter?"
Gypsy's face was white still, very white. She shut the door loudly, and sat down on the bed with a jar that shook it all over. A faint expression of pain crossed the face of Peace.
"Oh, I didn't mean to—it was cruel in me! How could I? Have I hurt you very badly, Peace?" Gypsy slipped down upon the floor, the color coming into her face now, from shame and sorrow. Peace gently motioned her back to her place upon the bed, smiling.
"Oh, no. It was nothing. Sit up here; I like to have you. Now, what is it, Gypsy?"
The tone of this "What is it, Gypsy?" told a great deal. It told that it was no new thing for Gypsy to come there just so, with her troubles and her joys, her sins and her well-doings, her plans and hopes and fears, all the little stories of the fresh, young life from which the cripple was forever shut out. It told, too, what Gypsy found in this quiet room, and took away from it—all the help and the comfort, and the sweet, sad lessons. It told, besides, much of what Peace and Gypsy were to each other, that only they two should ever exactly understand. It was a tone that always softened Gypsy, in her gayest frolics, in her wildest moods. For the first time since she had known Peace, it failed to soften her now.
She began in her impetuous way, her face angry and flushed, her voice trembling yet: —
"I can't tell you what it is, and that's the thing of it! It's about that horrid old Joy."
"Gypsy!"
"I can't help it—I hate her!"
"Gypsy."
Gypsy's eyes fell at the gentle word.
"Well, I felt just as if I did, down there on the steps, anyway. You don't know what Joy said. It's something about you, and that's what makes me so mad. If she ever says it again!"
"About me?" interrupted Peace.
"Yes," said Gypsy, with great, flashing eyes. "I wouldn't tell it to you for all the world; it's so bad as that, Peace. How she dared to call you a beg——"
Gypsy stopped short. But she had let the cat out of the bag. Peace smiled again.
"A beggar! Well, it doesn't hurt me any, does it? Joy has never seen me, doesn't know me, you must remember, Gypsy. Besides, nobody else thinks as much of me as you do."
"I didn't mean to say that; I'm always saying the wrong thing! Anyway, that isn't all of it, and I did think I should strike her when she said it. I can't bear Joy. You don't know what she is, Peace. She grows worse and worse. She does things I wouldn't do for anything, and I wish she'd never come here!"
"Is Joy always wrong?" asked Peace, gently. Peace rarely gave to any one as much of a reproof as that. Gypsy felt it.
"No," said she, honestly, "she isn't. I'm real horrid and wicked, and do ugly things. But I can't help it; Joy makes me—she acts so."
"I know what's the matter with you and Joy, I guess," said Peace.
"The matter? Well, I don't; I wish I did. We're always fight—fighting, day in and day out, and I'm tired to death of it. I'm just crazy for the time for Joy to go home, and I'm dreadfully unhappy having her round, now I am, Peace."
Gypsy drew down her merry, red lips, and looked very serious. To tell the truth, however, do the best she would, she could not look altogether as if her heart were breaking from the amount of "unhappiness" that fell to her lot. A little smile quivered around the lips of Peace.
"Well," said Gypsy, laughing in spite of herself, "I am. I never can make anybody believe it, though. What is the matter with Joy and me? You didn't say."
"You've forgotten something, I think."
"Forgotten something?"
"Yes—something you read me once out of an old Book."
"Book? Oh!" said Gypsy, beginning to understand.
"In honor preferring one another," said Peace, softly. Gypsy did not say anything. Peace took up her Bible that lay on the bed beside her—it always lay on the bed—and turned the leaves, and laid her finger on the verse. Gypsy read it through before she spoke. Then she said slowly:
"Why, Peace Maythorne. I—never could—in this world—never."
Just then there came a knock at the door. Gypsy went to open it, and stood struck dumb for amazement. It was Joy.
"Auntie said it was supper-time, and you were to come home," began Joy, somewhat embarrassed. "She was going to send Winnie, but I thought I'd come."
"Why, I never!" said Gypsy, still standing with the door-knob in her hand.
"Is this your cousin?" spoke up Peace.
"Oh, yes, I forgot. This is Peace Maythorne, Joy."
"I am glad to see you," said Peace in her pleasant way; "won't you come in?"
"Well, perhaps I will, a minute," said Joy, awkwardly, taking a chair by the window, and wondering if Gypsy had told Peace what she said. But Peace was so cordial, her voice so quiet, and her eyes so kind, that she concluded she knew nothing about it, and soon felt quite at her ease. Everybody was at ease with Peace Maythorne.
"How pleasant it is here!" said Joy, looking about the room in unfeigned astonishment. And indeed it was. The furniture was poor enough, but everything was as neat as fresh wax, and the sunlight, that somehow or other always sought that room the earliest, and left it the latest—the warm, shimmering sunlight that Peace so loved—was yellow on the old, faded carpet, on the paperless, pictureless wall, on the bed where the hands of Peace lay, patient and folded.
"It is pleasant," said Peace, heartily. "You don't know how thankful it makes me. Aunt came very near taking a room on the north side. Sometimes I really don't know what I should have done. But then I guess I should have found something else to like."
I should have found something else. A sudden thought came to the two girls then, in a dim, childish way—a thought they could by no means have explained; they wondered if in those few words did not lie the key to Peace Maythorne's beautiful, sorrowful life. They would not have expressed it so, but that was what they meant.
"See here," broke out Gypsy all at once, "Peace Maythorne wants you and me to make up, Joy."
"Your cousin will think I'm interfering with what's none of my business," said Peace, laughing. "I didn't say exactly that, you know; I was only talking to you."
"Oh, I'd just as lief make up now, but I wouldn't this morning," wondering for the second time if Peace could know what she said, and be so gentle and good to her; "I will if Gypsy will."
"And I will if Joy will," said Gypsy, "so it's a bargain."
"Do you have a great deal of pain?" asked Joy, as they rose to go, with real sympathy in her puzzled eyes.
"Oh, yes; but then I get along."
"Peace Maythorne!" put in Gypsy just then, "is that all the dinner you ate?" Gypsy was standing by the table on which was a plate containing a cold potato, a broken piece of bread, and a bit of beefsteak. Evidently from the looks of the food, only a few mouthfuls had been eaten.
"I didn't feel hungry," said Peace, evasively.
"But you like meat, for you told me so."
"I didn't care about this," said Peace, looking somewhat restless.
Gypsy looked at her sharply, then stooped and whispered a few words in her ear.
"No," said Peace, her white cheek flushing crimson. "Oh, no, she never told me not to. She means to be very kind. I cost her a great deal."
"But you know she'd be glad if you didn't eat much, and that was the reason you didn't," exclaimed Gypsy, angrily. "I think it's abominable!"
"Hush! please Gypsy."
Gypsy hushed. Just then the door opened and Miss Jane Maythorne, Peace's aunt, came in. She was a tall, thin, sallow-faced woman, with angular shoulders and a sharp chin. She looked like a New England woman who had worked hard all her life and had much trouble, so much that she thought of little else now but work and trouble; who had a heart somewhere, but was apt to forget all about it except on great occasions.
"I've been talking to Peace about not eating more," said Gypsy, when she had introduced Joy, and said good-afternoon. "She'll die if she doesn't eat more than that," pointing to the plate.
"She can eat all she wants, as far as I know," said Aunt Jane, rather shortly. "Nobody ever told her not to. It's nothing very fine in the way of victuals I can get her, working as I work for two, and most beat out every night. La! Peace, you haven't eaten your meat, have you? Well, I'll warm it over to-morrow, and it'll be as good as new."
"The old dragon!" exclaimed Gypsy, under her breath, as the girls went out. "She is a dragon, nothing more nor less—a dragon that doesn't scold particularly, but a dragon that looks . I'd rather be scolded to death than looked at and looked at every mouthful I eat. I don't wonder Peace doesn't eat. She'll starve to death some day."
"But why don't you send her down things?" asked Joy. Gypsy shook her head.
"You don't understand Peace. She wouldn't like it. Mother does send her a quantity of books and flowers and things, and dinner just as often as she can without making Peace feel badly. But Peace wouldn't like 'em every day."
"She's real different from what I thought," said Joy—"real. What pretty eyes she has. I didn't seem to remember she was poor, a bit."
"What made you come down?"
"'Cause," said Joy.
This excellent reason was all that was ever to be had out of her. But that first time was by no means the last she went to Peace Maythorne's room.
The girls were in good spirits that night, well pleased with each other, themselves, and everybody else, as is usually the case when one is just over a fit of ill-temper. When they were alone in bed, Gypsy told Joy about the verse of which Peace spoke. Joy listened in silence.
Awhile after, Gypsy woke from a dream, and saw a light burning on the table. Joy was sitting up in her white night-dress, turning the leaves of a book as if she were hunting for something.
November, with its bright, bleak skies, sere leaves tossing, sad winds sobbing, and rains that wept for days and nights together, on dead flowers and dying grasses, moaned itself away at last, and December swept into its place with a good rousing snow-storm, merry sleigh-bells, and bright promises of coming Christmas. The girls coasted and skated, and made snow-men and snowballs and snow-forts. Joy learned to slide down a moderate hill at a mild rate without screaming, and to get along somehow on her skates alone—for the very good reason that Tom wouldn't help her. Gypsy initiated her into the mysteries of "cannon-firing" from the great icy forts, and taught her how to roll the huge balls of snow. Altogether they had a very good time. Not as good as they might have had, by any means; the old rubs and jars were there still, though of late they had been somewhat softened. Partly on account of their talk with Peace; partly because of a certain uncomfortable acquaintance called conscience; partly because of their own good sense, the girls had tacitly made up their minds at least to make an effort to live together more happily. In some degree they succeeded, but they were like people walking over a volcano; the trouble was not quenched ; it lay always smoldering out of sight, ready at a moment's notice to flare up into angry flame. The fault lay perhaps no more with one than another. Gypsy had never had a sister, and her brothers were neither of them near enough to her own age to interfere very much with her wishes and privileges. Moreover, a brother, though he may be the greatest tease in existence, is apt to be easier to get along with than a sister about one's own age. His pleasures and ambitions run in different directions from the girls; there is less clashing of interests. Besides this, Gypsy's playmates in Yorkbury, as has been said, had not chanced to be girls of very strong wills. Quite to her surprise, since Joy had been her roommate and constant companion, had she found out that she—Gypsy—had been pretty well used to having her own way, and that other people sometimes liked to have theirs.
As for Joy, she had always been an only child, and that tells a history. Of the two perhaps she had the more to learn. The simple fact that she was brought wisely and kindly, but thoroughly , under Mrs. Breynton's control, was decidedly a revelation to her. At her own home, it had always been said, from the time she was a baby, that her mother could not manage her, and her father would not. She rebelled a little at first against her aunt's authority, but she was fast learning to love her, and when we love, obedience ceases to be obedience, and becomes an offering freely given.
A little thing happened one day, showing that sadder and better side of Joy's heart that always seemed to touch Gypsy.
They had been having some little trouble about the lessons at school; it just verged on a quarrel, and slided off, and they had treated each other pleasantly after it. At night Joy was sitting upstairs writing a letter to her father, when a gust of wind took the sheet and blew it to Gypsy's feet. Gypsy picked it up to carry it to her, and in doing so, her eyes fell accidentally on some large, legible words at the bottom of the page. She had not the slightest intention of reading them, but their meaning came to her against her will, in that curious way we see things in a flash sometimes. This was what she saw:
"I like auntie ever so much, and Tom. Gypsy was cross this morning. She——" and then followed Joy's own version of the morning's dispute. Gypsy was vexed. She liked her uncle, and she did not like to have him hear such one-sided stories of her, and judge her as he would.
She walked over to Joy with very red cheeks.
"Here's your letter. I tried not to read it, but I couldn't help seeing that about me. I don't think you've any business to tell him about me unless you can tell the truth."
Of course Joy resented such a remark as this, and high words followed. They went down to supper sulkily, and said nothing to one another for an hour. After tea, Joy crept up moodily into the corner, and Gypsy sat down on the cricket for one of her merry talks with her mother. After she had told her how many times she missed at school that day, what a funny tumble Sarah Rowe had on the ice, and laughed over "Winnie's latest" till she was laughed out and talked out too, she sprang into her lap, in one of Gypsy's sudden outbursts of affection, throwing her arms around her neck, and kissing her on cheeks, forehead, lips and chin.
"O-oh, what a blessed little mother you are! What should I do without you?"
"Mother's darling daughter! What should she do without you?" said Mrs. Breynton, softly.
But not softly enough. Gypsy looked up suddenly and saw a pale face peering out at them from behind the curtain, its great eyes swimming in tears, its lips quivering. The next minute Joy left the room.
There was something dim in Gypsy's eyes as she hurried after her. She found her crouched upstairs in the dark and cold, sobbing as if her heart would break. Gypsy put her arm around her.
"Kiss me, Joy."
Joy kissed her, and that was all that was said. But it ended in Gypsy's bringing her triumphantly downstairs, where were the lights and the fire, and the pleasant room, and another cricket waiting at Mrs. Breynton's feet.
They were very busy after this with the coming Christmas. Joy confidently expected a five-dollar bill from her father, and Gypsy cherished faint aspirations after a portfolio with purple roses on it. But most of their thoughts, and all their energies, were occupied with the little gifts they intended to make themselves; and herein lay a difficulty. Joy's father always supplied her bountifully with spending money; Gypsy's stock was small. When Joy wanted to make a present, she had only to ask for a few extra dollars, and she had them. Gypsy always felt as if a present given in that way were no present; unless a thing cost her some self-denial, or some labor, she reasoned, it had nothing to do with her. If given directly out of her father's pocket, it was his gift, not hers.
But then, how much handsomer Joy's things would be.
Thus Gypsy was thinking in her secret heart, over and over. How could she help it? And Joy, perhaps—possibly—Joy was thinking the same thing, with a spice of pleasure in the thought.
It was about her mother that Gypsy was chiefly troubled. Tom had condescendingly informed her, about six months ago, that he'd just as lief she would make him a watch-case if she wanted to very much. Girls always would jump at the chance to get up any such nonsense. Be sure she did it up in style, with gold and silver tape, and some of your blue alpaca. (Tom's conceptions of the feminine race, their apparel, occupations and implements, were bounded by tape and alpaca.) So Tom was provided for; the watch-case was nearly made, and bade fair to be quite as pretty as anything Joy could buy. Winnie was easily suited, and her father would be as contented with a shaving-case as with a velvet dressing-gown; indeed he'd hardly know the difference. Joy should have a pretty white velvet hair-ribbon. But what for mother? She lay awake a whole half hour one night, perplexing herself over the question, and at last decided rather falteringly on a photograph frame of shell-work. Gypsy's shell-work was always pretty, and her mother had a peculiar fancy for it.
" I shall give her Whittier's poems," said Joy, in—perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not—a rather triumphant tone. "I heard her say the other day she wanted them ever so much. I'm going to get the best copy I can find, with gold edges. If uncle hasn't a nice one in his store, I'll send to Boston. Mr. Ticknor'll pick me out the best one he has, I know, 'cause he knows father real well, and we buy lots of things there."
Gypsy said nothing. She was rather abashed to hear Joy talk in such familiar terms of Mr. Ticknor. She was more uneasy that Joy should give so handsome a present. She sat looking at her silently, and while she looked, a curious, dull, sickening pain crept into her heart. It frightened her, and she ran away downstairs to get rid of it.
A few days after, she was sitting alone working on the photograph case. It was rather pretty work, though not over-clean. She had cut a well-shaped frame out of pasteboard, with a long, narrow piece bent back to serve as support. The frame was covered with putty, and into the putty she fastened her shells. They were of different sizes, shapes, and colors, and she was laying them on in a pretty pattern of stars and crescents. She had just stopped to look at her work, her red lips shut together with the air of a connoisseur, and her head on one side, like a canary, when Joy came in.
"Just look here!" and she held up before her astonished eyes a handsome volume of blue and gold—Whittier's poems, and written on the fly-leaf, in Joy's very best copy-book hand, "For Auntie, with a Merry Christmas, from Joy."
"Uncle sent to Boston for me, and got it, and he promised on his word 'n' honor, certain true, black and blue, he wouldn't let Auntie know a single sign of a thing about it. Isn't it splendid?"
"Ye-es," said Gypsy, slowly.
"Well! I don't think you seem to care much."
Gypsy looked at her shell-work, and said nothing. For the second time that dull, curious pain had crept into her heart. What did it mean? Was it possible that she was envious of Joy? Was it possible ?
The hot crimson rushed to Gypsy's cheeks for shame at the thought. But the thought was there.
She chanced to be in Peace Maythorne's room one day when the bustle of preparation for the holidays was busiest. Peace hid something under the counterpane as she came in, flushing a little. Gypsy sat down in her favorite place on the bed, just where she could see the cripple's great quiet eyes—she always liked to watch Peace Maythorne's eyes—and in doing so disturbed the bedclothes. A piece of work fell out: plain, fine sewing, in which the needle lay with a stitch partially taken.
"Peace Maythorne!" said Gypsy, "you've been doing it again!"
"A little, just to help aunt, you know. A little doesn't hurt me, Gypsy."
"Doesn't hurt you? Peace, you know better. You know you never sew a stitch but you lie awake half the night after it with the pain."
Peace did not contradict her. She could not.
"Help your aunt!" Gypsy went on vehemently; "she oughtn't to let you touch it. She hasn't any more feeling than a stone wall, nor half as much, I say!"
"Hush, Gypsy! Don't say that. Indeed I'd rather have the pain, and help her a little, once in a while, when my best days come and I can; I had, really, Gypsy. You don't know how it hurts me—a great deal more than this other hurt in my back—to lie here and let her support me, and I not do a thing. O Gypsy, you don't know!"
Something in Peace Maythorne's tone just then made Gypsy feel worse than she felt to see her sew. She was silent a minute, turning away her face.
"Well, I suppose I don't. But I say I'd as lief have a stone wall for an aunt; no, I will say it, Peace, and you needn't look at me." Peace looked, notwithstanding, and Gypsy stopped saying it.
"Sometimes I've thought," said Peace, after a pause, "I might earn a little crocheting. Once, long ago, I made a mat out of ends of worsted I found, and it didn't hurt me hardly any; on my good days it wouldn't honestly hurt me at all. It's pretty work, crocheting, isn't it?"
"Why don't you crochet, then," said Gypsy, "if you must do anything? It's ten thousand times easier than this sewing you're killing yourself over."
"I've no worsteds, you know," said Peace, coloring; and changed the subject at once.
Gypsy looked thoughtful. Very soon after she bade Peace good-bye, and went home.
That night she called her mother away alone, and told her what Peace had said.
"Now, mother, I've thought out an idea."
"Well?"
"You mustn't say no, if I tell you."
"I'll try not to; if it is a sensible idea."
"Do I ever have an idea that isn't sensible?" said Gypsy, demurely. "I prefer not to be slandered, if you please, Mrs. Breynton."
"Well, but what's the idea?"
"It's just this. Miss Jane Maythorne is a heathen."
"Is that all?"
"No. But Miss Jane Maythorne is a heathen, and ought to cut off her head before she lets Peace sew. But you see she doesn't know she's a heathen, and Peace will sew."
"Well, what then?"
"If she will do something, and won't be happy without, then I can't help it, you see. But I can give her some worsteds for a Christmas present, and she can make little mats and things, and you can buy them. Now, mother, isn't that nice?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Breynton, after a moment's thought. "It is a very good plan. I think Joy would like to join you. Together, you can make quite a handsome present out of it."
"I don't want Joy to know a thing about it," said Gypsy, with a decision in her voice that amounted almost to anger.
"Why, Gypsy!"
"No, not a thing. She just takes her father's money, and gives lots of splendid presents, and makes me ashamed of all mine, and she's glad of it, too. If I'm going to give anything to Peace, I don't want her to."
"I think Joy has taken a great fancy to Peace. She would enjoy giving her something very much," said Mrs. Breynton, gravely.
"I can't help it. Peace Maythorne belongs to me. It would spoil it all to have Joy have anything to do with it."
"Worsted are very expensive now," said her mother; "you alone cannot give Peace enough to amount to much."
"I don't care," said Gypsy, resolutely, "I want to do one thing Joy doesn't."
Mrs. Breynton said nothing, and Gypsy went slowly from the room.
"I wish we could give Peace Maythorne something," said Joy, an hour after, when they were all sitting together. Mrs. Breynton raised her eyes from her work, but Gypsy was looking out of the window.
When the girls went up to bed, Gypsy was very silent. Joy tried to laugh and plague and scold her into talking, but it was of no use. Just before they went to sleep, she spoke up suddenly:
"Joy, do you want to give something to Peace Maythorne?"
"Splendid!" cried Joy, jumping up in bed to clap her hands, "what?"
Gypsy told her then all the plan, a little slowly; it was rather hard.
Perhaps Joy detected the hesitation in her tone. Joy was not given to detecting things with remarkable quickness, but it was so plain that she could not very well help it.
"I don't believe you want me to give any of it."
"Oh, yes," said Gypsy, trying to speak cordially, "yes, it will be better."
It certainly was better she felt. She went to sleep, glad it was settled so.
When the girls came to make their purchases, they found that Gypsy's contribution of money would just about buy the crochet-needles and patterns. The worsteds cost about treble what she could give. So it was settled that they should be Joy's gift.
Gypsy was very pleasant about it, but Joy could not help seeing that she was disappointed. So then there came a little generous impulse to Joy too, and she came one day and said:
"Gypsy, don't let's divide the things off so, for Peace. It makes my part the largest. Besides, the worsteds look the prettiest. Let's just give them together and have it all one."
There is a rare pleasure in making a gift one's self, without being hampered by this "all-together" notion, isn't there?—especially if the gift be a handsome one, and is going where it is very much needed. So as Joy sat fingering the pile of elegant worsteds, twining the brilliant, soft folds of orange, and crimson, and royal purple, and soft, wood-browns about her hands, it cost her a bit of a struggle to say this. It seems rather a small thing to write about? Ah, they are these bits of struggles in which we learn to fight the great ones; perhaps these bits of struggles, more than the great ones, make up life.
"You're real good," said Gypsy, surprised; "I think I'd rather not. It isn't really half of it mine, and I don't want to say so. But it's just as good in you."
At that moment, though neither of them knew it was so, one thought was in the heart of both. It was a sudden thought that came and went, and left a great happiness in its place (for great happiness springs out of very little battles and victories),—a memory of Peace Maythorne's verse. The good Christmas time would have been a golden time to them, if it taught them in ever so small, imperfect ways, to prefer one another "in honor."
One day before it came a sudden notion seemed to strike Gypsy, and she rushed out of the house in her characteristic style, as if she were running for her life, and down to Peace Maythorne's, and flew into the quiet room like a tempest.
"Peace Maythorne, what's your favorite verse?"
"Why, what a hurry you're in! Sit down and rest a minute."
"No, I can't stop. I just want to know what your favorite verse is, as quick as ever you can be."
"Did you come down just for that? How queer! Well, let me see."
Peace stopped a minute, her quiet eyes looking off through the window, but seeming to see nothing—away somewhere, Gypsy, even in her hurry stopped to wonder where.
"I think—it isn't one you'd care much about, perhaps—I think I like this. Yes, I think I can't help liking it best of all."
Peace touched her finger to a page of her Bible that lay open. Gypsy, bending over, read:
"And the inhabitants shall not say I am sick."
When she had read, she stooped and kissed Peace with a sudden kiss.
From that time until Christmas Gypsy was very busy in her own room with her paint box, all the spare time she could find. On Christmas Eve she went down just after dusk to Peace Maythorne's room, and called Miss Jane out into the entry.
"This is for Peace, and I made it. I don't want her to see a thing about it till she wakes up in the morning. Could you please to fasten it up on the wall just opposite the bed where the sun shines in? sometime after she's gone to sleep, you know."
Miss Jane, somewhat bewildered, took the thing that Gypsy held out to her, and held it up in the light that fell from a neighbor's half-open door.
It was a large illuminated text, painted on Bristol board of a soft gray shade, and very well done for a non-professional artist. The letters were of that exquisite shade known by the artists as smalt blue, edged heavily with gold, and round them a border of yellow, delicate sprays of wheat. Miss Jane spelled out in German text:
"And the Inhabitants shall not say I am Sick."
"Well, thank you. I'll put it up. Peace never gets asleep till terrible late, and I'm rather worn out with work to lie awake waitin' till she is. But then, if you want to surprise her—I s'pose she will be dreadful tickled—I guess I'll manage it someways."
Perhaps Miss Jane was softened into being obliging by her coming holiday; or perhaps the mournful, longing words touched something in her that nothing touched very often.
Gypsy and Joy were not so old but that Christmas Eve with its little plans for the morrow held yet a certain shade of that delightful suspense and mystery which perhaps never hangs about the greater and graver joys of life. I fancy we drink it to the full, in the hanging up of stockings, the peering out into the dark to see Santa Claus come down the chimney (perfectly conscious that that gentleman is the most transparent of hoaxes, but with a sort of faith in him all the while; we may see him if we can lie awake long enough—who knows?) the falling asleep before we know it, and much against our will, the waking in the cold, gray, mysterious dawn, and pattering about barefoot to "catch" the dreaming and defenseless family.
"I'm going to lie awake all night," Gypsy announced, as she stood brushing out her bright, black hair; "then I'll catch you, you see if I don't."
"But I'm going to lie awake, too," said Joy. "I was going to last Christmas, only—I didn't."
"Sit up and see the sun dance, like Patty."
"Well, let's. I never was awake all night in my whole life."
"Nor I," said Gypsy. "I came pretty near it once, but I somehow went to sleep along at the end."
"When was that?"
"Why, one time I had a dream, and went clear over to the Kleiner Berg Basin, in my sleep, and got into the boat."
"You did!"
"I guess I did. The boat was unlocked and the oars were up at the barn, and so I floated off, and there I had to stay till Tom came in the morning."
"Why, I should have been scared out of my seventeen senses," said Joy, creeping into bed. "Didn't you scream?"
"No. That wouldn't have done any good. See here, Joy, if you find me going to sleep, pinch me, will you?"
"Oh, yes," said Joy, with alacrity. "I shall be awake, I know."
There was a silence. Gypsy broke it by turning her head over on the pillow with a whisk, and opening her eyes savagely, quite indignant to find them shut.
"Joy."
No answer.
Joy's head turned over with another whisk.
"No, I'm not. I'm just as wide awake as ever I was."
Another silence.
"Gypsy!"
Gypsy jumped.
" You're going to sleep."
"It isn't any such thing," said Gypsy, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"I wonder if it isn't most morning," said Joy, in a tone of cheerful indifference.
"Most morning! Mother'd say we'd been in bed just ten minutes, I suppose."
Joy stifled a groan, and by dint of great exertions turned it into a laugh.
"All the longer to lie awake. It's nice, isn't it?"
"Ye-es. Let's talk. People that sit up all night talk, I guess."
"Well, I guess it would be a good plan. You begin."
"I don't know anything to say."
"Well, I'm sure I don't."
Silence again.
"Joy Breynton."
"We-ell?"
"I guess I'll keep awake just as well if I—shut up—my eyes. Don't you—"
That was the end of Gypsy's sentence, and Joy never asked for the rest of it. Just about an hour and a half after, Gypsy heard a noise, and was somewhat surprised to see Joy standing up with her head in the washbowl.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh, just dipping my head into the water. They say it helps keep people awake."
"Oh—well. See here; we haven't talked much lately, have we?"
"No. I thought I wouldn't disturb you."
Gypsy made a ghastly attempt to answer, but couldn't quite do it.
At the end of another indefinite period Joy opened her eyes under the remarkable impression that Oliver Cromwell was carrying her to the guillotine in a cocoa-nut shell; it was really a very remarkable impression, considering that she had been broad awake ever since she came to bed. As soon as her eyes were opened she opened her mouth likewise—to gasp out a little scream. For something very tall and white was sitting on the bedpost with folded arms.
"Why, Gypsy Breynton!"
"What?"
"What are you up there for?"
"Got up so's to keep awake. It's real fun."
"Why, how your teeth chatter. Isn't it cold up there?"
"Ra-ther. I don't know but I might as well come down."
"I wonder," muttered Gypsy, drowsily, just as Joy had begun in very thrilling words to request Oliver Cromwell to have mercy on her, and was about preparing to jump out of the cocoa-nut shell into Niagara Falls, "I wonder what makes people think it's a joke to lie awake."
"I don't believe they do," said Joy, with a tinge in her voice of something that, to say the least, was not hilarious.
"Yes they do," persisted Gypsy; "all the girls in novels lie awake all night and cry when their lovers go to Europe, and they have a real nice time. Only it's most always moonlight, and they talk out loud. I always thought when I got large enough to have a lover, I'd try it."
Joy dropped into another dream, and, though not of interest to the public, it was a very charming dream, and she felt decidedly cross, when, at the end of another unknown period Gypsy woke her up with a pinch.
"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"
"What are you merry Christmassing for? That's no fair. It isn't morning yet. Let me alone."
"Yes, it is morning too. I heard the clock strike six ever so long ago. Get up and build the fire."
"I don't believe it's morning. You can build it yourself."
"No, it's your week. Besides, you made me do it twice for you your last turn, and I shan't touch it. Besides, it is morning."
Joy rose with a groan, and began to fumble for the matches. All at once Gypsy heard a very fervent exclamation.
"What's the matter?"
"The old thing's tipped over—every single, solitary match!"
Gypsy began to laugh.
"It's nothing to laugh at," chattered Joy; "I'm frozen almost to death, and this horrid old fire won't do a thing but smoke."
Gypsy, curled up in the warm bed, smothered her laugh as best she could, to see Joy crouched shivering before the stove-door, blowing away frantically at the fire, her cheeks puffed out, her hands blue as indigo.
"There!" said Joy, at last; "I shan't work any more over it. It may go out if it wants to, and if it don't it needn't."
She came back to bed, and the fire muttered and sputtered a while, and died out, and shot up again, and at last made up its mind to burn, and burned like a small volcano.
"What a noise that fire makes! I hope it won't wake up mother. Joy, don't it strike you as rather funny it doesn't grow light faster?"
"I don't know."
"Get up and look at the entry clock; you're on the front side."
Poor Joy jumped out shivering into the cold again, opened the door softly, and ran out. She came back in somewhat of a hurry, and shut the door with a bang.
"Gypsy Breynton!"
"What?"
"What is the matter?"
"It's just twenty-five minutes past eleven !"
Gypsy broke into a ringing laugh. Joy could never bear to be laughed at.
" I don't see anything so terrible funny, and I guess you wouldn't if you'd made that old—"
"Fire; I know it. Just to think!—and you shivering and blowing away at it. I never heard anything so funny!"
"I think it was real mean in you to wake me up, any way."
"Why, I thought I heard it strike six as much as could be. Oh, dear, oh, dear!"
Joy couldn't see the joke. But the story of that memorable night was not yet finished.
The faint, gray morning really came at last, and the girls awoke in good earnest, ready and glad to get up.
"I feel as if I'd been pulled through a knothole," said Joy.
"I slept with one eye open all the time I did sleep," said Gypsy, drearily. "I know one thing. I'll never try to lie awake as long as I live."
"Not when you have a lover go to Europe?"
"Not if I have a dozen lovers go to Europe. How is that fire going to be built, I'd like to know?—every stick of wood burned out last night."
There was no way but to go down into the wood-shed and get some. It was yet early, and quite dark.
"Go the back stairs," said Gypsy, "so's not to wake people up."
Joy opened the door, and jumped, with a scream that echoed through the silent entry.
"Hush-sh! What is the matter?"
"A—a—it's a ghost !"
"A ghost! Nonsense!"
Gypsy pushed by trembling Joy and ran out. She, too, came back with a jump, and, though she did not scream, she did not say nonsense.
"What can it be?"
It certainly did look amazingly like a ghost. Something tall and white and ghastly, with awful arm extended. The entry was very dark.
Joy sprang into bed and covered up her face in the clothes. Gypsy stood still and winked fast for about a minute. Then Joy heard a fall and a bubbling laugh.
"That old Tom! It's nothing but a broom-handle and a sheet. Oh, Joy, just come and see!"
After that, Joy declared she wouldn't go to the wood-shed alone, if she dressed without a fire the rest of her life. So Gypsy started with her, and they crept downstairs on tiptoe, holding their very breath in their efforts to be still, the stairs creeking at every step. Did you ever particularly want stairs to keep still, that they didn't creak like thunder-claps?
The girls managed to get into the wood-shed, fill their basket, and steal back into the kitchen without mishap. Then came the somewhat dubious undertaking of crawling upstairs in darkness that might be felt, with a heavy and decidedly uncertain load of wood.
"I'll go first and carry the basket," said Gypsy. "One can do it easier than two."
So she began to feel her way slowly up.
"It's black as Egypt! Joy, why don't you come?"
"I'm caught on something—oh!" Down fell something with an awful crash that echoed and reëchoed, and resounded through the sleeping house. It was succeeded by an utter silence.
"What is it?" breathed Gypsy, faintly.
"The clothes-horse, and every one of Patty's clean clothes !"
Scarcely were the words off from Joy's lips, when Gypsy, sitting down on the stairs to laugh, tipped over her basket, and every solitary stick of that wood clattered down the uncarpeted stairs, thumped through the banisters, bounced on the floor, rolled into the corners, thundered against the cellar door. I don't believe you ever heard such a noise in all your life.
Mr. and Mrs. Breynton ran from one direction, Tom from another, Winnie from a third, and Patty, screaming, in fearful dishabille , from the attic, and the congress that assembled in that entry where sat Gypsy speechless on one stair, and Joy on another, the power fails me to describe.
But this was the end of that Christmas night.
It should be recorded that the five-dollar bill and the portfolio with purple roses on it were both forthcoming that day, and that Gypsy entirely forgot any difference between her own little gifts and Joy's. This was partly because she had somehow learned to be glad in the difference, if it pleased Joy; partly because of a certain look in her mother's eyes when she saw the picture-frame. Such a look made Gypsy happy for days together.
That Christmas was as merry as Christmas can be, but the best part of it all was the sight of Peace Maythorne's face as she lay twining the gorgeous worsteds over her thin fingers, the happy sunlight touching their colors of crimson, and royal purple, and orange, and woodland brown, just as kindly as it was touching the new Christmas jewels over which many another young girl in many another home sat laughing that morning.
But Gypsy long remembered—she remembers now with dim eyes and quivering smile—how Peace drew her face down softly on the pillow, pointing to the blue and golden words upon the wall, and said in a whisper that nobody else heard:
"That is best of all. Oh, Gypsy, when I woke up in the morning and found it!"