The Little Colonel at Boarding School Part 12

"I reckon Roney will be mighty glad to see you," he remarked, as he stopped the horse in front of an old cabin a short distance from his own home. "She's been worse this week. You'll have half an hour yet before sundown," he added, as he turned the wheel for her to climb out of the carryall.

"I'll stay till supper-time," she called back over her shoulder, "for I have so much to tell her this week."

With the library book tucked away under the old gray shawl, she ran down the straggling path to the little whitewashed cabin.

Roney would understand. Roney had always understood things from the time they had first been neighbours on a lonely farm near Loretta. That was when Magnolia was a baby, and Corono, six years older, without a playmate and without a toy, had daily borrowed her and played with her as if she had been a great doll. It was Corono who had discovered her first tooth, and who had coaxed her to take her first step, and had taught her nearly everything she knew, from threading a needle and tying a knot, to spelling out the words on the tombstones in the nuns'

graveyard. Corono could often tell what she was thinking about, even before she said a word. She was the only one at home to whom Magnolia ever mentioned the Princess.

Several years before the two families had moved away together from the old place. In that time Corono's mother had died, and her father had become so crippled with rheumatism that he could no longer manage to do the heavy work on the farm he had rented. They were glad to accept their old neighbour's offer of an empty cabin on his place. After that, when Corono was not at the farmhouse helping Mrs. Budine with her cleaning or sewing or pickle-making, Magnolia was at the cabin, following at the little housekeeper's very heels, as she went about her daily tasks. But now for several months Corono had been barely able to drag from one room to another. Whether it was a fall she had had in the early summer which injured her back, or whether it was some disease of the spine past his skill to discover, the doctor from the crossroads could not decide.

Her father had to be housekeeper now, and they would have had meagre fare oftentimes, had not a generous share of every pie and pudding baked in the Budine kitchen found its way to their table.

The weeks would have been almost unbearably monotonous to Corono after Magnolia started to school had she not looked forward to the Fridays, when her return meant the bringing of a new library book, and another delightfully interesting chapter of her life at the seminary.

These glimpses into a world so different from her own gave her something to think about all week, as she dragged wearily about, trying to help her father in his awkward struggles with the cooking and cleaning. She thought about them at night, too, when the pain in her back kept her awake. Betty and Lloyd and Allison, Kitty and Elise and Katie Mallard, were as real to her as they were to Maggie. They would have stared in astonishment could they have known that every week a sixteen-year-old girl, whom they had never seen, and of whom they had barely heard, was waiting to ask a dozen eager questions about them.

Maggie ran in without knocking, bringing such a breath of fresh air and fresh interest with her that Corono's face brightened instantly. She was lying on the bed with a shawl thrown over her.

"I've been listening for you for more than an hour," said Corono, propping herself up on her elbow. "I thought the time never would pa.s.s.

I counted the ticking of the clock, and then I tried to see how much of Betty's play I could repeat. I've read it so many times this week that I know it nearly all by heart."

She picked up the book which lay beside her on the bed. It was the library copy of "The Rescue of the Princess Winsome," which Maggie had brought to her the previous Friday. It had been in such constant demand since the opening of school that she had been unable to obtain it earlier.

Maggie, about to plunge into an account of her Hallowe'en experiences, checked herself as Corono winced with pain and her face grew suddenly white. "What's the matter?" she asked, sympathetically. "Do you feel very bad?"

To her astonishment Corono buried her face in her pillow to hide the tears that were trickling down her cheeks, and began to sob.

"I'll run get mammy," said the frightened child, who had never seen Corono give way to her feelings in such fas.h.i.+on before.

"No, don't!" she sobbed. "I'll be all right--in a minute. I'm just nervous--from the pain--I haven't slept much--lately!"

Maggie sat motionless, afraid to make any attempt at consolation, even so much as patting her cheek with her plump little hand. Roney was the one who had always comforted _her_. She did not know what to do, now that their positions were suddenly reversed. She was relieved when Roney presently wiped her eyes and said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, "There! You never saw me make a baby of myself before! Did you! But I couldn't help it. Sometimes when it gets this way I wish I could die.

But I've just _got_ to keep on living for daddy's sake. I don't suppose any one ever told you, and you couldn't understand unless you knew.

"It's this way. My mother's family never wanted her to marry daddy, and they disowned her when she did, because he wasn't educated and rich and all that, as they were. They never spoke to her afterward, but when my grandfather came to die, I reckon he was sorry for the way he'd done, for he wanted to send for her. It was too late, though. She had died that spring. Then he tried to make it up in a way, by being good to me, and he left me an annuity. I can't explain to you just what that is, but every year as long as I live his lawyer is to pay me some money. It isn't much, but it is all that daddy and I have had to live on since he hasn't been able to work. When I die the money will stop coming, so I feel that I _must_ keep on living even when every breath is agony, as it is sometimes. I don't think I can stand it much longer. There are days when I just have to grit my teeth and say I _won't_ give up! I will hang on for poor daddy's sake. Sometimes I believe that is all that keeps me alive."

She stopped abruptly, seeing the tears of distress in Maggie's eyes, and made an attempt to laugh.

"There!" she exclaimed. "Now that I've poured out all my troubles and eased my mind, I feel better. Tell me about the girls. What have they been doing this week?"

Much relieved, Maggie produced the photograph of herself, and began an enthusiastic account of her Hallowe'en experiences. She began with the visit to Clovercroft, and as she described the handsomely furnished music-room, with its luxurious rugs and grand piano, and the priceless pictures that had been brought from over the sea, its lace curtains and white tiled hearth and andirons that shone like gold, it seemed to her that the little cabin had never looked so bare. Its c.h.i.n.ked walls and puncheon floor stood out in pitiful contrast. The only picture in the room was an unframed chromo tacked above the mantel.

As she described the masquerade frolic, she contrasted Roney's lonely shut-in life with her own and the other girls' at the seminary. A realization of its meagreness and emptiness stole over her till she could hardly keep the tears back. A great longing sprang up in her warm little heart to do something that would compensate as far as possible for all that she had missed. Acting on that impulse, as she reached the climax of her story and drew out the cherished photograph of the Princess, she thrust it into Roney's hand, saying, hurriedly, "Here, you can have it, Roney. I'd rather you would have it than me."

Corono held the picture eagerly, studying every detail of the beautiful little medallion. The fair hair with its coronet of pearls, the white dove nestled against her shoulder, as she had held it when she sang "Flutter and fly, flutter and fly, bear him my heart of gold,"--all seemed doubly attractive now with the play fresh in her mind. Besides, it was the most beautiful picture she had ever seen in all the sixteen years of her lonely, unsatisfied life.

The intuition that always helped her to understand her little friend made her understand now in a way that the gift meant a sacrifice, and she exclaimed, impulsively, "Oh, Maggie! I don't feel as if I ought to take it from you. You keep it, and just lend it to me once in awhile."

"No, I want you to have it," said Maggie, drawing the old shawl up around her. "Goodness me! It's getting dark. I'll have to run," and before Corono could make another protest she rushed away.

As she ran along the path that crossed the pasture between the cabin and the farmhouse, there was a tremulous smile on her face, but the faint twilight also showed tears in her eyes. The smile was for the joy she knew she had given Roney, but the tears were for herself. n.o.body knew how much of a sacrifice she had made in giving up the picture of the Princess. Even Roney had not guessed how great it was. But she had no regret next morning when she came back to the cabin. Roney greeted her eagerly.

"Look!" she cried, pointing to the old wooden clock which stood on the mantel. "I didn't have a frame to put the picture in, and I was afraid it would get spoiled without gla.s.s over it. While I was looking around the room wondering what to do, I happened to notice that it was the same size as the pendulum. Daddy lifted it down for me, and I fastened the picture on that. So there it is all safe and sound behind the gla.s.s door, and I can see it from any part of the room.

"And, oh, Maggie, you don't know how it helped me last night. It made the play seem so real to me. As I lay here watching the pendulum, it stopped saying 'Tick tock, tick tock.' It seemed to me that the Princess was looking straight at me, saying, instead, '_For love--will find--a way!_' Then I knew that she meant me. That love would help me bear the pain for daddy's sake; that my living along as bravely as I could was like spinning the golden thread, and that I mustn't think about the great skein that the weeks and months were piling up ahead for me to do; I must just spin a minute at a time. I can stand the pain when I count it with the pendulum. Even when the fire died down and I couldn't see her any longer, I could hear her saying it over and over, 'For love--will find--a way.' And I lay there in the dark and pretended that I was a princess, too, spinning love's golden thread, and that my dove was a little white prayer that I could send fluttering up to G.o.d, asking him to help me find the way to be brave and patient, and to hang on to life as long as I possibly can for daddy's sake."

Little did the Shadow Club dream that day how far their shadow-selves were reaching. But Betty's song brought comfort and courage for many an hour into Roney's lonely life, and the greatest solace in her keenest suffering was the smiling face of the Princess, swaying back and forth upon the pendulum.

CHAPTER IX.

ONE RAINY AFTERNOON

THAT same Sat.u.r.day afternoon following the Hallowe'en frolic, while Maggie rehea.r.s.ed the whole affair once more in the cabin, the Shadow Club discussed it at the seminary. They had met early, for Lloyd and Betty had asked permission to make candy in their room, and in order to finish the amount of work they had planned to do at each meeting, it was necessary for them to begin immediately after dinner.

It was a dull November day, cloudy and damp, and while they were settling themselves to work, the rain began to patter against the window-panes.

"How cosy and shut-in it makes you feel!" exclaimed Katie, looking around on the bright, comfortable room.

"We are shut in," answered Lloyd. "The Clark girls and Magnolia have gone home to stay ovah Sunday, and we have this whole wing to ourselves.

n.o.body can heah us, no mattah how loud we talk."

"Let's put up the sign, 'No admittance. Busy,' on the corridor door leading into our hall," suggested Ida. "On a rainy afternoon like this, when the girls can't get out-doors, they're more apt to go visiting, and we don't want to be interrupted."

"That's so," agreed Lloyd. Hastily scribbling the notice on an envelope, she ran out and fastened it on the door with a pin.

"Now we're safe," she announced on her return, and settled herself comfortably among the cus.h.i.+ons of the window-seat. For half an hour their needles and brushes were plied rapidly, as they chattered and laughed over the various remarks they had heard about the mysterious Hallowe'en guests. Who they were still remained an unsolved riddle in the school.

Presently Ida dropped her embroidery-hoops and leaned back in her chair yawning. "Oh, I'm in no mood for work of this kind! My silks snarl, my needle keeps coming unthreaded, and I stick myself nearly every time I take a st.i.tch. I'm making such a mess of it I'd stop only I don't want to s.h.i.+rk my part when you are all working so faithfully. When my embroidery acts this way it makes me so nervous I could scream."

"Why don't you do some more burnt-work instead?" suggested Katie.

"I'm out of leather. The last lot I sent for hasn't come."

"You might read to us while we work," suggested Betty. "There's a new _St. Nicholas_ on the table."

"Yes, do," insisted Allison. "Mother said this morning that she thought it would be a fine plan for us to take up some good book and read it in turn while we work."

As all the girls agreed, Ida picked up the magazine and began turning the leaves.

"What will you have?" she asked. "This scientific article doesn't look very entertaining, and this football story wouldn't interest anybody but boys. We can't plunge into the middle of this serial without having read the first chapters, and, judging from the ill.u.s.trations and the name of this girl's story, it is anything but wildly exciting."

She glanced hastily over the remaining pages, and then laid the magazine aside. "I wonder," she said, hesitatingly, "if any of you have ever read a book I have in my room, called 'The Fortunes of Daisy Dale.' It's the sweetest thing; I nearly cried my eyes out over part of it. Of course it's a novel, and some people object to them unless they're by some great writer like Thackeray or Scott. I know my aunt does. But I don't see how this could hurt anybody. It's about a dear little English girl whose guardian kept her almost like a prisoner, so that he could use her money. She had such a hard time that she ran away and got a place as a governess when she was only sixteen. She had all sorts of trouble and misunderstandings, but it ends happily. All the way through she has such a beautiful influence on young Lord Rokeby and Guy Wolvering, the squire's son, who is so wild that his father threatens to disinherit him. It is his love for her that finally reforms him. Her influence over him is a living ill.u.s.tration of the motto of our club."

"Then let's read it," proposed Allison, eagerly.