Maida's Little Shop Part 26

At this announcement, everybody shrieked. Molly disappeared with Tim in the direction of Laura's bedroom. When she reappeared, sure enough, Tim had a dry suit on.

Next Laura ordered them to sit about the kitchen-table. She gave each child an apple and a knife and directed him to pare the apple without breaking the peel. If you think that is an easy thing to do, try it. It seemed to Maida that she never would accomplish it. She spoiled three apples before she succeeded.

"Now take your apple-paring and form in line across the kitchen-floor," Laura commanded.

The flock scampered to obey her.

"Now when I say 'Three!'" she continued, "throw the parings back over your shoulder to the floor. If the paring makes a letter, it will be the initial of your future husband or wife. One! _Two_!

THREE!"

A dozen apple-parings flew to the floor. Everybody raced across the room to examine the results.

"Mine is B," d.i.c.ky said.

"And mine's an O," Rosie declared, "as plain as anything. What's yours, Maida?"

"It's an X," Maida answered in great perplexity. "I don't believe that there are any names beginning with X except Xenophon and Xerxes."

"Well, mine's as bad," Laura laughed, "it's a Z. I guess I'll be Mrs. Zero."

"That's nothing," Arthur laughed, "mine's an &-I can't marry anybody named --'and.'"

"Well, if that isn't successful," Laura said, "there's another way of finding out who your husband or wife's going to be. You must walk down the cellar-stairs backwards with a candle in one hand and a mirror in the other. You must look in the mirror all the time and, when you get to the foot of the stairs, you will see, reflected in it, the face of your husband or wife."

This did not interest the little children but the big ones were wild to try it.

"Gracious, doesn't it sound scary?" Rosie said, her great eyes snapping. "I love a game that's kind of spooky, don't you, Maida?"

Maida did not answer. She was watching Harold who was sneaking out of the room very quietly from a door at the side.

"All right, then, Rosie," Laura caught her up, "you can go first."

The children all crowded over to the door leading to the cellar. The stairs were as dark as pitch. Rosie took the mirror and the candle that Laura handed her and slipped through the opening. The little audience listened breathless.

They heard Rosie stumble awkwardly down the stairs, heard her pause at the foot. Next came a moment of silence, of waiting as tense above as below. Then came a burst of Rosie's jolly laughter. She came running up to them, her cheeks like roses, her eyes like stars.

They crowded around her. "What did you see?" "Tell us about it?"

they clamored.

Rosie shook her head. "No, no, no," she maintained, "I'm not going to tell you what I saw until you've been down yourself."

It was Arthur's turn next. They listened again. The same thing happened-awkward stumbling down the stairs, a pause, then a roar of laughter.

"Oh what did you see?" they implored when he reappeared.

"Try it yourself!" he advised. "I'm not going to tell."

d.i.c.ky went next. Again they all listened and to the same mysterious doings. d.i.c.ky came back smiling but, like the others, he refused to describe his experiences.

Now it was Maida's turn. She took the candle and the mirror from d.i.c.ky and plunged into the s.h.i.+very darkness of the stairs. It was doubly difficult for her to go down backwards because of her lameness. But she finally arrived at the bottom and stood there expectantly. It seemed a long time before anything happened.

Suddenly, she felt something stir back of her. A lighted jack-o'-lantern came from between the folds of a curtain which hung from the ceiling. It grinned over her shoulder at her face in the mirror.

Maida burst into a shriek of laughter and scrambled upstairs. "I'm going to marry a jack-o'-lantern," she said. "My name's going to be Mrs. Jack Pumpkin."

"I'm going to marry Laura's sailor-doll," Rosie confessed. "My name is Mrs. Yankee Doodle."

"I'm going to marry Laura's big doll, Queenie," Arthur admitted.

"And I'm going to marry Harold's Teddy-bear," d.i.c.ky said.

After that they blew soap-bubbles and roasted apples and chestnuts, popped corn and pulled candy at the great fireplace in the playroom.

And at Maida's request, just before they left, Laura danced for them.

"Will you help me to get on my costume, Maida?" Laura asked.

"Of course," Maida said, wondering.

"I asked you to come down here, Maida," Laura said when the two little girls were alone, "because I wanted to tell you that I am sorry for the way I treated you just before I got diphtheria. I told my mother about it and she said I did those things because I was coming down sick. She said that people are always fretty and cross when they're not well. But I don't think it was all that. I guess I did it on purpose just to be disagreeable. But I hope you will excuse me."

"Of course I will, Laura," Maida said heartily. "And I hope you will forgive me for going so long without speaking to you. But you see I heard," she stopped and hesitated, "things," she ended lamely.

"Oh, I know what you heard. I said those things about you to the W.M.N.T.'s so that they'd get back to you. I wanted to hurt your feelings." Laura in her turn stopped and hesitated for an instant.

"I was jealous," she finally confessed in a burst. "But I want you to understand this, Maida. I didn't believe those horrid things myself. I always have a feeling inside when people are telling lies and I didn't have that feeling when you were talking to me. I knew you were telling the truth. And all the time while I was getting well, I felt so dreadfully about it that I knew I never would be happy again unless I told you so."

"I did feel bad when I heard those things," Maida said, "but of course I forgot about them when Rosie told me you were ill. Let's forget all about it again."

But Maida told the W.M.N.T.'s something of her talk with Laura and the result was an invitation to Laura to join the club. It was accepted gratefully.

The next month went by on wings. It was a busy month although in a way, it was an uneventful one. The weather kept clear and fine.

Little rain fell but, on the other hand, to the great disappointment of the little people of Primrose Court, there was no snow. Maida saw nothing of her father for business troubles kept him in New York. He wrote constantly to her and she wrote as faithfully to him. Letters could not quite fill the gap that his absence made. Perhaps Billy suspected Maida's secret loneliness for he came oftener and oftener to see her.

One night the W.M.N.T.'s begged so hard for a story that he finally began one called "The Crystal Ball." A wonderful thing about it was that it was half-game and half-story. Most wonderful of all, it went on from night to night and never showed any signs of coming to an end. But in order to play this game-story, there were two or three conditions to which you absolutely must submit. For instance, it must always be played in the dark. And first, everybody must shut his eyes tight. Billy would say in a deep voice, "Abracadabra!" and, presto, there they all were, Maida, Rosie, Laura, Billy, Arthur and d.i.c.ky inside the crystal ball. What people lived there and what things happened to them can not be told here. But after an hour or more, Billy's deepest voice would boom, "Abracadabra!" again and, presto, there they all were again, back in the cheerful living-room.

Maida hoped against hope that her father would come to spend Thanksgiving with her but that, he wrote finally, was impossible.

Billy came, however, and they three enjoyed one of Granny's delicious turkey dinners.

"I hoped that I would have found your daughter Annie by this time, Granny," Billy said. "I ask every Irishman I meet if he came from Aldigarey, County Sligo or if he knows anybody who did, or if he's ever met a pretty Irish girl by the name of Annie Flynn. But I'll find her yet-you'll see."

"I hope so, Misther Billy," Granny said respectfully. But Maida thought her voice sounded as if she had no great hope.

d.i.c.ky still continued to come for his reading-lessons, although Maida could see that, in a month or two, he would not need a teacher. The quiet, studious, pale little boy had become a great favorite with Granny Flynn.

"Sure an' Oi must be after getting over to see the poor lad's mother some noight," she said. "'Tis a noice woman she must be wid such a pretty-behaved little lad."

"Oh, she is, Granny," Maida said earnestly. "I've been there once or twice when Mrs. Dore came home early. And she's just the nicest lady and so fond of d.i.c.ky and the baby."

But Granny was old and very easily tired and, so, though her intentions were of the best, she did not make this call.