Young Lucretia and Other Stories Part 8

"Answer me."

"I--tore it gittin' over--the wall."

"What were you gettin' over walls for in your best dress? I'd like to know what you s'pose you'll have to wear to meetin' now. Didn't I tell you not to get over walls in your best dress? _Ann Lizy Jennings, where is my bead bag?_"

"I--lost it."

"Lost my bead bag?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"How did you lose it, eh?"

"I lost it when--I was lookin' for--my patchwork."

"Did you lose your patchwork?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"When?"

"When I was--goin' over to--Jane's."

"Lost it out of the bag?"

Ann Lizy nodded, sobbing.

"Then you went to look for it and lost the bag. Lost your best pocket-handkerchief, too?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Old Mrs. Jennings stood looking at Ann Lizy.

"All that patchwork, cut out and basted jest as nice as could be, your best pocket-handkerchief and my bead bag lost, and your meetin' dress tore," said she; "well, you've done about enough for one day. Take off your things and go up-stairs to bed. You can't go over to Jane Baxter's again for one spell, and every mite of the patchwork that goes into the quilt you've got to cut by a thread, and baste yourself, and to-morrow you've got to hunt for that patchwork and that bag till you find 'em, if it takes you all day. Go right along."

Ann Lizy took off her hat and climbed meekly up-stairs and went to bed.

She did not say her prayers; she lay there and wept. It was about half-past eight, the air coming through the open window was loud with frogs and katydids and whippoorwills, and the twilight was very deep, when Ann Lizy arose and crept down-stairs. She could barely see her way.

There was a candle lighted in the south room, and her grandmother sat there knitting. Ann Lizy, a piteous little figure in her white night-gown, stood in the door.

"Well, what is it?" her grandmother said, in a severe voice that had a kindly inflection in it.

"Grandma--"

"What is it?"

"I lost my patchwork on purpose. I didn't want--to sew it."

"Lost your patchwork on purpose!"

"Yes--ma'am," sobbed Ann Lizy.

"Let it drop out of the bag on purpose?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, you did a dreadful wicked thing then. Go right back to bed."

Ann Lizy went back to bed and to sleep. Remorse no longer gnawed keenly enough at her clear, childish conscience to keep her awake, now her sin was confessed. She said her prayers and went to sleep. Although the next morning the reckoning came, the very worst punishment was over for her.

Her grandmother held the judicious use of the rod to be a part of her duty towards her beloved little orphan granddaughter, so she switched Ann Lizy with a little rod of birch, and sent her forth full of salutary tinglings to search for the bead bag and the patchwork. All the next week Ann Lizy searched the fields and road for the missing articles, when she was not cutting calico patchwork by a thread and sewing over and over. It seemed to her that life was made up of those two occupations, but at the end of a week the search, so far as the bead bag was concerned, came to an end.

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon the parson's wife called on old Mrs. Jennings. The sweet, gentle young lady in her black silk dress, her pink cheeks, and smooth waves of golden hair gleaming through her worked lace veil entered the north room, which was the parlor, and sat down in the rocking-chair. Ann Lizy and her grandmother sat opposite, and they both noticed at the same moment that the parson's wife held in her hand--_the bead bag_!

Ann Lizy gave a little involuntary "oh;" her grandmother shook her head fiercely at her, and the parson's wife noticed nothing. She went on talking about the pinks out in the yard, in her lovely low voice.

As soon as she could, old Mrs. Jennings excused herself and beckoned Ann Lizy to follow her out of the room. Then, while she was arranging a square of pound-cake and a little gla.s.s of elderberry wine on a tray, she charged Ann Lizy to say nothing about the bead bag to the parson's wife. "Mind you act as if you didn't see it," said she; "don't sit there lookin' at it that way."

"But it's your bead bag, grandma," said Ann Lizy, in a bewildered way.

"Don't you say anything," admonished her grandmother. "Now carry this tray in, and be careful you don't spill the elderberry wine."

Poor Ann Lizy tried her best not to look at the bead bag, while the parson's wife ate pound-cake, sipped the elderberry wine, and conversed in her sweet, gracious way; but it did seem finally to her as if it were the bead bag instead of the parson's wife that was making the call. She kept wondering if the parson's wife would not say, "Mrs. Jennings, is this your bead bag?" but she did not. She made the call and took leave, and the bead bag was never mentioned. It was odd, too, that it was not; for the parson's wife, who had found the bead bag, had taken it with her on her round of calls that afternoon, partly to show it and find out, if she could, who had lost it. But here it was driven out of her mind by the pound-cake and elderberry wine, or else she did not think it likely that an old lady like Mrs. Jennings could have owned the bag. Younger ladies than she usually carried them. However it was, she went away with the bag.

"Why didn't she ask if it was yours?" inquired Ann Lizy, indignant in spite of her admiration for the parson's wife.

"Hush," said her grandmother. "You mind you don't say a word out about this, Ann Lizy. I ain't never carried it, and she didn't suspect."

Now, the bead bag was found after this unsatisfactory fas.h.i.+on; but Ann Lizy never went down the road without looking for the patchwork. She never dreamed how little Sally Putnam, the minister's wife's niece, was in the mean-time sewing these four squares over and over, getting them ready to go into her quilt. It was a month later before she found it out, and it was strange that she discovered it at all.

It so happened that, one afternoon in the last of August, old Mrs.

Jennings dressed herself in her best black bombazine, her best bonnet and mantilla and mitts, and also dressed Ann Lizy in her best muslin delaine, exquisitely mended, and set out to make a call on the parson's wife. When they arrived they found a chaise and white horse out in the parsonage yard, and the parson's wife's sister and family there on a visit. An old lady, Mrs. White, a friend of Mrs. Jennings, was also making a call.

Little Ann Lizy and Sally Putnam were introduced to each other, and Ann Lizy looked admiringly at Sally's long curls and low-necked dress, which had gold catches in the sleeves. They sat and smiled shyly at each other.

"Show Ann Lizy your patchwork, Sally," the parson's wife said, presently. "Sally has got almost enough patchwork for a quilt, and she has brought it over to show me," she added.

Ann Lizy colored to her little slender neck; patchwork was nowadays a sore subject with her, but she looked on as Sally, proud and smiling, displayed her patchwork.

Suddenly she gave a little cry. There was one of her squares! The calico with roses on a green ground was in Sally's patchwork.

Her grandmother shook her head energetically at her, but old Mrs. White had on her spectacles, and she, too, had spied the square.

"Why, Miss Jennings," she cried, "that's jest like that dress you had so long ago!"

"Let me see," said Sally's mother, quickly. "Why, yes; that is the very square you found, Sally. That is one; there were four of them, all cut and basted. Why, this little girl didn't lose them, did she?"

Then it all came out. The parson's wife was quick-witted, and she thought of the bead bag. Old Mrs. Jennings was polite, and said it did not matter; but when she and Ann Lizy went home they had the bead bag, with the patchwork and the best pocket-handkerchief in it.