Hoodie Part 16

"Oh, Hoodie, I am _so_ sorry. I thought you had quite left off everything like that," said her cousin.

One or two big tears crept slowly out of the corners of Hoodie's eyes.

"They shouldn't say I was telling untrue things," she muttered. "'Tisn't my fault."

"Oh! Miss Hoodie," said Martin, injudiciously, "how _can_ you say so?

I'm sure, Miss," she went on, turning to Magdalen, "no one said a word to put her out. She was telling fairy stories like, to Master Duke and Master Hec, and they began asking her to explain and she would say it was quite true, not fairy stories at all. And Miss Maudie just tried to show her she shouldn't say that, and then you see, Miss, she flew into a temper."

"What were the stories about, Hoodie?" inquired Miss King, kindly.

Hoodie vouchsafed not a word in reply.

Magdalen glanced at the others.

"_I'll_ tell," said Duke. "They was about things up in the sky, you know."

"Angels, do you mean?" said Miss King.

"Oh no, not angels," said Maudie. "It was about the stars and the moon.

Hoodie has a fancy----"

"It _isn't_ a fancy," put in Hoodie fiercely.

"Hoodie says," continued Maudie calmly, "that the moon and the stars and all of the things up in the sky, know each other, and talk to each other, and that she has heard them. The moon takes care of the stars, she says, and early in the morning when it is time for them all to go away the moon calls to them. I mean Hoodie says she does."

"'Cos she _does_," replied Hoodie, before any one else had time to speak. "She calls to them and they all come round her together, and then they all go away like a flash--_so_ quick, and it is so bright."

Her funny eyes gleamed up into Magdalen's face. In the interest of what she was telling she forgot her temper.

"Was it that that you saw?" asked Magdalen, gravely. "The flash of their going, I mean?"

"Yes," said Hoodie, "I've seen it lots of times, and I try to keep awake on purpose. It pa.s.ses--the flash, I mean--it pa.s.ses by the little window near my head. The little window for seeing up into the sky, you know."

Magdalen nodded her head.

"I know," she said, "I had a window like that in my room when I was a little girl, and I was very fond of it. But I don't think I ever saw the moon and the stars saying good night, or good morning--which is it? And are none of the little stars ever left behind?"

The whole of Hoodie's face lighted up with a smile, but the rest of the faces round Miss King looked grave and rather puzzled. Was she really going to encourage Hoodie in her fancies--thought Maudie and Martin?

"I don't _'zink_ so," said Hoodie, "but I'll look the next time."

"Cousin Magdalen," whispered Maudie, gently pulling her G.o.dmother's dress, "it _isn't_ true. You don't want Duke and Hec to think it is."

"I don't think it would matter much if they did," replied Magdalen in the same tone. "Thinking little fancies like that true would do them far less harm than thinking their sister was telling falsehoods. But I will try to explain to Hoodie that perhaps it is better not to say any more about it to the little boys. Only, Maudie dear, I think you are old enough to understand better that Hoodie was not meaning to tell untruths."

"She said she heard the moon and the stars _talking_," remonstrated Maudie.

"Well--what if she did? Many a time when I was a little girl I have thought I heard the wind say real words when I was lying awake in my little bed. Of course I know better now, but so will Hoodie, and if these fancies please her and keep her content and happy, why not leave her them?"

"_Martin_ doesn't think so," said Maudie, rather mortified that her efforts to bring Hoodie to a sense of her wrong-doings were so little appreciated.

"Miss Maudie, dear!" exclaimed Martin, "I never said so, I'm sure. I don't think I rightly understood what it was all about. I'm sure I don't want to be sharp on any of you for fancies that do no one any harm. I had plenty of them myself when I was little."

"You see, Maudie, Martin does understand," said Miss King. "I'll try and explain about it better to you afterwards, but just now I really must hurry down to breakfast."

She was turning away when a clamour of little voices stopped her.

"Won't you come back after breakfast, Cousin Magdalen?"

"Oh, do tum back."

"It's such a wet day and we've nothing to do, 'cause it's Sat.u.r.day, and Sat.u.r.day's a holiday."

"Do you want me to come and give you lessons then?" said Magdalen, mischievously.

Dead silence--broken at last by Duke.

"Couldn't you tum and tell us more stories?"

Magdalen shook her head.

"I haven't got any ready. Truly I haven't," she said. "It takes me a long time to think of them, always. But I'll tell you what we might do.

I'll come up after breakfast with my work and you might all tell _me_ stories. That would amuse everybody. Each of you try to think of one, but you mustn't tell each other what it is."

Hoodie's face lighted up, but Maudie looked rather lugubrious.

"_I_ can't think of one," she said.

"Oh yes you can, if you try," said Magdalen, cheerfully.

"Must it be all out of my own head?"

Miss King hesitated.

"No, if you can remember one that you've read that the others don't know, that would do."

Maudie looked relieved.

"_I_ don't need to remember one," said Hoodie. "I know such heaps. My head's all spinning full of them."

"So's mine," said Duke, jumping about and clapping his hands.

"And mine too," said Hec. "Kite 'pinning full."

"What nonsense," said Hoodie. "You _don't_ know stories. It's only me that does."

"Hush, hush," said Miss King. "My plan won't be nice at all if it makes you quarrel. Now I _must_ run down."