Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land Part 6

He got up and went out, shutting the door after him. Not one word of punishment; but he left Roxy trembling with a strange terror. She shook with a presentiment of some unendurable public disgrace. Setting down the pan of cherries, she crept to the door. She heard her father's voice, her mother's sharp exclamations. Then her father said, "To think _our_ girl should sin in such a high-handed way! Mother, I'd rather laid her in her grave any day! That hot-headed Markham will not rest until he's published it from Dan to Beersheba. She's only a child, but this thing will stick to her as long as she lives."

Her mother sobbed. "Our poor Roxy! Tom, if the school children get hold of it, she will never go another day. The child is so sensitive! I don't know how to punish her as I ought. I can only think how to save her from what is before her."

O, how Roxy, standing at the key-hole, trembled to see her mother lean her head on her father's shoulder and sob, and to see tears on her father's cheeks! O, what a wicked, wicked girl! It _was_ thieving; in some way it was even worse than that; as if she had committed a--a forgery, maybe, Roxy thought. She was conscious she had done something unusually daring and dreadful.

She stole off up stairs, shut herself in, and cried as hard as she could cry. Afterward her little brain began to busy itself in many directions.

She tried to fancy herself shamed and pointed at, afraid to go to school, afraid to go down to the store, ashamed to go to the table, with no right to laugh, and play, and stay around near her mother, never again to dare ask her father to ride when he was going off with the horses.

So lonely and gloomy, she tried to think what it was possible to do. At last, as in the morning, a daring thought occurred to her suddenly. She made up her mind in just one minute to do it.

When her mother called, she went down to supper at once. The boys were gone. n.o.body but she and father and mother; and the three had very red eyes, and said nothing, but pa.s.sed things to each other in a kind, quiet way, that seemed to Roxy like folks after a funeral--perhaps it did to the rest of them. Roxy was fanciful enough to think to herself, "Yes, it is _my_ funeral. We have just buried my good name."

Silently, one with a white face, the other with a red one, Roxy and her mother did up the work. Then Roxy went up to her room again. She took a sheet of foolscap, and made it into four sheets of note paper. She wrote and printed something on each sheet, and folded all the sheets into letters. Then she went down stairs. Two of the little letters she handed to her mother. Then, bonnet in hand, she stole out the front door. At the gate she looked down the road toward the village, up the road toward Mr. Markham's. She started toward Mr. Markham's. She got over the road marvelously; for the child was wild to get the thing over with. She was going up the path to the house when she saw Mr. Markham hoeing in the garden. She went to him, thrust a note into his hand, and was off like a dart.

It was a long, hard, lonely run down to the village. How lonely in the grove at the hollow tree! How like a thief, with the bundles openly on her arm! No little girl's pocket would hold them, nothing but a great Judas-bag. She went straight to the stone store. It was just sunset.

How thankful she was to find n.o.body in the store but Mr. Hamps.h.i.+re himself, reading the evening paper. He looked up, and recognized the red little face. He glanced at the bundles as she threw them, with a letter, down on the counter, and whisked out through the door. He called after her, "Here, here, Roxy; here, my dear! Come back. I have some figs for you!"

But no Roxy came back. He heard her little heels clattering down the sidewalk fast as they could go. So he got up and read the letter, for it was directed to himself.

Here are the four notes Roxy wrote:--

"Dear Father: I Will paye you every Cent if I Live. I shall always be a Good Girl, and never hanker after Only what I have Got. Please forgive Me, and Not Talk It Over with Mother. It will make her Sick.

Roxy."

"Dear Mother: Please love me until I am Bad once More. If I ever, Ever, should be Bad again, then you may give me Up. Don't get Sick.

Roxy."

"Mr. MarkHam: I have been Very Wicked. I have made father and Mother wretched. I am sorry. Please don't be Hard on Me, and Set every body against me, because My Mother would settle right down and be very Sick. I am only a Little girl, and a Big Man might let me go. I have taken the Things back to the Store. Also father has Paid for them. _You_ may Want something some day, and do Wrong to get it, and Then you will know How good it is. R. Gildersleeve."

"Mr. HamPs.h.i.+re: Please Not tell the folks that come into the Store what I did. I want a Chance to be good. If you Ever hear of my stealing again, Then you can tell, of course. R. Gildersleeve."

And here is what they said:--

_Mr. Gildersleeve_ (crying). "Here, mother, put this away. Never speak of it to her. Poor child, I _did_ mean to whip her!"

_Mrs. Gildersleeve_ (crying). "Bless her heart, Tom, this is true repentance! Our child will not soon forget this lesson. Let us be very good to her."

_Mr. Markham_ (laughing). "Young saucebox! But there's true grit for you! Well, I don't think I shall stoop to injure a child. Let it go. I'm quits with Tom now, and we'll begin again even."

_Mr. Hamps.h.i.+re_ (laughing). "She's a nice little dot, after all. I don't see what possessed her. I'd like to show this to Maria; guess I won't, though, for it is partly _my_ business to keep the little name white."

And none of them ever told. When Roxy was an old woman, she related to me the story herself. The name was kept white through life. Such a scrupulous, kindly, charitable old lady! The only strange thing about her was, that she never could eat anything flavored with cinnamon, or which had raisins in it.