Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories; Second Series

THE Princess was washing dishes. On her feet she would barely have reached the rim of the great dish-pan, but on the soap-box she did very well. A grimy calico apron trailed to the floor.

'Now this golden platter I must wash extry clean,' the Princess said. 'The Queen is ve-ry particular about her golden platters. Last time, when I left one o' the corners,—it’s such a nextremely heavy platter to hold,—she gave me a scold,—oh, I mean,—I mean she tapped me a little love pat on my cheek with her golden spoon.'

It was a great brown-veined stoneware platter, and the arms of the Princess ached with holding it. Then, in an unwary instant, it slipped out of her soapsudsy little fingers and crashed to the floor. Oh! oh! the Queen! the Queen! She was coming! The Princess heard her shrill, angry voice, and felt the jar of her heavy steps. There was the space of an instant—an instant is so short!—before the storm broke.

'You little limb o' Satan! That’s my best platter, is it? Broke all to bits, eh? I’ll break'—But there was a flurry of dingy apron and dingier petticoats, and the little Princess had fled. She did not stop till she was in her Secret Place among the willows. Her small lean face was pale, but undaunted.

The Prince had never come, but the Princess waited for him patiently. She sat with her face to the west and looked for him to come through the willows with the red sunset light filtering across his hair. That was the way the Prince was coming, though the time was not set. It might be a good while before he came, and then again—you never could tell!

'But when he does, and we’ve had a little while to get acquainted, then I shall say to him, "Hear, O Prince, and give ear to my—my petition! For verily, verily, I have broken many golden platters and jasper cups and saucers, and the Queen, long live her! is sore—sore—"'

The Princess pondered for the forgotten word. She put up a little lean brown hand and rubbed a tingling spot on her temple—ah, not the Queen! It was the Princess—long live her!—who was 'sore.'

'"I beseech thee, O Prince," I shall say, "buy new golden platters and jasper cups and saucers for the Queen, and then shall I verily, verily be—be—"'

Oh, the long words—how they slipped out of reach! The little Princess sighed rather wearily. She would have to rehearse that speech so many times before the Prince came. Suppose he came to-night! Suppose she looked up now, this minute, toward the golden west, and he was there, swinging along through the willow canes toward her!

'My silk dress is rather faded,' murmured the little Princess wistfully.

She smoothed down the scant calico skirt with her brown little fingers. The patch in it she would not see.

'I shall have to have the Royal Dressmaker make me another one soon. Let me see—what color shall I choose? I’d like my gold-colored velvet made up. I’m tired of wearing royal purple dresses all the time, though of course I know they’re appropriater. I wonder what color the Prince would like best? I should rather choose that color.'

The Princess’s little brown hands were clasped about one knee, and she was rocking herself slowly back and forth, her eyes, wistful and wide, on the path the Prince would come. She was tired to-day and it was harder to wait.

'But when he comes I shall say, "Hear, O Prince. Verily, verily, I did not know which color you would like to find me dressed—I mean arrayed—in, and so I beseech thee excuse—pardon, I mean, mine infirmity."'

The Princess was not sure of 'infirmity,' but it sounded well. She could not think of a better word.

'And then—I think then—he will take me in his arms, and his face will be all sweet and splendid like the Mother o' God’s in the picture, and he will whisper,—I don’t think he will say it out loud,—oh, I’d rather not!—"Verily, Princess," he will whisper, "oh, verily, verily, thou hast found favor in my sight!" And that will mean that he doesn’t care what color I am, for he—loves—me.'

Lower and lower sank the solemn voice of the Princess. Slower and slower rocked the little lean body. The birds themselves stopped singing at the end. In the Secret Place it was very still.

They came nearer. The crisp twigs snapped under his feet. He was whistling.

'Oh, I can’t look!—I can’t!' gasped the little Princess, but she turned her face to the west,—she had always known it would be from the west,—and lifted closed eyes to his coming. When he got to the Twisted Willow she might dare to look—to the Little Willow Twins, anyway.

'And I shall know when he does,' she thought. 'I shall know the minute!'

Her face was rapt and tender. The miracle she had made for herself,—the gold she had coined out of her piteous alloy,—was it not come true at last?—Verily, verily?

Hush! Was the Prince not coming through the willows? And the sunshine was trickling down on his hair! The Princess knew, though she did not look.

'He is at the Twisted Willow,' she thought. 'Now he is at the Little Willow Twins.'

But she did not open her eyes. She did not dare. This was a little different, she had never counted on being afraid.

The twigs snapped louder and nearer—now very near. The merry whistle grew clearer, and then it stopped.

'Hullo!'

Did princes say 'Hullo!'

'I say, hullo! Haven’t you got any tongue?'

'Oh, verily, verily,—I mean hear, O Prince, I beseech,' she panted.

The boy’s merry eyes regarded the shabby small person in puzzled astonishment. He felt an impulse to laugh and run away, but his royal blood forbade either. So he waited.

'You are the Prince,' the little Princess cried. 'I’ve been waiting the longest time,—but I knew you’d come,' she added simply. 'Have you got your velvet an’ gold buckles on? I’m goin’ to look in a minute, but I’m waiting to make it spend.'

The Prince whistled softly. 'No,' he said then, 'I didn’t wear them clo’es to-day. You see, my mother—'

'The Queen,' she interrupted; 'you mean the Queen?'

'You bet I do! She’s a reg’lar-builter! Well, she don’t like to have me wearin' out my best clo’es every day,' he said gravely.

'No,' eagerly, 'nor mine don’t. Queen, I mean,—but she isn’t a mother, mercy, no! I only wear silk dresses every day, not my velvet ones. This silk one is getting a little faded.'

She released one hand to smooth the dress wistfully. Then she remembered her painfully practiced little speech and launched into it hurriedly.

'Hear, O Prince. Verily, verily, I did not know which color you 'd like to find me dressed in—I mean arrayed. I beseech thee to excuse—oh, pardon, I mean—'

But she got no further. She could endure the delay no longer, and her eyes flew open.

The royal blood flooded the face of the Prince and filled in all the spaces between its little gold-brown freckles. But the Prince held out his hand to her. His lips formed for words and she thought he was going to say, 'Verily, Princess, thou hast found favor—'

WHEN the morning of the sixteenth day broke out from the gray battlements to the east’ard, only two live men remained on the raft which more than two weeks before had left the splintered side of the barkentine; besides, there was one dead man, and his body counted three out of a dozen who had clung to the raft until ten starved to death because they could not live on red apples and brine.

Zadoc roused as much as a man can when every morning he wakens less and less until some day he does not waken at all. Jeems lay staring at the sun as at a stranger’s face.

'Turn out, Jeems,' said Zadoc, when he had worked some life back into his thickening tongue, 'till we put him over.'

They rolled the body into the sea with no words or ceremonials to mark the end, except that Jeems, when some part of the splash stung his face, struck off the drops with trembling, horrified hands.

'Two apples left,' said Zadoc, not in any tentative sounding of possibilities, but with finality forced home by a fact so plain and near as to render evasion needless.

'One for to-day,' said Jeems, 'the—the other one for to-morrow.'

'The last one for to-morrow!' returned Zadoc, bold as ever. 'Let us wait as long as we can before breakfast!'

The raft drifted many hours, following the sun around the fatal, empty bowl. Jeems broke that vast silence.

'So does mine,' said Zadoc. 'Cut the first apple in two.'

It takes so little to satisfy, when one is starving, and that little goes so very fast! When Zadoc put his furred teeth into half the first apple, it was as if he had not tasted such since he left Cape Cod a dozen years before. His mind, strained with a long, unrealized hope, forgot the timbers on which his bent muscles clung, and went back to an orchard he had known—where such apples always grew. The cool air from the shadows underneath the tree-rows seemed interlaid with waves of heat and the loved odors of the sunlit seaside farm,—that long slope from the meadow land up, up and up beneath the slant uncertain fence to where the white top-sides of the house were vividly set off in green,—till Zadoc came to himself and understood that the smell was only the damp breath of the Atlantic, and the heat the plunging agony which flowed from his own tense heart. The first apple was gone.

The two men’s eyes conversed in brief. Then Zadoc said,—

'I’m going to sleep again, if it is sleep. Anyway, I’m tired. Can you stay up a while?'

'It’s my trick,' consented Jeems.

Neither spoke of the approaching end, but when they had sat staring at each other a time,—for mad men’s minds move with but a mock agility, Zadoc said,—

'Put the second apple under the tin cup in the middle of the raft, and keep it there.'

When the apple was safe, Zadoc held out his right hand.

'Until I wake, Jeems!' he said.

'It is safe there,' was the answer.

And Zadoc lay down on the soggy timbers, satisfied, with faith in the honor of his starving mate.

His courage fled before the onslaught of these terrible seas which, high above the level of his blurring eyes, swept up in a torturous parade, as if Death maddened his victims by passing his grand divisions in review.

Besides, the pain of hunger so outgrew all reason! It cut through the man’s thin body like the blade of a great and sudden sorrow in one’s heart, through and through, ever returning, never going!

A greater sea than the others rolled underneath the raft, and shook the loose boards so that the tin dipper rolled on its inverted rim, and then fell tinkling back again. Jeems crawled to where he could lift the dipper and see beneath. The second apple lay secure, its plump sides a shocking contrast to the terrors of the raft. Jeems looked hard. A cruel pain shot from his throat to his heels in a tearing red-hot spiral. The first apple had so cooled his mouth! Water began running off Jeems’s chin. If he could only run his fingers down those rounding sides, maybe they would catch some of the orchard smell.

Jeems clapped the dipper down with a sudden muscular fury, and kicked Zadoc into sense with such vigor that he fell exhausted from the effort.

'I was so lonesome, I thought I might go off,' he explained, adding, 'Zadoc, what’s your family?'

'No,' said Jeems. 'Years ago, I called on a pretty girl over to Somesville, but nothing came of it.'

'Just as well now,' said Zadoc coldly; adding, half in dream, 'I recollect all them Somesville girls was pretty. 'Lizabeth come from there.'

'Who?' asked Jeems.

''Lizabeth,—the wife,—why, she was your sister, Jeems!'

'So she was! I forgot!'

Many madmen speak in the past tense at the stage where they seem to look back on their proper selves.

The sun neared the west.

'Lie down again,' said Jeems; 'I’ll watch.'

'Any sail—that time before?'

'No sail, Zadoc.'

The wind dropped near night, and Jeems lay on the raft with eyes that glowed back the red reflection of the setting sun. As it moved toward the liquid line of sea, its brilliance fell into the smother of a cloud through which its sides shone with the softened, satin polish of the second apple as Jeems last saw it. The thought struck him in the middle of his heart, which began leaping as when, at nineteen, a girl’s smooth fingers lingered on his own. He hungered for sight of the second apple as for nothing else in the whole of the world before. He wished the raft might roll so violently as to throw off the dipper, and then, before he realized, his own foot had kicked it into the ocean and the apple smiled before him, securely laid between two great planks at the bottom of the raft. Zadoc slept. Jeems was alone with the second apple!

The mere thought of the cool heart of the fruit made his pulse spring as if whipped. To imagine the exquisite satisfaction which would follow his teeth as they sank slowly, slowly—sank farther and farther through those moistening walls until, at the very acme of delight, they met! Christ! He was on it in an instant, holding it with both hands and not lifting it, but just putting his face down and keeping it so in a passionate embrace. He would eat, if he died for it. He must—

''Lizabeth!' It was Zadoc, dreaming.

''Lizabeth! Good old girl. Good girl. Bye-bye, home at sundown. Good old, good—ah-h-h-h!'

The voice fell away in an idiotic sigh. Jeems sprang to his feet and stood swaying with the raft, the image of his sister in his eyes. Off east, where the gray shades grew, he saw her walking on the sea, her long hair blown before, like a cloud of jet-black flame, and her face all lovely.

''Lizabeth!' Jeems spread his arms; but she did not see him, for she looked at Zadoc as he lay there at her brother’s feet, and her eyes rained love, which calmed the sea like oil.

And then Jeems saw himself as if from far. ''Lizabeth!' he cried; but she did not hear, so he held his two arms up toward the sky and whispered, 'God, God, God! Forgive Jeems Harbutt, a wicked sinner,—and take him,'—his voice sank to a low, unhuman key,—'and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever—O God!'

I

WHEN the Fifth Graders returned in the fall, they knew, to a boy and a girl, that they were to go to Room H, and they knew, too, that by passing over the threshold they would automatically become the elderly and dignified Sixth Grade. Proud and disdainful were Sixth Graders, in that they carried the largest geographies made; highly pedantic, too, were they, because they coped with mysterious institutions called fractions, which occupied the clean, unexplored back part of one’s arithmetic. Fearsomely learned were they in words of seven, eight, and nine syllables. To be one of such was to be indeed Grown Up. When the new class, half-timorous, and wholly suspicious, entered Room H, they were startled to find their thirty names already written in a neat column on the blackboard, with an imperative 'DO NOT ERASE' underneath. How on earth had Miss Prawl found out their names?

After all the children were located at desks corresponding to the ones they had occupied in Grades Five, Four, Three, Two, and One, Miss Prawl opened a drawer of her shiny, spotless desk, and took out a box which proved to contain six new pieces of different-colored chalk, lying side by side. The combination of the bright colors was so alluring that every child immediately resolved to save up for just such an outfit, in order to play hopscotch in colors. With every eager eye riveted upon her, Miss Prawl took out the piece of pink chalk, and made a very beautiful pink star on the blackboard, directly after Stella Appleton’s name. Stella, it may be said, always had a good deal of undeserved prominence, because her name began with an A.

'If, at the end of the week, Stella or any one of the rest of you is perfect in spelling, that person will get a pink star after his name,' announced Miss Prawl. And she put away the pink chalk, and drew a blue-chalk star after Freddy Beal’s name. 'You will all receive blue stars if you are perfect in arithmetic,' she continued. 'And yellow—' she drew a yellow star—'yellow is for perfect geography. Green'—she made a green star—'green is for perfect reading; and red—'Miss Prawl paused impressively—'red is for perfect deportment.'

After this entrancing monologue, Miss Prawl rubbed out the explanatory stars, replaced the chalk carefully in the box, and waited. Theodora’s hand at once shot up into the air.

'My-name’s-Theodora-Bowles,' said Theodora. 'And there’s a piece of purple chalk in your box, Miss Prawl, that you didn’t say anything about. And so I wondered if you hadn’t forgotten to tell us about purple stars.'

The whole class leaned forward in breathless expectancy, proud of their discerning Theodora.

'I am very glad that you asked me this question, Theodora,' said Miss Prawl. 'I keep the purple chalk for a very special, wonderful reason.'Thirty pairs of glistening eyes grew rounder. 'The purple star,' said Miss Prawl, in a hushed voice, 'is the greatest reward that I can bestow on any girl or boy. It is given only for some very great deed: for some deed which shall show that the girl or boy is either very brave or very kind, or both. Although I have seen a great many fine girls and boys, it has never happened that I felt that the right time had come to give any one a purple star. But perhaps this will be purple-star year.'

Theodora listened with a great dawning worship in her eyes. How exciting it was of Miss Prawl to set up such an impossibly high standard! And how altogether interesting Miss Prawl was, too! Her eyes seemed much given to dancing and twinkling; her voice was sweet and pleasant, being especially persuasive when she said 'boy' or 'girl'; and her smile was a blended maternal-siren affair which nobody of either sex had ever been able to resist. Miss Prawl made one feel a little ashamed, as if one had never before appreciated what a privilege and a responsibility it was to be a boy or a girl. The new teacher’s dress was a soft, pretty brown, dainty and fresh. Yes, Theodora resolved that she must attain the purple star, and thus forever become famous.

'Miss Prawl, this young man is Charley Starr,' said Mr. Wadsmore. 'Can you make a place for him?'

Beside Theodora there was an empty seat, the only one in the room. As it was on the 'girls' side,' the male aspirants for education with difficulty smothered their roars of laughter at the idea of a boy’s sitting, debased, among the girls. Observing this ill-concealed hilarity, Miss Prawl at once led Charley to the empty seat beside Theodora.

'If you’ll sit here to-day, Charley, I will rearrange the seating to-morrow,' she said.

As Charley sank into the place assigned, Theodora blushed painfully. Being nearest to the unwelcome masculine stranger embarrassed her frightfully. Her hand flew up into the air.

'MayIgwoutandgettadrink?' she asked.

'Yes, Theodora,' replied Miss Prawl evenly.

She had heard of Theodora’s continuous and unquenchable thirst, and had been advised by no less a person than Mr. Wadsmore that the best course was to allow Theodora to drink as much and as often as she wished.

After a copious raid on the water-cooler, Theodora returned, feeling a little bloated, but much more composed and natural.

'Five minutes for whispering,' announced Miss Prawl, at eleven o’clock.

A deafening hubbub immediately arose.

'Say,' began Charley Starr to Theodora, from behind his desk cover, 'how do you like her?' He nodded toward Miss Prawl, and winked.

'Where’d you come from, anyway?' she icily inquired.

'Skipped up from the Fourth Grade.'

'You did!' Hauteur was drowned in awe.

'You bet. It’s the second time I’ve skipped in this school, too.'

Theodora studied Charley with detached, incipient dislike. Charley must be very bright indeed to have skipped two classes. She herself, with all her brains, had never arrived at the pinnacle of skipping. And she had so much wanted to feel the importance of marching into chapel with the class next higher up, and of smiling back at her old mates with condescending tolerance. Theodora did not know that she might have skipped several times, but for the fact that her parents, who believed in the slow unfolding of her almost too brilliant mind, had begged to have her kept back.

All unconscious of this parental duplicity, Theodora was having some very uncomfortable minutes. If Charley Starr had skipped two classes, it looked as if the impossible were true—that there actually existed on the earth a person who was brighter than she. It could not be, and yet, and yet—Charley looked disturbingly intelligent. But there, of course he had not studied last year’s subjects in detail, so he could not possibly compete with her. And when she received the purple star, she would be entirely safe. Star—why, the new boy’s name was Star.

'Is your name spelled plain S-t-a-r?' she asked.

'S-t-a-double r,' replied Charley. 'I’m Charles Augustus Starr, Junior,' he said, in a bragging tone.

Theodora gave a shriek of delight, and punched the girl in front of her.

'Say, Laura, the new boy’s father is Coal-Cart Starr!' she cried.

The cause of all the undue commotion was the fact that Charles Augustus Starr, Senior, was in the coal business, and that daily, all day long, up and down the city went huge coal carts labeled 'C. A. Starr.' At Theodora’s instigation, the girls in her class had formed the 'C. A. Starr Club,' which was a very original organization. There were no dues, and the responsibilities were light. They consisted of merely looking upward into the sky, and of pointing upward simultaneously with the index finger of the right hand every time one met a coal cart. C. A. Starr was thus cunningly interpreted as 'See a star!' It rather spoiled things that there were no stars to be seen in the daytime, and that the club members never met any coal carts at night. Still, it was extremely good fun, when you caught sight of a coal cart, to point up and look up suddenly, and to have the vulgar, uninitiated outsider ask, 'What are you doing?' and then to explain that you belonged to a secret order, and that there were times when it was necessary to give the high sign.

'Say,' said Charley Starr to Theodora, in the afternoon whispering period, 'did you hear about the purple star?'

Theodora nodded. She was speechless, because she had just crammed an entire licorice 'shoe-string' into her mouth.

'Well, I’m laying all my plans to get that star,' proclaimed Charley.

'So’m I,' said Theodora, thickly, with black lips. 'So there’s no use in your trying. I’d give up the idea, if I was you.'

'Not much I won’t. I’d like to see a girl get ahead of me,' retorted Charles, witheringly.

Violent sex-antagonism sprang up full grown within the soul of Theodora. This insignificant upstart who casually skipped must be taught the lesson, once and for all, that school was one of the places where girls excelled.

'Let us refresh our memories by reviewing some of last year’s geography,' said Miss Prawl, ringing the dinner-bell which called the class to order.

'Aha!' thought Theodora, swallowing the last of the shoe-string whole,—clearing the decks for action, as it were,—'I guess I’ll surprise C. A. Starr, Junior, now!'

'Recite in concert. What is the capital of Maine?' asked Miss Prawl.

'Augusta-on-the-Kennebec!' shouted Theodora Bowles and Charley Starr, as in one voice. 'Ter-ron-the-Kennebec!' echoed the rest of the class.

'What is the capital of New Hampshire?'

Again the two brilliant ones roared the right answer, and the rest recited, 'Curd-on-the-Merrimac!'

'Vermont?' continued Miss Prawl.

'Montpelier-on-the-Winooski!' yelled the rivals.

'What is the capital of Rhode Island?' asked the wily Miss Prawl, who had noted the absent look on Theodora’s face, and purposely omitted Massachusetts. And she caught everybody in the class.

'Boston-on-Massachusetts-Bay!' the leaders cried. And the parrots mimicked them.

Miss Prawl paused so long that Theodora recalled her question.

'Providence-and-Newport-on-Narragansett-Bay!' howled Charles Starr, ahead of Theodora, and in a voice that could be heard all over the building.

Theodora could scarcely keep back the flood of her tears. Charley Starr had thought quicker than she! It was the first time in all her life that she had been worsted, and—well, those smarting tears were already spilling over and showing.

'MayIgwoutandgettadrink?' she asked. And from the depths of the dressing-room, where she was sobbing into the heart of the roller towel, she could hear Charles, the usurper, yelling,—

'Harrisburg-on-the-Susquehanna!'

When Theodora felt able to return to society, the color which was usually in her cheeks seemed to have concentrated at the end of her nose, and her eyes looked sopping wet. Her intense little being, however, was all afire with determination to win the purple star.

II

'Miss Prawl, now, about what kind of a deed would a person have to do, to get a purple star?' queried Charley, one day when he had stayed after school for the express purpose of extracting some inside information from Miss Prawl.

'That’s just exactly what Theodora asked me yesterday,' said Miss Prawl. 'The trouble is, I shan’t know, myself until the deed is done.'

'Miss Prawl, now, if I saved the President of the United States from a runaway horse that wanted to stamp on him, would that deed get me a purple star?'

'It might,' admitted Miss Prawl. 'That would be a brave, kind act.'

'If he would only move to Brooklyn, I might stand some show,' yearned Charles.

'Now, Miss Prawl,' began Theodora excitedly, the day after the Thanksgiving recess, 'if I discovered something that nobody had ever discovered before, would that be a purple-star deed?'

'It would depend upon the nature of your discovery, Theodora. Of course, while the world could not progress without discoveries, they are not primarily brave, or kind.'

'That’s just the trouble,' sighed Theodora. But she still looked hopeful. 'Miss Prawl, now, would it be a purple-star deed, if I discovered that there was another sun up in the sky besides the one we are already using?'

Theodora could hardly believe her ears. Dear! A schoolteacher had called her dear. How romantic she felt! She took her seat with such an expression of ecstasy on her face that Miss Prawl wondered what she could be thinking about now.

Although Miss Prawl had asked her not to try too hard, Theodora, under the impelling flattery of 'dear,' resolved that she would work more than ever to do something kindly brave or bravely kind. As there didn’t seem to be any deeds of that sort lying round loose waiting to be done, Theodora worked up a bitter grudge against George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, who, before she was born, had taken a mean advantage of her by saving the country and freeing the slaves. Still, by thinking constantly of the purple star, and kind bravery, she hoped to keep in the proper frame of mind to recognize the great deed when it came along just aching to be done. Meanwhile, she practised brave kindness, by smiling lovingly and saying sweetly 'Good morning!' to the school janitor, who was a faithful, glowering old dog of a Scotchman—one of the few human beings who are impervious to blandishments. If any one ever spoke to him unnecessarily, this janitor fixed a murderous gaze on the offender, as if he would deeply relish killing him, if he weren’t too busy mopping or washing blackboards. All those who were not practising bravery avoided him as much as possible.

Charles always blushed deeply, being much embarrassed before the groom, and tried to wheedle Theodora into an explanation of her acts. She was, however, iron-heartedly uncommunicative, and continued her persecutions.

III

As the snow continued to fall all night, and was still coming down the next morning, Theodora, besides her usual wraps, wore a pair of shiny, unused rubber boots, a Christmas present from her grandmother, who had always worn rubber boots to school when she was little, and thought that girls ought to now. With a somewhat lumbering gait, Theodora waded to school, and arrived just in time to see Charles Augustus Starr, Junior, being magnificently driven up in a regal sleigh with great accompanying jingling of bells, and waving in the wind of red and yellow plumes. Besides Charley and Theodora, very few of the class were present; and as for chapel—well, it looked desolate and emptily bleak, instead of being hot and crowded as usual.

Miss Prawl went through the lessons rapidly, and at eleven o’clock, Mr. Wadsmore put his head in the door, and said that school must be dismissed at once. There was a high gale, and the children were to go home as quickly as they could get there.

As she pulled on her rubber boots, Theodora, who always planned to get to school before the doors were opened, decided to allow ten minutes extra that morning. At exactly half-past eight, the Scotch janitor always took down the big bar which held the double doors in place, and Theodora was invariably the first one in. It was not necessary for her to get there until ten minutes of nine, but she never ran the slightest risk of being tardy. In all her life, she had never been tardy or absent.

'Don’t worry about me, mother, if I’m late to luncheon,' said Theodora, as she appeared in the dining-room door. 'It’s so snowy that it will take me longer than usual.'

'Theodora, child,' remonstrated Mrs. Bowles, 'surely you don’t think that I’m going to allow you to go to school?'

'Why, yes, mother,' said Theodora, with horrible misgiving none the less.

'You couldn’t get there alive,' declared her mother. 'There’s no one on the street. It would be positively suicidal.'

Theodora began with tears, and just the usual methods of teasing; then, finding these trusty old friends unavailing, she launched forth into impromptu diplomatic schemes for extracting a 'yes.' She tried to trap her mother by means of a system of cross-questioning, and she endeavored to weary her, until she should impatiently exclaim, 'Oh, for mercy’s sake, go!'

She still hoped, however, that some higher power would intervene, and see to it that she got to school at nine. To be tardy was disgraceful enough, but to be absent was a crime that could never be expiated. Suddenly she ran into the library, and knelt rigidly on a rug which she had heard her mother refer to as a 'prayer rug.' And she all but prayed the soul out of her body that the rug would change into a magic carpet on which she could be transported to school. She must have invoked the wrong deity, for the rug did not stir even a hair’s breadth. But perhaps kneeling was not enough; perhaps one ought to lie prone on the rug and pray.

She had just stretched out, full-length, face down, when the hall clock boomed the fatal nine. Now she was both tardy and absent. She was just like any other ordinary human child—she was undistinguished in any way. Well, there was really no use in continuing to live, and oh, for a convenient way to die! How badly her mother and father would feel when they found her stretched dead on the piano bench, and how they would blame themselves for not allowing her to have her way!

Weeping miserably from self-pity, Theodora pulled off her things, and sat down to look out at the storm, and plan her end.

'I’m tardy, and I’m absent!' moaned Theodora, who had about abandoned the idea of dying, in favor of disappearing forever.

'There won’t be any school on such a day as this,' said Mr. Bowles, consolingly. 'Even the teachers couldn’t get there and live.'

This happy suggestion made Theodora decidedly less pensive. Maybe—and oh, how she prayed that it might be so!—maybe her father was right, and maybe, after all, she was still a supreme being—one who had never been tardy or absent. As the day wore on, she became more and more hopeful. Her greatest comfort of all was the thought that Charles Augustus Starr, Junior, who lived over two miles from school, was even more surely a prisoner than herself.

It kept right on snowing that night. There was no discussion about any one’s going out the following day, for the whole city seemed destined to be buried in the snow which fell unceasingly from low, inexhaustible clouds. Finally, after several days, when people were becoming seriously alarmed, and some of them were hungry, the snow stopped, and the sky turned into a dazzling blue from which a blinding sun again looked down on a new white city. And then men began to open their front doors again, and shovel and pant, and pant and shovel, as they dug their way out into the world. Gradually there began to be postmen and butcher-boys and milk-men and horsecars and newspaper-boys and policemen. And when Theodora’s father started for his office, the long-pent-up Theodora was permitted to go to school.

IV

Slowly Theodora put her books into her desk, and sat in her place, waiting grimly for Miss Prawl. It was only a few minutes later that the teacher came in, rosy from her short run through the snowy street,—she lived only three doors from the school,—and said cheerfully, without looking the least bit guilty,—

'Good morning, Theodora.'

At nine o’clock, it dawned upon her that Charley Starr was not coming to school at all. And at the same time, an unexplained lump of uncomfortable bigness suddenly developed in her throat. She was afraid—afraid that something had happened to Charley Starr. She did not know why, but a panic of terror seized her. It was the first big real fear of her life. The purple star on the blackboard became the sign of some heroic tragedy. Where, where, where was Charley Starr?

'Well, girls and boys,' began Miss Prawl, 'we have all been taking a very unexpected vacation. And there has been no school at all since you were all here before.'

Theodora’s heart flippety-flopped with relief. All her sufferings had been in vain: she was still a supreme being. But what was the thing in Miss Prawl’s face which made one sit so deadly still, and grasp the desk-cover so tight?

'I came to school on the first morning of the blizzard, because I live so near. And one other person came, too.' Her little audience began to look frightened. 'The only child who came that morning was brought in unconscious.'

Charley Starr was dead—Theodora had known it all along.

The spontaneous applause that at once shook the walls was due in part to enthusiasm for Charley Starr. Most of the noise, however, was caused by the exuberant joy of being allowed, for once, to make as much racket as one could within the sacred precincts of Room H. Every one set to work to blister his hands; every one but Theodora, who sat with folded arms and with burning, accusing eyes fixed on Miss Prawl. Holding up her hand for silence, Miss Prawl, with an inexplicable sinking of heart, said,—

'Well, Theodora?'

Theodora rose, white-lipped.

'Miss Prawl, if I’d disobeyed my parents, or stolen out when they didn’t know it, I might have come to school and had a purple star. I wasn’t scared. I wanted to come. I prayed to come.' She knew this last statement would have to be lived down later, but at this hazardous moment, she cared not for that. 'I’d have walked till I died, if they’d let me.'

Before she had time to sit down again, an unexpected adherent suddenly sprang to his feet in the person of Freddy Beal, the class dunce.

The greatest and the least having been heard from, every one in the class then felt called upon to rise up and say that his soul had been sick within him because he was not permitted to come to school the first day of the blizzard. Miss Prawl was devoutly wishing that she had abolished the purple star before such zealots as the critical Theodora and her followers had darkened the door of Room H, when, as if drawn into the discussion by Fate, Mr. Wadsmore entered, with a brilliant smile for the class and a rather serious look for Miss Prawl. He handed her a note, and said mysteriously,—

'From an I. P. And I’m afraid I think he’s right.'

To the great delight of everyone, Mr. Wadsmore turned to the class, and joked about an impossible, prehistoric period when he was a small boy,—he now weighed nearly two hundred,—while Miss Prawl, with damask cheeks and too brilliant eyes read the note from the Irate Parent. This note was written with violet ink on heavily perfumed paper with a gold coat of arms and a gold border, and it read:—