Cricket

The doctor’s farmer, ’Gustus John, as everyone called him, stood at his little white gate, looking down the road. Dr. Ward was coming up from the village, with his hands full of letters, and ’Gustus wanted to speak to him.

“I say,” he drawled, as the doctor came within speaking distance, “I seen yer comin’, an’ I wanted to tell you about thet new caow o’ yourn, thet we bought over to the Fair last week. ’T ain’t no bargain, I’m thinkin’, ’n’ the critter’s all-fired cross. Nigh on to horned me out of the stable this mornin’. What do you say to fattening her up for beef straight off?”

“Just as you like,” returned the doctor, absently, for he had some important letters in his hand, which he had been glancing at as he walked. “I never like to have cross animals on the place, lest some accident might happen with so many children about.”

“Yes, thet’s another p’int. I’ve kinder been layin’ round for them little girls o’ yourn, to warn ’em off. They’re proper fond of junketin, round the barns, but I think p’raps they’d better make themselves skurse while this critter is in the barnyard. I hevn’t put her out with the other caows to-day. I’ve got to go to the lower medder this mornin’, and I hain’t got no more time to waste now. P’raps you’ll see them?” ’Gustus had a very soft spot in his heart for the doctor’s family, and always kept a careful lookout for the little girls.

“I’ll tell them, though it isn’t likely that they will turn up at the house before dinner,” said the doctor, laughing. “They are very busy young women, and I haven’t an idea where they are this morning. I’ll send one of the boys in search of them.”

“I know where they are,” piped up Mamie, who, as usual, was hopping around, listening with her sharp little ears. “They’re up the brook, by the stepping-stones. I seen ’em there this morning.”

“You kin tell ’em about it, then,” said her father, turning to her. “Jog along over there, an’ tell ’em that I say there’s an awful fierce cow in the barnyard, and they better keep out of there till I tell ’em it’s safe. Come, skedaddle.” And Mamie “skedaddled.”

The doctor watched her doubtfully as she disappeared around the house. “Will she tell them?” he asked.

“She’ll tell ’em fast enough,” answered ’Gustus John. “She’ll admire to.”

“I’ll send one of the boys, anyway,” the doctor said. “I don’t want to run any risks. Yes, do as you like with the cow, if she is really so cross. She’ll spoil the others. Fatten her for killing, certainly. I’m sorry, for she is of good stock.” Then the doctor went on up the hill, reading his letters as he went. Among them he found a note, begging him to come at once to a house at the other side of the village, on a little matter of business. So Mike being bidden to harness at once, the doctor drove off, quite forgetting the cross cow, and that he meant to send one of the boys with a special message to his little daughters.

Mamie, meantime, ran across the pasture in high spirits. How delightful to be able to tell those big girls of something which they must not do! She began screaming out their names at the top of her lungs, as soon as she came in sight of them. The girls sat by the brook, busily plaiting little baskets out of pliant willow twigs.

“Eunice! Cricket! my pa says you shan’t go in our barnyard to-day, so there!”

“Oh, dear me!” sighed Cricket, in deep disgust. “If there isn’t that horrid little tag-tail again.”

It was not very often that Mamie ventured on the Kayuna grounds. She had been warned off too many times, with too many threats of terrible things happening if she went beyond the farm-yard bounds. This morning her errand made her bold.

“Do you hear?” she repeated, in her shrill little voice. “Pa sez he won’t have you in the barnyard any more. I don’t b’lieve he’ll let you in the barn either, ’n’ then you can’t jump on the hay ever again.”

“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Eunice, not very elegantly it must be confessed. “As if it wasn’t, really, our father’s barn.”

“Don’t care. My pa kin boss it, ’n’ he’s goin’ to,” returned Mamie, enjoying her sense of importance, and teasingly keeping back the true reason of the message.

“I’ll make ’em good and angry, first,” she thought, in her usual mischievous spirit. “Pa said you was allers a-junketin’ round. I heerd him,” she said, aloud.

“Well, I’d like to know,” said Cricket, angrily, “what right ’Gustus John has to say what we shall do in those barns. They are my papa’s, and he just hires your father to look after the farm, Mamie Hecker. And papa says we may play in the barns as much as we like, if we don’t ’sturb things, and ’Gustus John says we never ’sturb anything at all. I don’t b’lieve one word of it. Do you, Eunice?”

“No, I don’t. But I think,” said Eunice, very slowly and decidedly, “if you know what’s good for yourself, Mamie, you’ll get off our grounds, just as fast as you can travel, or else—you’ll see!”

“You don’t dast spank me again,” cried Mamie, holding up one knee, while she balanced herself on one foot, “cause your pa told you never to dast do that again. I ’xpect he’d whip you, if you did.”

“Whip me!” replied Eunice, scornfully. “Whippings are for bad little things like you, Mamie; you’d be better if you got a lot more of them.”

The children never stopped to choose their words when they talked to Mamie.

“Anyway,” said Mamie, changing the subject, but with a sudden purpose of revenge for that spanking coming into her mind, “your own pa said just so. He and pa was a talkin’ by the gate, an’ pa, he said, ‘wish you’d hev them girls keep out of the barnyard, for they’re allers a-junketin’ round.’ Them’s his very words. An’ yer pa, he said, ‘I’ll tell ’em if I see ’em, but like as not I won’t’; ’n’ my pa, he said, ‘Mamie, go and tell ’em straight off this minute, that I say keep out of the barnyard;’ so I come, ’cause my pa an’ your pa, they said to, both on ’em.”

“For goodness sake, Mamie, go away with your ‘pa’s,’” said Cricket, impatiently. “You do make me so cross. I don’t believe a word of it. ’Gustus never in his life told us to keep out of the barn.” Long experience with Mamie made the girls slow to believe anything she stated for a fact.

“He said so this time, anyway,” repeated Mamie, much enjoying the girls’ anger, as she fired stones into the brook to make a splash. “He said he was a-waitin’ round to warn yer off.” Then she thought, “I won’t tell ’em the reason why, at all, hateful old things, ’n’ then they’ll be sorry.”

It must be remembered that rude as Cricket and Eunice now certainly were to the child, it was only that a long time of bearing Mamie’s teasing, provoking ways had brought them to speaking to her as they did. They scorned to tell tales, and the elders had no idea how tormenting Mamie always was. “Worse than skeeters,” Cricket said.

Mamie knew precisely the effect that her words would probably have. Without doubt, the girls would go to the barns sometime that day, and if they should get hooked—just a little—by that cross old cow, wouldn’t they be well paid up for spanking her that day. Of course it wouldn’t be her fault, for she had told them to keep away.

“You’ve got to keep out of our ba-arn! You’ve got to keep out of our ba-arn!” she repeated, in a sing-song voice, firing a particularly big stone into the water, having aimed it with great care close to where Eunice was sitting. The water splashed up, spattering her well.

“You mean little thing!” Eunice cried, springing up in a fury. Mamie had already darted away, and was flying across the meadows like a little brown spider. She rolled under the fence just as Eunice was upon her.

“You dassent tetch me now!” she gasped, panting for breath. “I’m on my pa’s land.”

“Lucky for you,” said Eunice, wrathfully. “If you come over here again I’ll take you up to my father, if Cricket and I have to drag you every step of the way. Now mind!”

“Oh, dear, very smart you are!” jeered Mamie, safe on her side of the fence. “I expect you’d like to tear me into limbs. But you’ll be sorry if you don’t keep out of my pa’s barns,” she added, edging off.

“They’re my father’s barns, and I’ll go in them just as much as I please,” answered Eunice, turning away with much dignity, now that she had driven Mamie well off the grounds.

“What can she have meant by all that nonsense, Cricket, do you think?” she said, seating herself again. “The idea of ’Gustus John telling us to keep out of the barns! He would as soon think of telling us to keep out of our own stables,” she added.

“Why, I think she just wanted to plague us, and couldn’t think of anything else to say,” answered Cricket. “Eunice, I do b’lieve we haven’t been down to the barns this week. Let’s go by-and-by, and jump on the hay.”

“All right. Let’s go now,” said Eunice, jumping up. “I feel just like it. I’m stiff sitting still so long.” And accordingly, down went the willow baskets, and off ran the two little maids.