Caddie Woodlawn (10 page)

and what could she have expected for us if she had gone? The old lord was not likely to forgive her after his son was dead, and the shoemaker was as annoyed with his daughter for marrying out of her class as the old lord was himself. And then my mother had her
own
amount of pride. In those days the worst vice in England was pride, I guess—the worst vice of all, because folks thought it was a virtue.”

“But, Father, what about the clogs and breeches?” asked Caddie.

“Have patience,” said Mrs. Woodlawn. “He'll get to them presently.”

“My mother earned what she could as a seamstress. But that was not enough. We had no home of our own and we wandered from lodgings to lodgings always half-hungry and owing money. I did what odd jobs I could, but folks thought me too small and young to be entrusted with much. I was a lively lad, as gay as a cricket, in spite of my troubles. I had learned to dance and I begged my mother for a pair of clogs. The poor, good woman had no money to spare for dancing clogs, as I well know now. But, I daresay, I left her no peace, and suddenly she had an idea for granting my request and at the same time adding something to our income. She bought me the clogs and made me a little green jacket and a pair of red breeches. There was a green cap, too, with a red feather, and so I danced,
and people threw me coppers as if I had been a monkey.”

“Did you make a lot of money, Father?”

“No, but I made enough to help a bit, and sometimes they even engaged me in cheap music halls to do a week's turn or two. That was a great event.”

“Oh, Father, can you still dance?” cried Caddie.

“I've still got two legs,” said Mr. Woodlawn, gay once more.

“Oh, do! do!” the children cried, seizing him by the hands and pulling him out of his chair. “Oh, Father, dance! Do!”

Mr. Woodlawn laughed. Then suddenly he pursed his lips and began to whistle an old-fashioned jig. Tap! tap! tap! went toe and heel, and suddenly he was jigging and clogging and snapping his fingers to the astonishment of the open-mouthed children. They formed a delighted ring about him, clapping and shouting, and keeping time with their feet.

Mrs. Woodlawn got up quickly and went into her bedroom. Nobody missed her, nor heard her opening the drawers in the chest where the linen was kept. When the dance was over, and Father sank, breathless and laughing, into his chair, Mrs. Woodlawn came out with a small oil painting in her hands.

“Your father will never show you this,” she said, “so I am going to.”

“No, no, Harriet,” begged Mr. Woodlawn, still laughing and panting. “It's too foolish.”

“The children shall judge of that,” said his wife, and she propped the canvas up on the table. It was a dim picture, painted in an old style, of a very funny little boy. The little boy seemed scarcely more than a baby and he was dressed in a quaint little sailor suit with a wide-brimmed hat. Two tufts of bright red hair were pulled down on either side of the face, beneath the brim of the hat. Everybody began to laugh. And yet there was something sad and wistful, too, in the eyes of the strange little boy who looked at them.

“It's your father,” said Mrs. Woodlawn, “and it was
his
poor, dear father who painted it. Your father was only three years old.”

The children shouted with laughter, but Caddie felt a little bit as if she wanted to cry, too, and she reached for Father's hand and squeezed it.

“It's a wicked shame!” continued Mrs. Woodlawn tartly. “All that land in England, that great stone house, even the peacocks—they ought to belong in part to your father, perhaps entirely. Who knows? Think, children, all of you might have been lords and ladies!”

“No, no, Harriet,” said Mr. Woodlawn, growing grave again. “It was a hard struggle, but what I have
in life I have earned with my own hands. I have done well, and I have an honest man's honest pride. I want no lands and honors which I have not won by my own good sense and industry.”

Just then the clocks all over the house began to chime ten.

“Ah! my dears!” cried Mrs. Woodlawn. “When have you ever gone so late to bed! Scamper now, as fast as you can!”

Frightened by the idea of sitting up so late, the little children scurried to obey. Clara and Caddie went more slowly upstairs together. Clara's slender shoulders were lifted with a new pride and her dark eyes shone.

“Peacocks on the lawn, Caddie,” she whispered. “Just think!”

“Peacocks!” repeated Caddie softly, and then suddenly she scowled and clenched her fists. For she was seeing the peacocks through a great, barred gate, with a funny little boy in a sailor suit and a wide-brimmed hat, whose wistful eyes looked sadly out between his odd tufts of red hair.

Caddie went back to school again in February. Her long vacation had grown tiresome. Even the excitement of finding the breeches and clogs and of hearing Father's story, even the delight of being Father's partner in business, did not make up for the long, lonely hours when the other children were at school. She was glad to be back at school in time for Valentine's Day, for that was always fun. On that day most of the children exchanged comics, but you could tell which boys had “sweethearts,” because their fancies betrayed them into paper lace and true love knots, turtle doves, and clasped hands.

Tom had been pensive for several days before Valentine's Day.

“Golly, Caddie,” he said one day, “if I had a silver dollar like you have! Say, why don't you spend it for Valentines?”

“A whole silver dollar for Valentines!” cried Caddie, her thrifty soul sincerely shocked. She felt a little superior to Tom, because she knew that he could never save his money.

“Well, maybe not
all
of it,” said Tom. “But, say, you just ought to see the beauties they've got down to Dunnville store.”

Caddie considered the matter. It did not occur to her that possibly Tom was hinting at a loan. But she had kept her dollar for so long now that she had grown a little miserly. She had saved six pennies besides her silver dollar, and these she took out and put in her pocket on February thirteenth. After school that day, with her pennies jingling pleasantly in her pocket, she started for the Dunnville store. Hetty, who had bought hers weeks in advance, and Warren, who thought that Valentines were silly, trudged home across the fields. But where was Tom? He had been the first one out of the schoolhouse and now he was nowhere to be seen. Caddie broke into a trot, and, just as she came in sight of the Dunnville store, she saw a familiar figure disappearing into the back door. Tom! But why the back door? And why was Tom so mysterious these days?

Caddie went in and chose six penny comics. One for Tom, one for Warren, one for Hetty, and the rest for Maggie, Jane, and Lida Silbernagle. Then she stood transfixed at the sight of the most beautiful Valentine that she had ever seen. It was propped up against a tobacco jar, so that everyone could admire it. It was all paper lace and roses and violets, and in the center of a pink heart was printed:

The rose is red,

The violet's blue,

Sugar is sweet,

And so are you.

Caddie almost regretted that she had left her dollar at home. This was so beautiful! Still she wouldn't know to whom to give it.
She
wasn't “sweet on” anybody.

“How much is it?” she asked the storekeeper just to satisfy her curiosity.

“Two bits,” Mr. Adams replied with a twinkle in his eyes, “but I guess it's sold, Caddie. There's a young man in the back room here sprouting potatoes for it.”

“Oh!” said Caddie. Now she knew. It was Tom! But was it for her, this lovely Valentine? It seemed impossible. Tom always gave her the rudest kind of comics, and she thought them fun. Yet who was a better friend to Tom than she? No one, surely. She went home
slowly, wondering. She knew that Tom wouldn't want anyone to know that he was sprouting potatoes to earn a Valentine, so she locked his secret in her heart. It was the first one she had ever known him to have from her.

The next day the schoolhouse was full of titters and whisperings. Miss Parker resigned herself to keep what order she could. Valentine's Day was a day to be got through as best one might, and she was glad that it came only once a year.

Mysterious envelopes and scraps of paper kept appearing on desks; children squirmed excitedly in their seats. Silas Bunn even upset an inkwell over his sister Maggie's taffy-colored pigtail, in an effort to punch the boy who had given him a picture of a donkey sitting on a dunce's stool.

Caddie hastily scanned her Valentines. She hadn't expected the “rose is red” one, and yet she couldn't help looking to make sure. But it wasn't there. The comic ones were very funny, though, and there was a little bag of candy hearts from Sam Flusher, who held no hard feelings even if she did beat him sometimes in spelldowns. Altogether it was a good day.

At morning recess someone slipped in and hung a slate on the front of Teacher's desk. On it were drawn long two-legged, skinny creatures with heads like buttons, labeled Teecher and Obediah. They were fighting,
and around them was drawn a heart. Teacher, not having occasion to go in front of her desk and see it, attributed the unusual amount of giggling to the influence of the day. But Obediah had to sit gazing at the slate with growing fury until noon. At noon, as soon as Miss Parker had gone into the hallway for her lunch basket, Obediah seized the slate in his big hands and broke it into four pieces which he flung into the stove. He glared around the room without saying a word and then stalked outdoors. Obediah was tamed, but the children saw with awe that he was still a lion at heart.

Still the “rose is red” Valentine did not appear, and Caddie began to wonder if Tom had got tired of sprouting potatoes before it was won. Then, when they came in from afternoon recess, she saw it, lying in a square, white envelope on Katie Hyman's desk. Surely she had known that it would be there all the time. Katie saw it, too, and blushed and shook her curls over her face. It was the first Valentine that she had had that day, for she was so shy that no one dared to give her penny comics. Her little pale, slim fingers, that were so quick with the needle, trembled as she opened it, and then everybody who had gathered around said: “Oh!” for they recognized it at once as the best Valentine in the Dunnville store. Katie turned it

around and looked all over it, but there was no name on it anywhere. She was smiling more than they had ever seen her smile, and her eyes sparkled, almost as if they had tears in them. Caddie looked at Tom, but he was standing by the stove finishing an apple, and talking with some of the boys, as if he had never heard of Valentines in his life.

After school Hetty was all excited.

“Caddie, did you see that great big Valentine Katie Hyman got? Who do you suppose sent it? There wasn't any name, but I'm sure that Tom sent it. Don't you think so? I'm going to tell everybody so.”

Caddie's heart jumped. If Hetty told, they would make Tom's life miserable.

“Why, Hetty,” she said gayly, putting her arm around the walking newspaper. “Whatever put that in your head? You know Tom can't save a cent. Then how do you suppose he could buy the finest Valentine in the store without any money?”

“That's so,” said Hetty. “I know! Maybe she got it for herself, just to make folks think she had a beau.”

Busy with this happy thought, Hetty broke into a run. Caddie walked along more slowly. She was thinking: “I do everything with Tom. I'm much more fun than Katie. Why, she's afraid of horses and snakes and she wouldn't cross the river for worlds. I don't
believe she's spoken three words to Tom in her life. But she's what you call a little lady, and I'm just a tomboy. Maybe there's something in this lady business after all.”

But just then Warren caught up with her and said: “Hey, let's go coasting! All this silly Valentine, sugarplum stuff!” And she raced away with him, laughing, and eager to be the first one on the hill with her sled.