Nancy and Plum (5 page)

Plum said, “It seems odd to me that you would get two dolls.”

Mrs. Monday said, “Nancy and Plum, take your seats at the supper table and
BE QUIET!”

It was Plum’s turn to say the grace and when all the
children had bowed their heads Plum’s clear sweet voice intoned with proper reverence but much louder than usual:

When Plum finished the grace she winked at Nancy, and Nancy, who had just taken a bite of oatmeal, choked. Plum didn’t mind scorched oatmeal, in fact she thought scorching improved the flavor, but tonight, even though she was very hungry, it was so badly burned she couldn’t eat it. Hungrily she turned and watched Mrs. Monday and Marybelle gorging themselves on their chicken pies until finally Marybelle looked up and caught Plum’s watching eyes, whispered to Mrs. Monday, and Mrs. Monday said, “Pamela, either turn around and eat your supper or go to your room.”

Plum said, “The oatmeal is so badly burned we can’t eat it, Mrs. Monday. May I ask Katie for something else?”

Mrs. Monday said, “Katie has not returned from her Christmas holiday yet and there is nothing else.”

Plum said, “Are there any more baked apples?”

Mrs. Monday said, “
GO TO YOUR ROOM
!”

But Plum didn’t. She left the dining room and went up the
stairs, stamping loudly so that Mrs. Monday would be sure and hear her, then sneaked down the back stairs to the kitchen, slipped out the back door, went out to the barn where Old Tom was milking, told him about the burnt oatmeal and asked him if he’d get her a few apples from the root cellar.

Tom said, “Did you get the eggs I left for you this morning?”

Plum said, “Oh, yes, Tom, and they were perfectly delicious. Thank you very much.”

Old Tom said, “Go get that dipper and bring it over here and I’ll give you some of this nice warm milk. How old are you, Plum, about six?”

Plum said, “I’m eight years old and I’ll be nine in June.”

Old Tom said, “Well, you’re sure little and scrawny for your age. You better eat more.”

Plum said, “I eat everything Mrs. Monday gives me but she takes away my meals for punishment so much that I’m lucky if I get one meal a day.”

Old Tom said, “Haven’t you and Nancy got anyone—I mean, have you no relatives at all?”

Plum said, “We’ve only got Uncle John and he doesn’t care a thing about us.” Then Plum thought of the two dolls and so she said, “At least we didn’t used to think he did.”

“What changed you?” Old Tom said, remembering the two little girls spending Christmas Eve in the barn.

“Something we found in the trunk room this morning,” Plum said. “Only please don’t say anything. We’re not sure yet.”

“I won’t say anything,” Old Tom said. “Now come on and let’s get some apples.”

When Plum had her apron filled with big red apples, she tiptoed up to the back porch but Mrs. Monday was in the kitchen supervising the children while they cleared up and washed the dishes, and the front door was locked, so she went back to the barn and asked Old Tom if he would put the ladder up to the trunk room again. Old Tom agreed and so Plum skittered up the ladder, her teeth chattering and her hands like ice, opened the trunk-room window and wiggled through, and then Old Tom climbed up and handed her her apron full of apples.

She had just closed the window and was feeling her way in the dark around the trunks and boxes when she heard the flap, flap of Mrs. Monday’s approaching feet. Quickly she crouched down behind a trunk as Mrs. Monday opened the door, held her lamp high and looked around. Seeing nothing but empty boxes and trunks, she turned and went out again shutting the door behind her. Plum waited until she heard Mrs. Monday’s footsteps going down to the second floor, before she crept out of the trunk room, tiptoed down the stairs and peered down the long corridor to be sure all was clear. Then she ran as fast as she could down to her room but some instinct warned her to run softly and to stop outside her door and peer through the crack.

Sure enough, Mrs. Monday was sitting in the little chair by the window waiting for her. Quickly Plum ran next door into Eunice and Mary Burton’s room, put the apron full of apples in their closet, tiptoed out into the hall again, ran all the way back to the stairway and then, with steps a little louder than normal, came sauntering back to her room.

When she came in Mrs. Monday said, “
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
”

Plum said, “Out in the barn playing with the kittens,” which was the truth.

Mrs. Monday said, “I told you to go to your room. You shall be punished.”

Plum said, “Mrs. Monday, you are punishing me because you burned the oatmeal and it was so horrible I couldn’t eat it.”

Mrs. Monday said, “Pamela Remson, you are impudent and I will not tolerate impudence.”

Plum said, “Mrs. Monday, you are a selfish greedy woman. You starve your boarders and you and Marybelle have delicious food. And even that wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have to watch you eat it. Why should you and Marybelle have chicken pies while we have to gag on burnt oatmeal?”

Mrs. Monday said, “You and Nancy are a bad influence on the other children. Tomorrow you will both spend the day in the attic.”

Plum said, “Just a minute, Mrs. Monday. I want to show you something.” She reached down and pulled the empty box from under her bed. Pointing to the address label, she said, “This box was sent to Nancy and me. What was in it and why didn’t we get whatever it was?”

Mrs. Monday said, “Where did you get that box?”

Plum said, “We were locked out of the house and I had to climb in the window of the trunk room.”

Mrs. Monday said, “I have nothing to conceal about that box, Pamela. It contained your bed linen for the year.”

Plum said, “It looks to me like a box that dolls came in and I found hair stuck to the sides.”

Mrs. Monday said, “Don’t you dare accuse me of telling an untruth, Pamela Remson. You are getting completely out of hand and I shall have to take steps.” Mrs. Monday’s voice quivered with suppressed rage, her pale eyes stared just above Plum’s shoulder and they were like ice.

“Get undressed and get into bed
AT ONCE!
” she said, picking up the box and stalking out of the room.

As soon as her footsteps could be heard going down the front stairs, Plum whisked into Mary and Eunice’s room, got the apples and put them under her bed. Then when Nancy and the other children came upstairs after they had finished the dishes, she gave them each an apple and told them about Mrs. Monday.

Later on when she and Nancy were in bed eating their apples in the dark, Plum said, “You know, Nancy, I think Mrs. Monday was scared when I told her about the box. She was terribly angry and I know she’ll punish me just steadily from now on, but I think she was scared.”

Nancy said, “Well, I’m scared. Mrs. Monday is a very cruel woman and she’s mean enough when she doesn’t have a reason.”

Plum said, “One good thing about all this is that I’m sure Old Tom is now our friend. He’s never crabby any more and tonight he was so nice about getting the apples and helping me sneak back into the house.”

Nancy said, “How were the kittens and St. Nick? Did they miss us?”

Plum said, “Oh, they were just darling! They’ve moved back into Buttercup’s stall but they came running when I called them. I wonder if I couldn’t sneak out and bring them up to the attic with us tomorrow. I’ll bet Old Tom would put the ladder up for me.”

Nancy said, “I asked Mrs. Monday for a needle and a spool of white thread and some scissors tonight and she gave them to me and tomorrow when we’re in the attic I’m going to try and make a doll for poor little Eunice.”

“That reminds me of something,” Plum said, reaching under the bed and getting Marybelle Whistle, the rag doll. She threw her up in the air as hard as she could so that Marybelle thudded against the ceiling and then flopped back down on the floor.

“Oh, pardon me, dear Marybelle,” Plum said in an exact imitation of Marybelle’s high squeaky voice, “I didn’t realize I had bumped into you. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

Nancy said, “I can’t help but feel sorry for that poor ugly old doll.”

Plum said, “Tomorrow I’m going to ask Tom for some shavings and I’m going to really make her look like Marybelle. Doesn’t it just make you sick to think of her having our two dolls?”

Nancy said, “Let’s not think of it. Let’s think about the dolls and the trunks of clothes they probably have and what’s in the trunks.”

Plum said, “You tell me what’s in the trunks, Nancy. I’m not in a good pretending mood.”

So Nancy began, “The trunks each have a tiny golden lock and a tiny golden key. When we put the keys in the locks and turn them, the locks snap open and then we lift the lids and the first thing that we see are little jewel cases. We open the jewel cases and inside are tiny strings of pearls, tiny gold rings, tiny little wrist watches, tiny gold lockets with our pictures in them, little gold and silver barrettes and lovely little strings of coral beads.

“After we have looked at all the jewels, we close the jewel boxes and open little oblong boxes. These are glove boxes and in them are little white kid gloves, tiny angora mittens, little blue kid gloves and tiny white string mitts. There are also little boxes filled with socks. All colors and all silk, boxes of hair ribbons, all colors, and boxes of belts and ties. Then we lift off the tray of our trunks and underneath we find stacks and stacks of pinafores, dresses, underwear, sweaters, skirts, coats, even little raincoats with galoshes and umbrellas. There are also beautiful costumes, skating costumes, skiing costumes, ballet dresses, angel costumes and fairy costumes. There are slippers and skates or skis for each costume, blue jeans, riding habits and little riding boots, all kinds of pretty school dresses and, I forgot, but in the top trays of the trunks there are boxes full of darling handkerchiefs to go in the pockets of the school dresses, and boxes filled with little purses to go with the different coats.

“There are also …” Nancy stopped to think of something else just wonderful that there could be in the doll trunks and while she was thinking she noticed that Plum had fallen
asleep. Nancy turned over, put her arm under her pillow and watched the golden moonlight come sliding in over the window sill and flow across the floor. Eunice’s doll lay in its path and as the clear cool light fell on her she looked so helpless and forlorn there on the cold floor that Nancy slipped out of bed, picked her up and took her back into bed with her.

After the icy floor, the bed seemed delightfully warm and cozy, and Nancy patted old Quince Face on her knobby head and crooned, “There, that’s better, isn’t it? Now you’re warm and comfortable, you poor little ugly, unwanted doll.”

Then Nancy fell asleep and Christmas Day was over.

N
ANCY AND
P
LUM
decided that the doll for Eunice must be quite large and very pretty so that, even though she was a rag doll, she wouldn’t remind Eunice of old Quince Face. But Nancy found that making such a doll was easier said than done. In the first place all the sewing had to be done by hand and secretly without the knowledge of either Mrs. Monday or Marybelle. In the second place she had a terrible time with the stuffing and in the third place there wasn’t anything in the attic that would do for hair.

For material Nancy used some empty flour sacks she found in a corner of the attic. After the sacks had been bleached and washed in the milk room by Old Tom, she and Plum, with the
aid of a tin washbasin and one of Plum’s old red hair ribbons, dyed them pink. At first the color was so bright that Plum said she was afraid the doll was going to look like a red-faced sneak with scarlet fever, but Nancy said she was sure a few more rinsings would turn the material a nice pale pink like doll skin, and it did.

While the material was in the attic drying, Nancy cut a pattern out of newspapers, using the picture of a little girl in a magazine for a model but making the legs and arms and body of the doll wider to allow for seams and stuffing. With a pattern, cutting out the doll was easy but the sewing, which had to be done with double thread, tiny stitches and often by moonlight, took a long, long time. At last, however, came the day when Nancy could start putting in the stuffing and the big pink thing on which she had been working so long would begin to look like a doll.

All the way home on the school bus, she and Plum and Eunice whispered about the doll and when they could work on it and how it was going to look. Marybelle, almost wild with curiosity, moved up next to Plum and said, “What are you planning?”

Plum said, “Oh, we’re just talking about how much fun it will be when we get home. How dear, dear Mrs. Monday, your own Aunty Marybelle, will send us to our rooms to change from our old raggedy school clothes into our old raggedy play clothes. Then she’ll send us to the cellar to carry up coal for her sitting-room fire, to the kitchen to peel vegetables for Katie, to the dining room to set the table, to the pantry to
polish silver, out to the barnyard to gather the eggs and help feed the chickens, upstairs to dust the halls and clean the bathroom or to the washroom to iron. We have so much fun we can hardly wait to get home.”

Marybelle said, “You’re not telling the truth. That’s not what you were talking about. I know it isn’t, because you were smiling and looking happy.”

Plum said, “Well, if you know what we were saying, why do you ask?”

Marybelle said, “If you don’t tell me, I’ll have your supper taken away.”

Plum said, “It might have something to do with those two new dolls you got for Christmas.”

Marybelle said, “Those two old things? What would you talk about them for?”

Plum said, “Oh, I have reasons. Something my Uncle John wrote to Nancy and me.”

Marybelle said, “Your Uncle John never did write to you.”

Plum said, “Didn’t he?”