Nancy and Plum (6 page)

Marybelle said, “When did he write to you? What did he say?”

Plum said, “Curiosity killed the cat.”

So Marybelle flounced up to Mr. Harris, the bus driver, and told him that Nancy and Plum and Eunice were being mean to her. Mr. Harris, who liked children and had been driving them to and from school for years and years, looked at Marybelle and said, “Well, that’s a pleasant change. Now go back and sit down.”

Marybelle said, “I’m going to tell Aunty Marybelle on you when I get home.”

Mr. Harris said, “You just go right ahead. Tell her I called you a mean, ornery, nosy little troublemaker right in front of the whole school bus and maybe she’ll wash out my mouth with soap.”

All the other children laughed but Marybelle said, “Well, I’m going to tell on Nancy and Plum and Eunice as soon as I get home.”

Mr. Harris said, “I don’t doubt it at all and it won’t be the first time.”

Marybelle said, “You’re mean and Nancy and Plum and Eunice are mean and I’m going to have their supper taken away.”

Mr. Harris said, “Well, in that case I guess I better give them the doughnuts I had left over from lunch.” He stopped the bus, opened his lunch box and gave Nancy and Plum and Eunice each a big sugary doughnut that his wife had made the night before.

Marybelle was so furious that her usually gray face turned as red as a tomato and the minute the bus stopped before the Boarding Home she jumped out and ran as fast as she could to tattle to Mrs. Monday.

As she got out, Mr. Harris said, “There goes the meanest young’un I’ve ever seen in all my life. I’ve been driving this school bus for fifteen years and I’ve never seen one to compare with her in just plain hatefulness.”

Plum said, “You should live with her. She spies and tattles all day long.”

Mr. Harris said, “Isn’t it a pity that varmints like her always grow up strong and healthy.”

Eunice said, “She should be healthy, she eats only delicatessens while we eat oatmeal and prunes.”

“Zat so?” Mr. Harris said, hiding his smile. “Well, all these delicatessens haven’t improved her looks any. She’s not near as pretty as you prune and oatmeal eaters, if that’s any consolation.”

The children all laughed and trooped off the bus just as Mrs. Monday opened the front door and summoned Nancy, Plum and Eunice to her sitting room.

Eunice said, “Quick, what shall we tell her we’ve been whispering about?”

Plum said, “Tell her it’s about valentines. Valentine’s Day will be pretty soon.”

Nancy said, “I’m not going to tell her anything. I’m going to tell her that Marybelle is a tattletale and that’s why she can’t be in on our secrets.”

Plum said, “You’ll only get in trouble.”

Nancy said, “I don’t care, we have a right to our own thoughts and plans. I won’t lie.”

Plum said, “I never feel that the things I tell Mrs. Monday are lies. I think that lies are only when you want not to tell the truth. With Mrs. Monday I want to tell the truth but life is easier if I don’t.”

Nancy said, “You’re always braver than I am, Plum, but right now if Mrs. Monday burned me with red hot coals and beat me with a whip, I wouldn’t tell her a lie and I would not tell her the truth.”

Plum said, “All right. But remember we won’t get any supper.”

Eunice said, “I’ll sneak some bread and butter for you.”

Plum said, “You probably won’t get any either.”

Just then Marybelle came out smirking and said, “Aunty Marybelle says for you to come into her sitting room
AT ONCE!
”

Plum said, “All right, Sneaky Tattletale.”

Marybelle said, “Aunty Marybelle told you never to call me Sneaky again, Plum Remson. I’m going to tell on you.”

Plum said, “Go ahead and tell, Sneaky.”

Marybelle stuck out her tongue at Plum and went back into the sitting room. The three little girls followed. Mrs. Monday was seated by the fire drinking tea and looking like a black vulture waiting for its prey. For a few minutes she stared at them but she did not speak. Then suddenly she lashed out, “Why do you whisper and torment poor little Marybelle? What are you planning?”

Nancy and Plum and Eunice said nothing.

Mrs. Monday said, “Answer me at once. What is all this talk about a letter from your Uncle John?”

No answer.

Mrs. Monday said, “If you do not answer me you will all stay in your rooms without supper.”

The three children just stood there, so Mrs. Monday said, “Very well, go to your rooms,
AT ONCE!
” The “at once” was almost a shriek. Plum and Nancy and Eunice looked at each other and smiled.

When they got up to their room they changed from their school clothes and got to work on the doll. The stuffing out of the old comforter was in a sack in the back of their closet. Working as fast as they could with Plum guarding the door, Eunice and Nancy grabbed handfuls of the rather lumpy cotton and carefully poked it down into the legs and arms, the body and finally the neck and head of Little Nancy. When they had finished, Nancy stitched up the opening in the head and then held Little Nancy up for Plum to see.

Plum began to laugh. Nancy said, “What’s the matter? Why are you laughing?”

Plum said, “She’s so lumpy. She looks like she was born with long underwear on. We’ll have to change her name to Squeaky Swanson.”

Nancy said, “She is awfully lumpy, isn’t she? It’s that old wadded cotton.”

Plum said, “If she wasn’t so lumpy, she’d be perfect. She is a very nice shape and you’ve done a neat job of sewing her, Nancy.”

Nancy said, “I wonder what else we could stuff her with?”

Plum said, “Straw. That’s what they stuff scarecrows with. Remember when Miss Waverly read us the
Wizard of Oz
?”

Nancy said, “But straw’s too stickery for a doll!”

Plum said, “Hay then. It’s lots finer than straw. I’ll climb out the window and shinny down the maple tree and tell Old Tom to get us some.”

She did and came back in a few minutes with a gunny sack full of hay, which Nancy and Eunice stuffed inside of Little Nancy. When they finished the doll was as lumpy as ever but what was worse, fine pieces of the hay had poked through the cloth, making her look as though she had whiskers growing all over her.

Plum and Eunice laughed but Nancy was almost in tears until Plum had another idea. Sawdust. She said that she had read that in the olden days all the dolls were stuffed with sawdust. “Remember that poem, ‘I once had a sweet little doll, dears, the prettiest doll in the world,’ and remember how she left the doll out in the field and the cows ate her or something? Well, that doll was stuffed with sawdust.”

Nancy said, “But where will we get the sawdust?”

Plum said, “From the woodshed. There’s a big heap of it by the saw horse. It’s kind of dirty and full of chips and sticks but Eunice and I can pick the rubbish out of it while you stuff Little Nancy.”

So Nancy unstuffed Little Nancy and Plum took the sack of hay back down the tree. In a few minutes she came back with a bag partially filled with sawdust. As it was getting late and they were sure Mrs. Monday would be up right after supper to give them a lecture, to hurry things they dumped the sawdust in a heap on the floor and Plum and Eunice picked out the sticks and chips while Nancy rammed the stuffing into the doll.

When they were through, Little Nancy didn’t have a
single lump and with the exception of her blank face and bald head looked almost like a little child.

Eunice said, “Of course, you made the doll, Nancy, but Plum was so wonderful about finding something to use for stuffing that I really think I should name her after Plum, too.”

Plum said, “Well, if you name her after both of us you’ll have to name her either Pancy or Numb.” They all laughed.

Then Nancy said, “You could call her Nanela—that’s a combination of Nancy and Pamela, and I think it’s pretty.”

“At least it’s better than Pancy,” Plum said.

So Nanela was named and hidden in the back of Nancy and Plum’s closet while the three little girls tried to figure out what to do about her face and what to use for hair.

Nancy said that she could embroider a face if only she had some colored embroidery thread. She also said that she could make a beautiful wig out of yarn if only she had some yarn.

Plum said, “If Nanela is to be a combination of Nancy and me she will have to have striped hair. Red and yellow. Red for Nancy and yellow for me.”

Nancy said, “No, she’s not going to have striped hair. I’ll make it yellow like yours, Plum.”

Plum said, “I was really only fooling. I don’t want Nanela to have striped hair. Why not make it brown like Eunice’s?”

Eunice said, “I think Nanela’s hair had better be any color yarn we can get.”

A voice from the doorway said, “Why aren’t you down helping Katie and what is the meaning of this mess?”

Nancy said, “You told us to stay in our rooms.”

Mrs. Monday glared at the children, then at the hay, sawdust and little sticks that littered the floor. She said, “What on earth have you been doing? This place looks like a barn.”

Plum said, “I was trying to make a bird’s nest for natural history at school.”

Mrs. Monday said, “Eunice, I told you to stay in your room. Why are you in here?”

Plum said quickly, “She has to make a bird’s nest, too. We were working together.”

Mrs. Monday said, “Well, pick up this mess at once. I’ll be back later to talk to you.”

When she had gone Nancy said, “Plum, you shouldn’t tell things that aren’t true. It’s better to tell the truth and be punished than to tell a lie.”

Plum said, “If we had told Mrs. Monday about Nanela she would have taken her and burned her and you know it.”

Nancy said, “Yes, but what you said wasn’t the truth at all.”

Plum said, “I’ll make it the truth then. I’ll go down and get some more hay and I’ll make Eunice and me each a bird’s nest and we’ll take them to school tomorrow and surprise Miss Waverly.”

Nancy said, “Oh, Plum, that’s a wonderful idea. Then you’ll have told the truth and your heart won’t turn black.”

“What do you mean her heart won’t turn black?” Eunice asked.

Nancy said, “Katie told us that every lie you tell makes a black spot on your heart.”

“And,” Plum said, “Nancy’s afraid my heart’s pitch-black already.”

“Oh, no, I’m not,” Nancy said, “but you’re so much braver than I am and you talk to Mrs. Monday more than I do and she seems to make it necessary to tell lies.”

Plum said, “Don’t worry, Nancy, we’re smarter than Mrs. Monday and Marybelle, and we can figure out a way to keep our hearts from getting all spotty.”

Nancy said, “Well, the first thing we had better do is to clean up this room.”

Plum said, “You start while I get the hay to make the bird’s nests.” Grabbing the sack, she opened the window and climbed out again.

Later, when Mrs. Monday made her promised visit, the room was clean, Nancy and Plum were in bed and on the study table by the window were two bird’s nests made of thread and hay.

The next day when Eunice and Plum presented Miss Waverly with the nests she was pleased but quite surprised.

She said, “They’re such nice nests that I think it would be a good idea for some of the boys to climb up and put them in that big apple tree outside the schoolroom window. Then if the birds do build in them we can watch them. If they don’t use our nests, at least they’ll be good examples of bird architecture. Did you make one, too, Nancy?”

Nancy said no and then because Miss Waverly was her favorite teacher and the person she liked best in all the world, she told her the whole story of Quince Face and Nanela.
When she was telling about Marybelle and Mrs. Monday, Nancy noticed that Miss Waverly’s eyes blazed. When she told about Quince Face, Eunice’s only Christmas present, Miss Waverly’s eyes filled with tears. Nancy didn’t mention the empty box and Marybelle’s two new dolls or the fact that she and Plum had spent Christmas alone because those things didn’t have anything to do with the bird’s nests.

When she finished, Miss Waverly put her arm around her and said, “Would you like me to help you with Nanela?”

Nancy said, “Oh, yes, I’ve been so worried about getting the face right.”

Miss Waverly said, “You bring Nanela to school tomorrow and I’ll take her home with me and see if I can’t give her a face and some hair.”

Nancy said, “But how will I get her to school without Marybelle seeing her?”

Miss Waverly said, “I’ll come down to the Boarding Home and get her, this very afternoon. I’ll tell Mrs. Monday that you have been making something for me and then even if she does see the doll, it won’t make any difference.”

Nancy said, “Oh, thank you, Miss Waverly,” and Plum and Eunice said, “Thank you, Miss Waverly,” and then it was time to ring the bell.

True to her word, Miss Waverly picked up the doll that afternoon and took her home with her. Nancy and Plum and Eunice, with the impatience of children, were sure that she would be finished the next day or, at the very latest, in two days. But weeks went by and Miss Waverly not only didn’t
bring the doll but didn’t mention it. Because Miss Waverly was their teacher and they were quite timid, Eunice and Nancy didn’t dare ask her if she was working on the doll and when it would be finished.

Unfortunately, Plum, who would have been glad to ask Miss Waverly about Nanela, was so busy helping Old Tom build a calf pen for Buttercup’s calf that was to be born on May Day, that she forgot all about Nanela. She didn’t forget about Quince Face, however, and every day she saved the shaving curls from Tom’s planing and every night pinned them on Quince Face and turned her into Marybelle Whistle, the main character in her continued play
Revenge
. During the course of the play, Marybelle was pinched, hit, tossed in the air, stamped on, run over, drowned, dropped off cliffs, scalped by Indians and dragged behind galloping horses until finally she lost one leg and one arm and it was impossible to tell her front from her back.

All the children loved Plum’s play, especially as she always spoke so sweetly to Marybelle, begging her pardon very politely as she pushed her in front of a train or pointed out a beautiful flower growing right in the path of an avalanche.