Nancy and Plum (7 page)

One night when Marybelle was on the edge of a burning building (really Nancy and Plum’s bureau) screaming for help and Plum as the Fire Chief with his siren going full blast was hurrying to the fire so that he could get Marybelle to jump off the one-hundred-story building into a net with a hole in it, Mrs. Monday came in and wanted to know what in the world was going on and what was all the noise. Plum said, truthfully, that she was giving a play.

Mrs. Monday said, “If you are giving a play, why wasn’t Marybelle invited?”

Plum said, “But she was. She has the best part.” And Mrs. Monday could not understand why all the children giggled.

That night Mrs. Monday ordered them all to bed but the next night she sent Marybelle up to join them and so Plum changed her play to a very dull lesson on how to build a calf pen. Fortunately Marybelle, who didn’t care for animals, grew bored quickly, left and never returned, and Plum was able to continue with
Revenge
until Old Tom finally finished the calf pen and there were no more shaving curls.

By this time, Quince Face had been reduced to nothing but a dirty lump with no arms or legs. Nancy and Plum used her as a bean bag until the day that Mrs. Monday told Nancy and Plum they couldn’t be in the Maypole dance at school and Plum, in a fit of anger, threw Quince Face out the window and over the high fence.

The very next day when the children got to school, Miss Waverly took them in the cloak room and handed Eunice her finished doll. They understood then why she had taken so long. Nanela was Beautiful. She had bangs and braids of soft brown yarn, a painted face with embroidered-on eyelashes and eyebrows that looked almost real, large blue eyes with a very merry expression, red smiling lips, a complete outfit of clothes, even to shoes and socks, a sweater which Miss Waverly had knitted, a white ruffled pinafore with a handkerchief in the pocket, a darling blue-and-white-checked school dress and white lacy underwear. Eunice was so excited she couldn’t speak.
She just hugged Nanela, touched her pretty clothes and smiled at Miss Waverly.

Nancy said, “Miss Waverly, I think Nanela is the most beautiful doll in the world. Thank you for fixing her and making all those lovely clothes.”

Miss Waverly said, “I haven’t had so much fun in years, Nancy.”

Nancy said, “Miss Waverly, just one thing. Will you please tell Mrs. Monday about Nanela so she and Marybelle won’t try and take her away from Eunice.”

Miss Waverly said, “I certainly will. This very afternoon,” and she did.

Mrs. Monday said, “Of course, it was most kind of you to make the doll, Miss Waverly, but I’m afraid that you have wasted your time. Eunice is a very careless child and really cares nothing for dolls. Here is the proof.”

She reached in a drawer in her desk and brought out the last remains of Quince Face, which Old Tom had found that morning and had given to Mrs. Monday thinking that perhaps it was the battered but favorite toy of one of the littler children. Mrs. Monday held Quince Face up in two disdainful fingers and said, “This is what is left of a lovely doll that one of Eunice’s aunts made for her for Christmas. You can see the care it has had.”

Miss Waverly took Quince Face, brushed her off, looked at the squinty, crooked face up high on the forehead and the thick, lumpy body and knew that this doll had never been anything but as ugly and unloveable as Nancy and Plum had
described her. She said, “No doubt Eunice’s aunt had the best intentions in the world when she made this doll, but though it certainly has had bad treatment, the original face is still here and it is hideous.”

Mrs. Monday said, “I saw the doll when it was new and I thought it was charming.”

Miss Waverly said, “I suppose that is a matter of taste. Anyway, I have made Nanela for Eunice and I wish her to keep her. If, in the past, she has been careless with her toys, perhaps having something that her teacher has made will make her more careful.”

Mrs. Monday said, “I doubt it.” But Miss Waverly knew that she wouldn’t dare take Nanela away from Eunice.

E
VERY
S
UNDAY MORNING
at eight-fifty-five, Mrs. Monday’s eighteen little boarders lined up in the front hall for inspection before Sunday School. Down the line went Mrs. Monday, checking ears, necks, fingernails, teeth and hair. She paid no attention to the clothes, which were all hand-me-downs and always either too large or too small, but she was most particular about straight parts, neat braids and polished shoes even when the shoes were so worn out that, as Plum said, “It was just like polishing your feet.”

As the boarders passed inspection, and some of them were sent back upstairs as many as three or four times to wash necks, straighten parts or brush teeth, they were handed a
penny for collection and sent out to the front gate to wait for Old Tom and the delivery truck.

None of the children looked forward to the ride to and from Sunday School for they had to ride in the back of the truck, which was dark and smelled of the feed and chickens Old Tom hauled in it. Not only that, but the seats along the sides were very hard and very narrow and when the truck went over bumps, which it did all the way to the church, the children either had to lean forward and take a chance of falling off the narrow seat or lean back and have their heads banged against the hard sides. Then, too, there was the usual amount of pinching and hair pulling, which, because of the darkness, always resulted in the wrong person being slapped.

Nancy and Plum hated the ride in the truck, with Marybelle in her pretty clothes riding in the front seat with Old Tom and the others crowded in the back and shaken around like popcorn in a popper. And they hated Miss Gronk, their Sunday-School teacher, who was old and parched, taught Sunday School because it was her duty and believed in long homework assignments in the way of memorizing verses from the Bible.

When they were reciting the Beatitudes, one of the children said:

“Blessed are the neat for they shall clear up the earth,” instead of

“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,”

and the other children laughed and Miss Gronk rapped with her pencil on the back of the pew and said, “Religiod is do laughig
batter. Mariad bade an error and we should feel sorry for her. To bake sure there are do bore errors bade, I want you all to write the Beatitudes ted tibes ad brig theb to be next Sudday.”

All winter long Miss Gronk had terrible head colds and called Nancy and Plum “Dadcy and Plub” and asked Marybelle how her dear aunt “Bisus Bodday was gettig alog.”

Naturally Miss Gronk liked Marybelle and blamed all of Marybelle’s wiggling and whispering on somebody else. Whenever Marybelle didn’t know her Bible verses, which she never did, Miss Gronk would say, “Berrybell has bid sick, class, so the poor little thig could dot study.” This of course made the members of the class who lived at Mrs. Monday’s and knew that Marybelle had not been sick perfectly furious.

Once Plum said, “Miss Gronk, why do you always excuse Marybelle? She wasn’t sick at all last week.”

Miss Gronk said, “Pabbela Rebsod, I ab ruddig this Sudday-School class.”

The other Sunday-School teachers were always having little parties for the children, picnics in the spring and summer, taffy pulls and skating parties in the winter, the accounts of which Nancy and Plum listened to with great longing.

“Out of all the teachers in that Sunday School why did we have to get that old ‘Biss Grok,’ ” Plum said furiously one day as they were standing around waiting for church to begin and the other children were telling about a wonderful picnic their teacher had planned for them.

“I like Miss Gronk,” Marybelle said, smoothing the fingers of her new white gloves.

Plum said, “Well, I hate her. She talks like she was stuffed with cotton, she smells like horse liniment and she acts like it was a sin to be alive.

“ ‘I’ll dot tolerate smilig in by class, Pabbela,’ she told me this morning. I said, ‘I wasn’t smiling. My lips just go that way,’ and she said, ‘Codtrol your lips, thed, Pabbela, we bust look dowdcast in the house of the Lord.’ ”

Mr. Conrad, the Sunday-School superintendent, who happened to overhear this conversation, had quite a time controlling his lips but he resolved to speak to Miss Gronk about her doleful attitude and the fact that she never had any little parties for her class.

So the next Sunday, Miss Gronk announced that on the following Saturday the class would have a picnic. “We will all beet at by house,” she said. “You will each brig your owd lunch, we will go for a dice walk, eat the luch and returd hobe. Wear warb clothig and rebeber I will dot tolerate any wild akshuds such as racig or loud talk.”

“Or smilig,” Plum whispered to Nancy.

“Well, at least it’s better than nothing,” Nancy said to Plum as they were getting dressed Saturday morning.

“I’m not so sure,” Plum said as she jerked the elastic off one of her braids. “She’ll probably make us sit in a patch of nettles and write Bible verses.”

Nancy said, “Oh, maybe we can get her to take us up to Lookout Hill. The kids at school say it’s just beautiful up there. They say you can see for miles and miles and there are some tame squirrels that will eat out of your hand.”

Plum said, “I suppose I should be glad because it’s Saturday and we’re getting away from Mrs. Monday and going on a picnic, but if only we weren’t going with Miss Gronk!”

Nancy said, “Oh, come on, let’s hurry with our work. It’s a beautiful spring day and we can have a good time, in spite of Miss Gronk and Marybelle.”

But when Old Tom let them off in front of Miss Gronk’s little gray house, she thought she had never seen such a dreary looking place. All the blinds were drawn, there was a sign on the front steps “No solicitors” and a sign on the doorbell “Do not ring.” Silently the children climbed the creaking steps to the front porch.

“Do you suppose she’s home?” Eunice whispered to Nancy.

“It certainly doesn’t look like it,” Nancy said.

Marybelle said, “Oh, she’s home. She always keeps her shades down. She says the sunshine fades her carpets.” Boldly she strode up to the front door and knocked.

No one came. Marybelle knocked again, louder, and finally from the back of the house they heard shuffling feet and Miss Gronk opened the front door a crack and whispered hoarsely, “By cold’s buch worse ad I shouldn’t go but a probise is a probise. I’ll be right out. Do doise dow—Baba’s dot well.” She shut the door.

Plum said, “I feel sad as though I was going to a funeral instead of a picnic.”

Nancy said, “Well, anyway, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s start a dandelion chain.”

Quickly the girls jumped off the porch and began picking
the fat, golden dandelions growing along Miss Gronk’s fence. A robin watched them from a fence post until Miss Gronk’s big white cat climbed up on another fence post to watch the robin.

Marybelle said, “Let’s make a dandelion chain for Miss Gronk.”

Plum said, “She won’t like it.”

Marybelle said, “Oh, she will, too. Miss Gronk’s awfully sweet. I’m going to make her a dandelion necklace.”

When Miss Gronk emerged from the house she was so bundled up, so wrapped in sweaters, scarves, coats and shawls that only her watery eyes were visible.

“Cob od, girls,” she croaked, “pick up your luch bags and let’s get started.”

Marybelle ran up to her and said, “Bend down, Miss Gronk. I want to slip this beautiful dandelion chain around your neck.”

Miss Gronk said, “Heaveds do, Barybelle, dadeliods give be hay fever.” She turned to the other children who wore dandelion crowns, necklaces and bracelets. “I’ll have to ask you to throw away all those dadeliods,” she said. “I’b allergic to dadeliods.”

Morosely the girls took off their crowns, bracelets and necklaces and threw them away.

“All right, lide up,” Miss Gronk commanded. “Barybelle will walk with be. The rest of you stay in sigle file. Dow barch.”

Like a funeral procession they started. First the old clothes bundle that was Miss Gronk, and Marybelle, then the ten little girls of the Sunday-School class, then Nipper, Miss Gronk’s half-blind, very old dog.

The sky was a deep clear blue, the air was fragrant with apple blossoms and newly ploughed earth, birds chirped and trilled from every bush, chipmunks skittered around and around the tree trunks like stripes on a barber pole and the grass in the meadows billowed off into the distance in big soft rolling waves like the sea. It was a perfect day for a picnic. Plum wanted to run and sing and jump over a fence and climb a tree. Nancy wanted to lie on her back and look at the sky through the pink apple blossoms and listen to the birds. But Miss Gronk wanted to walk as slowly and as silently as a turtle and so that is what they did.

Plum said, “I hate Miss Gronk. She’s spoiling the whole day.”

Nancy said, “Let’s pretend that underneath all those old coats and scarves and shawls is really a beautiful princess and if we believe in her and don’t get angry with her, when we get to Lookout Hill she’ll shed those old clothes and emerge all golden and beautiful.”

Plum said, “All right, but how do you know we’re going to Lookout Hill?”