At this the teacher smiled again, and laying her hand on the black head she said, "You are a little girl to be so far along in your lessons. I am afraid I can't cla.s.sify you just now. We will have to wait until I get the other girls and boys arranged according to studies, and then we will see where to put you. Now, children, I hope you will follow Theodora Gabrielle's example and study hard."

"Teacher's pet," whispered the boy across the aisle, but Tabitha was soaring in the realms of bliss and the teacher's smile, so she did not hear or care what the others might say. The world was growing very bright and she was finding how sweet the days could be.

CHAPTER IV

THE NAME CAUSES TABITHA TROUBLE

"Tabitha!"

The child was curled in a forlorn heap on the little front stoop which took the place of piazza to their cottage, staring with gloomy eyes toward the radiant sunset, but for once unaware of the glorious beauty of the skies. Her heart was very heavy. In two days more the school was to give their first exhibition--that was what Miss Brooks called it--in the town hall; and all the parents and friends were invited to come and hear them speak the pieces and sing the songs they had been learning ever since school had commenced, six weeks before. Miss Brooks thought it helped the scholars to have public exercises occasionally, for it brought the parents in closer touch with their boys and girls and encouraged the children to do better work; so she had planned to have these exhibitions every six weeks or two months in the _town hall_. The school house was too small to seat many visitors if all the scholars were present.

Tabitha was to recite a long selection all by herself, and she had taken great pride in learning it with appropriate gestures, conscious of the fact that she was the best speaker in the room, and happy in the teacher's unstinted praise and her playmates' envious admiration.

But now! Miss Brooks had asked the girls to wear white dresses, and Tabitha had none! What a calamity! She had expected to wear her new green gingham. It wasn't a very pretty color, to be sure, or very becoming, but she had coaxed Aunt Maria to make it after the fashion of Carrie's dainty dresses and was delighted with the result. Now the rest of the girls would be in white, and it would look dreadful to have one green dress in the splendid array on the platform. What could she do?

It was useless to ask for a white gown, and even if there were any possibility of getting the new material it was too late to make it up in time for the exhibition, for Aunt Maria wasn't a great success as a seamstress, and it took her a long time to make a dress. Why, she had worked more than a week on the green gingham, and that was just tucked!

If there could be a white dress it would have to have ruffles on it; all the other girls' white dresses had ruffles on them somewhere. Carrie's had two ruffles on the skirt, and Mamie Cole's had _three_. Bertha Dean's had only one ruffle around the shoulders and the skirt was tucked, but it was very pretty; and if Tabitha could not have ruffles on the skirt, she would want at least a shoulder ruffle with lace around it. Well, there was no use in planning, she could not have a white dress. But how could she face all those people in a green gingham and be the only odd girl there?

"Tabitha Catt!" The voice was sharp and insistent, and at the sound of the hateful name almost forgotten now, the child came suddenly out of her unhappy reverie.

"What is it, Aunt Maria?"

"Where in the world have you been? I've called you half a dozen times already. Go to my trunk and bring me that box of odd pieces just under the tray. I want to mend this dress before dark. Mind you are careful now. The tray is broken; lift it carefully."

Tabitha rose slowly to do her bidding, still thinking of the dress she did not have. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances she considered it a great honor to be allowed even to lift the cover of the big, old trunk in the corner, for it contained many wonderful relics for childish eyes, and sometimes Aunt Maria would let her look at some of the treasures, and even tell her a little about them on rare occasions. Today, however, even this prospect was not alluring, and with listless hands Tabitha pulled the rickety tray out of its place and bent over the trunk in search of the box in question. There were several boxes under the tray, but Aunt Maria never remembered this, and it was always necessary to open them to discover which was the one wanted. So the child seized the nearest and pulled off the cover. No pieces in that. But in the act of replacing the cover she noticed something shining in a ma.s.s of white, and paused to investigate. It was a string of glistening beads, and as she lifted them from their crushed tissue wrappings there lay disclosed the shimmering folds of a white silk dress, carefully laid away with dried "Sweet Mary" leaves.

"Child, are you making those pieces?" The girl started guiltily, dropped the cover over the box and pulled open its neighbor. There were the sc.r.a.ps Aunt Maria wanted, and with these in her hands she scurried out into the kitchen where the fussy old lady sat sewing in the waning light.

"There are seven boxes just under the tray, Aunt Maria," she announced.

"I opened the wrong one by mistake, and there was a silk dress inside."

She hesitated, not knowing how to ask for the information she desired, for the aunt, like the father, never encouraged the asking of questions.

"That was my first silk dress," the woman said reminiscently. "My grandfather gave it to me when I was a little girl so I could go to my favorite aunt's wedding. I never wore it but twice, for my mother did not believe in finery for children, and this being white, she was afraid it would get soiled. Did you close that trunk?"

Tabitha went back to put things in order again, but could not resist one more peep at the enticing box. How beautiful the silk looked, and how daintily it was made! To be sure, there were no ruffles adorning the soft folds, but the bottom of the skirt was beautifully scalloped, so even and nice, and each scallop bound with a narrow strip of the same material.

She lifted the dress out of its box and looked at it with shining eyes.

How rich one must be to own a silk dress! How she wished it belonged to her! If it had been hers, she should have worn it more than twice--such a dainty, pretty thing as that--and it was white. White? Yes. And she wanted a white dress so much.

"Tabitha!"

"Yes, Aunt Maria."

"What are you doing? I want you to set the table. It is almost supper time and Thomas will soon be here."

Tabitha dropped the dress hastily on the rug beside the trunk, put the cover on the empty box and slipped it back in its place with the other six. Down went the tray on top of them, the lid of the trunk fell with a snap, and the white silk dress was no longer inside. With beating heart and red face she carried the garment into her own tiny room and hung it in the very darkest corner of the closet. Then she ran to set the table.

How the next day ever pa.s.sed she never knew, for before her eyes wherever she looked danced that lovely, quaint old gown of shimmering silk, and she could think of nothing else. It hid the map of Europe when she opened her geography, it played leap-frog among common fractions when she tried to do her sums, it waved at the head of the Continental Army while she led those brave men to victory, and when it came to spelling cla.s.s she could think of nothing but "s-i-l-k."

But Exhibition Day came at last. Aunt Maria was not going, as Tabitha well knew, so would not see her in the borrowed gown until too late to raise any objections. She had no intention of wearing the dress without Aunt Maria's knowledge, but she did intend to wear it first, and tell about it afterwards, accepting whatever punishment the woman saw fit to give her for the transgression. So she smuggled the gown out of the house in her school-bag, and up among the tall boulders beyond the Carson place, where there was no possibility of anyone finding her. Here she dressed, and under one great rock hid the once admired but now despised green gingham. Then with her long cape covering her quaintly gowned figure, she hurried up to Carrie's door to call for her playmate, having waited until the last minute in the hope that her friends would be gone. Nor was she disappointed. The doors were locked and no one came to answer her knock; so with flying feet she sped toward the hall, noting that only a few people were bound in that direction, and knowing that most of the expected visitors were already seated within.

"Oh, Theodora Gabrielle!" exclaimed the teacher as the child flew up the aisle to her place on the platform, "I was so afraid something had happened to keep you away. It would never do to have our best speaker absent, you know;" and she smiled into the shining black eyes of the breathless Tabitha; but the next instant the smile faded. Tabitha had loosened her cape, and Miss Brooks caught sight of the quaint, queer old gown underneath. "Child!" she cried involuntarily. "Whatever possessed you to put on that rig?"

The beloved silk dress called a "rig!" Tabitha was dismayed, and the tears came welling into the bright eyes, as with quivering lip she confessed, "It was the only _white_ dress I could get, Miss Brooks. I thought it would be very 'propriate, for I am to speak a war piece, you know. Aunt Maria had this when she was a little girl, and she must be pretty much older than the war."

"I meant that the silk was too good for common wear, dear," fibbed the teacher, seeing the sorrow in the thin, brown, wistful face. "It is a pretty idea to wear a dress that was made in war times, and I never would have thought of it myself. But we must take off the ribbons from your hair, Theodora, and fix it in the old-fashioned way to go with your gown. I remember a picture of my mother with her hair done in the queerest braids. Come, we will have to hurry."

As this inspiration flashed through the young teacher's mind, she saw a way out of the dilemma so that neither child nor school should be ridiculed because of Tabitha's mistake; and she hurriedly completed the small girl's "war times toilette" so that when Tabitha emerged from under her skillful hands she was the admiration and envy of all her mates. And truly she presented a pretty picture as she stood before the none too critical audience and recited _Sheridan's Ride_ with such vim and spirit that every heart was fired with patriotism and the applause was so prolonged that Miss Brooks told her she must speak another piece, even though it was not on the program. Purposely the teacher had left Tabitha's part in the exercises well toward the last, knowing that she could be depended upon to make a fitting climax for the afternoon's program, nor was she disappointed; and she fairly beamed upon the little girl as she gently pushed her toward the front of the platform to respond to her encore.

Having done so well with one war piece, Tabitha decided that _Barbara Fritchie_ was a most appropriate selection to recite this second time, besides being quite in keeping with her old-fashioned dress. So she began the familiar lines:

Up from the meadow rich with corn Clear in the cool September morn,

The cl.u.s.tered spires of Frederick stand Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

How she loved that poem, how vividly the whole scene seemed to lie before her, and how her very soul thrilled as she gave life to the stirring words!

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff Dame Barbara s.n.a.t.c.hed the silken scarf.

She leaned far out on the window-sill, And shook it forth with a royal will.

Suddenly from among the audience one face seemed to leap before her eyes,--white, set, terrified. Tom! And beside him, leaning forward as he stood near the door, his face grim and threatening, was her father! Her surroundings were forgotten; she seemed to be standing beside the dusty road again with a pail of blackberries at her feet; and with gaze rivetted upon those two figures in the back of the hall, she recited:

Slap, if you dare, you old gray head, I'll scratch like a--cat--till you'll wish you were dead.

Was there a t.i.tter behind her, were the faces in the audience smiling?

Was Miss Brooks speaking her name, were someone's arms around her trying to drag her to her seat? It seemed an age that she stood there, words frozen on her lips, heart that seemed to have ceased its beating, and eyes that looked without seeing. Then, pausing for neither hat nor cape, she plunged down from the platform, fled blindly through the aisle and rushed out of the open door.

Up the rocky path she stumbled, but stopped on the summit of the first rise. What was the use of running away? He would find her and the punishment would come sooner or later. It might as well come now and be over with. Up on the nearest boulder she crept and waited, a heap of frozen misery. Would he remain until the exercises were over? How would he punish her?

The waiting was short, although to her it seemed hours before the parents and children came out of the hall and dispersed to their various homes. A few pa.s.sed her on the trail, but she did not see them--not even Carrie, sobbing aloud as she stumbled along beside her mother.

When they were all gone, her father suddenly stood before her. When he came, or how he got there, she did not know.

"Tabitha Catt," she heard his even tones saying, "get down from there."

She slid to the ground beside him.

"Come with me."

She turned and followed him, not down the hill to the cottage as she had expected, but back towards town. The day was warm, but she was shivering violently, and even her teeth chattered until it seemed as if the silent man at her side could not fail to hear them.

"What have you told these people your name was?" the same even tones demanded.