The Madigans.

by Miriam Michelson.

CECILIA THE PHARISEE

I, Cecilia Morgan Madigan, being of sound mind and in purfect bodily health, and residing in Virginia City, Nevada, do hereby on this first day of April solemnly promise:

1. That I will be Number 1 this next month at school.

2. That I will be pachient with Papa, and try to stand him.

3. That I will set Bep--yes, and Fom too, even if she is Irene's partner--a good example.

4. That I will not once this next month pinch Aunt Anne's sensative plant--no matter what she does to me.

5. That I will dust the back legs of the piano even when Mrs. Pemberton isn't expected.

6. That I will help Kate controll her temper, and not mock and aggravate her when she sulks.

7. That I will be a little mother to Frank and teach her to grow up and be a creddit to the famly.

8. That I will not steal candy out of Kate's pocket--without first begging her very hard to give me some.

9. That I will practice The Gazelle fathfully every solatary day. And give up reading on the sly while I play 5-finger exercises.

10. That I will try to bear with Irene. That I will do all I can not to fight with her--but she is a selfish devvil who is always in the wrong.

And all this I solemnly promise myself without being coersed in any way, of my own free will, without let or hidrance, because I want to be good.

_Cecilia Morgan Madigan_ (_called Sissy_), Aged 11 last birthday.

P.S. And I feel sure I can do it all, G.o.d helping me, except Number 10--which is the hardest.

Sissy, who had been sitting writing only half dressed, folded the paper reverently, put it to her lips for lack of a seal, and then b.u.t.toned it firmly inside her corset waist.

She felt so virtuous already that the carrying out of her intentions seemed really supererogatory. When she went to Irene to have her b.u.t.ton her dress in the back, she had such a sensation of holiness, such a consciousness of a forbearing, pure, and gentle spirit, that her sister's malicious pretense of ignoring her presence appeared to her nothing less than sacrilege.

"Ain't you going to b.u.t.ton me, Split?" she demanded, indignant that her enemy, whom she was going to treat with Christ-like charity, should successfully try her temper before the ink was dry on her own promise to keep the peace.

"Ask me pretty," grinned Split, whose nickname honored a gymnastic feat which no other Madigan, however athletic, could accomplish half so successfully as the second. "Say 'please.'"

"I won't do anything of the sort. You know you've got to do it, and you've no right to expect me to say 'please' every time. You don't do it yourself, you hateful thing!"

"Why don't you cry?"

"Because I won't for you--because you can't make me--because--"

"Because you are crying in spite of yourself! Because anybody can make you cry, cry-baby!"

Sissy's hands flew up to her breast. It was a recognized gesture with her, a physical holding of herself together in the last minute that preceded her temperamental flying to pieces.

Split retreated cautiously, clearing the deck herself for action.

But no first gun was fired in that engagement. A crackling of the doc.u.ment hidden over the spot where she thought her heart was came like a warning note to Sissy. She struggled against it a moment; then her hands fell. Meekly she turned her back upon her tormentor, and in a voice of such exquisite holiness as to be almost unearthly, she said:

"Split dear, will you please b.u.t.ton me?"

A look of outraged astonishment at the unheard-of endearment came over Irene's face. The Madigans regarded demonstrative affection as pure affectation at its best; at its worst it was little short of indecent.

"'Split dear?'" mocked Irene as soon as she recovered. "Yes, dear. Turn around, dear. Stand straight, dear. Wait a minute, dear--"

Sissy stood in silence, biting her tongue that she might not speak. She was so occupied with the desire to keep Number 10 of her compact with herself that she did not notice how long it was before Irene really began to b.u.t.ton her waist. She did note, though, that she began at the bottom, a proceeding Split fancied merely because it drove her junior nearly frantic. She b.u.t.toned with maddening slowness up to the middle, when she capriciously left this point and recommenced at the top.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'That settles Number 10,' said Sissy, grimly"]

Mentally Sissy followed the operation. It was almost complete when through the little gap purposely left open Split deftly introduced a providentially flattened piece of ice from the window-sill, giving her victim a little shake that sent the ice slipping smoothly down her squirming body, but escaping before Sissy could turn and rend her.

"That settles Number 10," said Sissy, grimly, to herself, while she danced with discomfort. "I'll kill her if I get a chance--that's what I'll do. I'll get even, or my name's not Sis Madigan."

She hurried back into her room, which the twins shared, and stood in damp martyrdom while Bessie's b.u.t.ter-fingers crept with miserable slowness up and down. She suffered so from Bessie's ineptness that, despite the requirements of Number 3 of her code, she tore herself violently from her and turned her back imploringly to Florence. But Fom was a partizan of Split's, and it was against all the ethics of Madigan warfare to aid and comfort the enemy. When Sissy, chastened, returned to Bep's ministrations, the blonde one of the twins was so hurt and offended by the implication of awkwardness--a point upon which she was as vulnerable as she was sensitive--that Sissy slapped them both before she went at last for relief to Aunt Anne.

This was fatal, as she knew it would be.

"I shall tell your father about Irene," her aunt said, looking up from the coffee she was sipping as she lay in bed reading a French book. "But it's just as well, for I told you yesterday that that dress was too dirty to wear another day. Change it now--"

"Oh, Aunt Anne, it's late already--"

"You'll change that dress, Sissy, or you won't go to school."

"I won't! It's too late. I'll be late. That means one credit off, and this month I'm going--" A remembrance of her lofty intentions came suddenly to Sissy. All the world seemed bent on compelling her to forswear herself.

"Cecilia!" commanded Miss Madigan.

Sissy stiffened.

"You've disturbed my reading enough this morning. If you say another word I'll--"

"Oh, Aunt Anne--"

"Go over to the wall, Cecilia, and stand with your back to me for five minutes."

With a fiendish light in her eye--a light of such desperate satisfaction as betokened one gladly driven to commit the unforgivable Sissy moved toward the sensitive-plant in the window.

"Not there! That poor plant seems to suffer sympathetically with your badness. Stand over by the bureau."