Nancy and Plum

  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.

  4

  Nanela

  NANCY AND PLUM 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?”

  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 th
at 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.”