Not Quite Eighteen

  PINK AND SCARLET.

  "It's the most perfect beauty that ever was!"

  "Pshaw! you always say that. It's not a bit prettier than Mary's."

  "Yes, it is."

  "No, indeed, it isn't."

  The subject of dispute was a parasol,--a dark blue one, trimmed withfringe, and with an ivory handle. The two little girls who werediscussing it were Alice Hoare and her sister Madge. It was Madge'sbirthday, and the parasol was one of her presents.

  The dispute continued.

  "I wish you wouldn't always say that your things are better than any oneelse's," said Alice. "It's ex-exaspering to talk like that, and Mammasaid when we exasperated it was almost as bad as telling lies."

  "She didn't say "exasperate." That wasn't the word at all; and this isthe sweetest, dearest, most perfectly beautiful parasol in the world, agreat deal prettier than your green one."

  "Yes, so it is," confessed candid Alice. "Mine is quite old now. This isyounger, and, besides, the top of mine is broken off. But yours isn'treally any prettier than Mary's."

  "It is too! It's a great deal more beautiful and a great deal morefascinating."

  "What is that which is so fascinating?" asked their sister Mary, cominginto the room. "The new parasol? My! that is strong language to useabout a parasol. It should at least be an umbrella, I think. See, Madge,here is another birthday gift."

  It was a gilt cage, with a pair of Java sparrows. "Oh, lovely!delicious!" cried Madge, jumping up and down. "I think this is the bestbirthday that ever was! Are they from you, Mary, darling? Thank you everso much! They are the most perfectly beautiful things I ever saw."

  "The parasol was the most beautiful just now," observed Alice.

  "Oh, these are much beautifuller than that, because they are alive,"replied Madge, giving her oldest sister a rapturous squeeze.

  "I wish you'd make me a birthday present in return," said Mary. "I wishyou'd drop that bad habit of exaggerating everything you like, andeverything you don't like. All your 'bads' are 'dreadfuls,'--all yourpinks are scarlets."

  "I don't know what you mean," said Madge, puzzled and offended.

  "It's only what Mamma has often spoken to you about, dear Madgie. It issaying more than is quite true, and more than you quite feel. I am sureyou don't mean to be false, but people who are not used to you mightthink you so."

  "It's because I like things so much."

  "No, for when you don't like them, it's just as bad. I have heard yousay fifty times, at least, 'It is the horridest thing I ever saw,' andyou know there couldn't be fifty 'horridest' things."

  "But you all know what I mean."

  "Well, we can guess, but you ought to be more exact. And, besides, Papasays if we use up all our strong words about little every-day things, wesha'n't have any to use when we are talking about really great things.If you call a heavy muffin 'awful,' what are you going to say about anearthquake or tornado?"

  "We don't have any earthquakes in Groton, and I don't ever mean to go toplaces where they do," retorted Madge, triumphantly.

  "Madge, how bad you are!" cried little Alice. "You ought to promiseMary right away, because it's your birthday."

  "Well, I'll try," said Madge. But she did not make the promise with muchheart, and she soon forgot all about it. It seemed to her that Mary wasmaking a great fuss about a small thing.

  Are there any small things? Sometimes I am inclined to doubt it. Afever-germ can only be seen under the microscope, but think what aterrible work it can do. The avalanche, in its beginning, is only a fewmoving particles of snow; the tiny spring feeds the brook, which in turnfeeds the river; the little evil, unchecked, grows into the habit whichmasters the strongest man. All great things begin in small things; andthese small things which are to become we know not what, should beimportant in our eyes.

  Madge Hoare meant to be a truthful child; but little by little, and dayby day, her perception of what truth really is, was being worn away bythe habit of exaggeration.

  "Perfectly beautiful," "perfectly horrible," "perfectly dreadful,""perfectly fascinating," such were the mild terms which she daily usedto describe the most ordinary things,--apples, rice puddings, arithmeticlessons, gingham dresses, and, as we have seen, blue parasols! And thehabit grew upon her, as habits will. When she needed stronger languagethan usual, things had to be "horrider" than horrid, and "beautifuller"than beautiful. And the worst of it was, that she was all the time halfconscious of her own insincerity, and that, to use Mary's favoritefigure, she _meant_ pink, but she _said_ scarlet.

  The family fell so into the habit of making mental allowances anddeductions for all Madge's statements that sometimes they fell into thehabit of not believing enough. "It is only Madge!" they would say, andso dismiss the subject from their minds. This careless disbelief vexedand hurt Madge very often, but it did not hurt enough to cure her. Oneday, however, it did lead to something which she could not helpremembering.

  It was warm weather still, although September, and Ernest, the littlebaby brother, whom Madge loved best of all the children, was playing onemorning in the yard by himself. Madge was studying an "awful" arithmeticlesson upstairs at the window. She could not see Ernest, who was makinga sand-pie directly beneath her; but she did see an old woman peer overthe fence, open the gate, and steal into the yard.

  "What a horrid-looking old woman!" thought Madge. "The multiple ofsixteen added to--Oh, bother! what an awful sum this is!" She forgot theold woman for a few moments, then she again saw her going out of theyard, and carrying under her cloak what seemed to be a large bundle. Theodd thing was, that the bundle seemed to have legs, and to kick; or wasit the wind blowing the old woman's cloak about?

  Madge watched the old woman out of sight with a puzzled andhalf-frightened feeling. "Could she have stolen anything?" she askedherself; and at last she ran downstairs to see. Nothing seemed missingfrom the hall, only Ernie's straw hat lay in the middle of the gravelwalk.

  "Mamma!" cried Madge, bursting into the library where her mother wastalking to a visitor. "There has been the most perfectly horrible oldwoman in our yard that I ever saw. She was so awful-looking that I wasafraid she had been stealing something. Did you see her, Mamma?"

  "My dear, all old women are awful in your eyes," said Mrs. Hoare,calmly. "This was old Mrs. Shephard, I presume. I told her to come for abundle of washing. Run away now, Madge, I am busy."

  Madge went, but she still did not feel satisfied. The more she thoughtabout the old woman, the more she was sure that it was not old Mrs.Shephard. She went with her fears to Mary.

  "She was just like a gypsy," she explained, "or a horrible old witch.Her hair stuck out so, and she had the awfullest face! I am almost sureshe stole something, and carried it away under her shawl, sister."

  "Nonsense!" said Mary, who was drawing, and not inclined to disturbherself for one of Madge's "cock-and-bull" stories. "It was only one ofMamma's old goodies, you may be sure. Don't you recollect what a frightyou gave us about the robber, who turned out to be a man selling apples;and that other time, when you were certain there was a bear in thegarden, and it was nothing but Mr. Price's big Newfoundland?"

  "But this was quite different; it really was. This old woman was reallyawful."

  "Your old women always are," replied Mary, unconcernedly, going on withher sketch.

  No one would attend to Madge's story, no one sympathized with her alarm.She was like the boy who cried "Wolf!" so often that, when the real wolfcame, no one heeded his cries. But the family roused from theirindifference, when, an hour later, Nurse came to ask where Master Erniecould be, and search revealed the fact that he was nowhere about thepremises. Madge and her old woman were treated with greater respectthen. Papa set off for the constable, and Jim drove rapidly in thedirection which the old woman was taking when last seen. Poor Mrs. Hoarewas terribly anxious and distressed.

  "I blame myself for not attending at once to what Madge said," she toldMary. "But the fact is that she exaggerates so constantly that I ha
vefallen into the habit of only half listening to her. If it had beenAlice, it would have been quite different."

  Madge overheard Mamma say this, and she crept away to her own room, andcried as if her heart would break.

  "If Ernie is never found, it will all be my fault," she thought. "Nobodybelieves a word that I say. But they would have believed if Alice hadsaid it, and Mary would have run after that wicked old woman, and gotdear baby away from her. Oh dear, how miserable I am!"

  Madge never forgot that long afternoon and that wretched night. Mammadid not go to bed at all, and none of them slept much. It was not tillten o'clock the next morning that Papa and Jim came back, bringing--oh,joy!--little Ernie with them, his pretty hair all tangled and his rosycheeks glazed with crying, but otherwise unhurt. He had been foundnearly ten miles away, locked in a miserable cottage by the old woman,who had taken off his nice clothes and dressed him in a ragged frock.She had left him there while she went out to beg, or perhaps to makearrangements for carrying him farther out of reach; but she had givenhim some bread and milk for supper and breakfast, and the little fellowwas not much the worse for his adventure; and after a bath and are-dressing, and after being nearly kissed to death by the whole family,he went to sleep in his own crib very comfortably.

  "Papa," said Madge that night, "I never mean to exaggerate any more aslong as I live. I mean to say exactly what I think, only not so much, sothat you shall all have confidence in me. And then, next time baby isstolen, you will all believe what I say."

  "I hope there will never be any 'next time,'" observed her mother; "butI shall have to be glad of what happened this time, if it really curesyou of such a bad habit, my little Madge."