CHAPTER XX
ACCORDING TO AGREEMENT
By the time that Jacqueline had had her cry out, she was nearly a mileon her way to Longmeadow Street. Her eyes were smarting, and her nosewas sore, and her throat felt hot like a furnace. When she came to theboundary brook between Kaplinsky's lease and Deacon Whitcomb's field,she was glad to stop and bathe her face and quiet the jumping pulses inher wrists with cool water. She smoothed her hair, too, with her wetfingers, and she even took off her shabby sneakers and washed her dustyfeet and ankles. After all, she didn't want to arrive at theGildersleeve place looking worse than she had to.
Now that she was refreshed, she trudged on more slowly. She realizedthat she was tired out with the wild pace at which she had run, and withthe scene in Aunt Martha's dining room, which she winced to remember.Wasn't she thankful that she really wasn't Caroline, and that sheneedn't ever go back to the Conway farm? How could she have facedthem--Aunt Martha, and Neil, and Grandma? Poor Grandma, whose preciouscups she had broken!
Again the tears started to Jacqueline's eyes. She brushed them angrilyaway. She didn't need to cry. Wasn't she going to send Grandma some newcups--the thinnest cups she could buy in Boston--a dozen cups--a wholedinner set? That would make everything all right again.
By the time she came in sight of the first outlying houses of thevillage, she had added to the dinner set for Grandma an embroidered capfor Annie, a doll with real hair for Nellie, a belt with a silver bucklefor Ralph, a camera for Dickie, and a choo-choo train for Freddie.
With great effort, as she entered the village, she finally added to thecollection a big, soft, luscious rug for Aunt Martha's car, and amagic-lantern for Neil--not one of the little dinky toys that get out oforder, but the real thing.
When the people at the farm got all those gifts, she rather guessedthey'd change their minds about her. Perhaps they'd be sorry then thatthey hadn't been more considerate. How they would regret her--and admireher! Maybe she'd go out there once more--just once more--in herwine-colored jumper dress that she liked, and take a big box of sweetsto the children. She fairly swelled out her chest, in her dusty PeggyJanes, as she pictured herself playing Lady Bountiful. But when shethought of Grandma, her chest flattened again, just like a toy balloonwhen you prick it and the air runs out. Oh, she did want to get thatdinner set right away! Her eyes filled every time when she thought ofGrandma, sitting down to supper, and drinking her tea patiently from thethick, ugly, crockery cup.
The sun had just dipped behind the western hills across the river, whenJacqueline came to a halt outside the box-hedge that enclosed theGildersleeve place. She had thought all along that she would walk rightup to the front door, and knock, and ask for Mrs. Gildersleeve, andsimply say to her:
"Aunt Eunice, I am Jacqueline. Call the little girl who's staying here,and she'll tell you it's just so."
But now that the moment for action had come, she hesitated. To do itthat way seemed not quite fair to Caroline. Like stealing a march onher. Really she must see Caroline, and tell her what was up, before shegave away the trick that they had played upon the Gildersleeves and theConways.
"Not that Caroline won't be as glad as me to have it over with,"Jacqueline tried to quiet an uneasy something within her. "She must befed up by this time on that old piano."
A little path, as narrow as a cat track, ran between the Gildersleevehedge and the rose tangle that bounded the Trowbridge lawn. Jacquelineknew all about that path, and a few others. She hadn't come into thevillage with that born rover, Neil, for nothing. She slipped up thispath in the shadows that were cool and dark, and she quickly found thegap in the hedge for which she was looking. She wriggled through it,with some damage to the Peggy Janes (Caroline's Peggy Janes!) and thereshe was in the garden, among the flowers that were already half asleep.She peered about her eagerly. If only Caroline would come that way! Thenshe spied the summer house, and stole to the doorway that gaped beneaththe over-hanging vines, and peered in.
The summer house was empty. The tea table was folded up, and the wickerchairs set trimly in place against another day. Under one of the chairsa bit of clear orange color caught Jacqueline's eye. She pounced uponit, and found it was a little doll-smock of orange, cross-stitched indark blue. This must belong to Mildred, and no doubt Mildred's carefullittle mother ("fussy," Jacqueline called her) would find it missing andcome to look for it. Why, things couldn't have fallen out better forher!
Jacqueline sat down on the bench that ran round the wall inside thesummer house, and waited with what patience she could scare up. Shecould see a bit of the house through the elms that stood round it--agleam of white clapboards, that caught the last light of the afterglow,a green shutter, a window like an anxious eye. She wondered if that werethe window of the room that should be hers.
Then she saw a little girl in a leaf brown dress come from behind aclump of shrubbery and head toward the summer house, with eyes bent uponthe path, as if she looked for something. Caroline, in the name of allthat was lucky! Gurgling with mischief, Jacqueline drew back and waitedin the shadows that now were quite thick in the summer house. She didn'thave to wait long. Framed in the doorway, Caroline stood before her,dainty in Jacqueline's leaf brown smock with orange stitching, andJacqueline's amber beads, and with a soft sparkle in her face, whichcame from thoughts of pleasant things that had happened and pleasantthings to come.
"Boo!" cried Jacqueline.
Caroline gave a little squeak, and clutched the side of the door.
"Don't be scared, goose!" bade Jacqueline, stepping forward. "It's onlyme."
Caroline's pale little hands fluttered to her throat as if she wanted topush off something that choked her.
"Y-yes," she stammered. "H-hello, Jackie."
That was all Caroline said. She didn't help Jacqueline one bit, thoughshe must have known that Jacqueline hadn't come there simply to say:"Hello!" She just clung to the side of the door and stared like somebodywho expects to be hit.
"I'm not a ghost," said Jacqueline, impatiently. "Don't look at me likethat. I just came over to say I've had enough of the farm, and if youdon't mind, we'll swap back."
Caroline nodded.
"Yes," she agreed, in a dry little whisper. "All r-right, Jackie." Thenshe slid into the seat by the door, just as if her legs had folded upunder her, and she hid her face in her hands and began to cry.