Chapter XXIV.
A Lady at Shingle Hut.
Miss Ribbone had just arrived.
She was the mistress of the local school, and had come to board with usa month. The parents of the score of more of youngsters attending theschool had arranged to accommodate her, month about, and it was ourturn. And did n't Mother just load us up how we were tobehave--particularly Joe.
Dad lumbered in the usual log for the fire, and we all helped him throwit on--all except the schoolmistress. Poor thing! She would haveinjured her long, miserable, putty-looking fingers! Such a contrastbetween her and Sal! Then we sat down to supper--that old familiarrepast, hot meat and pumpkin.
Somehow we did n't feel quite at home; but Dad got on well. He talkedaway learnedly to Miss Ribbone about everything. Told her, withoutswearing once, how, when at school in the old country, he fought theschoolmaster and leathered him well. A pure lie, but an old favouriteof Dad's, and one that never failed to make Joe laugh. He laughed now.And such a laugh!--a loud, mirthless, merciless noise. No one elsejoined in, though Miss Ribbone smiled a little. When Joe recovered heheld out his plate.
"More pumpkin, Dad."
"If--what, sir?" Dad was prompting him in manners.
"IF?" and Joe laughed again. "Who said 'if'?--I never."
Just then Miss Ribbone sprang to her feet, knocking over the box shehad been sitting on, and stood for a time as though she had seen aghost. We stared at her. "Oh," she murmured at last, "it was the dog!It gave me such a fright!"
Mother sympathised with her and seated her again, and Dad fixed his eyeon Joe.
"Did n't I tell you," he said, "to keep that useless damned mongrel ofa dog outside the house altogether--eh?--did n't I? Go this moment andtie the brute up, you vagabond!"
"I did tie him up, but he chewed the greenhide."
"Be off with you, you--" (Dad coughed suddenly and scattered fragmentsof meat and munched pumpkin about the table) "at once, and do as I tellyou, you----"
"That'll do, Father--that'll do," Mother said gently, and Joe tookStump out to the barn and kicked him, and hit him against thecorn-sheller, and threatened to put him through it if he did n't stopsquealing.
He was a small dog, a dog that was always on the watch--for meat; ashrewd, intelligent beast that never barked at anyone until he gotinside and well under the bed. Anyway, he had taken a fancy to MissRibbone's stocking, which had fallen down while he was lying under thetable, and commenced to worry it. Then he discovered she had a calf,and started to eat THAT. She did n't tell US though--she told Mrs.Macpherson, who imparted the secret to mother. I suppose Stump did n'tunderstand stockings, because neither Mother nor Sal ever wore any,except to a picnic or somebody's funeral; and that was very seldom.The Creek was n't much of a place for sport.
"I hope as you'll be comfortable, my dear," Mother observed as sheshowed the young lady the back-room where she was to sleep. "It ain'ts' nice as we should like to have it f' y'; we had n't enough sparebags to line it all with, but the cracks is pretty well stuffed up withhusks an' one thing an' 'nother, and I don't think you'll find any windkin get in. Here's a bear-skin f' your feet, an' I've nailed a bag upso no one kin see-in in the morning. S' now, I think you'll be prettysnug."
The schoolmistress cast a distressed look at the waving bag-door andsaid:
"Th-h-ank you-very much."
What a voice! I've heard kittens that had n't their eyes open make afiercer noise.
Mother must have put all the blessed blankets in the house on theschool-teacher's bed. I don't know what she had on her own, but weonly had the old bag-quilt and a stack of old skirts, and otherremnants of the family wardrobe, on ours. In the middle of the night,the whole confounded pile of them rolled off, and we nearly froze. Dowhat we boys would--tie ourselves in knots and coil into each otherlike ropes--we could n't get warm. We sat up in the bed in turns, andglared into the darkness towards the schoolmistress's room, which wasn't more than three yards away; then we would lie back again andshiver. We were having a time. But at last we heard a noise from theyoung lady's room. We listened--all we knew. Miss Ribbone was up anddressing. We could hear her teeth chattering and her knees knockingtogether. Then we heard her sneak back to bed again and feltdisappointed and colder than ever, for we had hoped she was getting upearly, and would n't want the bed any longer that night. Then we toocrawled out and dressed and tried it that way.
In answer to Mother at breakfast, next morning, Miss Ribbone said shehad "slept very well indeed."
We did n't say anything.
She was n't much of an eater. School-teachers are n't as a rule.They pick, and paw, and fiddle round a meal in a way that gives ahealthy-appetited person the jim-jams. She did n't touch the friedpumpkin. And the way she sat there at the table in her watch-chain andribbons made poor old Dave, who sat opposite her in a ragged shirtwithout a shirt-button, feel quite miserable and awkward.
For a whole week she did n't take anything but bread and tea--thoughthere was always plenty good pumpkin and all that. Mother used tospeak to Dad about it, and wonder if she ate the little pumpkin-tartsshe put up for her lunch. Dad could n't understand anyone not eatingpumpkin, and said HE'D tackle GRASS before he'd starve.
"And did ever y' see such a object?" Mother went on. "The hands an'arms on her! Dear me! Why, I do believe if our Sal was to give herone squeeze she'd kill her. Oh, but the finery and clothes! Y' neversee the like! Just look at her!" And Dad, the great oaf, with Joe athis heels, followed her into the young lady's bedroom.
"Look at that!" said Mother, pointing to a couple of dresses hanging ona nail--"she wears THEM on week-days, no less; and here" (raising thelid of a trunk and exposing a pile of clean and neatly-folded clothingthat might have been anything, and drawing the articles forth one byone)--"look at them! There's that--and that--and this--and----"
"I say, what's this, Mother?" interrupted Joe, holding up something hehad discovered.
"And that--an'----"
"Mother!"
"And this----"
"Eh, Mother?"
"Don't bother me, boy, it's her tooth-brush," and Mother pitched theclothes back into the trunk and glared round. Meanwhile, Joe was hardat his teeth with the brush.
"Oh, here!" and she dived at the bed and drew a night-gown from beneaththe pillow, unfolded it, and held it up by the neck for inspection.
Dad, with his huge, ungainly, hairy paws behind him, stood mute, likethe great pitiful elephant he was, and looked at the tucks and therest--stupidly. "Where before did y'ever see such tucks and frills andlace on a night-shirt? Why, you'd think 't were for goin' to picnicsin, 'stead o' goin' to bed with. Here, too! here's a pair of brand newstays, besides the ones she's on her back. Clothes!--she's nothin'else but clothes."
Then they came out, and Joe began to spit and said he thought theremust have been something on that brush.
Miss Ribbone did n't stay the full month--she left at the end of thesecond week; and Mother often used to wonder afterwards why thecreature never came to see us.