Lill\'s Travels in Santa Claus Land
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Ellis Towne; Sophie May and Ella Farman >> Lill\'s Travels in Santa Claus Land
But Mr. Markham drew up his horses.
"Hello, Gildersleeve!"
"Hello yourself, Mr. Markham!"
"I say, what you sending your young uns down to the store after things,
and charging them to me for? Mighty creditable that, Tom Gildersleeve!"
"Getting things and charging them to you!" Gildersleeve stopped his
horse. "What do you mean, Markham?"
"You better go down and ask Hampshire. If you don't, you may get it
explained in a way you won't fancy!"
He whipped up his horses and drove off, leaving Mr. Gildersleeve
standing there, gazing after him as if he had lost his senses. After a
moment he unhitched his horse from the cultivator, mounted him, and rode
off toward the village.
School was out. Roxy had reached home. She was setting the table, and
whistling like a blackbird. Things had gone so happily at school!
Everything was so neat, and pleasant, and cosy at home! She saw her
father ride into the yard, and go to the barn. She whistled on.
She sat in the big rocking-chair, stoning cherries, and smelling the
roses by the window, when he came into the kitchen.
"Where's Roxy?" she heard him ask.
"In the other room, I guess," said mother.
He came in where she was. She looked up; and her little stained hands
fell back into the pan. She knew the day of judgment had come. O, she
wished it was that other day, the day of death, instead! Her mouth
dropped open, the room turned dark.
Mr. Gildersleeve sank down on a chair. His child's face was too much for
him. He groaned aloud. "That one of _my_ children should ever be talked
about as a thief! What possessed you, Roxy?"
Roxy sat before him, trembling. Not at the prospect of punishment. But
she saw her father's eyes filling up with tears. "Don't, father," she
said, hurriedly, trying not to cry. "I've only eaten a little, and I
will carry it all back. If you will pay for what is gone, I'll sell
berries or something, and pay you back the money. Mr. Hampshire is a
good man; he won't tell, father, if you ask him not."
"You poor, ignorant child!"
He got up and went out, shutting the door after him. Not one word of
punishment; but he left Roxy trembling with a strange terror. She shook
with a presentiment of some unendurable public disgrace. Setting down
the pan of cherries, she crept to the door. She heard her father's
voice, her mother's sharp exclamations. Then her father said, "To think
_our_ girl should sin in such a high-handed way! Mother, I'd rather laid
her in her grave any day! That hot-headed Markham will not rest until
he's published it from Dan to Beersheba. She's only a child, but this
thing will stick to her as long as she lives."
Her mother sobbed. "Our poor Roxy! Tom, if the school children get hold
of it, she will never go another day. The child is so sensitive! I don't
know how to punish her as I ought. I can only think how to save her
from what is before her."
O, how Roxy, standing at the key-hole, trembled to see her mother lean
her head on her father's shoulder and sob, and to see tears on her
father's cheeks! O, what a wicked, wicked girl! It _was_ thieving; in
some way it was even worse than that; as if she had committed a--a
forgery, maybe, Roxy thought. She was conscious she had done something
unusually daring and dreadful.
She stole off up stairs, shut herself in, and cried as hard as she could
cry. Afterward her little brain began to busy itself in many directions.
She tried to fancy herself shamed and pointed at, afraid to go to
school, afraid to go down to the store, ashamed to go to the table, with
no right to laugh, and play, and stay around near her mother, never
again to dare ask her father to ride when he was going off with the
horses.
So lonely and gloomy, she tried to think what it was possible to do. At
last, as in the morning, a daring thought occurred to her suddenly. She
made up her mind in just one minute to do it.
When her mother called, she went down to supper at once. The boys were
gone. Nobody but she and father and mother; and the three had very red
eyes, and said nothing, but passed things to each other in a kind,
quiet way, that seemed to Roxy like folks after a funeral--perhaps it
did to the rest of them. Roxy was fanciful enough to think to herself,
"Yes, it is _my_ funeral. We have just buried my good name."
Silently, one with a white face, the other with a red one, Roxy and her
mother did up the work. Then Roxy went up to her room again. She took a
sheet of foolscap, and made it into four sheets of note paper. She wrote
and printed something on each sheet, and folded all the sheets into
letters. Then she went down stairs. Two of the little letters she handed
to her mother. Then, bonnet in hand, she stole out the front door. At
the gate she looked down the road toward the village, up the road toward
Mr. Markham's. She started toward Mr. Markham's. She got over the road
marvelously; for the child was wild to get the thing over with. She was
going up the path to the house when she saw Mr. Markham hoeing in the
garden. She went to him, thrust a note into his hand, and was off like a
dart.
It was a long, hard, lonely run down to the village. How lonely in the
grove at the hollow tree! How like a thief, with the bundles openly on
her arm! No little girl's pocket would hold them, nothing but a great
Judas-bag. She went straight to the stone store. It was just sunset.
How thankful she was to find nobody in the store but Mr. Hampshire
himself, reading the evening paper. He looked up, and recognized the red
little face. He glanced at the bundles as she threw them, with a letter,
down on the counter, and whisked out through the door. He called after
her, "Here, here, Roxy; here, my dear! Come back. I have some figs for
you!"
But no Roxy came back. He heard her little heels clattering down the
sidewalk fast as they could go. So he got up and read the letter, for it
was directed to himself.
Here are the four notes Roxy wrote:--
"Dear Father: I Will paye you every Cent if I Live. I shall always
be a Good Girl, and never hanker after Only what I have Got. Please
forgive Me, and Not Talk It Over with Mother. It will make her Sick.
Roxy."
"Dear Mother: Please love me until I am Bad once More. If I ever,
Ever, should be Bad again, then you may give me Up. Don't get Sick.
Roxy."
"Mr. MarkHam: I have been Very Wicked. I have made father and Mother
wretched. I am sorry. Please don't be Hard on Me, and Set every
body against me, because My Mother would settle right down and be
very Sick. I am only a Little girl, and a Big Man might let me go. I
have taken the Things back to the Store. Also father has Paid for
them. _You_ may Want something some day, and do Wrong to get it, and
Then you will know How good it is. R. Gildersleeve."
"Mr. HamPshire: Please Not tell the folks that come into the Store
what I did. I want a Chance to be good. If you Ever hear of my
stealing again, Then you can tell, of course. R. Gildersleeve."
And here is what they said:--
_Mr. Gildersleeve_ (crying). "Here, mother, put this away. Never speak
of it to her. Poor child, I _did_ mean to whip her!"
_Mrs. Gildersleeve_ (crying). "Bless her heart, Tom, this is true
repentance! Our child will not soon forget this lesson. Let us be very
good to her."
_Mr. Markham_ (laughing). "Young saucebox! But there's true grit for
you! Well, I don't think I shall stoop to injure a child. Let it go. I'm
quits with Tom now, and we'll begin again even."
_Mr. Hampshire_ (laughing). "She's a nice little dot, after all. I
don't see what possessed her. I'd like to show this to Maria; guess I
won't, though, for it is partly _my_ business to keep the little name
white."
And none of them ever told. When Roxy was an old woman, she related to
me the story herself. The name was kept white through life. Such a
scrupulous, kindly, charitable old lady! The only strange thing about
her was, that she never could eat anything flavored with cinnamon, or
which had raisins in it.
Transcriber's notes: Obvious spelling/typographical and punctuation
errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other
occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
scan 014 line 4: corrected closing double quote to single
scan 014 line 10: corrected "dooping" to "drooping"
scan 024 line -4: corrected "after wards" to "afterwards"
scan 032 Illustration caption: corrected closing single quote to double
scan 047 line -6: "said," inferred
scan 047 line -4: "untie" inferred
scan 047 line -3: "honestly," inferred