Rosemary

J >> Josephine Lawrence >> Rosemary

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"Could we tie Shirley to a tree?" asked Rosemary hopefully.

"She's too big for that," Winnie advised her. "Sarah was only three
years old when that was tried. Shirley would untie the knots or cut
the rope or get someone to unloose her. No, we'll have to keep a
good watch on her and trust to making her see she's doing wrong. You
can reason with Shirley, if she is only six years old."

"Oh dear," sighed Rosemary, quite worn out with her experiences, "I
never knew it was so hard to bring up children!"

"Biggest job in the world," Winnie said shortly. "Mothers never rest
and their work is never done."

The next morning Rosemary coaxed Sarah to play paper dolls with
Shirley on the porch while she practised and she went to her music
with a clear conscience. For an hour the scales and trills sounded
and wound up with a grand march for good measure. Stepping out on
the porch Rosemary found it deserted, the paper dolls scattered on
the rug, the box overturned where the children had left it.

"Shirley!" cried Rosemary. "Sarah!"

"I'm cleaning the rabbit house," shouted Sarah, and Rosemary hurried
around to the side yard.

"Where's Shirley?" she demanded anxiously.

"Shirley? Isn't she on the porch?" Sarah's dirt-streaked face peered
through the wire netting which surrounded her pets.

"No, she isn't, and I'm afraid she has run away again," said
Rosemary, troubled. "How long ago did you leave her, Sarah?"

"Oh, about half an hour," replied Sarah carelessly. "She wanted to
cut out more dolls and I got her the scissors and asked her if she
minded if I came and cleaned the pens. Elinor gets sick so easily I
don't like to let the house go without cleaning it every other day."

"Bother Elinor!" said Rosemary impatiently. "Come help me look for
Shirley. Hugh is coming home for lunch--he telephoned and Winnie
answered it."

They hunted through the house, but no Shirley could be found.
Rosemary even went to two or three of the nearest neighbors, but the
small girl was not there.

"Shirley? I saw her going down the street with her express wagon,"
volunteered Ray Anderson, a four year old boy who lived a few doors
away. "She was on the other side of the street."

"If I knew where to go look for her, I would," said the worried
Rosemary, "but there are twenty streets she could be on. I'll run
over to the dump lot, Sarah; perhaps she has gone there again."

"You'll have to run all the way, if you get back by half-past
twelve," observed Sarah dispassionately. "Aunt Trudy said she was
going to tell Hugh the next time any of us were late to meals."

And though Rosemary ran most of the way to the dump lot on the other
side of town--where a single hasty glance satisfied her that Shirley
was not among the groups engaged in pulling over the unsavory
messes--and all the way back, the others were seated at the luncheon
table when she reached the house. She heard a distinct rumble of
thunder as she entered the door.

"Mercy, child, how hot you look!" was Aunt Trudy's greeting. "I
don't see why you girls don't try to come to your meals on time; I
take so much pains to have the things you like and Winnie is such a
good cook. And yet the three of you haven't been punctual for a
week."

"I'm afraid I set them a bad example," smiled Doctor Hugh. "Let's
form a compact--when Aunt Trudy tells me that not one of you has
been late for a week to any meal, I'll have the clock fixed."

The dining-room clock was an old joke in the Willis family. It was a
cuckoo clock and had been broken for more than a year, but remained
one of those things that are never attended to. Several times a week
the little mother had mentioned that the dining-room clock really
must be mended, but it was always forgotten. Since Hugh had been
home he had often declared that the clock must be fixed but it still
remained mute and useless.

"Shirley loves to hear the cuckoo call," said Rosemary, and
instantly regretted her remark.

"Where is Shirley?" was the doctor's natural question.

"I dare say she's run away again," announced Aunt Trudy, her tone
resigned.

"Run away?" repeated Doctor Hugh sharply. "Why, what do you mean?"

"Well, Hugh I'm sorry to tell you, but Shirley has run away several
times lately," said Aunt Trudy. "She has been absent from lunch
twice this week. I've talked to her and I know Rosemary has, but
nothing seems to do any good."

A vivid flash of lightning, followed by a roar of thunder and a
sudden torrent of rain heralded the arrival of the thunder shower.

"Do you mean to tell me that that baby has been allowed to run
around this town alone?" demanded the doctor sternly. "What have you
been thinking of? What have you all been doing?"

"Well she is very self-willed," offered Aunt Trudy, "and I have no
strength left this hot weather. I said yesterday that you ought to
know about it."

"Why didn't you tell him, then?" suggested Sarah impertinently.

"That will do," said her brother. "Rosemary, how long has Shirley
been gone?"

"About an hour now," admitted Rosemary reluctantly. "I've been over
to the dump lot, Hugh, and she isn't there."

"The dump lot!" ejaculated the doctor. "Is that where Shirley is in
the habit of going? Suppose you tell me about this and how long it
has been going on."

The shrill ring of the telephone bell interrupted Rosemary's
recital. Doctor Hugh answered it. He came back to the dining-room
frowning, yet oddly enough looking relieved.

"Shirley is in the Moreland police station," he announced. "She was
picked up during the height of the storm with her express wagon.
I'll go over in the car and bring her home. Want to come, Rosemary?"

Rosemary did, and the sun was shining out again as they took their
places in the roadster.

"Don't look so sober, dear," said Doctor Hugh, glancing at the grave
face close to his shoulder. "I'm not blaming you, except that I wish
you had told me at once. This experience will probably quite cure
Shirley from running off. Heigh-o, I wonder what you girls will
think of to do next?"

Moreland was the town adjoining Eastshore, and ten minutes' ride
brought them to the door of the police station. Rosemary clung
tightly to her brother's arm as they went up the steps.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," he assured her.

Then someone folded back one of the heavy oak doors and they found
themselves in a large, bare room.

CHAPTER VIII

SARAH IN DISGRACE

The first person Rosemary saw was Shirley, looking very small and
forlorn. She sat on a chair so high that her little feet dangled in
mid-air. One hand clutched a half eaten bun, the other held a
scarcely tasted glass of milk.

"Oh Rosemary!" cried the familiar little voice. "I'm so glad you've
come!"

An obliging man in a blue uniform took the bun and the glass of milk
and Rosemary hugged Shirley tightly.

"How could you run away again, darling?" the older sister whispered
reproachfully. "You worried us so! Were you out in the rain?"

"Only a little," said Shirley, restored to cheerfulness now that
Rosemary was here to take care of her.

"She got frightened when it began to thunder," the sergeant at the
desk was saying to Doctor Hugh. "As nearly as I can make out, from
what she says, she started to run at the first clap, and ran away
from her home, instead of toward it. She crossed the line from
Eastshore into Moreland before Jim Doran found her, running as hard
as she could and jerking the express wagon behind her and crying as
though her heart would break. He brought her here and as soon as she
calmed down a bit and told us her name and address, we telephoned
you. Oh, no thanks due us at all--we get a lost child every week or
so. But you ought to break her of running away--the automobile
traffic is so heavy, specially in the summer time, it's dangerous
for a child to be crossing the streets alone."

Doctor Hugh shook hands with the sergeant and turned toward Rosemary
and Shirley.

"Come here, Shirley," he said quietly.

A little frightened, Shirley approached him dubiously. He lifted her
gently and swung her to the top of the table before the sergeant's
desk.

"There's a sand box and a box of sand toys coming to our house
to-morrow," he said unexpectedly, "but I couldn't think of letting a
little runaway girl touch them. Perhaps I had better send them back
to the store."

A sand-box had been one of Shirley's fondest wishes.

"Oh, no, Hugh," she begged, "Don't send them back, please don't. I
won't run away again, ever. Honestly."

"Will you promise not to leave the yard again unless you first ask
Rosemary or Winnie or Aunt Trudy?" asked the doctor.

"Yes," nodded Shirley instantly.

"Well then, if you are not going to run away again, I'll keep the
sand-box," decided Doctor Hugh. "And now we must be getting home for
I have a busy afternoon ahead of me."

The sergeant shook hands with Shirley and told her that she was wise
to make up her mind to play in her own yard. His little girl, he
said, never ran away. The blue-coated man who had taken the bun and
the milk, carried the express wagon down and put it in the car, and
fifteen minutes later Shirley was deposited safely on her own front
porch.

The sand-box and the toys came the next morning and Shirley played
for hours with them. Sometimes she induced Sarah to play with her,
but more often that young person was otherwise engaged. She had a
lame cat to care for now in addition to the rabbits and Winnie
declared that if it came to a choice between cream for her aunt's
tea or the cat, she wouldn't trust Sarah with the bottle.

"I don't think you have a very kind heart, Winnie," said Sarah one
morning when she had been discovered in a raid on the refrigerator.

"Well I have some conscience and you haven't, or you wouldn't be
wanting to feed loin chops that cost forty-five cents a pound to a
cat," declared Winnie grimly.

"Sick animals need good food," maintained Sarah, swinging on the
screen door, a habit which invariably irritated Winnie.

"Go on out and play, do," she now advised Sarah. "How can I get my
work done with you buzzing around me like a fly! Well what do you
suppose struck the child that minute--" Winnie broke off in
amazement. Sarah had dashed around to the front of the house,
banging the screen door noisily behind her. Not curious enough to
speculate further, Winnie went on with her task of scrubbing the
table top already immaculate in its snowy purity.

Aunt Trudy was descending the front stairs leisurely an hour or two
later, pleasantly contemplating the nearness of the lunch hour, when
the door bell rang sharply. Really it sounded as though someone had
jabbed it viciously. Aunt Trudy approached the door with reproving
dignity.

"You're Miss Wright, aren't you?" said a rasped voice. "Well, I'm
Mrs. Anderson and I want to tell you that something has got to be
done to Sarah; that child is simply unbearable. She slapped the face
of my Ray this morning and the poor lamb came into the house crying
with pain. He's only four years old, and I think when a great girl
of nine takes to slapping babies' faces, she needs a sound whipping.
No, I won't come in, but I was determined you should know about it.
That child will end up in prison if her temper isn't curbed."

"No one ever spoke to me like that, Hugh," complained Aunt Trudy
tearfully to her nephew when he came in a few minutes later. "She
didn't give me a chance to say a word. I'm sure I don't approve of
Sarah slapping any one's face."

"Of course you don't," agreed the doctor soothingly. "Where is the
culprit? We'll see what she has to say for herself. Look here,
Sarah," he opened fire as that young person came up the porch steps
and into the hall, "Mrs. Anderson says you slapped Ray's face this
morning."

"Well?" inquired Sarah coolly.

"Did you?" said the doctor matching her briefness.

"I certainly did," Sarah assured him. "He is a bad, cruel boy and I
wish I had slapped him harder. He was stepping on poor baby ants!"

Aunt Trudy stared in astonishment, but something pathetic in Sarah's
defiant little figure touched Doctor Hugh. She so evidently
considered she had vindicated herself.

"That wasn't being kind, was it?" he said gently, "but, Sarah,
slapping his face didn't teach him not to step on ants--it merely
taught him that one of his neighbors was a very impolite little
girl. I want you to go over now and apologize to Mrs. Anderson."

"But I slapped Ray," hedged Sarah cannily.

"Well Ray is so little he probably doesn't hold malice," explained
Doctor Hugh seriously. "It is Mrs. Anderson's feelings that are
hurt; don't you think you are a little ashamed, Sarah, to know you
struck a child so much younger than you are?"

"Go and tell her you are sorry, dearie," suggested Aunt Trudy.

"I won't say I am sorry, because that would be a lie," said Sarah
virtuously.

"If you are not sorry you slapped Ray you ought to be, because such
an act is the height of discourtesy," declared the doctor. "However,
if you apologize, I don't doubt that will be satisfactory. Go right
away, Sarah."

"I think Mrs. Anderson should apologize to us," announced Sarah with
explosive suddenness. "She came over here telling tales and that is
the meanest thing any one can do. You hate tale-bearers, you said so
Hugh."

The doctor's long-suffering patience snapped.

"What Mrs. Anderson does is no concern of yours," he said testily.
"If you do not go to her house immediately and apologize, Sarah,
I'll march you over there and wait while you do it. I've listened to
all the argument I intend to."

"I'll go," surrendered Sarah sullenly.

What she said could only be conjectured but apparently Mrs. Anderson
was mollified for peace reigned the remainder of the week. Sunday
afternoon though, a fresh storm broke, with Sarah again the center.

"Where's Sarah?" Doctor Hugh demanded, meeting Rosemary in the hall
on his return from a round of calls.

Rosemary was dressed in white and ready for a sedate walk with Aunt
Trudy.

"She's in your office, reading," she answered. "She likes the goat
skin rug, you know."

"All right," nodded the doctor, "run along, chick, and tell Aunt
Trudy to keep on the shady side of the street. The sun is blazing."

Sarah was not visible from the door, but walking around his desk,
her brother discovered her stretched full length in her favorite
reading attitude, on the white goat skin rug. Her book dealt with
the health of cats.

"Sarah," began the doctor looking down at her, "did you take a
telephone message from Mrs. Anderson yesterday morning?"

Sarah looked obstinate.

"Did you?" her brother insisted. "Answer me," he commanded, pulling
her to her feet.

"Yes I did," muttered Sarah. "Rosemary was busy practising and
Winnie's bread was in the oven."

"Why didn't you tell me she wanted me to call there Saturday night?"
demanded the doctor sternly.

"'Cause," murmured Sarah uneasily.

"You're ashamed to tell me, and I don't wonder," Doctor Hugh said
crisply. "You'd let a miserable little thing like an apology you
were forced to make her, interfere with your loyalty to service. I
thought you were bigger than that, Sarah," he added.

Sarah said nothing.

"If you were a nurse in a hospital or a doctor's office, you'd be
dismissed," her brother went on, "for all you know I might have been
needed seriously. As it happened, no harm was done, but that doesn't
excuse you. Hereafter you are not to answer the phone under any
circumstances. You can't be trusted to deliver the messages you
receive."

If he had only known it, Doctor Hugh had delivered a severe blow to
Sarah's pride. She had been extremely proud of her ability to answer
the telephone and welcomed the rare opportunities when Rosemary was
out or busy with her beloved music. But she said nothing and after a
day or two the doctor realized that she was not on "speaking terms"
with him.

"She ought to be spanked," he confided to Winnie, "but I don't
believe in that form of punishment for children as old as she is."

"It wouldn't do any good," said Winnie, "your mother spanked her
years ago when she'd take these silent fits. It only made her more
obstinate. You can do more with Sarah, Hughie, by helping her out
of a tight place than any way I know. She's always getting into
trouble and she never forgets the ones that stand by her. You keep
your eyes open and the chance will come."

The opportunity came sooner than either of them expected. For nearly
a week Jack Welles had been storming, to any one who would listen to
him, about the "low-down" thief who nightly took his can of fishing
worms.

"Plumb lazy, I call it," grumbled Jack, "to cart away the worms a
fellow breaks his back digging. Some worthless tramp is catching
fish with my worms and I intend to catch him."

His wails had reached the ears of Doctor Hugh, himself an ardent
fisherman when time permitted and his sympathies were entirely with
the defrauded one.

"Sit up some night and watch," he advised the lad. "Put the can in
the usual place--where do you keep it--on the back step?--all right,
put it there, and then hide back of the willow tree. You say it is
done sometime between ten and twelve, for you go to bed at ten and
your father comes home at midnight and finds the can empty? That
ought to make it easy for you, for you know when to watch for the
thief."

Jack's father was engaged in some delicate electrical experiments
that were conducted in his factory at night to escape the vibration
caused by the heavy machines.

Coming home from the Jordan office a little after then the next
night after he had given Jack his advice, Doctor Hugh remembered
what he had said and wondered if the boy had been successful in
detecting the thief. As he neared the Welles house he heard loud and
angry voices.

CHAPTER IX

WHEN PATIENCE SLIPS

"If I ever catch you touching my can of worms again, I'll--I'll--"
words apparently failed Jack and he began to sputter.

"Got him, Jack?" the doctor leaped the hedge lightly and ran
diagonally across the lawn to the back of the Welles's house.

"Him?" growled Jack in disgust. "Him! Look at this--" and he flashed
a pocket light that revealed to the astonished Doctor Hugh the
tear-streaked face of Sarah.

"For the love of Mike!" gasped her brother. "Have you been taking
Jack's worms?"

"Yes she has," Jack answered for her. "She's been dumping the can
out every night. And if she does it again I'll shake her if she is a
girl."

"Hold on, hold on," said Doctor Hugh pacifically. "Let's get the
hang of this; why did you empty Jack's can of worms, Sarah?"

"It--it hurts them to be jabbed with a hook," wept Sarah.

"Like fun it does," retorted Jack scornfully. "Worms haven't any
feelings, hardly."

"Well fishes have and if you haven't any worms you can't catch
fishes," stormed Sarah. "I will too throw away your worms."

"You will not!" flashed Jack, taking a step toward her.

Sarah, the defiant, turned and fled toward her brother. He put his
arm about her and found that she was shaking with nervous sobbing.

"I'll see you to-morrow, Jack," he said quietly. "There is no use in
rousing the whole neighborhood. Come on, Sarah, we're going home."

He lifted the little girl in his arms and strode across the grass,
entering the door of the house noiselessly and depositing her in a
large arm chair in the office. Then he went into the kitchen, warmed
a glass of milk and made her drink it.

"Now tell me all about it," he said, sitting down at his desk to
face her. Sarah, he knew, had a horror of being "fussed over" and he
did not dare pet her though he wished his mother were there to
cuddle the pathetic little figure in her arms.

"I emptied the can every night, after Jack went to bed," said
Sarah. "That's all. He doesn't care how much he hurts them, but I
do."

"But how could you stay awake from eight till ten o'clock?" asked
the doctor curiously, "and how could you come down stairs without
waking Shirley or being seen by Aunt Trudy or Winnie?"

"I didn't go to bed, that is not really," confided Sarah. "I lay
down with all my clothes on, because Rosemary always comes in to see
that our light is out before she goes to bed. But after nine o'clock
I stayed up till I saw Jack shut the kitchen door of his house and
then I knew he was through digging worms."

"Didn't you ever go to sleep before Rosemary came in to look at
you?" asked her brother. "Not once?"

"Not once," said Sarah firmly. "I put three of Shirley's building
blocks under my back so I couldn't. And when I got up I sat on the
window sill so if I went to sleep I'd wake up when I fell out."

"Well you are thorough," admitted the doctor. "Weren't you afraid
Aunt Trudy would come in and find you sitting up? Or hear you
falling out of the window?"

"I didn't fall," declared Sarah, matter-of-factly. "And Aunt Trudy
never comes to see if we are in bed. Mother used to, every night."

"I see," the doctor frowned a little. "Well, Sarah, you'll have to
let Jack's worms alone after this. I'm not going to argue with you
about the feelings of the worms or the fish (you'll get that point
better when you are a little older) but I'll put it to you this way;
they're Jack's worms and you mustn't touch what belongs to him. And,
also, you can't go about making people think as you do. If you don't
believe in fishing, all right; you are at perfect liberty not to
fish. But you have no call to try to stop other people from fishing.
Jack may not approve of the way you keep your rabbits. He may think
they should be turned loose and allowed to destroy the garden. If he
came over here night after night and let your rabbits out, think how
angry you would be. Do you see, dear? You do what you feel to be
right and let the other fellow keep tabs on his own conscience."

Sarah thought a few minutes.

"Well, I will," she sighed reluctantly. "Worms are awfully nasty
things, anyway, Hugh. I had to pick some of them out of the can
with my fingers, because they wouldn't come out."

"Then we're all serene again," said her brother cheerfully. "And now
it is after eleven and high time you were asleep."

Sarah gave him a quick, shy kiss at the head of the stairs and
vanished into her room. She was always chary of caresses and her
mother declared that she could count the times Sarah had voluntarily
kissed her.

The last two weeks of July were an unbroken "hot spell." Eastshore
was ordinarily comfortable in the summer time but the heat wave that
gripped the country made itself felt and not all the pleasant effect
of wide lawns and old shade trees could counteract the hot, humid
nights and the blazing, parched days. An occasional thunder shower
did its best to bring comfort, but the heat closed in again after
each gust, seemingly more intense than ever. It was a trying test
for tempers and dispositions and the Willis household began to
develop "nerves."

"I should think you children could manage to remember to shut the
screens doors behind you," remarked Doctor Hugh one morning at the
breakfast table. "If there is one thing positively unendurable, it
is flies in the house!"

Winnie put down the cream pitcher beside his cup of coffee with an
emphasis that threatened to spray him with its contents.

"You'd better be speaking to Sarah," she said grimly. "I'm about
wore out, arguing with her. She won't let me use the fly-batter at
all and why? Because it is cruel to kill the dear darling little
flies that tramp all over our food with their filthy feet!"

Rosemary giggled. She sat in Aunt Trudy's place, cool and neat in a
blue gingham dress, her charming bobbed head making a pretty picture
silhouetted against the light of the window behind her. The warm
weather had reconciled Rosemary to the loss of her hair. Aunt Trudy
often pleaded a headache mornings and Rosemary took her place at the
silver tray and poured her brother's coffee.

"Don't let me hear any more such nonsense," said he sternly now.
"Keep the screens closed, Winnie, and kill any flies that get in.
Sarah, you are not to interfere in any way--and don't scowl like
that."

For reply Sarah kicked the table leg to the peril of her glass of
milk and Shirley's.

"You'll find yourself sent away from the table in another minute,"
her brother warned her. "Eat your breakfast and behave yourself."

"You'll be sorry when I'm dead," said Sarah, her voice plaintive
with self-pity.

Shirley thought the moment auspicious to make a reach for a hot
biscuit. Over went her glass of milk and her fat little hand landed
in the butter dish. The telephone bell saved her, as far as Doctor
Hugh was concerned, and when he came back to tell Rosemary that he
would not be home till dinner time and to give her a list of the
time and places when he could be reached during the day, Winnie had
removed all traces of the accident.

"I guess you must think I'm a washing machine," she grumbled after
the doctor had gone. "That's the tenth clean runner we've had on the
table this week. If we were using table cloths every meal I'd have
to give up--no living woman could keep this family in table cloths!"

"Sarah, are you going to make the beds this morning?" asked
Rosemary, on her way to sweep the porch, a duty she had assumed.

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