CHAPTER II.

_SARAH._

FANNY went back to her room feeling very much vexed and a good deal ashamed. She did not at all like to be conquered, and she had certainly had very much the worst of it in her contest with her grandmother. She had not only failed in getting her own way, but she had made herself ridiculous. Then, too, she had lost a very good dinner, a circumstance to which she was by no means indifferent.

"How I wish I had just gone down at first!" she thought. "But then who would have supposed she would take one up so? Oh dear, I wish I had never come here. It is all the fault of that hateful old nurse and doctor. I know mamma would have taken me only for them, and I should be having a nice time in London this very day, instead of being poked up in this lonesome place with nobody to play with but Sarah Leyman. And now grandma says I must not go with her. But I don't care, I 'will' play with her. Mamma always let me play with anybody I pleased, and I guess she knows. I am not going to be made a slave of just because my mother is sick—so there!"

"Fanny," called Mrs. Lilly from the foot of the stairs, "do you want to go to the meeting to-night?"

Now Fanny liked very well to go to the meetings in the schoolhouse, though she had called them stupid. The walk was a very pleasant one through the woods and along the banks of the beautiful little river. They were sure to see squirrels and chipmucks and perhaps a wild rabbit, and the lambs in the pastures were so full of their pretty plays that Fanny was never tired watching them. Then the old ladies who came to the meeting took a great deal of notice of her, so that though she did not care for the services, she rather liked to go to the Sunday and Thursday meetings. But to-night she was just in the humour to "quarrel with her bread and butter," as Oney said. So when her grandmother asked her, she answered shortly that she did not want to go.

"You will be left alone in the house," said her grandmother.

"I would just as soon be alone as not," returned Fanny.

"To be sure, there is nothing to hurt you," said her grandmother, "but I thought you might be afraid. However, you can do just as you please."

"I mean to do as I please, thank you," said Fanny, under her breath.

Mrs. Lilly, seeing that Fanny was still out of humour, said no more, but shut the door, and presently went out with Oney. Fanny watched them across the fields. And when they were quite out of sight, she went down stairs into the pantry.

"I don't care; I mean to have some of that raspberry pie, anyhow," said she.

But in vain did she search; she could find neither pie nor cake.

Mrs. Lilly was not in the habit of locking up such things, but she had reason to think that Fanny helped herself slyly to a good deal more than was good for her, and she had taken the precaution before she went out to lock the door of the milkroom.

Fanny stamped her foot with vexation.

"Just like her, the stingy old thing! I don't care; I will have some in spite of her."

"Some of what?" asked a voice behind her.

Fanny started violently, and turned round in a hurry to see Sarah Leyman standing in the kitchen door.

"How you frightened me!" exclaimed Fanny, in an angry tone.

"Yes, you jumped as if you had been shot," returned Sarah, laughing. "I saw your folks going to meeting, and I knew you would be alone. But what is the matter? What have you been crying about?"

Fanny poured out the story of her wrongs with many exaggerations.

"What a shame!" said Sarah. "Folks think Mrs. Lilly is such a good woman, too!"

"Well, I suppose she is," said Fanny, "but I think she is too bad to treat me so. I know there are plenty of nice things in the milkroom, but the door is locked and I can't find the key anywhere."

"Isn't there any other key that will fit the door?" asked Sarah.

Fanny brought all the keys of the house, but none of them fitted.

"Can't we climb in at the window?" asked Sarah. "'I' can, I know."

"You can't, bemuse there are bars across it."

"Bother!" Sarah stood considering for a minute, and then, as if struck with a sudden thought, she ran out at the kitchen door.

Fanny followed her, and found her standing at the side of the milkroom. This room was a "lean-to" built on the north side of the house, and two or three of the clapboards were so arranged as to turn edgewise like window-blinds to let the cool air in on the milk. Sarah was peeping through these boards.

"Just look there!" said she as Fanny came up.

Fanny peeped in, in her turn, and saw a whole raspberry pie standing on the broad shelf.

While she was looking, Sarah slipped off the jacket she wore, and thrusting her bare arm through the slats, she pulled out the pie and held it up in triumph.

"Well, I declare!" said Fanny, half pleased and half scared.

"I am going to have more than that, now I am about it," said Sarah.

And again putting her hand through the slats, she pulled out a large cake of gingerbread. As she drew back her hand, however, she hit the gingerbread against the edge of the slat and broke off a bit, which fell into the milk.

"That was smart!" exclaimed Fanny. "What will you do now?"

"Let it alone, to be sure," replied Sarah. "But grandma will find it when she skims the milk."

"Well, let her. She won't know how it came there, will she? Here, hold the things while I put on my jacket."

Fanny did not quite relish Sarah's tone of command, but she did not know how to object, and she did as she was told.

"Come now!" said Sarah, when she had put on her jacket and closed up the slats again. "Let's go up to the spring and have a good time."

"But suppose grandma comes and catches us before we get through; what shall we do then?" asked Fanny.

"She won't come home this hour and more, goosey. Meeting is not out till six, and it is only five now. Besides, she always stops to talk to every one. Come along!"

"I wish you would not call me names, Sarah Leyman," said Fanny, angrily. "I am not used to it."

"Nonsense, child! Who minds being called a goose? Come along, and don't waste all the time."

"I won't go up to the spring; it is too far," said Fanny. "You can go if you like, and I will eat my piece here."

"'Your' piece!" returned Sarah, in a taunting tone. "Your piece, indeed! I should like to know how it comes to be yours. Do you think I am going to steal pies and cakes for 'you'?"

"Sarah Leyman, if you don't give me a piece of pie this minute, I will tell grandma the instant she comes home."

"Oh, you will? And tell her too how you told me where all the things were, and how you got all the keys to try the door, and how you ran away and went down to the village the other day, and then said you had been playing down by the brook all the time. Oh," said Sarah, "you will make a fine figure telling of me. Suppose I tell of you; what then?"

Fanny burst into tears.

"Oh, come, don't cry," said Sarah, changing her tone. "I was only in fun—only you see, Fanny, I don't like to hear you talk of telling of me as if I had been the only one to blame. Come, let us go up to the spring and have a nice time, and I will tell you what I heard Miss Clarke tell mother about the Brandons."

Fanny did not feel at all satisfied, but she dried her tears and followed Sarah through the garden and a small field beyond it, and then a little way up the path which ascended the mountain, till they came to the spring.

It was a beautiful place. Just at the foot of a high, steep ledge of rocks was a little mossy dell shaded by great pine and spruce trees, mixed with graceful white-stemmed birches. The ground was covered with moss and ferns, and scattered over its surface lay several large rocks covered with lovely green and brown mosses. The spring came running out of the very heart of the mountain, as it seemed, about four feet from the ground, in a stream as large as a man's wrist. And making a pretty little cascade as it fell down the stones, it slipped away among the roots of the great trees to join the river below. Almost all day long this little glen was in shadow, but as the sun got low in the sky, it shone in and lighted everything beautifully.

The girls sat down on a stone side by side, and Sarah divided the pie with a knife which she took out of her pocket.

"Take care! Don't drop the juice on your dress," said she. "Here, wait till I make you a dish."

"How will you make a dish?" asked Fanny.

"You'll see," said Sarah.

And going to the nearest birch tree, she cut round the bark and peeled it off in a broad sheet. Then turning up the edges, she made of it a very nice square dish and handed it to Fanny.

"How pretty!" exclaimed Fanny. "But won't it hurt the tree to take the bark off so?"

"Oh no; it won't hurt the tree so long as you don't cut down through the soft wood," replied Sarah. "I have heard Aunt Sally say that when the country was new the school children used to learn to write on birch bark."

"How funny! Won't any other bark do as well?"

"No; other trees won't peel as the birch does."

"How much you do know about such things!" remarked Fanny.

"Well, I ought to know. I don't know anything else." There was a bitterness in Sarah's tone which made Fanny look up in surprise.

"It does make me mad," continued Sarah, "to see how other girls can go to school and have books at home, and all—such fools as some of them are too—and I never have a chance. It is too bad!"

"But you might go to school," said Fanny.

"Yes, I look like it, don't I?" returned Sarah, scornfully. "My clothes are so nice! I think I see myself going down to the Union school among all the young ladies, and being put into the baby-room to spell along with the little ones. I did use to go sometimes when we had the old district school up at the Corners, but it is altogether another thing now."

Fanny did not know what to say to this, so she was silent, and went on eating her pie.

"I tell you what," said Sarah: "if I had your chance, Fanny Lilly, I wouldn't be such a dunce as you are."

"What do you mean?" asked Fanny, surprised.

"I mean just what I say. Here you have been to school all your life and had good people to bring you up, and you have had, I dare say, hundreds of dollars spent on your schooling already, and what do you amount to? I don't see that you know much more than I do, and you are just as ready to get into any sort of mischief as I am. I suppose your folks are pious and believe in the Bible, and you have been to Sunday-school all your life and learned the commandments, and everything, haven't you?"

"Of course," replied Fanny; "I began to go to the infant school before I can remember, and I could say all the catechism before I went into the intermediate room. We have such splendid Sunday-school rooms at our church in Boston—larger than the church is here, with a gallery all round it for the Bible classes, and the walls all hung with pictures, and with painted texts and with cushioned seats that turn like those in the cars." And Fanny went on describing the beauties and glories of her Sunday-school room, and, I am sorry to say, stretching the truth a good deal in order to show Sarah how much superior was everything in Boston to everything anywhere else.

Sarah listened silently, but with evident interest. And when Fanny had concluded, she said, simply,—

"And after all that, you are not one bit better than I am."

Fanny was very much "taken aback." She had not expected any such answer.

"It just shows what all that stuff is worth," continued Sarah, breaking the gingerbread in two and giving Fanny half. "After all that teaching and preaching and reading the Bible and praying, here you are 'breaking the Sabbath,' as old Mrs. Crane says, running away to eat stolen goods on Sunday evening when your grandmother is at meeting. It just shows that you don't believe one word of it, any more than pa does, for all your talk. I wonder if anybody does?"

"Does what?" asked Fanny.

"Believe really in the Bible and all the minister preaches."

"Of course," said Fanny. "My father and mother do, and so do I."

"Oh, you do! Then, what are you here for?"

Fanny had no answer ready. She had never regarded the matter in that way before.

"Well, never mind," said Sarah. "Here we are, and the pie is eaten up, and there is no help for it now. I wonder how they are getting on at the schoolhouse? I think I can hear Deacon Crane starting the tune this minute."

And Sarah began to imitate first the deacon's way of singing, and then stammering Mr. Wilson trying to make a prayer, and so on, till she had Fanny in a fit of laughter, though something told her all the time that Sarah was doing wrong, and that she was equally wrong to laugh at her.

"It is getting late, Fanny," said Sarah, checking herself suddenly. "Hadn't you better be going home? Your folks will be back from meeting by this time. Look at the sun."

Fanny looked, and was startled to see how low it was in the sky. "They must have been home ever so long," said she. "What shall we do?"

"Oh, you needn't say 'we,'" returned Sarah, coolly. "It is nothing to me. I've had my supper, and I mean to stay up here till the moon rises, but I think you had better run along."

"But grandma will see me," said Fanny. "She will have missed me by this time, and what shall I say?"

"Say you got tired of staying alone and went out for a walk, and that you didn't know how late it was," returned Sarah, readily. "She won't think anything of that. I have known her walk up here herself on a Sunday evening."

"But what shall we do with the plate?"

"Hide it here," returned Sarah, putting the plate away in a kind of little cavern under the rock on which they had been sitting. "There it is safe enough, and we can have it to use again some time."

"But what shall I say when they miss the pie?"

"What you please," returned Sarah. "I guess you are as well able to make up lies as I am to make them for you. Oh, you needn't look at me! Didn't you tell me how you ran away from school at Boston, and all the rest of it? Come, do run along! You won't make it any better by waiting."

There was no help for it, and Fanny went on her way, wishing a hundred times that she had stayed quietly at home. As she entered the garden, she met Oney coming to look for her.

"Why, Fanny, where have you been?" asked Oney.

"I got tired of staying at home and went out for a walk," replied Fanny. "I didn't know it was so late. How long have you been at home?"

"About half an hour. But come, supper is almost ready."

Mrs. Lilly was standing at the back door when they came in.

Fanny repeated her story, adding, "I am sorry I stayed so long, grandma. I never thought how late it was till I looked at the sun, and then I hurried home as fast as I could. There was no harm in my going far a walk, was there?"

Fanny spoke in such a natural tone that Mrs. Lilly was quite deceived.

"Why, no, perhaps not, though you should not have left the house all open. And besides, you know I like to know where you are. There is no harm done, but I would rather you would not do so again."

"I won't," said Fanny, feeling a little self-reproach at the kind tone in which her grandmother spoke. "And, grandma, I am sorry I was so naughty this noon, but I will never do so again if you will forgive me this time."

Mrs. Lilly was pleased that Fanny should thus confess her fault and ask pardon of her own accord.

"I am sure I forgive you, my dear," said she, kissing Fanny. "I thought you would think better of it. Go, now, and get ready for supper."

"Oh dear! I wish I hadn't done so!" said Fanny as she went up stairs. "I wish I was good like grandma. I believe she is good, for all Sarah says. Anyhow, it was all Sarah's fault. She made me do it."