Читать книгу Leave it to Doris - Ethel Hueston - Страница 6

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"Why, Zee, however did you happen to get here ahead of time?" demanded Doris, glancing up from the potatoes she was watching so closely, for potatoes have a most annoying way of burning if you leave them a minute. It had taken Doris a long time to learn that.

"Um, yes, I am a little early, I guess," said Zee, in a still small voice. She busied herself about the table without reminder from her sister, an unwonted procedure for the Imp, but Doris was too concerned with the meal to pay much heed.

Rosalie and Treasure came in together a few moments later, and Zee was sent to call their father to the table.

"And don't dawdle, Babe, for things are piping hot, and we must allow three minutes for the blessing, you know."

Zee's appetite, usually above reproach, was negligible that day, and her gay voice, always so persistent in conversation, was quite subdued. But when the meal was over she lifted modest eyes to her father's face.

"I hope you aren't very exceptionally busy to-day, father," she began ingratiatingly.

"I am. I have Davison's funeral to-morrow—and it is not easy to conduct the funeral services of a bad man in a way that will afford comfort to his mourning relatives."

"I knew you would have a hard time of it, father," said Doris sympathetically. "I was hoping they would get some one else—The Methodist minister is new here, and doesn't know Davison as we did."

"One good thing about him, father," said Rosalie, "he never killed any one that we know of. You can come down strong on that, and sort of glide over everything else we know about him."

"I suppose one should come out flat-footed and hold him up as a model to other people who won't keep to the straight and narrow," said Doris thoughtfully.

"Perhaps. But a kind Providence has made it unnecessary for us to judge, you must remember."

"We can have our opinions, like other people, but we must not air them in the pulpit," said Rosalie.

"But whatever will you say, father? He was everything a good Presbyterian is not, and—"

"Doctor Burgess used to say that death blots out all evil," said Rosalie helpfully. "Can't you play that up?"

Mr. Artman smiled at their eagerness to be of help. "I shall just speak of the rest and sweetness of death after a life of turmoil and confusion, and shall emphasize very strongly how blessed it is that the soul goes direct to the presence of God, who knows all the secret motives hidden from human eyes."

"That is downright genius," approved Doris.

"Pretty slick, I call it," smiled Rosalie.

"Will you be busy the whole afternoon, father?" asked Zee, returning to the original subject.

"Did you want something?" He turned and looked at her, and from her sober face he caught the underlying need. "I always have time for my girls, you know. What can I do for you?"

"I am sorry but I am in bad at school again."

"Again," repeated Rosalie. "Don't you mean still?"

"Miss Hodges wants you to come with me—that is, she says I can not come back until you do. She is going to ask you to give a sort of pledge of good behavior for me, and you can't do it, for I am sure to break over once in a while. So there you are. Don't you think Doris could teach me at home this year?"

"But what in the world did you do, dear?" demanded Doris.

"Well, you will be horrified, of course, Doris—but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I did not feel well to begin with, and things went wrong from the first. Walter Dwight had some candy, and he passed it to me, and I was eating it—"

"In school?"

"Yes. And Miss Hodges saw me and told me to go to the window and throw it out—a very bad and unsanitary thing, throwing candy all over the play-grounds, but Miss Hodges makes us do it—and so I went to the window and looked out—and—I stood there a minute or so looking around to see what was going on in the playground, and I saw a robin sitting in the big maple, and I squinted my eye up at him, and aimed with the candy, and shot it at him."

Zee looked up sadly, and then lowered her eyes again. "Everybody laughed, and Miss Hodges was not at all pleased. She said I was a little nuisance."

A vague flickering smile passed from face to face around the table.

"What else?"

"She sent me into the science room to sit by myself half an hour and think. Professor was not there."

"What did you do?"

"I sat there."

"Yes?"

"Well, I kept on sitting there, and it was awfully monotonous. You know we have a skeleton in the physiology department now—I told you, didn't I? It was stuck up on the side of the wall on long hooks. And Professor's big amber glasses were on the desk—the girls say he wears them for style—so I put them on the skeleton. It looked awfully funny. And then Satan must have tempted me, for I did a terrible thing."

A long sigh went up from the table.

"The teachers' cloak-room opens from the science room."

"I see it all," said Doris solemnly.

"Go on, Zee. I don't get you, yet."

"The teachers' wraps were in the cloak-room. So I got Miss Hodges' hat and put it on the skeleton, and it looked so comical you would have laughed." A sad reminiscent smile flashed over the subdued but always impish features. "So I put her coat on too—it almost made me shiver to touch the thing, though Professor says it is very scientific, and he disinfected it with something when they got it. And I bent up its arm, and stuck her gloves in its fingers, and put her bag over the arm, and it looked for all the world like Miss Hodges in a grouch, and she is grouchy most of the time."

"Yes?"

"But I did not hear the recitation bell ring, and the door opened and in came the physical geography class and Miss Hodges. She was not at all pleased. So she invited father to come and talk me over with her."

"All right, I will go," said Mr. Artman quietly.

Zee sighed heavily. "I hope you understand, father, that I know it was a perfectly repre—repre—"

"—hensible," prompted Treasure softly.

"Yes, reprehensible thing to do, and I am fearfully ashamed of it. And it makes me sick to think I had to bother you when you are busy. But Miss Hodges need not have been so huffy about it. She's got a little more flesh, but her disposition isn't half as good as a skeleton's."

"Zee, you must not speak disrespectfully and flippantly of your teachers. It is not right, and it is not kind. If Miss Hodges has a room full of children as full of mischief as you are, it is no wonder she is sometimes impatient and nervous."

Zee subsided.

Mr. Artman rose from the table rather wearily and Zee brought his hat for him humbly.

"I hope you believe that I am sorry, father," she said as they set out together.

"I think you are sorry to bother me, but I must admit that I do not think you are sorry you annoyed Miss Hodges."

"I do think it was rather a good joke on her," admitted Zee.

"Miss Hodges is doing one good and noble thing. She is working hard, long hours and very wearily to earn money for herself and her mother and that little nephew who lives with them. She has to labor for her very bread, and for theirs also. Any one who makes life harder than need be for those who must toil for their existence is—excuse me, dear—but any one who does that is either needlessly cruel or criminally thoughtless. Whether she is the type of woman you like, whether she appeals to you personally or not—that is nothing. The fact remains that she is working for her life—and I hate to think it is my little girl making things hard for her."

Zee marched along beside him sturdily, without speaking for a while. Her dark merry eyes were clouded. Her rosy lips were a straight scarlet line. Two blocks, three blocks, they traversed in silence. Then she slipped little clinging fingers into his hand, and said softly:

"Father, I am sorry now—and I won't ever, any more. I have tried to tease her, and I like to make the other kids laugh. But I never thought of it the way you told me. Will you try not to be ashamed of me?"