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Read Ebook: Nelly's First Schooldays by Franklin Josephine
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Ebook has 463 lines and 23572 words, and 10 pages
"No, thank yer," answered the old woman, laughing. She had a cause for being good-humored that day. "But why whack such a little critter as you be, Nell?"
Something in her manner made Comfort suspicious. She sat down and called Nelly to her. Taking hold of both her hands, she looked her full in the eyes.
"Then she sarved yer right," said the old colored woman, going back to her fish, "and I hope she'll treat yer so every time yer begin the aggrawation."
"No you hadn't," said Comfort, sternly, and at the same time gesticulating earnestly with the fish-fork. "It wasn't your part to do any punishin', whatsomever. Leastways, no punishment but one."
"And what's that?" demanded Nelly, making large A's and O's in the steam that had settled on the windows. Here Martin suddenly put down a big newspaper he had been reading in a corner, and which had hidden him entirely from view.
"Have you so soon forgotten your old rule of good for evil, Nell?" he asked. "Don't you know that is what Comfort means?"
Comfort nodded at him approvingly.
"Did you ever try it?" asked Martin.
"Well, no-o. You see I could tell it was of no use. And Miss Harrow, she stands Melindy on a chair with a paper cap on her head, every day, at dinner-time."
"Poor girl," said Martin, "I am sorry for her."
"I'm not," said Nell, promptly, "it keeps her from mischief, you know."
Martin was silent.
Comfort began to sing a tune over her fish, interrupting herself at times with a low, quaint laugh, as though particularly well pleased with some thought.
"What's the matter, Comfort?" asked Nelly.
"Oh, nuthin'," was the answer; "I guess I'm not very miserable to-day, that's all;" and off she went in a chuckle again.
"Nelly," said Martin, after another grave pause, "you used to be a better girl than you are now. Last summer, about the time Marm Lizy died, you tried ever so hard to be good, and you improved very much indeed."
"I know it," said Nell, a little sadly, "and I would be good now, if it wasn't for Melindy Porter. Ever since I've been to school I've felt hard and wicked. She torments and worries me so, that I think sometimes there's no use in tryin' to be good at all. I do and say wrong things, just when I don't mean to, all along o' Melindy."
"If you and Melindy were friends, you wouldn't feel so, would you?"
"Still, you would rather be friends than enemies, Nell, wouldn't you? You would prefer that this little girl"--
"Big one, ever so big," interrupted Nelly, quickly.
"You would prefer that this big girl, then, should bear you no malice, even if you didn't like her, and she didn't like you. Isn't it so?"
"Well, yes. I would like to have her stop pinchin' and pullin' the hairs of all o' us little ones. That's what I'd like, Martin."
"That's easy done, Nelly," said Martin in a confident tone.
"Easy, Martin? How easy?"
"No," broke in Comfort, "that ar wouldn't be right, Martin, for sartain."
Martin looked a little puzzled.
Martin said this with such a pleading, earnest look, smiling coaxingly on Nelly as he spoke, that, for the moment, the heart of the little girl was softened.
"Pray for them that uses yer spitefully," said Comfort with solemnity.
Nelly seemed struck by this.
"What, pray for Melindy?" she asked meditatingly.
The next morning, just as Nelly was starting for school, Martin drew her, mysteriously, aside.
"Which hand will you have, Nell?" he asked, holding both behind him.
"This one," she said, eagerly, touching the right hand, in which she had caught a side glimpse of something glittering like burnished gold.
Martin smilingly extended towards her a small, oval box, covered with a beautiful golden paper.
"How very, very lovely," cried Nell, opening it.
"It is yours," said Martin, "but only yours to give away. I want you to do something with it."
"Can't I keep it? Who must I give it to?"
"Melindy!"
"Oh, Martin, I can't, I just can't,--there!"
"Then you don't wish to make her good, Nell! You want her to be cruel and wicked and hard as long as she lives!"
"You refuse then?"
She looked at him, sighed, and turned away.
Martin put his box in his pocket, and walked off in the direction of the barn.
At dinner-time, Nelly came home quite radiant. Lessons had gone smoothly. Miss Harrow had praised her for industry at her books, "and, would you believe it, Martin," she added in an accent of high satisfaction, "Melinda didn't make but two faces at me all the whole morning! Wasn't that nice? They were pretty bad ones, though,--bad enough to last! She screwed her nose all up, this way! Well, if you'll give me the box now, I'll take it to her this afternoon. I don't feel hard against Melindy at all, now."
Martin brought it to her after dinner, with great alacrity; and Nell walked very slowly to school with it in her hands, opening and shutting the lid a dozen times along the road, and eyeing it in an admiring, fascinated way, as though she would have no objection in the world to retain possession of it herself.
It was a hard effort to offer it to Melinda. So pretty a box she had never seen before.
"I mean to ask Martin," she thought, "if he cannot find me another just like it."
Near the door of Mrs. Harrow's little house, Nelly encountered her tormentor, quite unexpectedly. She was standing outside, talking in a loud, boisterous way to two or three of the other children. Melinda was a tall, rather good-looking girl, of about fourteen years of age. She was attired in a great deal of gaudy finery, but was far from being neat or clean in appearance. At the present time, a large, freshly-torn hole in her dress, showed that in the interval between schools, she had been exercising her warlike propensities, and had come off, whether victor or not, a little the worse for wear. Her quilted red silk hood was now cocked fiercely over her eyes, in a very prophetic way. Nelly knew from that, as soon as she saw her, that she was in a bad frame of mind.
Not daring to speak to her then, Nelly was quietly proceeding towards the door of the school, when with one or two tremendous strides, Melinda met her face to face.
"How did you like the big thumping I gave you yesterday?" she asked, with a grim smile.
Nelly walked on very fast, trying to keep from saying anything at all, in the fear that her indignation might express itself too plainly.
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