CHAPTER 11
An Embarrassing Visitor
Up to the time of the unpleasantness with Laura, the girls had unlockedthe cottage in the morning and had left it unlocked until they wereready to go home at night, for the girls spent all their waking hours atDandelion Cottage. Bettie, indeed, had the care of the youngest twoTucker babies, but they were good little creatures and when the girlsplayed with their dolls they were glad to include the two placid babies,just as if they too were dolls. The littlest baby, in particular, madea remarkably comfortable plaything, for it was all one to him whether heslept in Jean's biggest doll's cradle, or in the middle of thedining-room table, as long as he was permitted to sleep sixteen hoursout of the twenty-four. When he wasn't asleep, he sucked his thumbcontentedly, crowed happily on one of the cottage beds, or rolledcheerfully about on the cottage floor. The older baby, too, obliginglystayed wherever the girls happened to put him. After this experiencewith the Tucker infants, the Milligan baby had proved a greatdisappointment to the girls, for they had hoped to use him, too, as ananimated doll; but he had refused steadfastly to make friends even withBettie, whose way with babies was something beautiful to see.
The girls were all required to do their own mending, but they found itno hardship to do their darning on their own doorstep on sunny days, oraround the dining-room table if the north wind happened to be blowing,for they always had so many interesting things to talk about.
During the daytime, the cottage was never left entirely alone. It wasoccupied even at mealtimes because the four families dined and supped atdifferent hours; for instance, Marjory's Aunty Jane always liked her teaat half-past five, but Jean's people did not dine until seven. Owing tothe impossibility of capturing all the boys at one time, supper at theTucker house was a movable feast, so Bettie usually ate whenever shefound it most convenient. As for Mabel, it is doubtful if she knew theexact hours for meals at the Bennett house because she was invariablylate. After the handkerchief episode, the girls planned that one oranother of them should always be in the cottage from the time that itwas opened in the morning until it was again locked for the night. Themorning after the later quarrel, however, the girls met by previousarrangement on Mabel's doorstep, went in a body to the cottage, and,after they were all inside, carefully locked the door.
"We'll be on the safe side, anyway," said Jean. "Though I shouldn'tthink that Laura would ever want to come near the place again."
"Oh, she'll come fast enough," said Mabel. "She's cheeky enough foranything. Do you s'pose she told her mother about it? She said she wasgoing to."
"Pshaw!" said Marjory. "She was always threatening to tell her mother,but nothing ever came of it. If she'd told her mother half the thingsshe _said_ she was going to, she wouldn't have had time to eat orsleep."
It was hopeless, the girls had decided, to attempt to mend the ruinedphotograph, so, at Bettie's suggestion, they had sorrowfully cut it intofour pieces of equal size, which they divided between them. They hadjust laid the precious fragments tenderly away in their treasure boxeswhen the doorbell rang with such a loud, prolonged, jangling peal thateverybody jumped.
"Laura!" exclaimed the four girls.
"No," said Jean, cautiously drawing back the curtain of the front windowand peeping out. "It's Mrs. Milligan!"
"Goodness!" whispered Marjory, "there's no knowing what Laura toldher--she never _did_ tell anything straight."
"Let's keep still," said Mabel. "Perhaps she'll think there's nobodyhome."
"No hope of that," said Jean. "She saw us come in. But, pshaw! she can'thurt us anyway."
"No," said Marjory. "What's the use of being afraid? _We_ didn't doanything to be ashamed of. Aunty Jane says we should have turned Lauraout the day she took the handkerchiefs."
"I'm not exactly afraid," said Bettie, "but I don't like Mrs. Milligan.Still, we'll have to let her in, I suppose."
A second vigorous peal at the bell warned them that their visitor wasgetting impatient.
"You're the biggest and the most dignified," said Marjory, giving Jean ashove. "_You_ go."
"Don't ask her in if you can help it," warned Bettie, in a pleadingwhisper. "The doorbell sounds as if she didn't like us very well."
But the visitor did not wait to be asked to come in. The moment Jeanturned the key the door was flung open and Mrs. Milligan brushed pastthe astonished quartet and sailed into the parlor, where she seatedherself bolt upright on the cozy corner.
"I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Milligan, in a hard, cold tone thatfell unpleasantly on the cottagers' ears, "if you consider it ladylikefor four great overgrown girls to pitch into one poor innocent littlechild and a helpless baby? Your conduct yesterday was simply_outrageous_. You might have injured those children for life, or evenbroken the baby's back."
"Broken the baby's back!" gasped Bettie, in honest amazement. "Why, Isimply lifted him with my two hands and set him just outside the door. Inever was rough with _any_ baby in all my life!"
"I happen to know, on excellent authority," said Mrs. Milligan, "thatyou slapped both of those helpless children and threw them down thefront steps. Laura was so excited about it that she couldn't sleep, andthe poor baby cried half the night--we fear that he's injuredinternally."
"Nobody _here_ injured him," said Mabel. "He always cries all the time,anyhow."
"We _did_ put them out and for a very good reason," said Jean, speakingas respectfully as she could, "but we certainly didn't hurt either ofthem. I'm sorry if the baby isn't well, but I know it isn't our fault."
"Laura walked down the steps," said Bettie, "and the baby turned overand slid down on his stomach the way he always does."
"I should think that a _minister's_ daughter," said Mrs. Milligan, witha withering glance at poor shrinking Bettie, "would scorn to tell suchlies."
Bettie, who had never before been accused of untruthfulness, looked thepicture of conscious guilt; a tide of crimson flooded her cheeks and shefingered the buttons on her blouse nervously. She was too dumbfounded tospeak a word in her own defense. Mabel, however, was only too ready.
"Bettie never told a lie in her life," cried the indignant little girl."It was your own Laura that told stories if anybody did--and I guesssomebody did, all right. Laura _never_ tells the truth; she doesn't knowhow to."
"I have implicit confidence in Laura," returned Mrs. Milligan, frowningat Mabel. "I believe every word she says."
"Well," retorted dauntless Mabel, "that's more than the rest of us do.We kept count one day and she told seventy-two fibs that we _know_ of."
"Oh, Mabel, do hush," pleaded scandalized Bettie.
"Hush nothing," said Mabel, not to be deterred. "I'm only telling thetruth. Laura took our handkerchiefs and then fibbed about it, and we'vemissed a dozen things since that she probably carried off and--"
"Mabel, Mabel!" warned Jean, pressing her hand over Mabel's too recklesslips. "Don't you know that we decided not to say a word about thoseother things? They didn't amount to anything, and we'd rather have peacethan to make a fuss about them."
"I can see very plainly," said Mrs. Milligan, with cold disapproval,"that you're not at all the proper sort of children for my little Laurato play with. I forbid you to speak to her again; I don't care to haveher associate with you. I can believe all she says about you, for I'venever been treated so rudely in my life."
"Apologize, Mabel," whispered Jean, whose arm was still about theyounger girl's neck.
"If I was rude," said candid Mabel, "I beg your pardon. I didn't _mean_to be impolite, but every word I said about Laura was true."
"I shall not accept your apology," said Mrs. Milligan, rising to depart,"until you've sent a written apology to Laura and have retractedeverything you've said about her, besides."
"It'll never be accepted then," said quick-tempered Mabel, "for wehaven't done anything to apologize for."
"No, Mrs. Milligan," said Jean, in her even, pleasant voice. "No apologyto Laura can ever come from us. We stood her just as long as we c
ould,and then we turned her out just as kindly as anyone could have done it.I told Mother all about it last night and she agreed that there wasn'tanything else we _could_ have done."
"So did Mamma," said Bettie.
"So did Aunty Jane."
"Well," said Mrs. Milligan, pausing on the porch, "I'd thank you younggossips to keep your tongues and your hands off my children in thefuture."
Jean closed the door and the four girls looked at one another insilence. None of their own relatives were at all like Mrs. Milligan andthey didn't know just what to make of their unpleasant experience. Atlast, Marjory gave a long sigh.
"Well," said she, "I came awfully near telling her when she forbade ourplaying with Laura that my Aunty Jane has forbidden _me_ to even speakto her poor abused Laura."
"As for me," said Mabel, with lofty scorn, "I don't _need_ to beforbidden."
"Come, girls," said Jean, "I'm sorry it had to happen, but I'm glad thematter's ended. Let's not talk about it any more. Let's have one of ourown good old happy days--the kind we had before Laura came."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Bettie. "We'll each write out a billof fare for Mr. Black's dinner party, and we'll see how many differentthings we can think of. In that way, we'll be sure not to forgetanything."
"But the Milligans," breathed Marjory, promptly seeing through Bettie'stactful scheme.
The Milligan matter, however, was not by any means ended. It was truethat the girls paid no further attention to Laura, but this did notdeter that rather vindictive young person from annoying the littlecottagers in every way that she possibly could, although she was afraidto work openly.
As Laura knew, the girls took great pride in their little garden.Bettie's good-natured big brother Rob had offered to take care of theirtiny lawn, and he kept it smooth and even. The round pansy bed dailyyielded handfuls of great purple, white, or golden blossoms; the thriftynasturtiums were beginning to bloom with creditable freedom; and many ofthe different, prettily foliaged little plants in the long bed near theMilligans' fence were opening their first curious, many-colored flowers.
Some of the vegetables were positively getting radishes and carrots ontheir roots, as Bettie put it. The pride of the vegetable garden,however, was a huge, rampant vine that threatened to take possession ofthe entire yard. There was just the one plant; no one knew where theseed came from or how it had managed to get itself planted, but there itwas, close beside the back fence. For want of a better name, the girlscalled it "The Accident," and they expected wonderful things from itwhen the great yellow trumpet-shaped flowers should give place to fruit,although they didn't know in the least what kind of crop to look for.But this made it all the more delightful.
"Perhaps it'll be pumpkins," said Jean. "I guess I'd better hunt up arecipe for pumpkin pie, so's to be ready when the time comes."
"Or those funny, pale green squashes that are scalloped all around theedge like a dish," said Marjory.
"Or cucumbers," said Bettie. "I took Mrs. Crane a leaf, one day, and shesaid it _might_ be cucumbers."
"Or watermelons," said Mabel. "Um-m! wouldn't it be grand if it shouldhappen to be watermelons?"
"What I'm wondering is," said Jean, "whether there's any danger of thevine's going around the house and taking possession of the front yard,too. I could almost believe that this was a seedling of Jack's beanstalkexcept that it runs on the ground instead of up."
"If it tries to go around the corner," laughed Bettie, "we'll train itup the back of the house. Wouldn't it be fun to have pumpkins, orsquashes, or cucumbers, or melons, or maybe all of them at once, growingon our roof?"
The day after Mrs. Milligan's visit, Laura, who was not invited to theparty, and who found time heavy on her hands, watched the girls, afterstopping for Marjory, set out in their pretty summer dresses to spendthe afternoon at a young friend's house. Laura gazed after themenviously. There was no reason why she should have been invited, for shehad never met the little girl who was giving the party, but she didn'tthink of that. Instead, she foolishly laid the unintentional slight atthe little cottagers' door.
Mrs. Milligan was sewing on the doorstep and had given Laura adish-towel to hem. Saying something about hunting for a thimble, Laurawent to the kitchen, took the bread-knife from the table drawer, stolequietly out of the back door, and slipped between the bars of the backfence. Reaching the splendid vine that the girls loved so dearly, sheparted the huge, rough leaves until she found the spot where the vinestarted from the ground. First looking about cautiously to make certainthat no one was in sight, spiteful Laura drew the knife back and forthacross the thick stem until, with a sudden, sharp crack, the sturdy vineparted from its root.
Two minutes later, Laura, looking the picture of propriety, sat on theMilligans' doorstep hemming her dish-towel.
Of course, when the girls made their next daily excursion about theirgarden they were almost broken-hearted at finding their beloved vineflat on the ground, all withered and dead.
"Oh," mourned Marjory, "now we'll never know _what_ 'The Accident' wasgoing to bear, pumpkins or squashes or--"
"Yes," said Mabel, who was blinking hard to keep the tears back, "that'sthe hardest part of it, it was cut off in its p-prime--Oh, dear, I guessI'm g-going to cry."
"What _could_ have done it?" asked Bettie, who was not far fromfollowing Mabel's example. "Has anyone stepped on it?"
"Perhaps a potato bug ate it off," suggested Jean.
"A two-legged potato bug, I guess," said Marjory, who had been examiningthe ground carefully. "See, here are small sharp heel prints close tothe root."
"Whose handkerchief is this?" asked Mabel, picking up a small tightlycrumpled ball and unrolling it gingerly. "There's a name on it but myeyes are so teary I can't make it out."
"It looks like Milligan," said Bettie, turning it over, "but we can'ttell how long it's been here."
"Horrid as she is," said charitable Jean, "it doesn't seem as if evenLaura would do such a mean thing. I can't believe it of her."
"_I_ can," said Mabel. "If _she_ had a squash vine, or a pumpkin vine,I'd go straight over and spoil it this minute."
"No, no," said Jean, "we mustn't be horrid just because other folks are.We won't pay any attention to her--we'll just be patient."
The girls found four small, green, egglike objects growing on thewithered vine; they cut them off and these, too, were laid tenderly awayin their treasure boxes.
"When we get old," said Mabel, tearfully, "we'll take 'em out and tellour grandchildren all about 'The Accident.'"
But even this prospect did not quite console the girls for the loss oftheir treasure.
For the next few days, Laura remained contented with doing on the slywhatever she could to annoy the girls. One evening, when the girls hadgone home for the night and while her mother was away from home, Laurathrew a brick at one of the cottage windows, breaking a pane of glass.Reaching in through the hole, she scattered handfuls of sand on theclean floor that the girls had scrubbed that morning. Another night sheemptied a basketful of potato parings on their neat front porch anddaubed molasses on their doorknob--mean little tricks prompted by a meanlittle nature.
It wasn't much fun, however, to annoy persons who refused to show anysign of being annoyed, and Laura presently changed her tactics. Taking alarge bone from the pantry one day, when the girls were sitting on theirdoorstep, she first showed it to Towser, the Milligan dog, and thenthrew it over the fence into the very middle of the pansy bed. Ofcourse, the big clumsy dog bounded over the low fence after the bone,crushing many of the delicate pansy plants. After that at regularintervals, Laura threw sticks and other bones into the other beds withvery much the same result.
The next time Rob cut the grass he noticed the untidy appearance of thebeds and asked the reason. The girls explained.
"I'll shoot that dog if you say so," offered Rob, with honestindignation.
"No, no," said Bettie, "it isn't the _dog's_ fault."
"No," said Jean, "we're not
sure that the dog isn't the leastobjectionable member of the Milligan family."
"How would it do if I licked the boy?" asked Rob.
"It wouldn't do at all," replied Bettie. "He works somewhere in thedaytime and never even looks in this direction when he's home. He'safraid of girls."
"Then I guess you'll have to grin and bear it," said Rob, moving offwith the lawn-mower, "since neither of my remedies seems to fit thecase."