CHAPTER XII
A GROWING GIRL
After her third day of solitary confinement, Maude promised to apologizeproperly to Miss Woodruff the next morning, immediately after prayers.
"Miss Woodruff," said Maude, standing very slim and straight at her owndesk in the Assembly room, "I apologize for the things I did toyour--your _clothes_ the other night. I'm sorry it was necessary to dothem."
"That will do," said Dr. Rhodes, raising his hand, hastily--for there wasno knowing how far irrepressible Maude might go, with all those othergirls ready to applaud. "I'm sure Miss Woodruff accepts your apology."
"I do," replied Miss Woodruff, coldly, "but I should also like to havemy silver cardcase returned at once. I have always kept it on the righthand side of my dresser, exactly six inches from my pincushion."
"_Sacre bleu! Quel precision!_" breathed untidy Madame Bolande.
"When I went to your closet to get that red--well, that red _garment_,"replied Maude, "I noticed that the top of your dresser was perfectlyneat and tidy. But I _didn't_ see any cardcase. It might have _been_there but I didn't notice it. I certainly didn't take it."
"Very well," said Miss Woodruff. "You may now be seated. Classesplease."
Mabel, the other culprit, was now behaving very well indeed. She waslearning her lessons, and, under the patient tuition of Miss EmilyRhodes, was improving her naturally untidy penmanship. She was alsomeekly, conscientiously and courageously going without dessert; andnever--it seemed to always hungry Mabel--had there been so very manyentrancing varieties of pie, so many choice puddings; and, of all weeksof the year, that was the one that the fat cook chose for theintroduction of a brand new custardy affair that every one of the girlsdeclared "simply scrumptious."
Usually, there was much swapping of food at meal time. Grace Allendidn't like butter but Ruth Dennis did; and was glad to give her tapiocapudding to Grace in exchange for Grace's daily butter. Augusta dislikedcelery but adored pickles so she and Cora carried on an equallygratifying exchange. Mabel always traded her lima beans for AliceBailey's cocoanut pie--Alice hated cocoanut--and of course, during thatdessertless week Mabel was obliged to refuse not only her own pie butAlice's. But everybody liked the new custard.
"Taste mine," tempted little Jane Pool. "It's just licking good. Comeon, nobody's looking."
"No," sighed Mabel, "it wouldn't be honest. I _said_ I'd go without soI'll go all the way--one week can't last forever."
"Never mind, Mabel," comforted Maude, "I'll ask Nora to make this kind_often_ next week and I'll give you my share just once so you can catchup. Besides, I owe you that much--I led you into this scrape, you know."
Going without dessert, however, was a small trouble compared withmysteriously losing two full grown parents. Mabel's were still missing.As she had no address except Berlin, she wasn't at all sure that her ownletters were reaching _them_. She and each of the other Lakeville girlshad had several brief, boyish letters from their friend andfellow-camper, Laddie Lombard, the shipwrecked boy they had rescued atPete's Patch; but from her parents, not a word for so many weeks that itmade Mabel shiver to count them.
Her thoughts, nowadays, were gloomy ones. What if she had to stay atHighland Hall until she was faded and forty like poor old Abbie. What ifher skirts kept getting shorter and shorter (or what was more likely,narrower and narrower) like Cora's. What if her middy blouses faded andfrayed like Sallie's, with no prospects of new ones. And what if she_never_ saw her dear parents again--that was the worst thought of all.Her plump easy-going mother, her kind, pleasant father.
Yes, that was the worst thought of all. It weighed Mabel down. No matterwhat else she might be doing at the moment, Mabel couldn't quite escapefrom the steadily increasing weight of that puzzling trouble.
"I'd give all four of my letters from Laddie," said Mabel, wistfully,"for just a postal card with one little word on it from my mother."
"Well," declared Gladys de Milligan, who also was watching the mail bag,expectantly, "if I had a daughter as clumsy as you are I'd chuck herinto a boarding school and leave her there _forever_. I'd be _glad_ toforget about her."
"Anyhow," declared Mabel, crossly, "you don't need to chew gum in myear, even if you _would_ be that kind of a mother."
The Lakeville girls tried to cheer troubled Mabel but she could see thatthey, too, were becoming anxious. Indeed, Bettie had secretly written toMr. Black about it. Mr. Black, Bettie firmly believed, could fix_anything_.
"My goodness!" said Cora, one evening, when the girls were waiting forHenrietta to come and tell them ghost stories on the spooky frontstairs, "here are the Christmas holidays coming right along and I don'tknow what I'm ever going to _do_. I've written and written to my peopleabout the way I'm growing--told 'em I was seven feet tall if I was aninch--and they won't _believe_ me. They think I'm _exaggerating_! Here Iam, growing a mile a minute; but my clothes, alas! are standing still.I'm going home with Maude, to visit her perfectly scrumptious family,and I haven't one single dud that's big enough either lengthwise orsidewise."
"Didn't the photographs work?" asked Helen Miller. For the Miller girls,at Cora's request, had taken a number of snapshots of the growing girlto be sent to her doubting parents. Perhaps Cora had grown a little atthe very moment in which she was snapped. At any rate the pictures wereslightly hazy as to outline; yet, to the girls, they looked convincinglylike Cora.
"No," returned Cora, mournfully. "They didn't believe that it _was_ apicture of me."
"What are you going to try next?" asked little Jane Pool.
"Nothing. I've given up. I've half a mind to stay right here for theholidays."
"Nonsense!" said Maude. "You can wear _my_ clothes--I've several thingsthat are too big for me--that new navy blue taffeta, for instance."
"I _couldn't_ do that," said Cora, blushing until her frecklesdisappeared. "Your people would know they were yours. I'd feel ashamed."
"Yes, that wouldn't do," agreed Jean.
"I know what to do," said Henrietta, who had arrived and was perched onthe substantial newel post. "We'll _all_ lend you things. You can takethat new white blouse of mine--it will have to shrink before _I_ can wearit."
"I'll lend you my pleated skirt," said Helen Miller, "you have it mostof the time, anyway."
"I have a petticoat that would go with it," said Dorothy.
"Please--please take my new umbrella," pleaded little Jane Pool,earnestly. "I want to lend you _something_ and that's the only thing Ihave that's big enough."
"You're a bunch of darlings," said Cora, hugging them all by turns, "andI'll be _glad_ to borrow your things."
"Of course it's too late to be of any use for vacation," said Jean, "butI have an idea. Why don't you ask Doctor Rhodes to write to your peopleand tell them the horrible truth about your inches. Have Mrs. HenryRhodes measure you. Figures, you know, never--well, exaggerate. They maybelieve Doctor Rhodes."
"Angel child!" cried Cora, "I'll do just that. You've found the answer."
Perhaps Jean had, for Doctor Rhodes, both amused and impressed by Cora'sremarkable plight, _did_ write to her people and the response was alarge box that arrived soon after Cora returned from Maude's.
"And my goodness!" said exaggerating Cora, "there are tucks a mile wideand hems a mile deep and a whole acre of cloth in _everything_."
Three days after the evening on the stairs, the girls were all in theschool room when Sallie, a little late, came in with the mail bag. Therewas a pleasing plumpness about the bag that day; and, as usual, all thegirls crowded into the space just below the rostrum, so that Sallie, thepost girl, looked down upon a small sea of eager, upturned faces.
Sallie reached into the bag, as was her habit, and pulled out a letter.
"Miss Eleanor Pratt," she read. One of the Seniors accepted it, calmly.
"Miss Anne Blodgett, Miss Isabelle Carew, Miss Ruth Dennis, Miss DebbieClark, Miss Hazel Benton, Miss Gladys de Milligan, Miss Bettie Tucker,Miss Augusta Lemon, Miss Beatrice Holmes--" Another Sen
ior strolledleisurely forward and condescended to accept a letter. Really, thoseolder girls were annoying; they were so _blase_ about their mail.
"Miss Mabel Bennett," called Sallie, in her clear, strong voice.
Mabel seized her letter and waved it, gleefully. "It's from _Mother_!"she cried. "Hip, Hip, Hooray!" (There was nothing _blase_ about Mabel.)
Sallie, beaming sympathetically, pulled another letter from the bag.
"Miss Mabel Bennett," she announced.
"It's from Mother," Mabel shrieked again.
But when the third letter proved to be Mabel's, too, Mabel was toobreathless with excitement to do more than gasp. When she had receivedfive letters and four postal cards and a package containing thick,remarkably substantial German handkerchiefs, one for herself and one foreach of her Lakeville friends, it was almost a relief to hear Sallieread a different name; for even the lofty Seniors were staring at her inastonishment.
"It wasn't my _people_ that were lost," explained Mabel, after she hadread all this accumulation of mail. "For quite a long time Mother mailedher letters in an old post-box that wasn't used any more for thatpurpose. She didn't understand enough German when somebody told her thatwasn't the right one. But Father found out about it; and, after a longtime, they succeeded in getting the German postmaster to open the oldbox and send her letters. So I'm not an orphan after all. And this weekI'm going to buy something lovely with every penny of my thirty centsfor Sallie, because she is."