Nancy said, “Oh, if we only had a sled.”
“And a place to slide,” Plum said, looking around at the flat barnyard.
“Woodshed roof’s a good place,” Old Tom said from the doorway behind them. “If you had a couple of flat pans you could put the ladder against the woodshed, climb up, walk along the ridgepole, get in your pan, slide to the edge, then jump off in the deep drift.”
“Where’d we get the pans?” Plum asked.
“Tin washbasin’s just the thing,” Tom said. “Several of them in the washroom off the kitchen.”
“But how will we get into the kitchen?” Nancy asked.
“Trunk-room window always open,” Old Tom said as he squeezed past them with a long ladder. “Here, you, Plum, follow me,” he called as he ploughed through the deep snow on the north side of the house.
Both Plum and Nancy followed him but they could see why he had called Plum when they saw the tiny little window below which he placed the top rung of the ladder.
“Now go on up there and see if that little window won’t open,” he said to Plum as he lifted her up and set her on the ladder above the deep snowdrift. Plum went up the ladder as quickly and agilely as a monkey and when she got to the window Tom called, “It opens in, Plum. Push hard.”
Plum pushed and pushed and finally the window opened so suddenly that she almost fell through it headfirst. When she had righted herself and had a good hold on the window sill, she turned and called down to Old Tom, “What’s in this room? It’s awfully dark.”
Old Tom said, “Nothing in there but trunks and old boxes. The window’s not far from the floor, you can go in headfirst.”
So Plum did and the last they saw of her for some little time were her thin legs and worn-out shoes flailing the air as she squeezed headfirst through the tiny window. Old Tom carried the ladder around to the back again and put it against the woodshed, which was high at the ridgepole but sloped almost to the ground on one side.
“That would be a fine place to slide,” Nancy told Old Tom and he said, “I used to slide there myself when I was a boy.”
Nancy said, “Have you always lived here, Tom?” and he said, “There’s Plum now. She’s got the back door open so you’d better scoot inside and put on a coat and some overshoes.”
Nancy ran up the back steps and across the porch and as soon as she was inside and the back door closed Plum said, “Nancy, hurry, come upstairs, I want to show you something.”
“What is it?” Nancy asked.
“Just you wait,” Plum said. “Just you wait and see.” And she took Nancy’s hand and yanked her up the stairs as fast as she could go.
The trunk room was on the third floor of the house, at the end of the servants’ wing and next to the little stairway that led to the attic. There was a thick white candle in a saucer outside the door and when Plum had lighted it she opened the door and went in, motioning to Nancy to follow her. Nancy did, but was disappointed to see nothing but trunks and empty packing boxes. It was one of the packing boxes, however, which seemed to interest Plum so much.
“Come here,” she said to Nancy, her voice shaking with excitement. “Look, just look at this,” and she lowered the candle so that Nancy could see the label pasted on the outside of the packing box. The label read,
To: Miss Nancy and Miss Pamela Remson
c/o Mrs. Marybelle Monday
Mrs. Monday’s Boarding Home for Children
Heavenly Valley
Plum said, “Look here at the date of the postmark—December 15. And now look inside.”
Nancy looked. Inside the box was divided into two long sections and about a foot from the end on each side were cardboard partitions with a half-moon-shaped piece cut out of each partition. “What do you suppose was in these boxes,” she asked Plum.
Plum said, “Dolls. See that round cut out place is where their necks went and I examined the boxes and I found hair stuck to the sides of the box. See,” and she held up some silky hairs. “Some blond, some black.”
Nancy turned back the lid of the box and looked again. Sure enough it was addressed to Plum and her and it also said,
From: Mr. John Remson
The Croquet Club
Central City
“Why, Plum,” Nancy said, and there were tears in her eyes. “Uncle John hasn’t forgotten us and he did send us Christmas presents.”
Plum said, “Yes, and what happened to them?”
Nancy knelt down on the floor beside the box and said, “Plum, just look how big these dolls were. Why, they must have been almost as big as real little children. If we had them, which color hair would you choose?”
Plum said, “I’d choose the yellow hair.”
Nancy said, “Oh, I’m so glad because I’d like to have a doll with jet-black hair just like I’ve always dreamed of having. I wonder how they were dressed?”
Plum said, “Well, I examined the rest of the box very carefully, that is what took me so long, but I can’t find any other clues, so we’ll have to pretend. I’ll pretend that my doll was a cowgirl with real little cowboy boots and a holster around her waist.”
Nancy said, “Well, I want Rebecca, I named her after Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, to be dressed entirely in pink. Pink silk underwear, pink silk petticoat, pink silk dress, pink velvet coat and hat trimmed in fur. Even pink shoes and stockings. Oh, my, but I love black hair and the color pink.”
Plum laughed and said, “That’s just because you have red hair. I’m going to name my doll Annie after Annie Oakley and I’m going to teach her how to shoot flies at a hundred yards and to lasso a mouse from a full gallop.”
Nancy said, “Listen, I hear someone calling.”
Plum went to the window and stuck her head out. In a minute she turned to Nancy and said, “It’s Old Tom. He wants us.”
“What shall we do about the box?” Nancy asked.
Plum said, “Let’s carry it down and hide it under our bed and then we’ll confront Mrs. Monday with it.”
So they put the box under their bed and then went down to see what Old Tom wanted. He only wanted to tell them that he was going to MacGregors’ for Christmas dinner and that Mrs. Monday was coming home on the four o’clock train. Nancy and Plum thanked him and waved good-bye and then went into the kitchen to see if they could find anything for breakfast. As they suspected, everything but the prunes and oatmeal had been locked up tight but when Nancy opened the back door to get some kindling off the back porch she was surprised to find a little pan of fresh brown eggs, a can of new milk, a pat of butter and a note scrawled on a piece of wrapping paper, “Merry Christmas—Old Tom.”
Nancy and Plum built a roaring fire in the kitchen stove, fried the eggs in butter, made toast out of some stale bread they found in the breadbox and had the best breakfast they had tasted in years. When they finished they washed their dishes and put them away, put the rest of the eggs on to hard boil for lunch and banked the fire with coal. Then they went into the washroom and got two large tin basins, put on their coats, caps, mittens and galoshes and went out to try sliding on the woodshed roof.
Plum was the first one down. She sat in the basin, held her arms and legs out stiff and Nancy gave her a shove. Around and around she whirled, like a pinwheel, as she slid down the roof. Just at the bottom the pan hit a nail and stopped dead and Plum was dumped headfirst into the snowdrift.
Nancy had to climb down the ladder and jerk Plum out by her ankles but then they both climbed right back up and Nancy took a turn. She started farther over to avoid the nail and though she turned around a few times she was able to jump out at the bottom and land feet first in the snowdrift. Then Plum came down and landed right side up and then Nancy, and pretty soon they had a slick hard track and went so fast they could stay right in their basins and land with a spank on the snow.
My, it was fun and pretty soon it was lunch time and they were very hungry and so they ran into the kitchen and ate their hard-boiled eggs and drank some milk and dried th
eir mittens and then out they went again and slid and made angels in the snow until the sun started going down behind the barn and they were hungry again.
This time they went in the barn and ate their apples and winter pears and played with Prancer, Dancer and Vixen and St. Nick until they heard the whistle of the four o’clock train and knew it was almost time for Mrs. Monday and the children. Slowly, reluctantly they said good-bye to their kittens and closed the barn door, put away the tin basins, hung up their wet coats and mittens and went up to their room to wait for Mrs. Monday.
Pretty soon the front door slammed and up the stairs and down the long cold corridor trooped the returning boarders. Nancy and Plum ran to greet them and to see what they had gotten for Christmas, which in most cases wasn’t much because children sent to board with Mrs. Monday were not the children of parents or relatives who cared about them.
The worst presents were Tommy Wolton’s checkerboard but no checkers; David Hilton’s two new suits of long underwear; Mary Burton’s hand-me-down coat and moth-eaten muff; Eunice Haggerty’s homemade rag doll with the face all bunched up near the forehead and short, very stiff, very stumpy arms and legs; Todd Weatherby’s new toothbrush and chart to keep track of how many times he brushed his teeth, and little Sally Cedric’s new gray-flannel petticoat.
The best presents were Allan Murphy’s copy of Tom Sawyer and Gulliver’s Travels, which he said Plum and Nancy could borrow, and Evangeline Carter’s giant candy cane, which she said she would share with everyone. The other children had been given small, cheaply made windup toys which were already broken, or merely candy and oranges which were already eaten.
The funny thing is that although Nancy and Plum had had no Christmas at all of any kind, they almost cried when they saw Todd Weatherby’s toothbrush and David Hilton’s long underwear. Nancy said she could fix Eunice Haggerty’s hideous rag doll that looked, Allan said, as though she had just eaten a quince and had been run over by a train. Nancy said that she would rip out the old squinty face and during next sock-darning session when Mrs. Monday and Marybelle went into their sitting room for tea, she would embroider in a new face. She said it wouldn’t make any difference if the doll had awfully short arms and legs, if her face was pretty. She said, “And next summer we’ll put corn silk hair on her and pin wild roses on her dress and she’ll be just beautiful.”
Eunice wiped her eyes on her sleeve and said, “I’m going to name her Nancy,” and Plum said, “I think Marybelle Whistle would be more appropriate. Go on, Eunice, name her Marybelle and then I’ll punch her in the stomach and hit her in the eye and stamp on her toes.”
Eunice said, “No, I want her to be named Nancy. She’s the only doll I’ve ever had.”
Nancy said, “I have a good idea. I’ll make a Marybelle Whistle doll. There are lots of rags and an old comforter in the attic and I’ll ask Mrs. Monday for a needle and some thread to do some mending.”
The children wanted to know if she was going to make the doll that very evening and Nancy said that she might get started on her if she could sneak up to the attic. Speaking of the attic reminded Nancy and Plum of the trunk room and the empty box addressed to them and they pulled it out from under their bed and showed it to the other children, who all said that Marybelle had two very large new dolls. One with golden hair and one with black hair. Nancy and Plum asked how they were dressed and the children said that the blond one had on a pale blue velvet coat and bonnet trimmed with white fur and the dark-haired one had on a pale pink velvet coat and bonnet trimmed with brown fur. Eunice said that both dolls had on little white gloves and real little white galoshes. She also said that they were as large as real children and perfectly beautiful. As she told how beautiful Marybelle’s new dolls were, she looked down at her own doll and began to cry again. “You’re ugly, ugly, ugly,” she sobbed, pounding on Quince Face’s stuffed stomach with her fist. “Even with a new face you’ll look like a tree with its branches sawed off. Here, Plum, make her into Marybelle Whistle, I never want to see her again.”
She threw Quince Face at Plum, who grabbed her and put her in the big box under the bed, then stood up and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen: Tomorrow evening after supper I will present a play called ‘REVENGE!’ Admission is free, everybody is invited.”
Eunice laughed then, and Nancy put her arm around her and said, “Perhaps I can make you a new doll out of the stuff in the attic. It may not be the prettiest doll in the world but it certainly won’t be as ugly as Marybelle Whistle.”
Then up the stairway and down the long corridor came the booming gong of the supper bell and the familiar smell of scorched oatmeal, and the children trooped down to supper.
Mrs. Monday and Marybelle were already seated at their special table, eating little hot chicken pies and baked apples and thick cream, and on each side of Marybelle, seated on little new red chairs, were two of the most beautiful dolls Nancy and Plum had ever seen. They were almost three feet tall, their thick shining real hair hung down their backs in long curls; their dresses were pale blue and pale pink silk; they each wore a white ruffled pinafore; their shoes were pale blue and pale pink Mary Janes and they each had dimples, real eyelashes and teeth.
“Oh, Marybelle,” said Nancy, “what beautiful dolls. Did you get them both from your mother?”
Marybelle said, “No, stupid, my mother didn’t give them to me. Aunty Marybelle did. Don’t get so close to them, you might get them dirty.”
Plum said, “It seems odd to me that you would get two dolls.”
Mrs. Monday said, “Nancy and Plum, take your seats at the supper table and BE QUIET!”
It was Plum’s turn to say the grace and when all the children had bowed their heads Plum’s clear sweet voice intoned with proper reverence but much louder than usual:
“God is great and God is good,
And we thank Him for this food.
By His hand may we be led,
Give us Lord our daily bread.
And forgive us ALL FOR OUR SINS—
even stealing!”
When Plum finished the grace she winked at Nancy, and Nancy, who had just taken a bite of oatmeal, choked. Plum didn’t mind scorched oatmeal, in fact she thought scorching improved the flavor, but tonight, even though she was very hungry, it was so badly burned she couldn’t eat it. Hungrily she turned and watched Mrs. Monday and Marybelle gorging themselves on their chicken pies until finally Marybelle looked up and caught Plum’s watching eyes, whispered to Mrs. Monday, and Mrs. Monday said, “Pamela, either turn around and eat your supper or go to your room.”
Plum said, “The oatmeal is so badly burned we can’t eat it, Mrs. Monday. May I ask Katie for something else?”
Mrs. Monday said, “Katie has not returned from her Christmas holiday yet and there is nothing else.”
Plum said, “Are there any more baked apples?”
Mrs. Monday said, “GO TO YOUR ROOM!”
But Plum didn’t. She left the dining room and went up the stairs, stamping loudly so that Mrs. Monday would be sure and hear her, then sneaked down the back stairs to the kitchen, slipped out the back door, went out to the barn where Old Tom was milking, told him about the burnt oatmeal and asked him if he’d get her a few apples from the root cellar.
Tom said, “Did you get the eggs I left for you this morning?”
Plum said, “Oh, yes, Tom, and they were perfectly delicious. Thank you very much.”
Old Tom said, “Go get that dipper and bring it over here and I’ll give you some of this nice warm milk. How old are you, Plum, about six?”
Plum said, “I’m eight years old and I’ll be nine in June.”
Old Tom said, “Well, you’re sure little and scrawny for your age. You better eat more.”
Plum said, “I eat everything Mrs. Monday gives me but she takes away my meals for punishment so much that I’m lucky if I get one meal a day.”
Old Tom said, “Haven’t you and Nancy got anyone—I mean, have you no relatives at all?”<
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Plum said, “We’ve only got Uncle John and he doesn’t care a thing about us.” Then Plum thought of the two dolls and so she said, “At least we didn’t used to think he did.”
“What changed you?” Old Tom said, remembering the two little girls spending Christmas Eve in the barn.
“Something we found in the trunk room this morning,” Plum said. “Only please don’t say anything. We’re not sure yet.”
“I won’t say anything,” Old Tom said. “Now come on and let’s get some apples.”
When Plum had her apron filled with big red apples, she tiptoed up to the back porch but Mrs. Monday was in the kitchen supervising the children while they cleared up and washed the dishes, and the front door was locked, so she went back to the barn and asked Old Tom if he would put the ladder up to the trunk room again. Old Tom agreed and so Plum skittered up the ladder, her teeth chattering and her hands like ice, opened the trunk-room window and wiggled through, and then Old Tom climbed up and handed her her apron full of apples.
She had just closed the window and was feeling her way in the dark around the trunks and boxes when she heard the flap, flap of Mrs. Monday’s approaching feet. Quickly she crouched down behind a trunk as Mrs. Monday opened the door, held her lamp high and looked around. Seeing nothing but empty boxes and trunks, she turned and went out again shutting the door behind her. Plum waited until she heard Mrs. Monday’s footsteps going down to the second floor, before she crept out of the trunk room, tiptoed down the stairs and peered down the long corridor to be sure all was clear. Then she ran as fast as she could down to her room but some instinct warned her to run softly and to stop outside her door and peer through the crack.
Sure enough, Mrs. Monday was sitting in the little chair by the window waiting for her. Quickly Plum ran next door into Eunice and Mary Burton’s room, put the apron full of apples in their closet, tiptoed out into the hall again, ran all the way back to the stairway and then, with steps a little louder than normal, came sauntering back to her room.