CHAPTER IX
POPOCATEPETL IN MISCHIEF
Miss Georgiana Shipman was a plump lady in a tight bodice--short, dark,with a frankly double chin and eyes that almost always smiled. She didnot possess a single beautiful feature; yet that smile ofhers--friendly, appreciative of one's failings as well as one'ssuccesses--that smile cloaked a multitude of short-comings.
One found one's self loving Miss Georgiana--if one was a girl--almost atonce; and the boldest and most unruly boy dropped his head and wasashamed to make Miss Georgiana trouble.
Sometimes boys with a long record of misdeeds behind them in othergrades--misdeeds that blackened the pages of other teachers' deportmentbooks--somehow managed to reach the door of Miss Georgiana's roomwithout being dismissed from the school by the principal. Once havingentered the favored portal, their characters seemed to change magically.
Mr. Marks knew that if he could bring the most abandoned scapegracealong in his studies so that he could spend a year with Miss GeorgianaShipman, in nine cases out of ten these hard-to-manage boys would besaved to the school. Sometimes they graduated at the very top of theirclasses.
Just as though Miss Georgiana were a fairy god-mother who struck hercrutch upon the platform and cried: "Se sesame! _change!_" the youngpirates often came through Miss Georgiana's hands and entered highschool with the reputation of being very decent fellows after all.
Nor was Miss Georgiana a "softie"; far from it. Ask the boys themselvesabout it? Oh! they would merely hang their heads, and scrape a foot backand forth on the rug, and grunt: "Aw! Miss Shipman understands afellow."
Her influence over the girls was even greater. She expected you to learnyour lessons, and if you were lazy she spent infinite pains in urgingyou on. And if you did not work, Miss Georgiana felt aggrieved, and thatmade any nice girl feel dreadfully mean! Besides, you took up more ofthe teacher's time than you had any right to, and the other girlsdeclared it was not fair, and talked pretty harshly about you.
If Miss Georgiana had to remain after school for any reason, more thanhalf of her girls would be sure to hang around the school entrance untilshe came out, and then they all trailed home with her.
When you saw a bevy of girls from twelve to fourteen years of age, orthereabout, massed on one of the shady walks of the Parade soon afterschool closed for the day, or chattering along Whipple Street on whichMiss Georgiana Shipman lived, you might be sure that the teacher of thesixth grade, grammar, was in the center of the group.
Miss Georgiana lived with her mother--a little old lady in Quakerdress--in a small cottage back from the street-line. There were threebig oaks in the front yard, and no grass ever could be coaxed to growunder them, for the girls kept it worn down to the roots.
There were seats at the roots of the three huge trees in the openseason, and it was an odd afternoon indeed that did not find a number ofgirls here. To be invited to stay to tea at Miss Georgiana's was theheight of every girl's ambition who belonged in Number Six.
Nor did the girls when graduated, easily forget Miss Georgiana. She hadtheir confidence and some of them came to her with troubles andperplexities that they could have exposed to nobody else.
Of course, girls who had "understanding" mothers, did not need thisspecial inspiration and help, but it was noticeable that girls who hadno mothers at all, found in the little, plump, rather dowdy "old maidschool teacher" one of those choice souls that God has put on earth tofulfil the duties of parents taken away.
Miss Georgiana Shipman had been teaching for twenty years, but she hadnever grown old. And her influence was--to use a trite description--likea stone flung into a still pool of water; the ever widening circles setmoving by it lapped the very outer shores of Milton life.
Of course Agnes Kenway was bound to fall in love with this teacher; andMiss Georgiana soon knew her for just the "stormy petrel" that she was.Agnes gravitated to scrapes as naturally as she breathed, but she gotout of them, too, as a usual thing without suffering any serious harm.
Trix Severn annoyed her. Trix had it in her power to bother the next tothe oldest Corner House girl, sitting as she did at the nearest desk.The custom was, in verbal recitation, for the pupil to rise in her (orhis) seat and recite. When it came Agnes' time to recite, Trix wouldwhisper something entirely irrelevant to the matter before the class.
This sibilant monologue was so nicely attuned by Trix that MissGeorgiana (nor many of the girls besides Agnes herself) did not hear it.But it got on Agnes' nerves and one afternoon, before the first week ofschool was over, she turned suddenly on the demure Trix in the middle ofher recitation and exclaimed, hysterically:
"If you don't stop whispering that way, Trix Severn, I'll just go mad!"
"Agnes!" ejaculated Miss Shipman. "What does this mean?"
"I don't care!" cried Agnes, stormily. "She interrupts me----"
"Didn't either!" declared Trix, thereby disproving her own statement inthat particular case, at least. "I didn't speak to her."
"You did!" insisted Agnes.
"Agnes! sit down," said Miss Shipman, and sternly enough, for the wholeroom was disturbed. "What _were_ you doing, Beatrice?"
"Just studying, Miss Shipman," declared Trix, with perfect innocence.
"This is not the time for study, but for recitation. You need notrecite, and I will see both of you after school. Go on from where Agnesleft off, Lluella."
"I'll fix you for this!" hissed Trix to Agnes. Agnes felt too badly toreply and the jealous girl added: "You Corner House girls think you aregoing to run things in this school, I suppose; but you'll see, Miss!You're nothing but upstarts."
Agnes did not feel like repeating this when Miss Georgiana made herinvestigation of the incident after school. She was no "tell-tale."
Therefore she repeated only her former accusation that Trix's whisperinghad confused her in her recitation.
"I never whispered to her!" snapped Trix, tossing her head. "I'm not sofond of her as all that, I hope."
"Why, I expect all my girls to be fond of each other," said MissGeorgiana, smiling, "too, too fond to hurt each other's feelings, oreven to annoy each other."
"She just put it all on," sniffed Trix.
"Agnes is nervous," said the teacher, quietly, "but she must learn tocontrol her nerves and not to fly into a passion and be unladylike.Beatrice, you must not whisper and annoy your neighbors. I hope you twogirls will never take part in such an incident again while you are withme."
Agnes said, "I'm sorry, Miss Shipman," but when the teacher's back wasturned, Trix screwed her face into a horrid mask and ran out her tongueat Agnes. Her spitefulness fairly boiled over.
This was the first day Agnes had been late getting home, so she missedthe first part of an incident of some moment. Popocatepetl got herselfon this day into serious mischief.
Popocatepetl (she was called "Petal" for short) was one of Sandyface'sfour kittens that had been brought with the old cat from Mr. Stetson'sgrocery to the old Corner House, soon after the Kenway girls came tolive there. Petal was Ruth's particular pet--or, had been, when she wasa kitten. Agnes' choice was the black one with the white nose, calledSpotty; Tess's was Almira, while Dot's--as we already know--was calledBungle, and which, to Dot's disgust, had already "grown up."
All four of the kittens were good sized cats now, but they were not yetof mature age and now and then the girls were fairly convulsed withlaughter because of the antics of Sandyface's quartette of children.
There was to be a pair of ducks for Sunday's dinner and Uncle Rufus hadcarefully plucked them into a box in a corner of the kitchen, so thatthe down would not be scattered. Mrs. MacCall was old-fashioned enoughto save all duck and geese down for pillows.
When the oldest and the two youngest Kenway girls trooped into thekitchen, Popocatepetl was chasing a stray feather about the floor and indiving behind the big range for it, she knocked down the shovel, tongsand poker, which were standing against the bricked-up fireplace.
The clatter scared Petal imme
nsely, and with tail as big as threeordinary tails and fur standing erect upon her back, she shot across thekitchen and into the big pantry.
Uncle Rufus had just taken the box of feathers into this room and set itdown on the floor, supposedly out of the way. Mrs. MacCall was measuringmolasses at the table, for a hot gingerbread-cake was going to grace thesupper-table.
"Scat, you cat, you!" exclaimed Uncle Rufus. "Dar's too many of you catserbout disher house, an' dat's a fac'. Dar's more cats dan dar is micesto ketch--ya-as'm!"
"Oh, Uncle Rufus! you don't mean that, do you?" asked Tess, the literal."Aren't there as many as five mice left? You know you said yourselfthere were hundreds before Sandyface and her children came."
"Glo-_ree_! I done s'peck dey got down to purty few numbers," agreedUncle Rufus. "Hi! wot dat cat do now?"
"Scat!" cried Mrs. MacCall. She had left the table for a moment, andPopocatepetl was upon it.
"Petal!" shrieked Ruth, and darted for the pantry to seize her pet.
All three scolding her, and making for her, made Popocatepetl quitehysterical. She arched her back, spit angrily, and then dove from thetable. In her flight she overturned the china cup of molasses which fellto the floor and broke. The sticky liquid was scattered far and wide.
"That kitten!" Mrs. MacCall shrieked.
"Wait! wait!" begged Ruth, trying to grab up Petal.
But the cat dodged her and went right through the molasses on the floor.All her four paws were covered. Wherever she stepped she left animprint. And when the excited Ruth grabbed for her again, she capped herridiculous performance by leaping right into the box of feathers!
Finding herself hopelessly "stuck-up" now, Popocatepetl went completelycrazy!
She leaped from the box, scattering a trail of sticky feathers behindher. She made a single lap around the kitchen trying for an outlet,faster than any kitten had ever traveled before in that room.
"Stop her!" shrieked Ruth.
"My clean kitchen!" wailed Mrs. MacCall.
"Looker dem fedders! looker dem fedders!" gasped Uncle Rufus. "She donegot dem all stuck on her fo' sho'!"
"Oh, oh!" squealed Tess and Dot, in chorus, and clinging together asPetal dashed past them.
Just at this moment Agnes opened the door and saw what appeared to be ananimated feather-boa dashing about the kitchen, with the bulk of thefamily in pursuit.
"What for goodness' sake is the matter?" gasped Agnes.
Popocatepetl saw the open door and she went through it as though she hadbeen shot out of a gun, leaving a trail of feathers in her wake andsplotches of molasses all over the kitchen floor.