Here ended the extracts; and it seemed as if only a minute had passed since they stopped laughing over them, before the long shadows began to fall, and Mary came to say that all of them must come in to get ready for tea. It was dreadful to have to pick up the empty baskets and go home, feeling that the long, delightful Saturday was over, and that there wouldn’t be another for a week. But it was comforting to remember that Paradise was always there; and that at any moment when Fate and Aunt Izzie were willing they had only to climb a pair of bars – very easy ones, and without any fear of an angel with flaming sword to stop the way – enter in, and take possession of their Eden.
Chapter III.
The Day of Scrapes
Mrs. Knight’s school, to which Katy and Clover and Cecy went, stood quite at the other end of the town from Dr. Carr’s. It was a low, one-story building, and had a yard behind it, in which the girls played at recess. Unfortunately, next door to it was Miss Miller’s school, equally large and popular, and with a yard behind it also. Only a high board fence separated the two play-grounds.
Mrs. Knight was a stout, gentle woman, who moved slowly, and had a face which made you think of an amiable and well-disposed cow. Miss Miller, on the contrary, had black eyes, with black corkscrew curls waving about them, and was generally brisk and snappy. A constant feud raged between the two schools as to the respective merits of the teachers and the instruction. The Knight girls, for some unknown reason, considered themselves genteel and the Miller girls vulgar, and took no pains to conceal this opinion; while the Miller girls, on the other hand, retaliated by being as aggravating as they knew how. They spent their recesses and intermissions mostly in making faces through the knot-holes in the fence, and over the top of it, when they could get there, which wasn’t an easy thing to do, as the fence was pretty high. The Knight girls could make faces too, for all their gentility. Their yard had one great advantage over the other: it possessed a wood-shed, with a climbable roof, which commanded Miss Miller’s premises, and upon this the girls used to sit in rows, turning up their noses at the next yard, and irritating the foe by jeering remarks. “Knights,” and “Millerites,” the two schools called each other; and the feud raged so high, that sometimes it was hardly safe for a Knight to meet a Millerite in the street; all of which, as may be imagined, was exceedingly improving both to the manners and morals of the young ladies concerned.
One morning, not long after the day in Paradise, Katy was late. She could not find her things. Her algebra, as she expressed it, had “gone and lost itself,” her slate was missing, and the string was off her sun-bonnet. She ran about, searching for these articles and banging doors, till Aunt Izzie was out of patience.
“As for your algebra,” she said, “if it is that very dirty book with only one cover, and scribbled all over the leaves, you will find it under the kitchen-table. Philly was playing before breakfast that it was a pig; no wonder, I’m sure, for it looks good for nothing else. How you do manage to spoil your school-books in this manner, Katy, I cannot imagine. It is less than a month since your father got you a new algebra, and look at it now – not fit to be carried about. I do wish you would realize what books cost!
“About your slate,” she went on, “I know nothing; but here is the bonnet-string;” taking it out of her pocket.
“Oh, thank you!” said Katy, hastily sticking it on with a pin.
“Katy Carr!” almost screamed Miss Izzie, “what are you about? Pinning on your bonnet-string! Mercy on me! what shiftless thing will you do next? Now stand still and don’t fidget! You sha’n’t stir till I have sewed it on properly.”
It wasn’t easy to “stand still and not fidget,” with Aunt Izzie fussing away and lecturing, and now and then, in a moment of forgetfulness, sticking her needle into one’s chin. Katy bore it as well as she could, only shifting perpetually from one foot to the other, and now and then uttering a little snort, like an impatient horse. The minute she was released she flew into the kitchen, seized the algebra, and rushed like a whirlwind to the gate, where good little Clover stood patiently waiting, though all ready herself, and terribly afraid she should be late.
“We shall have to run,” gasped Katy, quite out of breath. “Aunt Izzie kept me. She has been so horrid!”
They did run as fast as they could, but time ran faster, and before they were half way to school the town clock struck nine, and all hope was over. This vexed Katy very much; for, though often late, she was always eager to be early.
“There,” she said, stopping short, “I shall just tell Aunt Izzie that it was her fault. It is too bad.” And she marched into school in a very cross mood.
A day begun in this manner is pretty sure to end badly, as most of us know. All the morning through, things seemed to go wrong. Katy missed twice in her grammar lesson, and lost her place in the class. Her hand shook so when she copied her composition, that the writing, not good at best, turned out almost illegible, so that Mrs. Knight said it must all be done over again. This made Katy crosser than ever; and, almost before she thought, she had whispered to Clover, “How hateful!” And then, when just before recess all who had “communicated” were requested to stand up, her conscience gave such a twinge that she was forced to get up with the rest, and see a black mark put against her name on the list. The tears came into her eyes from vexation; and, for fear the other girls would notice them, she made a bolt for the yard as soon as the bell rang, and mounted up all alone to the wood-house roof, where she sat with her back to the school, fighting with her eyes, and trying to get her face in order before the rest should come.
Miss Miller’s clock was about four minutes slower than Mrs. Knight’s, so the next play-ground was empty. It was a warm, breezy day, and as Katy sat there, suddenly a gust of wind came, and seizing her sun-bonnet, which was only half tied on, whirled it across the roof. She clutched after it as it flew, but too late. Once, twice, thrice, it flapped, then it disappeared over the edge, and Katy, flying after, saw it lying a crumpled lilac heap in the very middle of the enemy’s yard.
This was horrible! Not merely losing the bonnet, for Katy was comfortably indifferent as to what became of her clothes, but to lose it so. In another minute the Miller girls would be out. Already she seemed to see them dancing war-dances round the unfortunate bonnet, pinning it on a pole, using it as a foot-ball, waving it over the fence, and otherwise treating it as Indians treat a captive taken in war. Was it to be endured? Never! Better die first! And with very much the feeling of a person who faces destruction rather than forfeit honour, Katy set her teeth, and, sliding rapidly down the roof, seized the fence, and with one bold leap vaulted into Miss Miller’s yard.
Just then the recess bell tinkled; and a little Millerite who sat by the window, and who, for two seconds, had been dying to give the exciting information, squeaked out to the others: “There’s Katy Carr in our back-yard!”
Out poured the Millerites, big and little. Their wrath and indignation at this daring invasion cannot be described. With a howl of fury they precipitated themselves upon Katy, but she was quick as they, and holding the rescued bonnet in her hand, was already half-way up the fence.
There are moments when it is a fine thing to be tall. On this occasion Katy’s long legs and arms served her an excellent turn. Nothing but a Daddy Long Legs ever climbed so fast or so wildly as she did now. In one second she had gained the top of the fence. Just as she went over a Millerite seized her by the last foot, and almost dragged her boot off.
Almost, not quite, thanks to the stout thread with which Aunt Izzie had sewed on the buttons. With a frantic kick Katy released herself, and had the satisfaction of seeing her assailant go head over heels backward, while, with a shriek of triumph and fright, she herself plunged headlong into the midst of a group of Knights. They were listening with open mouths to the uproar, and now stood transfixed at the astonishing spectacle of one of their number absolutely returning alive from the camp of the enemy.
I cannot tell you what