Part 27 (2/2)

”You've been climbin' unknownst up that pine tree again, an' you a told not to?” questioned Kathleen, examining the fingers keenly.

”Hush up, and go ahead!” was Will's rude answer.

”How _can_ you speak so?” reproved Emily, turning round upon Will, while she tied back her hair with a band of blue ribbon.

”Fie, fie, sir!” cried displeased Kathleen, ”going ahead” with great energy, her mouth pursed up in disapproval of Master Will's manners, while she washed, and combed, and curled, and took off and put on his apparel.

”Where's your stockings, Master Will,--the blue stripes?”

”Dunno.”

Will sat in a low chair, his stubby bare feet stuck out before him, and his two hands actively employed as fly-catchers. Suddenly he remembered having amused himself the day before in oiling his sled runners, using the striped stockings for wipers; but he did not trouble Kathleen just then with the tidings. The blue-striped stockings were not found. Then came a difficulty with his new boots.

”Aow! they pinch!”

”Where, sir?”

Master Will, not being able to say exactly where, was left to get used to the new boots as well as he could.

”Now see, here's your new suit; an' be careful with it, mind--careful as iver was. It's me afternoon out; and if ye go tearin' the cloos on ye, ye'll jist mind thim yersel, or else go in tatthers wid yer grandmamma.”

This speech had no more wholesome effect on Will than to cause him to stick out his tongue at Emily, while Kathleen, standing behind him, arranged his b.u.t.tons and his drapery generally.

”Now, if you could only be as good as you're purty,” exclaimed Kathleen, wheeling Will suddenly round before his tongue was quite in place again, ”you'd do well enough.”

With a few finis.h.i.+ng touches to Emily's sash ribbon, Kathleen went off to make her own gorgeous toilet for her afternoon out.

The dinner was next to be gotten through with. But that was not an unpleasant hour to Will. After dinner the children were permitted by their mother to amuse themselves under the shadow of the great elm behind the house. She knew that with Emily this permission simply meant liberty to sit quietly beneath the overhanging branches, gazing dreamily over the soft summer landscape, or listening to the sweet sounds that stirred the air around and above her. But with Will it might be more broadly interpreted into leave for frequent raids over fences and through bars for b.u.t.terflies and beetles, or any luckless rover that strayed along. So she explained to her son in this wise:--

”Will, dear, remember that your grandmamma is coming for you, and you must not soil or tear your clothes by running about. Play quietly in the shade. The time will not be long now.”

”Yes, mum.”

Such implicit obedience as this ”Yes, mum” implied! In fact, there was the promise in it of every one of the cardinal virtues.

The two children then went away through the long hall, whose doors stood wide open in the warm summer afternoon, and Will, dragging along the slower-footed Emily, hurried on to the elm tree.

”Don't pull so, Will; I shall drop my basket, and my spool and thimble will roll away.”

”What do you want to bother with work for this beautiful afternoon?”

inquired Will, slackening his pace.

”I promised mamma I would try and finish it this week,” said Emily, ”and I like to keep my word.”

”I thought the machine sewed.”

”So it does; but mamma says I must learn just the same as if there were no machines.”

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