Part 2 (1/2)
”Yes, I dream,” interrupted Prudence, ”I dream lots,--but it's mostly of what Fairy and the others will do when I get them properly raised.
You'll like the girls, Mrs. Adams, I know you will. They really are a gifted little bunch,--except me. But I don't mind. It's a great honor for me to have the privilege of bringing up four clever girls to do great things,--don't you think? And I'm only nineteen myself! I don't see what more a body could want.”
”It seems to me,” said Mrs. Adams, ”that I know more about your sisters than I do about you. I feel more acquainted with them right now, than with you.”
”That's so, too,” said Prudence, nodding. ”But they are the ones that really count, you know. I'm just common little Prudence of the Parsonage,--but the others!” And Prudence flung out her hands dramatically.
CHAPTER II
THE REST OF THE FAMILY
It was Sat.u.r.day morning when the four young parsonage girls arrived in Mount Mark. The elderly Misses Avery, next door, looked out of their windows, pending their appearance on Main Street, with interest and concern. It was a serious matter, this having a whole parsonage-full of young girls so close to the old Avery mansion. To be sure, the Averys had a deep and profound respect for ministerial households, but they were Episcopalians themselves, and in all their long lives they had never so much as heard of a widower-rector with five daughters, and no housekeeper. There was something blood-curdling in the bare idea.
The Misses Avery considered Prudence herself rather a sweet, silly little thing.
”You have some real nice people in the Methodist church,” Miss Dora had told her. ”I dare say you will find a few of them very likeable.”
”Oh, I will like them all,” said Prudence quickly and seriously.
”Like them all!” echoed Miss Dora. ”Oh, impossible!”
”Not for us,” said Prudence. ”We are used to it, you know. We always like people.”
”That is ridiculous,” said Miss Dora. ”It is absolutely impossible. One can't! Of course, as Christians, we must tolerate, and try to help every one. But Christian tolerance and love are----”
”Oh, excuse me, but--really I can't believe there is such a thing as Christian tolerance,” said Prudence firmly. ”There is Christian love, and--that is all we need.” Then leaning forward: ”What do you do, Miss Avery, when you meet people you dislike at very first sight?”
”Keep away from them,” was the grim reply.
”Exactly! And keep on disliking them,” said Prudence triumphantly.
”It's very different with us. When we dislike people at first sight, we visit them, and talk to them, and invite them to the parsonage, and entertain them with our best linen and silverware, and keep on getting friendlier and friendlier, and--first thing you know, we like them fine!
It's a perfectly splendid rule, and it has never failed us once. Try it, Miss Avery, do! You will be enthusiastic about it, I know.”
So the Misses Avery concluded that Prudence was very young, and couldn't seem to quite outgrow it! She was not entirely responsible. And they wondered, with something akin to an agony of fear, if the younger girls ”had it, too!” Therefore the Misses Avery kept watch at their respective windows, and when Miss Alice cried excitedly, ”Quick! Quick! They are coming!” they trooped to Miss Alice's window with a speed that would have done credit to the parsonage girls themselves. First came the minister, whom they knew very well by this time, and considered quite respectable.
He was lively, as was to be expected of a Methodist minister, and told jokes, and laughed at them! Now, a comical rector,--oh, a very different matter,--it wasn't done, that's all! At any rate, here came the Methodist minister, laughing, and on one side of him tripped a small earnest-looking maiden, clasping his hand, and gazing alternately up into his face, and down at the stylish cement sidewalk beneath her feet. On the other side, was Fairy. The Misses Avery knew the girls by name already,--having talked much with Prudence.
”Such a Fairy!” gasped Miss Millicent, and the others echoed the gasp, but wordlessly.
For Fairy for very nearly as tall as her father, built upon generous lines, rather commanding in appearance, a little splendid-looking. Even from their windows they could discern something distinctly Juno-like in this sixteen-year-old girl, with the easy elastic stride that matched her father's, and the graceful head, well carried. A young G.o.ddess,--named Fairy!
Behind them, laughing and chattering, like three children, as they were,--came the twins with Prudence, each with an arm around her waist.
And Prudence was very little taller than they. When they reached the fence that bordered the parsonage, the scene for a moment resembled a miniature riot. The smaller girls jumped and exclaimed, and clasped their hands. Fairy leaned over the fence, and stared intently at this, their parsonage home. Then the serious little girl scrambled under the fence, followed closely by the lithe-limbed twins. A pause, a very short one,--and then Prudence, too, was wriggling beneath the fence.
”Hold the wire up for me, papa,” cried Fairy, ”I'm too fat.” And a second later she was running gracefully across the lawn toward the parsonage. The Methodist minister laughed boyishly, and placing his hands on the fence-post, he vaulted lightly over, and reached the house with his daughters. Then the Misses Avery, school-teachers, and elderly, looked at one another.
”Did you ever?” whispered the oldest Miss Avery, and the others slowly shook their heads.
Now, think! Did you ever see a rector jumping a three-wire fence, and running full speed across his front yard, in pursuit of a flying family?
It may possibly have occurred,--we have never seen it. Neither had the Misses Avery. Nor did they ever expect to. And if they had seen it, it is quite likely they would have joined the backsliders at that instant.