Part 35 (1/2)

P.S. I can't stop right yet; but I'm trying. It seems rather difficult to stop: but n.o.body can write without stops. I always look at stops in books when I read but sometimes you put a coma and sometimes a semicollon. I expect you know but I don't so you must teach me. Its so nice writing things down. Come to the back gait tonight.

When the letter was written in queer, crabbed characters, on one side of a half-sheet of paper, then folded so that she could write the address on the other side, because she had no envelope--she wondered how she should get it delivered. There was a coolness between her and Harriet. Beth resented the coa.r.s.e insinuation about having a sweetheart, and shrank from hearing any more remarks of a like nature on the subject. And she couldn't send the letter by post because she had no stamp. Should she lay it on his doorstep. No, somebody else might get it. How then? She was standing on her own doorstep with the letter in her pocket when she asked herself the question, and just at the moment Sammy himself appeared, coming back from school. Quick as thought, Beth ran across the road, whipped out the letter and gave it to him. Sammy stood still in astonishment with his mouth open, gazing at it when he found it in his hand, as if he could not imagine how it got there.

As soon as it was dark, Beth stationed herself at the back gate, which looked out into Orchard Street, and waited and waited, but Sammy did not come. He had not been able to get out; that was it--she was sure of it; yet still she waited, although the evening was very cold. Her mother and Aunt Victoria had gone to dine with Lady Benyon. She did not know what Harriet was doing, but she had disposed of Bernadine for some time to come by lending her her best picture-book to daub with paint; so it was pretty safe to wait; and at first the hope of seeing Sammy come running round the corner was pleasure enough. As the time went on, however, she became impatient, and at last she ventured a little way up the street, then a little farther, and then she ran on boldly into Orchard Row. As she approached the Lees' back-gate, she became aware of a round thing that looked like a cannon-ball glued to the top, and her fond heart swelled, for she knew it must be Sammy's head.

”O Sammy! why didn't you come?” she cried.

”I didn't like,” said Sammy.

”I've been waiting for hours,” Beth expostulated with gentle reproach.

”So have I, and it's cold,” said Sammy disconsolately.

”Come now. She's out,” Beth coaxed.

”So she was the other day,” Sammy reminded her.

”But we'll go into the garden. She can't catch us there. It's too dark.”

Sammy, half persuaded, ventured out from the gateway, then hesitated.

”But is it _very_ dark?” he said.

”Not so very, when you're used to it,” Beth answered. ”But it's nice when it's dark. You can fancy you see things. Come! run!” She seized his hand as she spoke, and set off, and Sammy, overborne by the stronger will, kept pace with her.

”But I don't want to see things,” he protested, trying to hold back when they came to the dark pa.s.sage which led into the garden.

”Don't be a fool, Sammy,” said Beth, dragging him on. ”I believe you're a girl.”

”I'm not,” said Sammy indignantly.

”Then come and sit on the see-saw.”

”Oh, have you a see-saw?” he asked, immediately diverted.

”Yes--this way--under the pear-tree. It's a swing, you know, tied to the branch, and I put this board across it. I pulled the board up out of the floor of the wood-house. Do you like see-sawing?”

”Yes,” said Sammy with animation.

”Catch hold, then,” said Beth, tipping up the board at her end. ”What are you doing, b.u.t.ter-fingers?” she cried, as Sammy failed to catch hold. ”I'm sorry I said you were a girl. You're much too clumsy.”

She held the board until Sammy got astride of it at one end, then she bestrode it herself at the other, and started it with a vigorous kick on the ground. Up and down they went, shaking showers of leaves from the old tree, and an occasional winter pear, which fell with a thud, being hard and heavy.

”Golly! this is fine!” Sammy burst out. ”I say, Beth, what a jolly sort of a girl you are!”

”Do you think so?” said Beth, amply rewarded for all her trouble.

”Yes. And you _can_ write a letter! My! What a time it must 'a' took you! But, I say, it's all rot about stops, you know. Stops is things in books. _You'd_ never learn stops.”

”How do you know?” Beth demanded, bridling.

”Men write books,” said Sammy, proud of his s.e.x, ”not women, let alone gels!”