Part 4 (1/2)

She brought the mop and wiped up the milk, then went soberly to change her dress, wondering how the mistress would make her breakfast without the milk-toast which was usually all she could fancy in the morning.

Sue had already forgotten the milk. She ran on across the yard, where the dew lay thick and bright, to a small building that stood under a spreading apple-tree. It had been a shed once, and its general effect was still, Sue admitted, ”a little sheddy”; but the door was very fine, being painted a light pea-green, the panels picked out with scarlet, and having a really splendid door-plate of bright tin, with ”S. PENROSE” in black letters. Some white pigeons sat on the roof sunning themselves, and they fluttered down about the girl's head as she tried the door.

”Dear me!” said Sue. ”How stupid of me to lock the door last night! I might have known I should forget the key this morning. Never mind; I can get in at the window.”

She could, and did; but, catching her dress on a nail, tore a long, jagged rent in the skirt.

”Dear me!” said Sue, again. ”And I don't believe there is another clean one, since I spilt the ink last night. Never mind!”

Sue ran up the narrow stairs, and, crossing a landing, entered a tiny room, papered with gay posters. There was plenty of room for the little table and two chairs, and if a third person should come in she could sit on the table. A narrow shelf ran all round the room. This was the Museum, and held specimens of every bird's nest in the neighboring country (all old nests; if Sue had caught any one robbing a nest, or stealing a new one, it would have gone hard with that person), and sh.e.l.ls and fossils from the clay bank near the river. The boys played ”Prehistoric Man” there a good deal, and sometimes they let Sue and Mary join them, which was great glory. Then there was smoked gla.s.s for eclipses (Sue smoked them after the last eclipse, a year ago, so as to be ready for the next one; but the next one was only the moon, which was tiresome, because you didn't need smoked gla.s.s), and a dried rattlesnake, and a portrait of Raphael framed in lobster-claws. Sue did not look at these treasures now, because she knew they were all there; but if any ”picknickle or bucknickle” had been missing, she would have known it in an instant. Flinging herself into a chair, she hunted for a piece of paper; found one, but rejected it in favor of a smooth, thin sheet of birch bark, on which she wrote as follows:

”DEAREST JULIET: It is the east, and thou art the sun, and it's time to get up. I pray thee, wake, sweet maid! This white bird, less snowy than thy neck, bears thee my morning greeting. Do hurry up and dress! Isn't this day perfectly fine? Sha'n't we have a glorious picnic? What are you going to wear? My cake is just lovely! I burned the first one, so this isn't angel, it's b.u.t.tercup, because I had to take the yolks. Star of my night, send back a message by the bird of love to thy adored

”ROMEO.”

Hastily folding the note into a rather tipsy c.o.c.ked hat, Sue opened a little door upon a ladder-like staircase, and called: ”Coo! coo!

coo!”

Down fluttered the pigeons, a dozen or more, and taking one in her hands, she fastened a note to a bit of ribbon that hung round its neck.

”There!” she said. ”Oh, you dear darlings! I must give you your corn before I do another thing.”

The corn was in a little covered bin on the landing at the head of the stairs. This landing was called the anteroom, and was fully as large as a small table-cloth. Sue scattered the corn with a free hand, and the pigeons cooed, and scrambled for it as only pigeons can. She kept one good handful to feed the messenger bird, and several others perched on her shoulders and thrust their soft heads into her hand.

”Dear things!” said Sue, again. ”Zuleika, do you love me? Do you, Leila and Ha.s.san? Oh, I wonder if I look like Lili, in the Goethe book! If I were only tall, and had a big white hat and a long white gown with ruffles, I think perhaps--”

She stopped short, for a voice was calling from below: ”Sue, Sue, where are you?”

Sue's face, which had been as bright as Lili's own, fell.

”Oh, Mary Hart!” she cried. ”How could you?”

”How could I what?” and Mary's rosy face looked up from the foot of the staircase.

”Why, I supposed you were still sound asleep, and I was just going to send a pigeon over. See! The note is all fastened on; and it's a Romeo note, too; and now you have spoiled it all!”

”Not a bit!” said Mary, cheerfully. ”I'll run right back, Sue. I am only walking in my sleep. Look! see me walk!”

She stretched her arms out stiffly, and stalked away, holding her head high and staring straight in front of her. Sue observed her critically.

”You're doing it more like Lady Macbeth than Juliet!” she called after her. ”But still it's fine, Mary, only you ought to glare harder, I think. Mind you stay asleep till the pigeon comes. It's Abou Ha.s.san the wag” (the pigeons were named out of the ”Arabian Nights”), ”so you might give him a piece of apple, if you like, Juliet.”

”No apples in Verona at this season!” said Juliet, in a sleep-walking voice (which is a loud, sepulchral monotone, calculated to freeze the blood of the listener). ”I don't suppose hard-boiled egg would hurt him!” Then she snored gently, and disappeared round the corner.

”That was clever of Mary,” said Sue. ”I wish I walked in my sleep really and truly, like that funny book Mr. Hart has about Sylvester Sound. It would be splendid to be able to walk over the housetops and never fall, and never know anything about it till you woke up and found yourself somewhere else. And then, in that opera Mamma told me about, she walked right out of the window, and all kinds of things happened. It must be dreadfully exciting. But if I did walk in my sleep, I would always go to bed with my best dress on, only I'd have my feet bare and my hair down. Dear me! There's that gray cat, and I know she is after my pigeons! Just wait a minute, you cat!”

Sue dismissed the pigeons gently, and they fluttered obediently up to their cote, while she ran downstairs. Sure enough, a wicked-looking gray cat was crouching on a branch of the apple-tree, watching with hungry eyes the few birds that had remained on the roof. The cat did not see Sue, or, at all events, took no notice of her. Sue slipped round to the farther side of the tree and began to climb up silently.

It was an easy tree to climb, and she knew every k.n.o.b and knot that was comfortable for the foot to rest on. Soon she was on a level with the roof of the pigeon-house, and, peeping round the bole, saw the lithe gray body flattened along the bough, and the graceful, wicked-looking tail curling and vibrating to and fro. The pretty, stupid pigeons cooed and preened their feathers, all unconscious of the danger; another minute, and the fatal spring would come. Sue saw the cat draw back a little and stiffen herself. She sprang forward with a shout, caught the branch, missed it--and next moment Sue and cat were rolling on the ground together in a confused heap. Poor p.u.s.s.y (who could not understand why she might not have pigeons raw, when other people had them potted) fled, yowling with terror, and never stopped till she was under the kitchen stove, safe from bright-eyed, shouting avalanches. Sue picked herself up more slowly, and rubbed her head and felt for broken bones.

”I _won_'t have broken anything,” she said, ”and spoil the picnic. Ow!