The Twin Cousins | Page 4

hadn't stayed to supper, and had gone home saying they "didn't think Flaxie was very polite," and they "wouldn't go to her parties any more." And here she was, tired and wretched, and scratched all over by blackberry bushes. No, Auntie Prim didn't even scold. She merely looked through her spectacles at grandma, and said, "Children are so absurd!"
And grandma replied sorrowfully:
"Well, they have to suffer for their own naughtiness, and that does grieve me!"
"They ought to suffer," said Mrs. Prim; "it is the only way they can learn not to behave so again."
Dear little Milly heard this, and remembered it, and repeated it to her mother the next week when she went home to Hilltop. She thought she had suffered so much that she should never be "absurd" again, even to please her beloved Flaxie Frizzle.
After she had gone away, Flaxie wandered drearily about the house, saying, "Oh dear! what shall I do without my twin cousin?"
You would have thought she had enough left to make her happy. Dr. Gray's house stood on a hill facing the river, with a green yard in front, and a stable and two gardens behind it. It was all beautiful, and Flaxie enjoyed the stable as well as the fruit and flower gardens, for she was very fond of the horses, Whiz and Hiawatha, and the cows and the hens. You needn't tell anybody, but I do pity children who never hunted for hens' nests: it is such capital fun! And then there was the handsome dog, Tantra-Bogus, one of Flaxie's best friends.
In the house she had her "splendid Dr. Papa;" her dear brother Preston, who could whittle all sorts of things with a penknife; her darling Grandma Gray, an old lady with white hair, white cap, and white ribbons; and last, but not least, she had the "beautifullest baby" Philip, who could stand on his head "just as cunning," and "hug grizzly"--that is, like a grizzly bear. Flaxie loved him with her whole heart, but there were moments when she felt half ashamed of him, for he was eighteen months old, and hadn't a sign of a tooth; wasn't it awful?
"Perhaps he'll cut one before your mother and Julia come home; I keep hoping so," said grandma, feeling in baby's mouth with her finger, which baby bit hard, like an old rogue as he was.
"Will they give him some gold teeth, if his don't ever cut?" asked Flaxie anxiously. "Preston says they will."
"No," replied Mrs. Prim, who sat by the window, with her little ebony work-box on a stand beside her. "Your brother Preston says very absurd things merely in sport; but you must not be so foolish as to believe them."
Down dropped Flaxie's head in grandma's lap, her hair falling over grandma's black silk apron in a golden shower.
Mrs. Prim looked surprised. She did not know that Flaxie really had believed in those gold teeth, and had been comforted by thinking how Phil would outshine everybody by-and-by! And now the poor little girl was crying because it was all a mistake, and because Mrs. Prim had said she was "foolish."
"Run and let in the cat," said grandma; "don't you hear her mewing?"
When Kitty Gray was let in, she came bringing a mouse, and Flaxie laughed to see her run right up to grandma and rub against her dress.
"Good pussy, pretty pussy," said grandma, stroking the cat, who almost purred her heart out for joy. Not a mouse did she ever catch but she brought it to grandma or mamma to show it; but she never brought one to Mrs. Prim. I wonder why not.
"Now let her out, Mary," said grandma to Flaxie. "And go ask Dora if it isn't almost time to make the gravy for dinner."
When Flaxie skipped away, grandma said to Mrs. Prim, "The poor child is lonesome, with nothing to do."
"She ought to do something," replied Mrs. Prim, making a knot in her silk. "If she were my little girl, I should send her to school, to occupy her mind."
"Should you?" said Grandma Gray, hesitating, and patting her white curls. "Her mother said there were some naughty children about here, and she might be led into mischief at school, while Julia is away."
"I'm sure she is led into mischief at home," said Mrs. Prim.
"Very true. Perhaps she would be quite as safe at school. I will talk to her father about it," said Grandma Gray.
And of course Dr. Papa said, "Just as you please;" and Flaxie was sent to school with her satchel and books.
She came home the first day very dirty, after the dinner was cold, and Auntie Prim wondered if such a child ought to have any pudding.
"Oh, auntie," said Flaxie, shaking her flying hair, "I saw a little girl down under the hill, and says