Young Lucretia | Page 8

she forgot her mother's injunctions about stubbing her

toes; she disappeared in a small cloud of dust, for she walked in the
middle of the road, and flirted it up with great delight.
[Illustration: "'WHOSE LITTLE GAL AIR YOU?'"]
In the course of the mile Fidelia met one team. It was an old rocking
chaise and a white horse, and an old farmer was driving. He drove
slower when he came alongside of Fidelia. When he had fairly passed
her he stopped entirely, twisted about in his seat, and raised his voice.
"Whose little gal air you?" he asked.
Fidelia was a little frightened. Instead of giving her father's name, she
gave her own with shy precision--"Fidelia Ames Lennox," she said,
retiring into her Shaker bonnet.
"You ain't runnin' away, be you?"
Fidelia's pride was touched. "I'm going to the store for my mother," she
announced, in quite a shrill tone. Then she took to her heels, and the
little wagon trundled after, with a wilder squeak than ever.
Fidelia kept saying over to herself, "Three pounds of your best raisins,
and Mr. Lennox will come in and pay you." Her mother and Aunt
Maria wished after she had gone that they had written it out on a piece
of paper; they had not thought of that. But Aunt Maria said she knew
that such a bright child as Fidelia would remember three pounds of
raisins when she had been told over and over, and charged not to come
home without them.
Fidelia had started about ten o'clock in the morning, and her mother
and Aunt Maria had agreed that they would not worry if she should not
return until one o'clock in the afternoon. That would allow more than
an hour for the mile walk each way, and give plenty of time for a rest
between; for Fidelia had been instructed to go into the store and sit
down on a stool and rest a while before starting upon her return trip.
"Likely as not Mis' Rose will give her a cooky or something," Aunt
Maria had whispered to Mrs. Lennox.

So when noon came the two women pictured Fidelia sitting perched
upon a stool in the store, being fed with candy and cookies, and made
much of, or even eating dinner with the Rose family. "Mis' Rose made
so much of her when you took her there before that I shouldn't wonder
a mite if she'd kept her to dinner," said Aunt Maria. She promulgated
this theory the more strenuously when one o'clock came and Fidelia
had not appeared. "Of course that's what 'tis," she kept repeating. "It
would take 'em a good hour to eat dinner. I shouldn't be a bit surprised
if she didn't get here before two o'clock. I think you're dreadful silly to
worry, Jane."
For poor Mrs. Lennox was pushing her chair every few minutes over to
the door, where she would stand, her face all one anxious frown,
straining her eyes for a glimpse of the small figure trudging up the road.
She had made the blueberry dumpling that Fidelia loved for dinner, and
it was keeping warm on the back of the stove. Neither she nor Aunt
Maria had eaten a mouthful.
When two o'clock came Mrs. Lennox broke down entirely. "Oh dear!"
she wailed; "oh dear! I ought to have known better than to let her go."
Aunt Maria was now pacing heavily between her chair and the door,
but she still maintained a brave front. "For goodness' sake, Jane, don't
give up so," said she. "I don't see anything to worry about, for my part;
they're keepin' her."
At half-past two Mrs. Lennox stood up with a determined air. "I ain't
goin' to wait here another minute," said she. "I'm goin' to find her. I
don't know but she's fell into the brook, or got run over." Mrs. Lennox's
face was all drawn with anxiety.
"I'd like to know how you're goin'," said Aunt Maria.
"I guess I can push this chair along the road just as well as in a room."
"Pretty-lookin' sight you'd be goin' a mile with one knee in a wooden
chair."

"I guess I don't care much how I look if I only find--her." Mrs.
Lennox's voice broke into a wail.
"You just sit down and keep calm," said Aunt Maria. "If anybody's
goin', I am."
"Oh, you can't."
"Yes, I can, too. I ain't quite so far gone that I can't walk a mile. You
ain't goin' a step on that scalt foot an' get laid up, with that weddin'
comin' off, not if I know it. I'm just goin' to slip on my gaiter-shoes an'
my sun-bonnet, an' take the big green umbrella to keep the sun off."
When Aunt Maria was equipped and started,