Simple Susan

"Yes," cried Mary, "her gown is always trailing. She does not hold it up nicely like Susan, and in spite of all her fine clothes she never looks half so neat. Mamma says she hopes I shall grow like Susan, and so do I. I should not like to be vain like Barbara were I ever so rich."

"Rich or poor," said Philip, "it does not become a girl to be vain, much less bold, as Barbara was the other day. She stood at her father's door, and stared at a strange gentleman who stopped near by, to let his horse drink. I know what he thought of Bab, by his looks, and of Susan too; for Susan was in her garden, bending down a branch of the laburnum-tree, looking at its yellow flowers which had just come out, and when the gentleman asked her how many miles it was to the next village, she answered him modestly, not bashfully as if she had never seen any one before, but just right. Then she pulled on her straw hat that had fallen back while she was looking up at the [pg 261] laburnum, and went her way home, and the gentleman said to me after she was gone, 'Pray, who is that neat, modest girl?' But I wish," cried Philip, interrupting himself, "I wish Susan would come!"

Barbara, still crouching on the other side of the hedge, heard everything that was said.

bending down a branch of the laburnum-tree

Susan was all this time, as her friend Rose had guessed, busy at home. She had been kept by her father's returning later than usual. His supper was ready for him nearly an hour before he came home, and Susan swept the hearth twice, and twice put on wood to make a cheerful blaze for him. At last, when he did come in, he took no notice of the blaze or of Susan; and when his wife asked him how he was, he made no answer, but stood with his back to the fire, looking very gloomy. Susan put his supper upon the table, and set his own chair for him, but he pushed away the chair and turned from the table, saying, "I shall eat nothing, child. Why have you such a fire to roast me at this time of year?"

"You said yesterday, father, I thought, that you liked a little cheerful wood-fire in the evening, and there was a great shower of hail. Your coat is quite wet. We must dry it."

"Take it, then, child," he said, pulling it off, "I shall soon have no coat to dry. Take my hat, too," he went on, throwing it upon the ground.

Susan hung up his hat, put his coat over the back of a chair to dry, and then stood looking at her mother, who was not well. She had tired herself with baking, and now, alarmed by her husband's strange conduct, she sat down pale and trembling. The father threw himself into a chair, folded his arms, and gazed into the fire.

Susan was the first who ventured to break the silence. Fondling her father, she tried to coax him to eat the supper prepared for him. This, however, she could not persuade him to do, but he said, with a faint smile, that he thought he could eat one of her guinea-hen's eggs. Susan thanked him, and showed her eagerness to please her dear father by running as fast as she could to her neat chicken-yard. Alas! the guinea-fowl was not there. It had strayed into the garden of Mr. Case. [pg 262] She could see it through the paling. Going to the garden-gate, Susan timidly opened it, and seeing Miss Barbara walk slowly by, she asked if she might come in and take her guinea-fowl.

Barbara, who at that moment was thinking of all she had heard the village children say, started when she heard Susan's voice.

"Shut the gate," she said crossly, "you have no business in our garden. As for the hen, I shall keep it; it is always flying in here and plaguing us, and my father told me I might catch it and keep it the next time it got in, and it is in now." Then Barbara called to her maid Betty and bid her catch the mischievous bird.

"Oh, my guinea-hen! my pretty guinea-hen!" cried Susan, as mistress and maid hunted the frightened, screaming creature from corner to corner.

"Now we have it!" said Betty, holding it fast by the legs.

"Then pay damages, Queen Susan, or you may say good-by to your pretty guinea-hen," said Barbara in a rude tone.

"It has done no damage," said Susan; "but tell me what I must pay."

"A shilling," said Barbara.

"Oh, if only sixpence would do!" said Susan; "I have but sixpence of my own in the world, and here it is."

"It won't do," said Barbara, turning her back.

"Nay, but hear me," cried Susan, "let me at least come in to look for its eggs. I only want one for my father's supper. You shall have all the rest."

"What is your father or his supper to us; is he so particular that he can eat none but guinea-hen's eggs?" said Barbara. "If you want your hen and your eggs, pay for them, and you shall have them."

"I have only sixpence and you say that won't do," said Susan with a sigh, as she looked at her favorite which was in the maid's cruel hands, struggling and screaming in vain.

Susan went away feeling very sad. At the door of her father's cottage she saw her friend Rose, who had just come to summon her to the hawthorn-bush.

"They are all at the hawthorn, and I have come for you. We [pg 263] can do nothing without you, dear Susan," cried Rose, running to meet her the moment she saw her, "You are chosen Queen of the May—come, make haste. But what is the matter? Why do you look so sad?"

"Ah!" said Susan, "don't wait for me; I can't come to you, but," she added, pointing to the tuft of cowslips in the garden, "gather those for little Mary; I promised them to her, and tell her the violets are under a hedge just beside the stile, on the right as we go to church. Good-by! never mind me; I can't come—I can't stay, for my father wants me."

"But don't turn away your face; I won't keep you a moment; only tell me what is the matter," said her friend, following her into the cottage.

"Oh, nothing, not much," said Susan; "if I had not wanted the egg in a great hurry for father, it would not have vexed me—to be sure I should have clipped my guinea-hen's wings, and then she could not have flown over the hedge; but let us think no more about it now," she added, trying to hide a tear.

When Rose, however, learned that her friend's guinea-hen was kept a prisoner by Barbara, she was hot with indignation, and at once ran back to tell the story to her companions.

"it won't do," said barbara, turning her back.

II

BAD NEWS

Contents