PAGE 3
Periwinkle
by
Rob did not know what to say to this. He went back across the field to the schoolhouse door and sat down and listened. He could hear an angry collocation. He thought best not to interfere unless the matter came to blows.
The old man Newton entered his house soon after Rob Riley left him, and repeated to his wife what Rob had said from his own standpoint. The little grandchild, Periwinkle, sat on the floor with that funny-serious air that belonged to her chubby face.
“I’ll go down and see about that, I will,” she said with an air of great importance.
“What?” said the old man, looking tenderly and fondly at Periwinkle.
“I’ll see about that, I will,” said the barefoot cherub, as she pulled on her sunbonnet and set out for the schoolhouse, pushing resolutely forward on her sturdy little legs.
“I vum!” said the old man, as he saw her disappear round the fence corner.
The quaint little thing had not yet been in the house a week. She was sent on to the grandparents after her mother’s death, and, as the child of the daughter who had left them years ago never to return, she had found immediate entrance into the hearts of the old folks. The reprobate Henrietta, who wasted her time drawing pictures, and who was generally in a state of siege at home and at school, had found in little Periwinkle, as they called her, a fountain of affection. And now that Henrietta was in trouble, the little Illinois Periwinkle had gone off in her self-reliant fashion to see about it.
When she reached the schoolhouse she found Rob Riley, whom she had come to know as Henrietta’s friend, standing listening.
“I’ve come down to see about that, I have,” said Periwinkle, nodding her head toward the schoolhouse. Then she listened a while to the angry voice of Miss Tucker, and the surly, sobbing, and defiant replies of Henrietta, who was saying, “Stand back, or I’ll hit you!”
“Open that door this minute, Wob Wiley! I’m a goin’ to see about that.”
Rob hesitated. The latch was clearly out of Periwinkle’s reach. Rob had a faint hope that the little thing might divert the wrathful teacher from her prey. He raised the latch and set the door slightly ajar.
“Now push,” he said to Periwinkle.
She pushed the door open a little way and entered the schoolroom without being seen by the angry mistress, who was facing the other way, having driven Henrietta into a corner. Here stood the defiant girl at bay, waving a ruler, which she had snatched from the irate teacher, and warning the latter to let her alone. Periwinkle walked up to the teacher, pulled her dress, and said:
“I’ve come down to see about that, I have.”
“Who are you?” said the frightened Miss Tucker, to whom it seemed that the little chub had dropped down out of the sky, or come to life off Henrietta’s slate.
“I’m Periwinkle, and you mustn’t touch my Henrietta. I’ve come down to see about it, I have.”
Miss Tucker, in a sudden reaction, sank down on a chair exhausted and bewildered. Then she sobbed a little in despair.
“What shall I do with that girl?” she muttered. “I’m beat out.”
“Come home, Henrietta,” said Periwinkle, and she marched Henrietta out the door under the very eyes of the schoolmistress.
“Come back this minute!” cried Miss Tucker, rallying when it was too late. But the weeping Henrietta, the solemn Periwinkle, and the rejoicing Rob Riley went away and answered the poor woman never a word.
Miss Tucker, who was not without some good sense and good intentions, found out that evening that she did not like teaching. She forthwith resigned the school in East Weston. In a week or two a new teacher was engaged, “a young thing from town,” as the people put it, “who never could manage that Henrietta Newton.”
But sometimes even a “young thing” is gifted with that undefined something that we call tact. Sarah Reade soon found out, from the gratuitous advice lavished upon her, that her chief trouble would be from Henrietta; so she took pains to get acquainted with the unruly girl the first day. Finding that the center of Henrietta’s heart was Periwinkle, she took great interest in getting the girl to tell her all about Periwinkle. Henrietta was so much softened by this treatment that for three whole days after the advent of Miss Reade she did not draw a picture on the slate. But the self-denial was too great. On the fourth day, while Miss Reade was hearing recitation, and the girls at the desk behind Henrietta were looking over at her, she drew a cow very elaborately.