The Cricket

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

“I won’t have it! I won’t have it! If they come, I’ll run away and hide!” shouted the child, wildly.

“That will be very rude. No one acts like that—no one except a barbarian,” said Miss Wilder, calmly.

“I want to be a bar——one of those things you said.”

“You act like one most of the time.”

The child brain caught at a new idea.

“What is that—that what you said?”

“Barbarian? B-a-r-b-a-r-i-a-n,” she spelled slowly. “It is a savage creature with no manners, no morals, no clothes even. It lives in a hut or a tree, and eats roots and nuts, and nearly raw meat,” Miss Wilder remarked, none too accurately, but slowly, in order to distract Isabelle’s attention from the late subject of unpleasantness. The little girl considered her words thoughtfully.

“Do they have children?”

“Yes.”

“Where do they live?”

“Oh, strange places; Fiji Islands, for one.”

“Are there any near here?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I want to go live with the bar-barbarians.”

Miss Wilder’s stern face underwent no change. She answered seriously:

“You would not like it; you would be very uncomfortable. The children have no pretty clothes, no nice homes with gardens to play in, no kind parents or patient teachers.”

“Do they have horses?”

“I suppose so.”

“Do they swim?”

“Probably. They have rude boats called dug-outs,” continued Miss Wilder, glad of an absorbing subject.

“Do the children go in the boats?”

“No doubt.”

“They can’t get their clothes spoiled if they don’t wear any.”

“Obviously. Come, now, Isabelle, put on your dress like a nice girl. The children will be coming to the party, and you won’t be dressed.”

“I won’t put on that dress, and I’m not going to the party, I tell you; I hate them.”

Miss Wilder tried force, but in vain. She tried strategy, with no results. Isabelle wriggled out of her grasp and darted out of the room. Miss Wilder called; no reply. She commanded; no answer. Then she closed her lips more firmly and betook herself to the door of Mrs. Bryce’s room.

“What is it? I told you not to bother me,” an irritated voice called, at her knock.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bryce, but Isabelle refuses to be dressed for the party. She says she won’t go.”

“Come in,” called the voice.

The governess opened the door and entered. It was a hot day, and Mrs. Bryce, in a cool négligé, lay stretched out on a chaise longue, with a pitcher of something iced beside her, a book open on her lap. She was the picture of luxurious comfort, except for the frown upon her pretty brow.

“Why don’t you make her behave, Miss Wilder?”

“I do my best, Mrs. Bryce, but she is very difficult,” the older woman sighed.

“Of course she’s difficult—she’s a brat! But that is what I have you for, to teach her some manners, and make her act like a civilized being. Where is she?”

“She ran away when I tried to put her dress on her.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

“I thought you might order her to get dressed.”

“Much good it would do! I don’t see why I have to be bothered with it. I didn’t want the party; it’s a perfect nuisance, cluttering up the place with noisy kids; but she owes it to them, and she has to have them here once a season.”

A small, determined figure appeared at the door, in a brief petticoat and socks.

“I won’t go to that party,” she announced.

“Come here to me this instant,” exploded her mother at sight of her.

The child walked slowly to her mother’s side, with disconcerting dignity, all out of proportion to her four brief years.

“What do you mean by acting like this when I give you a birthday party? There is everything on earth ordered to eat, and all the children in the colony are asked to come and play with you, and you make a monkey of yourself.”

“I won’t go.”

“Why won’t you go?”

“You didn’t ask Patsy.”

“You can’t ask that common little Irishman to a party,” objected her parent....