Books: What Katy Did At School

S >> Susan Coolidge >> What Katy Did At School

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Four days! The girls looked at each other with dismay too deep for
words. Elsie was expecting them by Thursday at latest. What should
they do?

"Telegraph," was the only answer that suggested itself. So Katy
scribbled a despatch, "Coming by canal. Don't expect us till
Saturday," which she begged Mr. Peters to send; and she and Clover
agreed in whispers that it was dreadful, but they must bear it as
patiently as they could.

Oh, the patience which is needed on a canal! The motion which is not
so much motion as standing still! The crazy impulse to jump out and
help the crawling boat along by pushing it from behind! How one grows
to hate the slow, monotonous glide, the dull banks, and to envy every
swift-moving thing in sight, each man on horseback, each bird flying
through the air.

Mrs. Peters was a thin, anxious woman, who spent her life anticipating
disasters of all sorts. She had her children with her, three little
boys, and a teething baby; and such a load of bundles, and baskets,
and brown paper parcels, that Katy and Clover privately wondered how
she could possibly have got through the journey without their help.
Willy, the eldest boy, was always begging leave to go ashore and ride
the towing horses; Sammy, the second could only be kept quiet by means
of crooked pins and fish-lines of blue yarn; while Paul, the youngest,
was possessed with a curiosity as to the under side of the boat, which
resulted in his dropping his new hat overboard five times in three
days, Mr. Peters and the cabin-boy rowing back in a small boat each
time to recover it. Mrs. Peters sat on deck with her baby in her lap,
and was in a perpetual agony lest the locks should work wrongly, or the
boys be drowned, or some one fail to notice the warning cry, "Bridge!"
and have their heads carried off from their shoulders. Nobody did;
but the poor lady suffered the anguish of ten accidents in dreading
the one which never took place. The berths at night were small and
cramped, restless children woke and cried, the cabins were close, the
decks cold and windy. There was nothing to see, and nothing to do.
Katy and Clover agreed that they never wanted to see a canal boat
again.

They were very helpful to Mrs. Peters, amused the boys, and kept them
out of mischief; and she told her husband that she really thought she
shouldn't have lived through the journey if it hadn't been for the
Miss Carrs, they were such kind girls, and so fond of children. But
the three days were terribly long. At last they ended. Buffalo was
reached in time for the lake boat; and once established on board,
feeling the rapid motion, and knowing that each stroke of the paddles
took them nearer home, the girls were rewarded for their long trial
of patience.

At four o'clock the next afternoon Burnet was in sight. Long before
they touched the wharf Clover discovered old Whitey and the carryall,
and Alexander, waiting for them among the crowd of carriages. Standing
on the edge of the dock appeared a well-known figure.

"Papa! papa!" she shrieked. It seemed as if the girls could not wait
for the boat to stop, and the plank to be lowered. How delightful it
was to feel papa again! Such a sense of home and comfort and shelter
as came with his touch!

"I'll never go away from you again, never, never!" repeated Clover,
keeping tight hold of his hand as they drove up the hill. Dr. Carr,
as he gazed at his girls, was equally happy,--they were so bright,
affectionate and loving. No, he could never spare them again, for
the boarding-school or any thing else, he thought.

"You must be very tired," he said.

"Not a bit. I'm hardly ever tired now," replied Katy.

"Oh, dear! I forgot to thank Mr. Peters for taking care of us,"
said Clover.

"Never mind. I did it for you," answered her father.

"Oh, that baby!" she continued: "how glad I am that it has gone to
Toledo, and I needn't hear it cry any more! Katy! Katy! there's
home! We are at the gate!"

The girls looked eagerly out, but no children were visible. They
hurried up the gravel path, under the locust boughs just beginning
to bud. There, over the front door, was an arch of evergreens, with
"Katy" and "Clover" upon it in scarlet letters; and as they reached
the porch, the door flew open, and out poured the children in a
tumultuous little crowd. They had been on the roof, looking through
a spy-glass after the boat.

"We never knew you had come till we heard the gate," explained John
and Dorry; while Elsie hugged Clover, and Phil, locking his arms
round Katy's neck, took his feet off the floor, and swung them in
and ecstasy of affection, until she begged for mercy.

"How you are grown! Dorry, you're as tall as I am! Elsie, darling,
how well you look! Oh, isn't it delicious, delicious, delicious, to
be at home again!" There was such a hubbub of endearments and
explanations that Dr. Carr could hardly make himself heard.

"Clover, your waist has grown as small as a pin. You look just like
the beautiful princess in Elsie's story," said Johnnie.

"Take the girls into the parlor," repeated Dr. Carr: "it is cold out
here, with the door open."

"Take 'em upstairs! You don't know what is upstairs!" shouted Phil,
whereupon Elsie frowned and shook her head at him.

The parlor was gay with daffodils and hyacinths, and vases of blue
violets, which smelt delightfully. Cecy had helped to arrange them,
Elsie said. And just at that moment Cecy herself came in. Her hair
was arranged in a sort of pin-cushion of puffs, with a row of curls
on top, where no curls used to grow, and her appearance generally
was very fine and fashionable; but she was the same affectionate Cecy
as ever, and hugged the girls, and danced round them as she used to
do at twelve. She had waited until they had had time to kiss once
all round, she said, and then she really couldn't wait any longer.

"Now come upstairs," suggested Elsie, when Clover had warmed her
feet, and the flowers had been admired, and everybody had said ten
times over how nice it was to have the girls back, and the girls
had replied that it was just as nice to come back.

So they all went upstairs, Elsie leading the way.

"Where are you going?" cried Katy: "that's the Blue Room." But Elsie
did not pause.

"You see," she explained, with the door-knob in her hand, "papa and I
thought you ought to have a bigger room now, because you are grown-up
young ladies! So we have fixed this for you, and your old one is going
to be the spare room instead." Then she threw the door open, and led
the girls in.

"See, Katy," she said, "this is your bureau, and this is Clover's.
And look what nice drawers papa has had put in the closet,--two for
you, and two for her. Aren't they convenient? Don't you like it?
And isn't it a great deal pleasanter than the old room?"

"Oh, a great deal," cried the girls. "It is delightful, every thing
about it." All Katy's old treasures had been transferred from her old
quarters to this. There was her cushioned chair, her table, her book-
shelf, the pictures from the walls. There were some new things too,
--a blue carpet, blue paper on the walls, window curtains of fresh
chintz; and Elsie had made a tasteful pin-cushion for each bureau,
and Johnnie crocheted mats for the wash-stand. Altogether, it was
as pretty a bower as two sisters just grown into ladies could desire.

"What are those lovely things hanging on either side of the bed?"
asked Clover.

They were two illuminated texts, sent as a "welcome home," by Cousin
Helen. One was a morning text, and other an evening text, Elsie
explained. The evening text, which bore the words, "I will lay me
down to sleep, and take my rest, for it is thou, Lord, only who makest
me dwell in safety," was painted in soft purples and grays, and among
the poppies and silver lilies which wreathed it appeared a cunning
little downy bird, fast asleep, with his head under his wing. The
morning text, "When I awake, I am still with Thee," was in bright
colors, scarlet and blue and gold, and had a frame of rose garlands
and wide-awake-looking butterflies and humming-birds. The girls
thought they had never seen any thing so pretty.

Such a gay supper as they had that night! Katy would not take her
old place at the tea-tray. She wanted to know how Elsie looked as
housekeeper, she said. So she sat on one side of papa, and Clover
on the other, and Elsie poured the tea, with a mixture of delight
and dignity which was worth seeing.

"I'll begin to-morrow," said Katy.

And with that morrow, when she came out of her pretty room and took
her place once more as manager of the household, her grown-up life
may be said to have begun. So it is time that I should cease to
write about her. Grown-up lives may be very interesting, but they
have no rightful place in a child's book. If little girls will
forget to be little, and take it upon them to become young ladies,
they must bear the consequences, one of which is, that we can follow
their fortunes no longer.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

I wrote these last words sitting in the same green meadow where the
first words of "What Katy Did" were written. A year had passed, but
a cardinal-flower which seemed the same stood looking at itself in
the brook, and from the bulrush-bed sounded tiny voices. My little
goggle-eyed friends were discussing Katy and her conduct, as they did
then, but with less spirit; for one voice came seldom and faintly,
while the other, bold and defiant as ever, repeated over and over
again, "Katy didn't! Katy didn't! She didn't, didn't, didn't"

"Katy did!" sounded faintly from the farther rush.

"She didn't, she didn't," chirped the undaunted partisan. Silence
followed. His opponent was either convinced or tired of the
discussion.

"Katy didn't." The words repeated themselves in my mind as I walked
homeward. How much room for "Didn'ts" there is in the world, I thought
What an important part they play! And how glad I am that, with all her
own and other people's doings, so many of these "Didn'ts" were included
among the things which my Katy did at School!

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