Belle Powers' Locket
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After the first novelty of school had worn off, Mabel tired of the restraint and declared that she would go no more; but in the mean time her father had arrived, and he insisted that she should keep on.
For some days after this she gave Miss Ashton a good deal of trouble, and set at defiance many of her rules and regulations; but she soon found that this did her no service, for Miss Ashton, gentle as she was, would be obeyed; and Mabel did not find the solitude of the cloak-room agreeable when she was punished by being sent there, and concluded that, "after all, she had the best time when she was good."
She was not at all a favorite with her school-mates, – this fractious and self-willed little child; and Belle had to "take her part" and coax a good deal before she could persuade them to regard her with any patience, or to feel willing to accept her as a member of their circle.
"What have you there?" asked Mabel one day, coming into Belle's nursery and finding her looking lovingly at some small object she held in her hand.
"It's my locket, – my new locket that papa gave me a few minutes ago," answered Belle.
"Let's see it," said Mabel, making a grasp at it; but Belle was too quick for her, and would not suffer her to seize her treasure.
"You can't have it in your own hands," she said; "for it was my own mamma's, and I don't want any one to touch it, 'cept they loved her. Only Maggie and Bessie," she added, remembering that they had never known her mother, but that she would by no means keep the choicest of her treasures from their hands, feeling sure as she did that they would guard what was precious to her with as much care as she would herself.
"I'll show it to you, Mabel. Isn't it pretty?" and Belle held up a small locket on a slight gold chain.
It was a little, old-fashioned thing, heart-shaped, and made of fretted gold with a forget-me-not of turquoises in the centre. It was very pretty, – in Belle's eyes, of the most perfect beauty; but its great value lay in that it had belonged, as she told Mabel, to her own mamma when she was a girl.
It was one of Belle's greatest pleasures to sit upon her papa's knee and turn over with loving, reverent fingers the various articles of jewelry which had once been her mother's, and which were to be hers when she should be of a proper age to have them and take care of them. "Mamma's pretty things" were a source of great enjoyment to her; and although Belle loved dress as much as any little girl of her age, it was with no thought of decking herself in them, but simply for their own beauty and the sake of the dear one who had once worn them, that they were so prized. And now and then when her papa gave her some trifle suitable for her, she seldom wore it, so fearful would she be of losing it, or lest other harm should come to it. So now, as things were apt to come to harm in Mabel's destructive fingers, she was very much afraid of trusting the precious locket within them; and stoutly, though not crossly, refused to let her have it.
Mabel begged and promised, whined and fretted; but the locket was still held beyond her reach, till at last she made a dive and had nearly snatched it from Belle's hold.
But Daphne's eye was upon her, and Daphne's hand pulled her back as the old woman said, —
"Hi! dere! none ob dat, Miss Mabel. I ain't goin fur see my ole missus' tings took from my young missus, and me by to help it. I ain't goin fur stan' dat, no way," and Daphne's grasp was rougher than it need to have been as she held back the angry, struggling Mabel.
The child was in a great passion: she struck wildly at the nurse, and screamed aloud, so that her mother came running to see what was the matter.
"There then, never mind," said Mrs. Walton, as Mabel, released from Daphne's hold, rushed to her and complained that Belle would not let her touch her new locket, – "never mind, I will give you something pretty to look at."
"I want a locket like Belle's to keep for my own," said Mabel; "and then I'll never let her see it."
"Pooh! I wouldn't look at it," said Belle, forgetting all her good resolves, "if you showed it to me. I'd just squeeze my eyes tight shut, and never open them till you took it away. And I don't b'lieve the man in the locket-store has any like this."
But Mabel had hardly left the room with her mother before Belle was sorry, as usual, for the anger she had shown, and said remorsefully to Daphne, —
"There now, I went and forgot the Bible proverb papa gave me, and didn't give 'a soft answer' to turn away Mabel's wrath, but just spoke as cross as any thing, and was real naughty. I'll just run after her, and let her touch my locket very carefully with her own hands."
And away she went, ready to make peace, even by doing that which was not pleasant to her; but the dear little thing was only partly successful, for as Maggie afterwards said, when Belle told her the story, "Mabel was of that kind of nature that if you gave her an inch she took an ell;" and no sooner did Belle let her have the locket in her own hands than she wanted to have it about her neck and wear it. This was too much, even for the little peace-maker: she could not make up her mind to give way in this, nor, indeed, could she have been expected to do so; and quiet was not restored till Mabel's mother was worried into taking her out at once in search of such a locket as Belle's.
But the search proved quite fruitless, for no locket exactly like Belle's could be found; and Mabel would not be satisfied with one that was different. In vain did she and her mother go from jeweller's to jeweller's; in vain did Mrs. Walton offer the spoiled child lockets far more showy and costly than the one on which she had set her heart; in vain did the shopman assure her that such as she desired were "quite out of the fashion," an argument which generally went a good way with Mabel: one just like Belle's she would have.
"Then we will have one made," said Mrs. Walton; and inquired when it could be finished. But when the jeweller said it would take a week or more, neither would this satisfy the naughty child, who was in a mood that was uncommonly perverse and obstinate even for her.
"I shall have one to-day," she repeated; and was so very troublesome that even the patience of her mistaken and spoiling mother at last gave way, and the jeweller heartily wished himself rid of such a noisy, ill-behaved customer.
However, Mrs. Walton gave the order, and promised to bring Belle's locket for the jeweller to see the pattern on Monday, this being Saturday; and then returned home with her naughty child.
Belle had gone out, – gone to Mrs. Bradford's to spend the day with Maggie and Bessie, as she always did on Saturday; and Mabel was left to whine and fret by herself till evening.
This gave her fresh cause of displeasure: she was vexed at her cousin for leaving her alone, and when Belle returned she was greeted with, —
"Mamma is going to take your locket away from you on Monday, and take it to the locket-man to make me one just like it."
"No," said Belle, backing from Mabel to her father's knee, and holding fast with one hand clasped over the other upon the beloved locket, as if she feared it was to be snatched from her at once.
"You'll let me take it to the jeweller for a pattern, dear: won't you?" said her aunt. "Mabel wants one just like it."
Belle shook her head.
"No, Aunt Fanny," she answered: "I couldn't. It was my own mamma's, and I couldn't let it go from me; and I don't want anybody to have one just like it."
She did not speak unkindly or pettishly, but with a quiet determination in her tone, such as she sometimes showed, and which in some cases might seem to be obstinacy. But it was not so now; and it was evident that the child had some deep and earnest reason for her refusal, – a feeling that the little treasure which had belonged to her mamma had something so dear and sacred about it, that it could not be suffered to pass into strange hands, even for a time; nor could she bear to have it copied.
"The locket-man didn't know my own mamma, Aunt Fanny," she answered again to her aunt's persuasions: "maybe he wouldn't be so very gently with it. I couldn't, – I really couldn't."
Tears gathered in the eyes of the sensitive little one as she spoke, and there was a piteous tremble of her lip which forbade her aunt to urge her farther; but Mabel was not to be so put off.
"You cannot have it, Mabel," said Mr. Powers. "I will not have Belle troubled in this matter."
"What is it?" asked Mr. Walton, looking up from his evening paper, to which he had until now given all his attention, too much accustomed to the fretful tones of his little daughter's voice to pay heed to them when he could avoid it.
The trouble was soon explained; and Mr. Walton, who had lately awakened to the fact that his Mabel had become a most troublesome and disagreeable child, and that it was time for her to learn that she must sometimes give up her own will and consider others, told her that she must think no more of this new whim; and that if she could not be contented with such a locket as he might choose for her on Monday, she should have none at all.
"Then I won't have any at all," said Mabel, passionately. "And I won't eat any breakfast or dinner or supper, not for any days."
"Just as you choose," said Mr. Walton, coolly taking up his paper and beginning to read again; while his wife looked pleadingly at him, but to no purpose; and Belle sat gazing in amazement at the child who dared to speak in such a way to her father. Indulgent as Mr. Powers always was to his motherless little girl, she knew very well that he never would have overlooked such disrespect as that, nor could she have believed it possible that she should ever be guilty of it.
Astonishment and indignation at this novel mode of treatment held Mabel speechless and quiet for a moment; then she set up a roar which would have been surprising as coming from so small a pair of lungs, to any one who had not known her powers in that particular.
But here again Mr. Walton, who, as Belle afterwards told her papa, seemed to be disposed to "turn over a new leaf about training up Mabel in the way she should go," interfered, and bade her go from the room, or be quiet.
She chose neither; and the matter ended by her father himself carrying her away, and giving orders that she should be put to bed.
Belle was very sorry for all this, and could not help feeling as if she somehow was to blame, although the matter of the locket was one too near her little heart to be given up. But she went to her uncle when her own bed-time came, and begged that she might go and wish Mabel good-night, and be friends with her once more.
But Mr. Walton thought it better, as did Belle's own papa, that the wilful child should be left to herself till the next day; and he dismissed Belle with a kind kiss, saying, —
"Mabel will feel better in the morning, dear, and then she will be ready to make friends with you; but just now I am afraid she is still too naughty to meet you pleasantly."
IX.
BELLE'S MISFORTUNE
Mr. Walton was sadly mistaken when he thought that his little girl would have forgotten her ill-temper and be ready to be pleasant and good-humored in the morning. Mabel awoke sulky and pouting, quite determined to believe that Belle had grievously injured her, and obstinately refusing to be reconciled unless she would consent to give up the locket.
Had Belle been willing to do this, her papa and uncle would not have permitted it; but, though Mabel was in a state of displeasure with the world in general that morning, she chose to consider Belle as chief offender, and treated her accordingly.
"But it's Sunday," said Belle, when she refused to kiss her for good-morning.
"Don't I know that?" snapped Mabel.
"But I don't like to be cross with any one on Sunday," pleaded Belle.
"You're cross to me, and so I'll be cross with you, – Sunday and Monday and every day," said the disagreeable child. "Now leave me be."
And Belle, seeing that Mabel was not to be persuaded into a better temper, was forced to do as she said, and let her alone.
And all day, Sunday though it was, Mabel was even more peevish, exacting, and troublesome than usual, till she was a burden and torment to herself and every one about her.
When Monday morning came she was rather more reasonable, but still persisted in being "offended" with Belle, and even refused to walk on the same side of the street with her when they were going to school.
"Will you wear your new locket, Miss Belle?" asked Daphne when she was making her little mistress ready for school.
"No, I guess not," said Belle: "something might happen to it, and maybe it's too nice."
"I reckon it's not too fancy," said Daphne, holding up the locket and looking at it admiringly: "you may wear it if you like, and mebbe Miss Ashton would like to see it."
Now the locket was perhaps not quite a proper thing for Belle to wear to school, and had her father been there he might have advised her to keep to her first decision; but Daphne always liked to deck out her little lady in all the finery she could lay her hands on, and, had she not been held in check by wiser heads, would often have sent her forth to school in very improper guise. And as Mabel was always very much dressed, it chafed Daphne sorely to contrast the simple but more suitable garments of her little Miss Belle with the showy ones worn by her cousin.
So now she persuaded Belle to wear the locket, saying, not to the child, but to herself, that it "was time folks foun' out her folks was wort somethin', an' had plenty of pretty things if they on'y chose to show 'em;" and, rather against the child's own better judgment, she suffered the nurse to put the locket about her neck.
It was well for Belle, and for those who had the guiding of her, that she was such a docile little girl, generally willing and anxious to do that which she believed to be right, or she might have been sadly injured by the spoiling of her devoted but foolish old nurse. As it was, it did not do her much harm; and Daphne often felt herself put to shame by the little one's uprightness and good sense.
However, on this morning Daphne had her way; and, as I have said, the locket was put on.
As might have been supposed, the new ornament immediately attracted the attention of all Belle's class-mates; and they crowded about her before school opened, to examine and admire, with many an "oh!" and "ah!" "how lovely!" and "how sweet!"
"Mabel, have you one too?" asked Dora Johnson; for the children had found out by this time that if Belle had a pretty thing, Mabel was sure to have one also.
"I'm going to," said Mabel, "one just like it: you see if I don't; even if that cross-patch won't let the man have it to pattern off of. She thinks herself so great nobody can have a locket like hers."
"Belle's not a cross-patch," said Lily Norris; "and, Mabel, if you talk that way about her, we won't be friends with you, not any of the class. Belle's old in the class, and you're new; and we don't think so very much of you. So you'd better look out."
Mabel and Lily were always at swords' points; for Lily was saucy and outspoken, very fond of Belle, and always upholding her rights, or what she considered such.
"Belle's real selfish," muttered Mabel; "and you shan't talk to me that way, Lily."
"God gave me my tongue for my own, and I keep it for just what words I choose to say," said Lily, losing both temper and grammar in her indignation; "and Belle's not selfish, but you; and most always when peoples is selfish themselves, they think other ones are that ain't. That's the kind that you're of, Mabel."
"Now don't let's quarrel," said Nellie Ransom, the prudent; "else Miss Ashton will come, and send us to our seats."
"But, Belle, dear," said Dora, "what's the reason you don't want Mabel to have a locket like yours?"
Belle told her story; and very naturally the sympathies of all her class-mates went with her, and Mabel was speedily made to see that she was thought to be altogether in the wrong, which did not tend to restore her to good humor.
"I shall take it to the locket-man for a pattern," she said angrily: "you see if I don't. I'll get it, ah-ha."
"No, you won't," said Lily. "Belle knows you. She'll take good enough care of it; and just you try to snatch it now."
What would follow if she did, Lily plainly expressed in the threatening shake of the head with which she accompanied her words.
Farther quarrelling or unkind threats were prevented by the entrance of Miss Ashton, who called her little class to order, and school was opened.
Miss Ashton had more trouble with Mabel that morning than she had had any day since she first came to school. She was pettish and fretful beyond all reason; elbowed and crowded the other children, pouted over her lessons, and was disrespectful to her teacher, and once broke into such a roar that Mrs. Ashton hastily opened the doors between the two rooms and inquired into the cause of the trouble. This soon hushed Mabel's screams; for the elder lady's looks were rather stern and severe, and she at least was one person of whom the wilful child stood in wholesome dread.
But though quiet was restored for a time, it was not to last long; and this seemed destined to be a day of trouble, all through Mabel's naughtiness. Miss Ashton called up the arithmetic class; and as they stood about her desk, she saw Mabel and Lily elbowing one another with all their might, – the former cross and scowling, the latter looking defiant and provoking, and still half good-humored too.
"Children! Lily and Mabel! What are you doing?" she asked.
"Can't Mabel keep her elbow out of my part of the air, Miss Ashton?" said Lily.
"For shame!" said the lady: "two little girls quarrelling about such a trifle as that."
"But, Miss Ashton," pleaded Lily, "she sticks me so! She oughtn't to take up any more room than that;" and she measured with her hand the portion of empty space which according to her ideas rightfully belonged to Mabel; while the latter, conscious that she had been wilfully trespassing, had nothing to say.
"I am sorry that my little scholars cannot agree," said Miss Ashton. "Mabel, stand back a little, and keep your elbows down, my dear. If you cannot behave better, I shall be forced to send you into the other room to my mother; and all the young ladies there will know you have been naughty."
To be sent into Mrs. Ashton in disgrace was thought a terrible punishment; and Miss Ashton had never yet had to put it in practice: the mere mention of it was generally enough to bring the naughtiest child to good behavior, and it was a threat she seldom used. But she knew that the solitude of the cloak-room had quite lost its effect on Mabel, and felt that some stronger measures must be taken if there was to be any peace that day.
Mabel obeyed; but in spite of the threatened punishment, her temper so far got the better of her that she could not resist giving Lily a parting thrust with her elbow, – a thrust so hard that Lily's slate was knocked from her hand and fell upon the floor, where it broke into three or four pieces.
Now, indeed, Mabel was frightened; and the other children stood almost breathless, waiting for what Miss Ashton would say and do.
She said nothing; what she did was to rise quickly, take Mabel by the hand and turn to lead her to the other room.
Dreading she hardly knew what, Mabel was still too thoroughly terrified at the prospect before her to rebel any farther, or to do more than gasp out, —
"Oh! Miss Ashton! I won't do so any more! I didn't mean to! I will be good!"
Miss Ashton did not answer, but drew her on; when Belle, dropping her own slate beside Lily's, sprang forward and laid her hand on her teacher, looking up with eyes as appealing as Mabel's.
"Please excuse her this time, Miss Ashton," she exclaimed. "I don't think she did mean to break Lily's slate. She only meant to joggle her, and the slate fell out of her hand; but I don't believe she meant to do it. Try her just this once, dear Miss Ashton: maybe she will be good."
Miss Ashton looked down at the little pleader and hesitated. Truth to tell, she had not known how terrible a bugbear her mother was to her young flock: she was sorry now that she saw they had such a dread of her, and perhaps was ready to seize upon an excuse to relent and withdraw her threat.
"Oh! I will, I will be good! I'll never do so any more!" sobbed Mabel.
Miss Ashton turned about, and taking her seat placed Mabel in front of her.
"Very well," she said. "I will excuse you this once; not because you do not deserve punishment, Mabel, but because Belle begs for you. But remember it is for this one time. If you behave again as you have done this morning, I shall certainly punish you. And you must stand there now and say your lesson apart from the other children."
Relieved from the dread of going to Mrs. Ashton, Mabel did not so very much mind that, or the cold, displeased glances of the rest of the class; but as she took her place, she cast a grateful look over at Belle, to whom she truly felt she owed her escape; and Belle felt quite repaid for the "love-charity" which had helped her to forget and forgive Mabel's unkind behavior to herself, and to plead for her.
But the troubles which arose from Mabel's misconduct had by no means come to an end. Belle's place in the class was just at Miss Ashton's left hand, and when she dropped her slate it fell at the foot of the lady's chair. It had escaped the fate of Lily's, not being even cracked by the fall; but as poor little Belle stooped to pick it up, a far worse misfortune than the loss of her slate befell her. As she raised her head, the slight chain about her neck caught on the arm of the chair, and the strain snapped it in two.
The sudden check and drag hurt Belle and left an angry red mark about her neck, but she did not heed the sting as she saw chain and locket fall at her feet.
She did not say a word, only snatched it up with a quick, long-drawn breath, and stood for a moment looking at it with the utmost dismay and grief in her countenance; while a chorus of sympathizing exclamations arose from the other children. The mischief done was not so very great, and could easily be repaired; but in Belle's eyes it seemed very dreadful, and as though her treasure was very nearly, if not quite, destroyed. Great tears rose to her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks; and she turned to Miss Ashton, piteously holding out the locket in her hand.
Miss Ashton hastened to bring comfort.
"Never mind, dear," she said cheerfully: "it can easily be mended. Tell papa it was an accident, and he will have it done for you, I am sure."
"But now the jeweller man will have to take it," said Lily, indignantly; "and Belle didn't want to have it go 'way from her, and it's all just for the way Mabel behaved. I should think a broken locket and a broken slate were just about too much consequences of any one's naughtiness and hatefulness for one day."
"Be quiet, Lily," said Miss Ashton.
"But it's true, Miss Ashton: it all came of that old Mabel's badness," persisted Lily.
"Lily, will you be quiet?" repeated her teacher.
Lily dared say no more; but borrowing a slate for the purpose from the child who stood next her, she held it closely before her face, and from behind that shelter made two or three grimaces at Mabel, which, whatever relief they might afford her own feelings, did neither harm nor good to any one else, as they were not seen.
Still Lily's words were felt by Belle and all the rest of the class to be true. Belle's misfortune was certainly the result of Mabel's ill-behavior; and it was very hard for the poor little girl to keep down the angry feelings which seemed as if they would rise up to accuse her cousin.
And Lily's speech or speeches, and the knowledge that she was blamed by all her class-mates, vexed Mabel again, and crushed down the better feelings which had arisen towards Belle, so that she put on an appearance of complete indifference to her distress; and muttered sulkily, —
"I don't care."
"Put the locket carefully away in your desk, dear," said Miss Ashton to Belle, "and do not fret about it. Your papa will have it fixed for you, and it will be as good as ever."