Chapter X: Mrs. Snooks' Education

For the next few days Ruth continued to be the centre of the life of the cottage. All the fun was planned with due regard to her lack of strength. At almost every meal some little extra delicacy appeared beside her plate. Whatever impatience Graham and Jack may have felt over the further postponement of their tramp, they concealed the feeling with remarkable tact. There was little danger however, that the unusual attentions showered on Ruth would turn her head, as she had a counter-irritant in the shape of a firm conviction that she did not deserve any of this spontaneous kindness.

It was a day or two after her unsuccessful attempt to enact the role of heroine that Graham arrived at the cottage at an early hour and in a noticeable state of indignation. In spite of Ruth's protests that she was quite well enough to assist in the work of the morning, the girls had unanimously scoffed at the suggestion, and had forcibly seated her in one of the porch rockers and thrust a late magazine in her hands. But by the time Graham arrived, the magazine had slipped to the floor and Ruth sitting with folded hands, was able to give her brother her undivided attention.

"It's the most extraordinary thing," Graham sat down on the steps at Ruth's feet, and fanned his flushed face with his hat. "Have you missed anything that belongs to you, lately?"

"Why, no! Have you found anything?"

"That's what I'm going to tell you. To start at the beginning, the first night Jack and I slept at Mrs. Snooks', we weren't warm enough. There weren't many covers on the bed, and in this hilly country the nights are cool, even when the days are pretty warm. So, in the morning, I spoke to Mrs. Snooks, and said we'd like some extra bedding, and she promised to attend to it."

Ruth's face had crinkled suddenly into a smile of comprehension, which Graham was too absorbed to notice.

"Well, that night a steamer rug appeared on the bed. It wasn't exactly a success. You know a steamer rug's too narrow to cover two people properly. If it was over Jack, I was left out in the cold, and _vice versa_. We had to take turns shivering. After one of us got to the point where his teeth chattered, he'd snatch the rug off the other fellow and warm up. But it wasn't till this morning that I took any particular notice of that rug. And Ruth, it belongs to us!"

Graham looked at his sister with an air of expecting her to be greatly surprised. Translating her smile into an expression of incredulity, he began to prove his assertion.

"Yes, I know it sounds absurd, but I'm not mistaken, Ruth. I suppose two rugs might be of the same pattern, but it's hardly likely they would have the identical ink-spots. Don't you remember how I spilled the ink on that rug when I was getting over the measles? And down in the corner is part of a tag Uncle John had sewed on, when he borrowed it for his trip abroad. The 'Wylie' is torn off but 'John G.' is left. And now the question is--"

Ruth's laughter could no longer be restrained. "Oh, Graham, she borrowed it."

"Borrowed it!" repeated the amazed Graham. "Well, I like that."

"She rushed down here the morning after you came and said she had an extra bed to make, and would we lend her a little bedding. Of course we didn't have any bedding to spare. We'd only brought enough for ourselves and hardly that, for it's cooler here than we expected. But the steamer rug was lying around and we thought we could let her take that."

"But she must have bedding of her own," insisted Graham. "What does she do in the winter time?"

"That's the funny thing about Mrs. Snooks. She borrows dust-pans, and flat-irons and all sorts of necessary things and you feel sure that she hasn't been doing without them all her life. And the queerest part of all is that she acts so aggrieved if we refuse. If we tell her that we're out of sugar, she seems as indignant as if we kept a store, and it was our business to have sugar for everybody."

Peggy came out on the porch at that moment, and listened with interest, not unmixed with indignation, to Graham's account of his discovery. "Sometimes I think the trouble with that woman is that she's formed an appetite for borrowing, just like an appetite for drugs, you know." Peggy laughed as she added, "Perhaps I ought not to say a great deal just now, as long as I'm going borrowing myself. I've just discovered that we haven't any ginger in the house, and I've set my heart on gingerbread for dinner."

"Why don't you borrow it of Mrs. Snooks?" cried Ruth. "It's time we were getting a little return for what we've lent her."

Peggy hesitated. "I don't know why I shouldn't," she acknowledged frankly. "If it isn't very convenient for her to lend it, perhaps she'll realize that her borrowing may inconvenience other people sometimes."

It was while Peggy was absent on this errand that the plot was formed. Gradually the group on the piazza had increased till only Peggy and Dorothy were missing. Not unnaturally the conversation concerned itself with Mrs. Snooks' peculiarities, and the undeniable disadvantages of having her for a neighbor. Graham's story of the steamer rug was matched by equally harrowing tales of useful articles borrowed with the promise of an immediate return, and missed when wanted most.

"Peggy imagines that she's going to teach Mrs. Snooks a lesson by borrowing a little ginger of her," Ruth said with a shake of her head. "It's my opinion it'll take a good deal more than that to teach Mrs. Snooks anything."

A sudden mischievous light illumined Amy's eyes. "Let's give her a real lesson," she cried. "Let's show her how it seems to have your neighbors always borrowing things. Peggy's gone after a little ginger, you say?"

"Yes," nodded Ruth fascinated by the possibilities she saw unfolding in Amy's plan.

"Well, when Peggy gets home, I'll go down and do some borrowing. And it won't be anything like ginger, you understand. I'll pick out some real useful article, that she'll miss every minute. That's the way she does. And when I get back, Priscilla will take her turn."

Had Peggy been present it is doubtful whether the project would have been received with such unanimous enthusiasm. Peggy's softness of heart interfered sadly, at times, with her theories of discipline. But in her absence the conspiracy against Mrs. Snooks' peace of mind was discussed and elaborated without a dissenting voice. Even Aunt Abigail tacitly approved, and Jack Rynson, who, it appeared, had been solicited to lend a handkerchief and a black necktie, that Mr. Snooks might be properly attired for attending a funeral in the village, gave the schemers the benefit of several valuable suggestions.

Peggy made her appearance dimpling with amusement, and was greeted with a shout of interrogation. "Did you get it?" cried half a dozen voices in chorus.

"Yes, I got it, but you never saw anybody so surprised and unwilling. She hinted and fussed, and dropped hints that she'd been thinking of making gingerbread for supper herself. It really made me uncomfortable to take it, but I felt it was time that she had a lesson."

"High time!" agreed Amy with a droll glance at her fellow-conspirators. The unsuspecting Peggy looked about with mild surprise on the laughing group. "Well, we're sure of our gingerbread, anyway," she said and passed into the house. Amy was instantly on her feet.

"Oh, Amy," exclaimed Ruth, half admiringly, and half in remonstrance, "do you really dare?"

"Dare? Why, I don't need any great amount of courage. I'm only Number Two. It's Number Five or Number Six who'll have to be brave." Amy went gaily down the path, and Peggy as she stirred the soda into the molasses, wondered at the laughter on the front porch and reflected that the crowd was in unusually jolly spirits.

About the time that the gingerbread was beginning to diffuse its savory odors through the house, Amy returned. A glance at her triumphant face furnished sufficient proof that her undertaking had been successful, even without the silent testimony of a large object concealed by a napkin, and carried with ostentatious care. "Oh, Amy, what have you there?" cried Priscilla, finding some difficulty in making her voice heard above the chorus of exclamations and laughter.

"An apple-pie." Amy's tone indicated immense satisfaction with herself.

"Amy, not really? You couldn't!" Ruth protested, choking with laughter.

"Seeing's believing, isn't it?" Amy whisked off the napkin, and revealed the pie still steaming. When order was sufficiently restored, she told her story.

"I hadn't exactly made up my mind what I'd ask for, but the minute I was inside the kitchen, I saw the pie set in the window to cool and I decided on that. Poor Mrs. Snooks couldn't believe her ears. She asked me over twice, and then she said she'd never heard of anybody's borrowing a pie. And I said that we happened to be out of pies, and were going to have company to dinner. You and Jack will have to stay," she added to Graham, who accepted with as profound a bow as if he had not been counting confidently on the invitation.

"Did she act very cross?" questioned Priscilla, who was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Snooks' education had not progressed sufficiently for that day, without any further assistance.

"Oh, not particularly. She looked rather sad, and you couldn't call her manner obliging, but it isn't likely that she'd say very much, considering that she's borrowed something from us once a day on an average, ever since we came."

"I wish you'd let me take my turn next," said Claire a little nervously. "I don't want to wait till she gets to the exploding point, and then be the one to be blown up."

"Oh, go ahead, I don't mind." As a matter of fact, Priscilla shared Claire's qualms, but would not for the world have admitted as much. Ruth watched Claire moving down the path, reluctance apparent in every step, and declared that it didn't seem fair. "You girls are bearding the lioness in her den and I'm having all the fun without doing a thing. Aunt Abigail and I are the lucky ones."

"Bless you, child, I'm going to take my turn," said the old lady, with a twinkle in her eye which indicated that her requisition on the generosity of Mrs. Snooks would mark a distinct advance in the education of that lady. "I'm going when Priscilla gets back."

But, as it happened, Aunt Abigail was not called on to redeem her boast. Claire returned with a small package of salt, folded up in brown paper, her courage having failed her when it came to the point of requesting the loan of a more useful article. Priscilla, having joined in the scoffing called out by this evidence of faint-heartedness, was on her guard against a similar display of timidity.

Mrs. Snooks was ironing as Priscilla appeared in the doorway, and the flush that stained her sallow cheeks was not altogether due to the proximity of a glowing stove.

"Mrs. Snooks," Priscilla began, finding the ordeal rather more trying than she had expected, "I've come to see if you'll lend us your coffee-pot till to-morrow."

Mrs. Snooks tested her flat-iron with a damp forefinger, and then resumed her work. Her answer was so long coming that Priscilla began to wonder if she were not intending to reply.

"There's been a good deal of borrowing 'round in this neighborhood first and last," Mrs. Snooks remarked at length, with impressive dignity. "And lately I've been laying in a considerable stock of new things, including a coffee-pot. I've made up my mind that I'll neither borrow nor lend. While I don't like to seem unneighborly," concluded Mrs. Snooks, setting down her flat-iron with a startling thud, "it's a matter of principle. I've done the last lending or borrowing that I'm a-going to."

It was apparent that Amy's ruse had worked, and that Mrs. Snooks had learned her lesson, but it needed the girls' united efforts to dissuade Aunt Abigail from following up Priscilla's visit, by a call of her own. Aunt Abigail argued that in order to make the effects of the lesson permanent, it was necessary to "rub it in." From a hint she finally let fall, the girls gathered that she was disappointed in not being able to carry out a brilliant idea that had flashed into her mind while the plot was developing.

"What was it you were going to borrow, Aunt Abigail?" Ruth asked, but Aunt Abigail shook her head. "If I had succeeded in getting it from Mrs. Snooks," she replied, "you should have known. Not otherwise." And as Peggy who happened out on the porch at that moment, threw the weight of her influence on the side of those who were protesting against any further visits to Mrs. Snooks, it seemed probable that the curiosity of the company would remain ungratified. Aunt Abigail was an old lady abundantly able to keep her own counsel.

Peggy viewed the apple-pie with an air of disquiet. "Now, we'll have to buy some apples, right away. We're out."

"Well, what of it?"

"Why, we must make a pie in the morning to return to Mrs. Snooks."

"Return!" cried Amy. "Why, Peggy, you're going to ruin everything. This is 'spoiling the Egyptians.' What did Mrs. Snooks ever return that we didn't send for?" As Peggy refused to alter her determination, a little murmur of dissatisfaction arose.

"I think we're getting the worst of that bargain," Jack Rynson said with feeling. "Swapping one of Miss Peggy's pies, for one of Mrs. Snooks'. I've tried both, and I ought to know."

"Then we'll send it back just as it is," declared Amy with another happy inspiration. "We'll change it to another plate, and she won't know whether it is her pie or not. And, even if she suspects the truth, what difference does it make?"

This brilliant idea was actually carried out, after some demurring on the part of Peggy, who was afraid that Mrs. Snooks' feelings might be hurt. Graham was delegated to return the pie and did so that evening, with a suitable expression of thanks which Mrs. Snooks received without returning the usual assurance that every one concerned was perfectly welcome.

Graham turning to go up-stairs, halted by the door. "Oh, by the way, Mrs. Snooks, if you could let me have--"

"I'm entirely out," replied Mrs. Snooks, without waiting for him to finish.

Graham stared. Then he understood that Mrs. Snooks was suspecting him of complicity in the plot, and his amusement came very near getting the better of his politeness. In his effort not to laugh, his handsome young face flushed a not unbecoming scarlet.

"It was only that I lost a button on the way home, Mrs. Snooks, and I thought if you would--"

"I've lent my last spool of thread," said Mrs. Snooks, "and I haven't a needle to my name. Henney dropped my thimble down the well last week, and as for buttons, the only ones I own are on the children's clothes. But if you want any of them things, Mr. Wylie, you'll find a right good assortment at Dowd's. He keeps a good stock, if 'tis nothing but a country store."

Graham thanked her and went to his room. He reflected that Mrs. Snooks had not only learned her lesson, but had applied it, which is not always the case with promising pupils.