Chapter IX: Having Her Own Way

"I know just the kind I want, and I won't wear any other," said Nan, irritably.

Miss Blake made no reply, and the girl sauntered off to another part of the store, and pretended to be examining a case of trimmed bonnets, which she could not see because her eyes were half-blind with rebellious tears. What right had any one to tell her what sort of a hat she ought to get! If her father was paying for it, she guessed it was nobody else's business to say anything.

Miss Blake held in her hand a handsome, wide-brimmed felt hat, trimmed simply with fine ribbon and a generous bunch of quills.

"It's very girlish and suitable, ma'am!" the saleswoman said, as she turned away to get another model.

After a moment Nan came hurrying back to the governess' side.

"Horrid old thing!" she said in a low voice, flinging her hand out with a gesture of disgust toward the despised hat. "It's stiff as a poker. Do you suppose I want to have just bunched-up bows with some spikes stuck in the middle to trim my hat! And all one color, too! I guess not!"

The governess bit her lip. "Perhaps we may be able to find something more to your fancy," she said. "But plumes are expensive and perishable, and if you have too many colors your hat will look vulgar."

"I hate this place anyhow," went on Nan, disdainfully. "Bigelow's! Who ever thought of going to Bigelow's?"

"Your mother did," said Miss Blake, quickly. "That is, Delia says she did. And I myself know it to be one of the oldest and best firms in the city. One can always be sure that one is getting good quality for one's money here."

"I never was in the place before," blurted out Nan, "and I despise their hats--every one of them. If you won't let me go to Sternberg's, where they have things I like, I won't get anything at all, so there!"

She suddenly let her voice fall, for the sales-woman was back again with a fresh assortment of shapes to select from.

Miss Blake placed the hat she held gently upon a table and began to examine the others carefully, Nan standing by in sullen silence.

"This is a pretty one--this with the tips, don't you think so?" the governess asked, setting it on her hand and letting it revolve slowly while she regarded it critically with her head on one side.

Nan gave a grunt of dissatisfaction. What she wanted was a flaring, turned-up brim, with a dash of red velvet underneath and a bird-of-paradise on top, caught in a mesh of red and yellow ribbons. She had seen something on this order in Sternberg's window, and it had struck her fancy at once.

The governess hesitated, and then put down the hat she held.

"Very well. We will go to Sternberg's," she said, quietly, to Nan, in an undertone which the saleswoman could not distinguish. The girl started briskly for the door. Miss Blake remained behind a moment, and then followed after.

Now that she was to have her own way Nan was restored to good humor, and kept up a stream of chatter until they reached Sternberg's.

"There! Isn't that a beauty?" she demanded at last, indicating the hat in the window.

Miss Blake, with difficulty, concealed a shudder.

"It seems to me rather showy. But tastes differ, you know. I can't say it suits me exactly. Still, if you are pleased--you are the one to wear it, not I."

The hat was bought and Nan was radiant. She insisted on donning it at once, and Miss Blake tried not to let her discover how ashamed she was to be seen in the street with such a monstrous piece of millinery. Underneath her tower of gorgeousness Nan strutted like a turkey-cock.

"I told Delia before we came away that we might not be home before dusk, so suppose we take luncheon down-town, and then, if you like, we will go to see Callmann. I haven't been to a sleight-of-hand performance since I was a little girl, and I always had a liking for that sort of thing."

"Oh, do! Let's! Can we?" cried Nan, in a burst of grateful excitement.

It was nippingly cold outside, and the warm restaurant proved a delightful contrast. It was jolly to sit in the midst of all this pleasant bustle and be served with delicate, unfamiliar dishes by waiters who stood behind the chair and deferentially called one "Miss."

Miss Blake left Nan to order whatever she pleased, and they dawdled over their meal luxuriously, the color in the girl's cheeks deepening with the warmth and excitement until it almost matched the velvet in her imposing hat. Every now and then she glanced furtively at her reflection in the mirror, and the vision of that bird-of-paradise hovering over those huge butterfly bows thrilled her with a great sense of importance and self-satisfaction. More than once she saw that her hat was being noticed and commented on by the other guests, and she tried her best to seem not aware--to look modestly unconscious. But Miss Blake, when she caught some eye fixed quizzically upon their table, blushed to the roots of her hair, and felt as though it would be impossible to bear the ordeal for a moment longer. Still, she did not hurry Nan, and no one knew, the girl least of all, what agonies of mortification she was enduring.

A deep-toned clock struck one full peal.

"That's half-past one," said Miss Blake, looking up and comparing her watch.

"When does the entertainment begin?" asked Nan.

"At two, I think, or quarter after. If we ride up we have still a few minutes to spare, but if we walk it would be wise to start at once."

"O let's walk," begged Nan. "It's such fun; there's so much going on. And now my foot is well, I just want to trot all the time."

Though Miss Blake was a good walker and took a great deal of exercise, she always preferred to ride when she was with Nan, for the girl forged ahead at such a rate and darted in among the maze of trucks and cars and carriages so recklessly that there was actual danger as well as discomfort in trying to keep abreast with her. Still she made no objection to "trotting," and they started off at a brisk pace.

"Don't you just love to be in the stores around Christmas-time?" asked Nan, watching the crowds press and surge about the doorways of some of the most popular shops. "It's so exciting and the things seem so gay and alluring."

"Yes, it is very attractive--all the motion and color," replied Miss Blake, "but I don't like crowds, and when I am hemmed in at a counter and can't get away I feel stifled and smothered, and long to scream."

"Why don't you scream then? I would!" exclaimed Nan, with a laugh. "I'd shriek, 'Air! Air!' and then you'd see how quick the people would let you out."

Miss Blake smiled with what Nan saw was amusement at some just-remembered incident.

"I was watching a huge celebration in London one spring," she said. "It was in honor of some royal birthday or something, and the streets were packed with people all eager to get a glimpse of the military parade and the notabilities who were to take part in it. From the window where I sat I could not see an inch of pavement, the crowd was so dense. At last there was a sound of martial music and the First Regiment appeared in full gala array. Oh, I assure you it was very imposing and well worth taking some trouble to see. The crowds pushed and jostled, and beyond the first line or two at the curb no one among them could get more than an occasional glimpse of a stray cockade or a floating banner. Still the people were massed solidly from the gutter to the house-steps. We were wondering where the enjoyment in this came in, and congratulating ourselves that we were not doomed to struggle and fight for space in such a huddle, when suddenly we heard a shrill scream. It was a woman's voice crying, 'Air! Air! Give me air!' In another instant the crowd pushed back a step, and quite a respectably-dressed young person staggered weakly through the line to the curb, as if to get more breathing-space. Of course she could have got this in a much easier way by going in the other direction, but you see her plan was to get a better view of the procession, and she thought that was a good method of accomplishing it. It seemed a clever trick, and she was just settling herself to enjoy her improved position, when quick as a flash an order was given: Two men unrolled one of their army stretchers; the woman was whipped up and placed upon it; the poles were seized and off they went, carrying that misguided creature with them through all the gaping, jeering crowd. The last I saw of her she was hiding her face in the coarse army blanket, probably 'crying her eyes out,' as you would say, with mortification and shame."

"What a joke!" exclaimed Nan. "Poor thing! She didn't see the parade after all, and I declare she deserved to. That was the time she was in it though, with a vengeance."

"Look out for this cab, Nan! Be careful. We cross here. Please don't rush so--I can't keep up with you," pleaded Miss Blake.

The girl gave her shoulders an impatient shrug and drew her eyebrows together in a scowl of irritation. But her face cleared as she saw Miss Blake buying their tickets at the box-office.

"Get them good and up front," she begged. "If we're way back we can't see a thing."

The governess hesitated an instant; then a curious expression came over her face and she said, deliberately, "Very well, dear! Up front they shall be."

The house was quite full and Nan thought it a singular piece of good fortune that there were places left just where she would have chosen to sit.

"Just think of having come so late and yet being able to get the best seats in the house," she said, exultantly.

Miss Blake smiled. She understood better than Nan did why the majority of the audience preferred places that were not so near the stage.

Both she and the girl herself soon forgot everything else in their interest in the mysterious tricks that were being performed before their eyes. Of course they knew that all this magic could be explained, but just at the moment it appeared difficult to imagine how. A man seems really no less than a magician who can take a red billiard ball from, no one knows where, out of mid-air, apparently, and suddenly nipping off the end, transform it into two, each equally as large as the first. Presently he thinks you would like to have a third, and, presto! he draws one out from his elbow. Now a white one for a change! But it is easy enough to get a white one. He opens his mouth and there it is, held between his teeth. Then he thinks he will swallow a red one. Pop! it is gone! A moment later he takes it out of the top of his head.

Nan noticed that as the performance progressed the tricks grew "curiouser and curiouser," as Alice would say, and the wizard seemed to take his audience more and more into his confidence. He no longer confined himself to the stage, but came tripping down the steps that led from the platform to the middle aisle and addressed, first this one and then that from among his spectators--only Nan again noticed that these always happened to be sitting as they were themselves, in the foremost seats. He induced a man just in front of her to come upon the stage to "assist" him in one of his "experiments," and the girl trembled lest at any moment he might demand a similar favor of her, for though she was reckless enough as a general thing, she had sufficient delicacy to dread being made conspicuous in such a place as this.

"O Miss Blake," she whispered in the governess' ear, "can't we move back a little? If he should make me go up there I'd sink through the floor!"

"Probably you would. No doubt he would let you down himself--through a trap-door. No, we must stay where we are and we must bear it as best we may. Perhaps he will overlook us."

Nan thought of her hat and the many glances it had drawn to her in the restaurant, and for the first time she had a feeling of mistrust regarding it. Suppose it should fix his eye, with its towering bows and flaming bird-of-paradise! If it did, she would hate it forever after.

But she soon forgot her anxiety in her interest in the wizard himself. Silver pieces were flung in the air and then mysteriously reappeared in the pocket of some unsuspecting member of the audience who was much surprised at seeing them straightway converted into so many gold ones under his very nose. Innocent-looking hoops turned out to possess the most remarkable faculty for resisting all attempts to link them on the part of any one of the spectators, and yet immediately assuming all manner of shapes and positions in the hands of the dexterous magician himself.

At last a shallow cabinet was set upon two chairs in the centre of the stage, and after a word or two of explanation, the wizard drew first one chair and then the other from beneath it, and lo! the magic cupboard remained poised in midair, without any visible means of support whatever.

"You see, ladies and gentlemen," announced the suave magician, "this cabinet is bare; precisely like Mother Hubbard's immortal cupboard. Can you see anything there? No! I thought not. Now I will place within it these bells, so; and this tambourine, so; also this empty slate. You see it is empty. It is quite a simple slate, such as any school-child would use, and its sides are entirely bare. Now I close the doors of the cabinet, so; wave my wand, so; and--"

Immediately there followed the sounds of ringing bells and rattling tambourine, while in a moment all of these instruments came flying out of the top of the cabinet as if they had been vigorously flung aloft by hidden hands. The smiling magician stepped forward, opened the doors of the cabinet with a flourish, and lo! it was empty save for the slate, which proved to be covered over with scribbled characters, and which he politely handed down to persons in the audience for examination.

Nan was completely bewildered and so lost to all that was going on about her that she did not realize that the wizard was tripping down the stage steps and making his way affably up the middle aisle again. It was only when he spoke once more that she woke with a great start, and then to her horror she found he was addressing her.

"I am sure this young lady will not refuse me the loan of her hat for my next experiment," he began with a persuasive smile. "I assure you, Miss, I will not injure it in the least. You won't object, will you?" and he held out his hand engagingly.

The girl stiffened against the back of her chair, so disconcerted that she felt actually dizzy.

"Give him your hat," bade Miss Blake, quickly, as if to put an end to their really painful conspicuousness.

Nan obeyed blindly. The smiling magician took it with a profound bow and held it up for all the audience to see.

"Now you perceive, ladies and gentlemen," he remarked, "that there is nothing mysterious about this hat. At least I am sure the ladies do. To the gentlemen it doubtless seems very mysterious, but that is because they do not understand the art of millinery." As he spoke he made his way up the aisle and to the steps that led to the stage. "It is a beautiful hat. Very elaborate and of a most stylish shape, as you see, but not at all mysterious. Yet I mean to make it serve me in a very interesting experiment, which I think you will admit is exceedingly won--"

But just here he stumbled upon one of the steps, and in trying to recover himself let Nan's cherished head-gear fall and brought his whole weight upon it, crushing it out of all recognition.

"Oh, dear, dear! What have I done?" he deplored in sincerest dismay.

Miss Blake's eyes fell and Nan's lips whitened. Every one was looking at them now, and the magician was making them even more conspicuous by apologizing to them over and over again in the most abject fashion.

"How could I be so awkward! Such a beautiful hat and ruined through my carelessness. I have no words to describe my regret. Do forgive me! But I promised to return your property to you uninjured, did I not, Miss? So, of course, I must keep my word." He held the battered mass of ribbons and bird-of-paradise high above his head as he spoke, and then went forward and placed a pistol in the hand of his assistant on the stage. The man retired to a distance and the wizard held the hat at arm's length as if for a target.

"Now, ready? Then--shoot!"

A second for aim: a report; and the smiling Callmann stepped forward with the hat in his hand, quite whole again and unimpaired.

A shudder ran through Nan as she heard the applause and saw her property held up to public view. She dared not turn her head to look at Miss Blake, and she hardly heard the wizard's voice as he asked to be permitted to use the hat for still another experiment, and she scarcely saw how he placed it on a table, a perfectly innocent looking table, and then proceeded to take from it a multitude of things--from a gold watch to a clucking hen.

When the hen came to light the audience fairly shouted, and Nan thought she could never in the world get up courage to set that hat on her head again and walk out before the eyes of these quizzical people.

"They'll laugh at me all the way," she thought moodily. "And if they ever see me in the street they'll say, 'There goes that trick hat! The one the hen came out of!' I wish it was in Jericho!"

Miss Blake comforted her as best she could with little hidden pressures of the hand and whispered words of sympathy, but the rest of the performance was torture to them both, and when, at last, it was over and they were well on their way home, Nan heaved a great sigh of relief and tried to summon back her courage by declaring that "I don't care if they did laugh when that hen clucked inside it and he said he was afraid this was what might be called 'a loud hat!' It's heaps better than lots I saw on other girls, so there!"

"I am glad you are satisfied with it," said Miss Blake, simply.