A DROP OF INK
"Somehow I find it awfully hard to settle down to work," said Martine to one of the girls at school a day or two after Washington's Birthday. "I don't know whether it's the holiday—or what."
"It's 'what,' I think; vacations ought not to hurt us, they are meant to set one up."
"How literal you are! Look at Priscilla; she's as busy as can be. She knows how to study at school; but then of course there couldn't have been anything very exciting in a Plymouth holiday; but although she was away only two days I do wonder that she can study so in school."
"It's a sensible thing, all the same, and saves home study. I begrudge more than an hour a day out of school, and if you don't work here, you surely have to spend three or four hours there."
"You'll have to spend more than an hour a day on home work if you are going to prepare that essay. Isn't it outrageous?"
"Well, it's as fair for one as for another. There's no use in talking about it now; we must keep at this translation." And for the next ten minutes the two girls kept their eyes on their Virgils.
Martine and Grace had gone into a small room off the main schoolroom, where a certain amount of conversation was permitted to two girls who happened to be studying together. They were not expected, however, to wander far from the lesson they had set out to prepare, and idle conversation, if overheard, would have carried a reproof. Yet the special essay to which Grace had referred was for the time uppermost in the minds of most of Miss Crawdon's pupils, and to Martine the necessity for writing it was peculiarly disagreeable; she did not pretend to be literary; her brightness and energy expressed themselves in far different ways. She could talk better than most girls, but when it came to putting her thoughts on paper in an extended form, she was really at sea. No one sympathized with her when she protested that it was absolutely impossible for her to write a ten-page essay on the question "Is the pen mightier than the sword?"
"Why, it's what I call the simplest kind of a subject," said Priscilla. "We all know that war is a terrible thing and ought to be done away with, and that a good book accomplishes a great deal more than the most famous battle. That's all the subject means."
"Oh, is it?" queried Martine, somewhat sarcastically. "Well, I'd like to see you fill ten large foolscap pages proving it."
"That's easy enough; just get your thoughts together."
"I can get a few of them together, but when it comes to putting them on paper, that's quite another thing."
Yet in the face of Martine's evident despair, Priscilla still insisted that the subject was not difficult, and that if Martine would simply collect her thoughts, she would soon find words to fill ten pages.
"Of course you've got to look up authorities on peace and war and some of the poets like Whittier and Tennyson, and Longfellow's 'Ship of State,' and say something about 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and look over your English history pretty carefully."
"Oh, Priscilla, with all my other lessons? It's quite natural for you to know where to find all these authorities and poems, but it's quite another thing for me, and there's likely to be some splendid skating this month; and it's odious to have to stay cooped up in the house when the afternoons are short enough at the best."
But at last Martine had to yield to necessity, and less than a week before the day when the essays were to be handed in she sat down for one last, and it may be said first, great effort.
Lucian, happening in from Cambridge, laughed as he saw her forlorn face as she sat at a table littered with papers.
"What a ridiculous fuss," he cried, "about a little composition."
"It isn't a little composition; it's an essay."
"Well, what's the difference? You ought to have daily themes, then you'd know."
"We do, we have them once a week, every Monday morning."
"Daily themes,—once a week!" and again Lucian laughed.
"You needn't laugh, Lucian. Of course it's easy enough to write; that isn't the trouble; but it's getting things together."
"What things?"
"My ideas. Oh, if I were only Priscilla."
"Well, you are not; she's altogether different. But what's this?" cried Lucian, picking up a paper from the table.
"Oh, that's one of Priscilla's last year's essays. It's perfectly splendid, and she thought it might help me to look it over."
"Why don't you get her to help you in some other way?"
"Oh, that wouldn't do. We're supposed to do this all alone. It's a kind of test. You see the little themes are different. We write accounts of things we see, or that somebody tells us; but Miss Crawdon likes things we observe, and I am always seeing something funny. Everyone laughs at what I write. But I just can't do a long logical essay, and I don't want mine to be the very worst in the class."
"Of course not." Lucian's tone was more sympathetic than usual. "There can't be any harm in my helping you." And he took up a pencil.
"I'm not sure," responded Martine; "but still a brother, I suppose, is different from anyone else."
"Naturally," said Lucian, undisturbed by any scruples.
In a moment the two were at work, or rather Lucian was working, while Martine listened intently.
"First of all," he began, in a professorial manner, "you must think out your subject carefully and sub-divide it—so—and so. Then, well, whenever you have a thought, write it down on a piece of paper or a card—if I were you I'd buy a box of blank cards." Martine instantly resolved to pay a visit to a wholesale stationer's, and Lucian spent a few moments in cogitation and then wrote down a number of headings on small squares of paper. He had never before had so good a chance to expose the methods of his favorite English course.
"See, now, you kind of shuffle and arrange your headings, and you begin to think of other funny little things to put in, and write them out on large sheets, and before you know it, it's almost done. Now try."
Martine tried. Lucian's method was something like a game, and under his guidance she made a fair beginning. Before they had fairly started on the essay, Lucian talked learnedly about "clearness," and "force," and "elegance," and Martine listened, somewhat dazzled by her brother's show of knowledge.
"Well, Harvard has done you some good, after all, Lucian. As a sophomore you seem to be making up for what you lost in your freshman year."
"There, there, child, no twitting on facts. Of course Harvard has done a great deal for me. Why else should I go to college?"
"I wonder what college would do for me. What would you think of my going to Radcliffe, for example?" Martine looked anxiously at her brother; she had known boys who positively opposed their sister's ambitions in this direction.
"Well, if you could get in," said Lucian, "I think it would be a mighty good thing."
The "if" nettled Martine.
"What other girls do I suppose I could do too."
"Oh, yes; and if you should turn out like Miss Amy Redmond, or if you'd work like Priscilla, why I'd be proud enough of you."
"Ah, Amy's a brick," responded Martine, "but I didn't know that you really admired Priscilla. Robert Pringle says she's just the kind boys don't like."
"Oh, Robert is too fresh; he can't settle everything, though he thinks he can. But here, we can't waste time. Remember that you're trying to prove your point."
"Yes, the point of the sword," said Martine.
"No frivolity, child." And by their united efforts they made a draft of the essay, which Lucian copied out in his peculiar back hand, and later Martine, still further expanding what he presented to her, was able to produce ten pages that were not only fairly logical, according to Lucian's standards, but in addition had various humorous little touches from the hand of Martine. Priscilla was so busy with her own work that she hardly had time to observe that Martine had ceased to complain at what she had at first called "an outrageous task."
On the morning when the essays were handed in, Miss Crawdon made a short speech to the class. "You will be interested, I am sure, to hear that I have decided to award a prize for the best essay. I did not suggest this in advance, because in a general way I do not approve of school competition. You have worked under natural conditions, and although only one girl will have a prize, I am sure all the others will see nothing unfair in this distinction, since all have had an equal chance. All have worked independently without help from anyone, and none have been tempted to put themselves under too severe a strain. I ought to say that the prize, which consists of the new two-volume 'Life of Tennyson,' is a gift from Mrs. Edward Elton. You remember that she was one of our teachers here a few years ago and that English was her specialty. When she left this school she helped establish the Mansion School in the house of her grandmother, Madame DuLaunuy. For more than a year she and Mr. Elton have been travelling abroad, but she writes to me often about the school, and her interest in our English work still continues."
In the brief interval following Miss Crawdon's speech, those girls who had known the former Miss South said one or two agreeable things about her to the others, and it pleased Martine to recall that Mr. Elton was a cousin of Brenda's. But she was not altogether pleased that the essay with which Lucian had helped her was to compete for a prize. In this special case Martine was not quite sure of the precise line between right and wrong, and until she could decide this for herself, she thought it not worth while to discuss the matter with others.
Now it happened, strangely enough, that the essay which in a small way had been a snare for Martine also caused some trouble for Priscilla. The beginning came on the Friday after the essays were handed in. In the early afternoon Priscilla had an errand to do for her aunt at the farther end of Commonwealth Avenue. There was no Symphony this week, and she enjoyed the change. As she walked homeward, she was in an unusually happy mood. It was one of those mild days in late January that seemed to be preparing the way for an early spring. The path under the trees in the middle of the park was rather wet from melting snow and ice, and after trying it for a few steps, Priscilla preferred the sidewalk. There she walked down between the rows of nurses with their baby carriages, or little children in charge. "A prize baby show" Martine had called it. Priscilla enjoyed the show and thought of her little brothers and sisters at home as she stopped at intervals to speak to some child she knew. From the Avenue she crossed the Garden and stood for a moment on the bridge to watch the ice breaking in the pond; and she continued her walk along the mall of the Common, until she was opposite Spruce Street. Turning into the narrower streets, when at last she reached her aunt's house, it seemed particularly gloomy, and she wished that she might have stayed out in the sun an hour longer. But she realized that the task before her could not be postponed. The weekly theme must be ready on Monday, and nothing could be accomplished unless she set herself at work. Filling her fountain pen carefully she sat down at a small table near the window and began her task.
Although Priscilla frowned slightly, as almost any girl will frown when writing a theme, the frown was not very deep. She expected no real difficulties at the present stage of her work, as she had already made a good draft in pencil, and it only remained now for her to copy it.
At first her pen fairly flew over the paper, but after a time, as it may happen even with more accomplished authors, she grew a little weary, and rising, she walked to the window. Then she took a few steps around the room, at the same time idly flourishing her pen. The habits of fountain pens are indeed hard to understand. There certainly seemed to be no reason why Priscilla's pen should have chosen the particular moment when she stood beside her bureau for a catastrophe. Priscilla herself was almost petrified with horror as she gazed at the great black spot on the immaculate bureau-scarf. How could one little drop of ink, falling carelessly from a pen held upside down, spread itself into such a big spot?
After her first resentment against the pen, which she quickly laid down on the blotter on her table, Priscilla's irritation took a new form.
"I always hated that bureau-scarf. I always thought it foolish of aunt Tilworth to put it in my room. She has told me a dozen times that it was made by a favorite cousin who can never make any more like it because she's dead. I can't bear to think what she will say when she sees this."
Priscilla went closer to the bureau. Fortunately the spot was on the plain material, some distance from the embroidery. It almost looked as if she might wash it out—if ink ever could be washed out. If it should stay, how could she ever explain the accident to her aunt, since it was an unwritten law of the house that ink was to be used only in the library?
"This might help a little," she murmured, tearing off a small piece from her blotter, and applying it to the spot. But the ink had been so thoroughly absorbed that her efforts made no impression. Then she remembered something she had read and rushed to the kitchen.
"A glass of milk, is it?" exclaimed the crabbed old cook; "and why didn't you send the housemaid?" But Priscilla secured the milk, and while she was busily mopping the spot, Martine appeared on the scene.
"You queer child, what are you doing? That milk will certainly spoil the bureau."
"Oh no, it's marble underneath."
"But what are you doing? Oh, that spot? But you'll never get it out that way. You must use salts, salts of something, I forget its name, only it's deadly poison. They'll know what it is when you ask at the druggist's."
"Nothing would induce me to touch poison. Please don't suggest such a thing."
"But you're not going to taste it or give it to anyone. Just think what your aunt would say if she saw that spot!"
"That's just what I have been thinking," said poor Priscilla, feebly. "I hate to have her know how careless I have been."
"Then let me go—no, I am going anyway, I want to see how surprised the druggist will be when I ask for this salts of something or other."
"He can't appear very surprised if you don't know its name."
"Oh, I'll tell him it's a deadly poison, and that I want it immediately. Good-bye, Prissie dear, I'll soon be back, alive or dead."
"Now cheer up, Miss Doleful," cried Martine, when she returned ten minutes later. "I got it easily enough, and the man hardly seemed surprised, though he put a little poison label on the box."
Priscilla handled the box gingerly.
"There, there," cried Martine, "it won't hurt you! Give it back!" And taking off the cover, she disclosed some innocent looking crystals.
Moistening a few of these, she spread the pasty mass on the spot.
"My, how it stings! My tongue is burning."
"You didn't taste it! I thought you said it was poison?"
"Oh, I got some on my fingers. But I know it won't hurt. But there," scraping the crystals from the spot, "it hasn't done a bit of good."
"Yes, it has done a little. I think the ink is not quite so black. But a brown spot is about as bad as a black one."
"I'll tell you what we ought to do," and Martine read the label on the box.
"We should spread this out in the sun. Then something chemical will happen, and the ink will fade away."
"This ink will never fade. I am sure of that, and besides there's no sun to-day, and there won't be, because it's after four o'clock."
"To-morrow will do just as well," said Martine.
"If aunt Tilworth doesn't happen to come in."
"What are you afraid of, my dear Prissie? You surely don't expect your aunt to whip you like a baby?"
"Of course not. My aunt doesn't mean to be unkind, only she is very particular."
"I should say so. Her house shows that she was meant to be a regular old maid. How I should love to stir things up a little. I don't suppose you dropped that ink on purpose, though the room certainly looks far less prim than when I saw it a day or two ago."
Priscilla bore Martine's teasing fairly well, but at last she said firmly, "I have wasted a lot of time over this ink-spot. Now I must go back to my work. I haven't even prepared my lessons for Monday. I know you will excuse me, Martine, and I am ever so much obliged for your help."
"On this hint I'll act," replied Martine, gayly. "Your spot is certainly worse than the one in Macbeth, though I won't use the language that Macbeth—or was it her Ladyship?—used regarding it. But don't worry, Prissie dear. I will arrange things so that no one will know what happened." And suiting her action to her words, Martine carefully replaced the scarf on the table and set a large pincushion over the ink-spot, so that not a vestige of the spot, or of the attempts to remove it, could be seen.
Then with a word or two more of absurd advice to Priscilla, Martine, bidding her friend good-bye, tripped lightly downstairs.
When Martine reached the lower story all was still. Priscilla had said that her aunt was at a meeting. Evidently she had not yet returned.
On her way downstairs a mischievous plan had been forming in Martine's brain.
"I'll never have a better chance," she said to herself, and she tiptoed into the drawing-room.
A noise from the direction of the dining-room made her start. Then glancing around she took heart.
"I think I can do it," she murmured, "before any one appears on the scene."
Again she felt discouraged as she noted how massive, how immovable most of the furniture appeared. A large centre-table in the middle of the room pleased her; she pushed it from its place into a distant corner. Over it she threw a scarf that had decorated a sofa. Then from the great bookcase in the hall she took two or three volumes that she laid on the table open and face downward.
"Everything seems glued to the walls," she murmured, "and these tidies are so ugly. There can't be much harm in folding them up and putting them under the sofa."
Then she paused. "This little scarf—it is Roman, too,—is just the thing for Julius Cæsar." And tying the striped scarf around the neck of the great conqueror, she bolstered the bust on an easy-chair, draping an afghan around him to conceal his lack of body and limbs.
