BOTH SIDES OF A STORY.
The little school was not resumed for some time. Not that Prudy had forgotten it, by any means; but the next Saturday she had visitors, and the following Wednesday an exciting event occurred. It concerned Susy's pony. Percy Eastman said he was called Wings "because he hadn't any feet." Susy was vexed at this remark, and Prudy, taking her part, said, "Percy is such a pert boy;" adding next moment, "What is pert?"
But Percy only meant that the pony sadly needed some new shoes; and this was very true.
Now it happened that Mr. Parlin, being too busy to go himself, sent Eddy Johnson and Charley Piper with Wings to the blacksmith's shop. It seemed to Susy that the boys were gone a long while, for it was Wednesday afternoon, and she was impatient for a ride. She sat down to practise a little, but her mind was out of doors, and the unwilling piano seemed crying out to be let alone.
"I can't play," said Susy, decidedly; "and that's the truth."
At that moment a sweet little voice was heard, singing, "John's Brown buddy;" and Dotty Dimple's head and shoulders were thrust into the room.
"I've broked it," said she; "I've broked it all to smash."
"Broke what, for pity's sakes?"
"Your teapot," replied Dotty, in a very cheerful voice.
"O, I never did, in all my life, see such a child," wailed Susy. "What made you go and meddle with my dear little gold-edged tea-set?"
Dotty looked like an injured lamb, brushed the wayward hair out of her eyes, and gazed wistfully into her sister's face.
"Is I your little comfort, Susy? Is I your little comfort?"
"No," cried Susy, wavering between a smile and a tear; "no, indeed! To think of your being a comfort! O, my stars!"
"Well, then," continued the little one, in a soothing, cooing tone, "then I never broked it; it broked itself!"
So saying, she produced from the depths of her pocket the fragments of the gilt-edged toy. They were past the healing power even of Spalding's glue, that was certain. At the painful sight, poor Susy's patience flew into as many pieces as the teapot.
"O, you naughty, naughty thing, to say it broke itself!"
"Then it didn't," replied the little culprit, not a whit dismayed. "Then 'twas Prudy. We was playing 'thimble-coop.' She broked it all to smash!"
"O, mother," said Susy, running out to the kitchen; "Dotty's making up fibs as fast as she can speak! You'll have to shut her up in the closet."
"Not so fast, my dear. Let us wait till we hear both sides of the story."
And, as it turned out, Dotty really did not deserve to be punished for wrong stories. She and Prudy had each assisted in breaking the teapot; one had knocked it off the bureau, and the other had stepped on it. But Dotty, who gloried in "a fuss," had begged to be the one to tell Susy the startling news. She wished to see her eyes flash, and hear her expressions of surprise. She knew that, however angry Susy might be, there was one magical sentence which would always her to terms: "Dotty'll go out doors, 'out her hat, get cold, have the coop, and die!"
At the bare mention of such a fearful thing, Susy's anger was sure to cool at once. This time Dotty varied her method a little.
"See," said she, looking out of the window; "the boys has came."
Of course that was the last of Susy's thoughts about the teapot. She rushed out of doors bareheaded, followed by Dotty. Eddy Johnson was just hitching Wings to a post near the gate.
"Have they shoed him?" said Susy.
"Shoed him? I should think they had; all of that," replied Eddy, indignantly.
"Booted him, more like," muttered Charley Piper, in the same tone.
"Why, what do you mean, boys?" said Susy, patting the pony, and gazing tenderly into his eyes.
"O, we don't mean anything, as I know of. You must run into the house and ask your mother to come out here," said Eddy, mysteriously.
"Why, it's my own pony, that my own father gave me, and if there's anything the matter with it I should think you might tell," cried Susy, her voice shaking with a vague dread of some terrible mishap.
"Well, may be there isn't anything ails him," returned Eddy, coolly. "I never said there was; but your mother'll know!"
"O, Dotty Dimple, run into the house this very minute, please to," exclaimed Susy, "and ask mother—if she's combing her hair, or anything—to come right out here as quick as she can run, and not wait! O, dear, dear, dear! Why, Dotty Dimple Parlin! you haven't started yet! Quick! quick! quick!"
Dotty, who had only waited to be spoken to the second time, now ran in such haste that she stumbled on the piazza steps; but, nothing daunted, jumped up and went on, delighted to know that this time something had probably happened. She startled her mother, and called her away from her toilet, with the sudden cry that the boys and pony were 'most killed.
At the same time she had the pleasure of throwing Prudy into a panic,—dear little Prudy, who had been for the last five minutes searching her treasures in the hope of finding some toy which would replace Susy's teapot.
Prudy and Dotty appeared at the gate in a very brief space; Prudy with her mouth in the shape of the letter O, and Mrs. Parlin not far off, in the act of fastening her breastpin.
"Well, boys, what is it?" said the good lady, smiling. "I hardly think anything very serious has happened, either to you or the pony."
"You tell," said Eddy to Charley; "I dassn't. The blacksmith's man may be mad if I do. But he's abused this hoss, though," continued Eddy, not waiting to let Charley speak for him; "he's abused him awfully! It's right up and down mean; and three of us boys seen him!"
Susy clasped her hands, and performed a "stamp-act" on the pavement.
"See there," said Eddy, pointing triumphantly to Wings' left hind leg; "see that—will you?"
True enough, there were two or three small wounds, out of which was oozing thick dark blood. Susy looked as if her heart was breaking, but not a word did she speak.
"Pete Grimes did that with his hobnail, cowhide boots!" said Eddy, sternly.
"With his hammer, you mean," interposed Charley.
"With his boot, sir," persisted Eddy, with increasing eloquence. "Didn't I see him, me and Dan Murphy? Didn't we stand there by the coal-bin, sir? He booted him well, Mis' Parlin. I'll tell you where he did it; here on the left side, ma'am. Look where the hair sticks up! Pooty well mauled—ain't he, ma'am? Pete swore at him, too. Never heard such talk—did you, Charley?"
"No, ma'am, I never did," replied Master Charley, addressing Mrs. Parlin, who fancied she could detect on Wings' glossy hide the marks of a boot, though there were no traces of the wicked oaths.
"It is a most abusive thing—if it is so," said she, with much feeling; for if anything could move her gentle heart to anger, it was cruelty to animals. "What made Mr. Grimes behave so strangely, boys? Was the pony restless?"
"Restless? No, indeed, ma'am," replied Eddy, the orator; "as gentle as a lamb, ma'am. It was Pete Grimes's wicked temper, and his wicked disposition; that's what it was."
It was well for Susy that her over-strained feelings now found vent in words and tears. "There is no grief like the grief which does not speak." Her dumb agony gave way, and she wept and raved like a little wild thing.
Mrs. Parlin ordered the boys to lead the pony around to the back door, and there she washed out his wounds, trying all the while to soothe Susy, whose heart was beating a quick-step, and who trembled in every limb.
"Old Grimes is dead, that good old man!" repeated Prudy, with angry emphasis; "but it wasn't his father. No, indeed; with the old blue buttons down the back! Why, Peter is an awful man! I saw him once, and his face looked as if he'd been rubbing it on a pen-wiper! There, Susy, don't you cry," she added, applying a moral lesson to her sister's wounded feelings, like a healing plaster; "he's dreadful wicked, and one of these days he'll get hurt his own self; a horse'll strike him!"
"Yes, a horse'll strike him!" echoed Dotty Dimple.
"But what good will that do Wings?" moaned Susy. "Evil for evil only makes things worse."
Her indignation did not lessen, but rather increased, the longer she reflected upon the subject. What right had a man to abuse anybody's horse—more especially hers?
"Mr. Grimes ought to be 'dited, and sent to the Reform School or State's Prison this very night," said she, in her wrath. Prudy thought precisely the same; also Miss Dimple, who looked upon the whole affair as a joke, intended for her amusement.
When Mr. Parlin came home to tea, and heard the story, he did not blame Susy in the least for her indignation, but started off for the blacksmith's with the limping pony, saying he meant to "inquire into the business."
"May I go with you?" cried Susy.
"Me, too?" said Prudy, echoed by Dotty.
"Only Susy," replied their father; "she may go if she likes."
Susy very much wondered what her father was going to do. As they approached the shop, she saw, standing at the door, the man whose face looked as if it had been "rubbed on a pen-wiper."
"Mr. Grimes," said Mr. Parlin, in a pleasanter manner than Susy thought was at all necessary, "Mr. Grimes, I believe I owe you for shoeing this pony."
While Mr. Grimes was making the change, Mr. Parlin added,—
"How happens it, my friend, that this little animal bears such marks of ill treatment? See how he limps. Look at this gash."
"O," said Mr. Grimes, "he lamed himself by kicking out against the coal-box; he's a nervous thing."
Mr. Parlin then told the boys' story.
"It is not so, upon my word and honor, sir," replied sooty-faced Mr. Grimes, with great amazement. "I'll leave it to Mr. Fox."
Mr. Fox, and two or three other men, declared very positively that they had seen little Wings beating himself against the coal-box; and one of them pointed out to Mr. Parlin the blood-stain on the edge of the wood.
"You can't trust much to what boys say, especially such harum-scarum fellows as Ed Johnson," added Mr. Fox. "I shouldn't wonder, now, Grimes, if he and that Piper boy got their tempers up, and tried to spite you, for ordering them out of the shop. They were troublesome, and he had to speak sharp," added Mr. Fox, addressing Mr. Parlin again.
"That's so!" exclaimed Mr. Grimes. "You take three little chaps, and have 'em meddling with your nails, and sticking scraps of iron into the coals, and it makes a man cross—or it frets me, and I told 'em to quit."
"Saucy little rogues," chimed in Mr. Fox, anxious for the honor of his workman.
"As for my striking the pony," continued Mr. Grimes, "I might have patted him once or twice with the handle of the hammer. I often do that; but my blows wouldn't kill a fly."
After a little more conversation Mr. Parlin was satisfied that no real cruelty had been used towards Wings. Susy's heart rose like a feather.
"Always wait till you hear both sides of a story!" said Mr. Parlin, as he and his daughter walked home.
"Just the words mother said this very day," cried Susy, skipping lightly over the paving-stones. "It's so queer you and mother should both talk so much alike."