"Yes. I'm sorry. It's very kind of you to offer so often to teach me; but I really quite hate flowers."
Her father looked at her with a severity she had seldom seen in his face.
"Then, in that case"—he spoke as though originating a punishment fit for a new unnatural crime—"in that case you should learn cooking."
After such a blow, there was nothing for it but to remember that for weeks Jerusha had wanted her to take some household sewing to poor old Miss Kirby up on Plymouth Hill. Val would run all the way to the Dug Road and there, in the deep cut in the hill-side, or in the even more lonely ravine above, she would sit with the bundle of sewing on her knees, raging solemnly over it at fate, and devising spirited revenges. In a wood on the farther side there was a place deep hidden in bush and brier, where a wild grape-vine made a swing between two old forest trees. It was a distinct source of comfort to Val that she didn't know the names of these trees. She would shut her eyes tight, and swing high out in the free air, with a sense that she was flying from two calling voices, afraid the accents should reach her clearly, afraid lest by an unwary peep something in bark or leaf should press back upon her impatient memory "their ugly names," cheered and strengthened after each escape by finding her ignorance intact.
Out, far out, on the wild grape-vine, swinging till she forgot the importunate trees, forgot all threatened ignominy, forgot everything but the ecstasy of living and swinging and singing, and looking forward—looking out past home perplexities and wild wood tangles, out, far out, towards the secure beauty and the certain wonder of the coming years.
Emmie came home from school earlier than usual one memorable day, and told Mrs. Gano with frightened eyes that Val had done something awful. She couldn't make out what, for all the Academic and Collegiate girls whispered about it secretly at recess. But Val was locked up in the Principal's room, and it was considered doubtful if she'd ever be let out, so angry was Miss Appleby. But even the Principal's wrath was less than the wrath of her niece, Miss Beach, the new teacher of the primary school and of gymnastics.
Emmie had naturally felt humiliated at her sister's disgrace. She thought she could never, never go back to school again. By the time the miscreant got home, Mrs. Gano was properly worked up to receive her.
Val saw at a glance from Emmie's cloudy eyes and her grandmother's, cold and gleaming, how her story had been forestalled. She held up her head, and said, carelessly:
"Well, I've got myself into a scrape."