Well, this morning she preferred to be away from her mother. She was “mad” at both her father and mother. “Stingy things!” she said, with a great, angry sob.
About that time of every year, June, the children were forbidden to go indiscriminately any more to the “maple sugar tub.” The sweet store would begin to lessen alarmingly by that time, and the indulgent mother would begin to economize.053
Every day since they “made sugar,” Roxy had had the felicity of carrying a great, brown, irregular, tempting chunk of maple sugar to school. She had always divided with the girls generously. Her father did not often give her pennies to buy cinnamon, candy, raisins, and cloves with; so she used to “treat” with maple sugar in the summer, and with “but’nut meats” in the winter, in return for the “store goodies” other girls had.
For a week now she had been prohibited the sugar-tub. This morning she had asked her father for sixpence, to buy cinnamon. She had been refused. “Stingy things!” she sobbed. “They think a little girl can live without money just as well as not. O, I am so ashamed! I’d like to see how mother would like to be invited to tea by the neighbors, and never ask any of them to her house. I guess she’d feel mean! But they think because I am a little girl, there’s no need of my being polite and free-hearted! Polly Stedman has given me cinnamon three times, and I know the girls think I’m stingy! I’m so ashamed!” And Roxy’s red cheeks and shining brown eyes brimmed up and overflowed with tears.
Poor little Roxy! she herself had such a big sweet tooth! It was absolutely impossible for her to refuse a piece of stick cinnamon or a peppermint drop. 054Yesterday she had told the girls she should certainly bring maple sugar to-day. She meant to, too, even if she “took” it. But there her mother had stood at the broad shelf all the morning, making pies and ginger snaps, and the sugar-tub set under the broad shelf. There was no chance. She finally had asked her mother.
“No, Roxy; the sugar will be gone in less than a month. You children eat more sugar every year than I use in cooking. It’s a wonder you have any stomachs left.”
“I promised the girls some,” pleaded Roxy.
“Promised the girls! You’ve fed these girls ever since the sugar was made. Off with you! What do you suppose your father’d say?”
Roxy wouldn’t have dared tell her father. He was a stirring, hard-working man, that gave his family all the luxuries and comforts that could be “raised” on the farm; but bought few, and growled over what he did buy, and made no “store debts.” It was high time, in fact, that Roxy’s indulgent mother should begin to husband the sugar.
Roxy saw there would be no chance to “take” the sugar; so she had mournfully started off. Is it strange that so generous a girl would have stolen, if she could? Why, children, I have seen many a man 055do mean, wrong, dishonest deeds, in order to be thought generous, and a “royal good fellow,” by his own particular friends; and Roxy would a thousand times rather have “stolen” than to have faced her mates empty-handed this morning. She walked on in sorrowful meditation. She thought once of going back, to see if there were eggs at the barn—she might take them down to the store, and get candy. But she remembered they were all brought in last night, and it was too early for the hens to have laid this morning.