Rosemary

by Josephine Lawrence

Doctor Hugh caught Rosemary's eye, and they went off into peals of laughter while poor Aunt Trudy wept and Shirley implored Rosemary to tell her what was "funny."

"Take your snake away and bury it, Sarah," said the doctor, when he could speak.

"And don't try to educate your relatives and friends to recognize the virtues of the reptile family; a person either likes snakes or can't abide 'em, and you and Aunt Trudy will never agree on that subject."

"I think you ought to forbid her to ever touch one, or carry one around with her," said Aunt Trudy when Sarah had gone out of the room sorrowfully to borrow a match box from Winnie to serve as a snake-coffin. "The idea of having a snake in one's pocket!"

"You can't separate Sarah and animals," returned Sarah's brother with conviction. "No use trying, Aunt Trudy. All this summer she was crazy on the subject of rabbits and cats and now she seems to have switched to snakes. About all we can do is to keep her within reasonable bounds and trust to luck that before the winter is over she will take up canary birds or something equally pleasing."

Aunt Trudy did not know Sarah's teacher, Miss Ames, but if she had they would have found a common bond of sympathy and interest in their horror of snakes and other unpleasant forms of animal life to which Sarah was devoted. Eleanor Ames was a nervous young woman and she found it distinctly trying to be obliged to divide the interests of her class with a shoe-box of baby mice, or to soothe the ruffled feelings of timid little girls who had seen the bright eyes and wriggling slim body of a live snake peeping out of Sarah Willis' coat in the cloak room. Punishment seemed to have no effect on the culprit who stayed after school and cleaned blackboards with disconcerting cheerfulness and Miss Ames was considering the advisability of sending Sarah home with a note asking the co-operation of Doctor Hugh's authority, when something happened that took the matter out of her hands.

Late in October, one frosty morning on her way to school, Sarah made what was to her a great and lucky discovery. Shirley and Rosemary had gone on ahead of her, but Winnie had called her back to pick up the clothes she had strewn about her room with her customary careless abandon. Since the opening of school, Aunt Trudy had patiently made beds and put the rooms in order and she would never mention to her favorite Sarah a little matter like slippers in the middle of the rug, bath-robe flung down on the bed and every separate bureau drawer wide open and yawning. This morning Aunt Trudy was going to the city to shop, and the task of bed-making would devolve upon Winnie who had no intention of having her duty complicated by others' neglect. A hasty glance into the room shared by Sarah and Shirley, and Winnie had summoned the former, in no uncertain voice, to "come up here and put your clothes away this instant." Sarah, complaining that she would certainly be late for school, had obeyed and if she had hurried could easily have reached the school before the assembly bell rang.

But crossing a vacant lot, Sarah came upon that which could make her forget school and time. A faint rustle under the dead leaves caught her quick ear and, stooping down, she uncovered a little snake, languid from the cold. Perhaps he had been on his way to winter quarters and the frost had caught him unaware. Anyway, he was numb and Sarah, murmuring affectionate nothings to him, slipped him into her pocket and then spent a valuable ten minutes poking about among the leaves in the hopes of discovering another, believing implicitly that snakes "always go in pairs." However, if the snake had a companion, diligent search failed to uncover it and Sarah was forced to take her reluctant way to school with only one snake to comfort and love. While she was still some distance from the gate she heard the bell ring, and as she reasoned, she was late then, so why should she hurry when it would not save her a tardy mark? Morning exercises were in progress in the auditorium when Sarah entered the building, and she had her class room to herself. She hung up her hat and coat and took another peep at the snake. He seemed to be feeling better, but some fresh wave of sympathy led her to regret the necessity for leaving him to spend a lonely morning in the cloak room. With Sarah to think was to act, and she popped the snake into the pocket of her middy blouse, pinning it with a safety pin in lieu of a button and button hole. When the class returned from the auditorium, she was sitting sedately in her seat and appeared only mildly interested in the lecture on tardiness which followed.

"We'll have the papers distributed on which you worked during the last drawing lesson," announced Miss Ames unexpectedly. "The drawing supervisor will be around next week and we are a lesson or two late, here in our room. Instead of spelling this morning, I'll have you paint the leaves you drew. George Wright, you distribute the papers and Sarah Willis, you know where the paint boxes are."

Sarah was monitor for the drawing materials and she went up and down the aisles, giving each pupil a small paint box and two brushes, while George Wright gave out the papers on which the pencil sketches of autumn leaves had been drawn.