Ruby at School

by Mrs. George A. Paull

She turned her pillow over and over, and thumped it at last, she grew so impatient because she could not go to sleep.

"I don't think it is very pleasant to stay awake all night, and keep thinking about things," she said. "Oh, dearie me, I do wish I was asleep. I wonder if people think when they are asleep. They can't tell whether they do think or not, I s'pose, 'cause they 're asleep and don't know it. I wish I was asleep, anyway. I wish I had n't gone down into that yard. I guess I do know I ought n't to have done it, and I am just as sorry as I can be. I could n't be any more sorry if papa should call me Rebecca Harper, and scold me like everything, and if mamma should scold me, too. I guess I won't say anything even if Ann scolds me, for I know I ought not to have done such a dreadful thing. Suppose I had been all burned up; and that is just what would have happened if my papa had not come! I wonder how he happened to come down into the yard and see the fire. I never s'posed he would come. I thought I was just going to be all burned up, so I did. Was n't it dreadful to be so close to a fire, and not be able to get away? I would have been all burned up by this time, and my house would have been all burned up, too, and no one would ever have known what became of me. Mamma would always have said, 'I wonder where Ruby could possibly have gone, and why she never, never comes home,' and papa would worry and worry, and Ruthy would have been so lonely, and they would never, never have known."

At the thought of such sad consequences to her mischief, Ruby cried a little, and before her tears had dried, she was fast asleep, so she did not know how ill her mamma was all night, nor how great had been the consequences of her mischief.

In the morning when Ruby waked up, she found Ann by her bedside.

"Here is your breakfast," said Ann, putting down a tray with Ruby's bowl of bread and milk upon it, on a little table. "Your papa says you are to stay here till he comes up and lets you out. Oh, Ruby, how could you be so naughty and worry your poor mamma? You don't know how sick you made her with your cutting up."

Ann did not speak angrily, but she seemed to feel so badly about Mrs. Harper's illness that Ruby felt very subdued and did not try to defend herself as usual.

"I don't want to stay up here. I want to go down and eat my breakfast with Aunt Emma," she said, presently, turning her head away, so Ann might not see the tears which were coming into her eyes.

"Your papa said you must stay up here," Ann repeated, and without saying anything more, she went out, and Ruby heard the bolt slide, and knew that she was a prisoner.

"I don't like to be locked in. I just won't be," she said angrily; and she thought she would jump up and go and pound at the door until some one should come to unfasten it; but then she remembered how sick Ann had said her mamma was, and she knew that a noise would disturb her; and more than that,—it would make her feel so badly to know that Ruby was in a temper.

There was something else that Ruby remembered, too. The last time her papa had told her to stay in her own room till he should come to let her out, he had trusted her and had not fastened the door; and when he went upstairs, he had found that Ruby had gone out, and was down in the yard playing with her kitten, just as if she was not in disgrace; so it was no wonder that he could not trust her this time. Ruby sat down on the side of the bed very meekly when she remembered all this, and I am glad to say, really resolved that as far as she could she would make up for having been so naughty last night, by trying to be as good as possible now, and not give any more trouble to her mother.