The Southerner leaned slightly forward, with a look of interest.
"It is so long ago," said Mrs. Curtis, who had been Constance Ridgely, "but something has made me think of Nannie all the afternoon. My friendship with Nannie began almost thirty years ago, when Miss Arthur kept the Pleasant Street kindergarten next to No. 3. The school was a dear; but I remember so well the odd mixture of admiration and dread I felt for the big, tumultuous public school. The boys used to make faces at us, but they were so daring and they turned somersaults so nimbly! And I was devoured with curiosity regarding the little girls who came to school without their nurses. I thought it must be grand! One little girl I singled out. She used to wear a red jersey and a red tam-o'-shanter. She wasn't precisely pretty—according to my childish, wax-dolly standard of beauty—but there was something fascinating in the way her silky mop of brown hair flung itself to the wind, in the flash of her brown eyes and her white teeth and the feather-down lightness of her motions. She was as reckless of her frock as her bones—I was trained to be very careful of both. The fearless rush with which she would slide down the high bank or skin up a tree to the very awful, oscillating top—I can't describe the awesome joy of seeing her! And she was so gay; she had the sweetest, merriest laugh in the world. I loved it. Ah, how many times did I glue my demure little face, which hid so many wild fancies, to a certain knot-hole in that high, high fence of Miss Arthur's, which all our mothers praised because it protected our privacy, watching the boys and girls, and my girl run out to recess! And, oh, the blow it was when the hour of recess at the kindergarten was changed! Because the No. 3 boys stole Bennie Olmstead's roller skates, and there was a combat, in which our injured and innocent boys were no match for the wicked No. 3's; and Miss Betty, who attended to minor matters of our physical comfort, being only the third kindergartner, who was learning and received no salary, and of course had most of the drudgery, washed at least four bloody noses and one bitten ear, and put butchers' brown paper on half a dozen bruises, while the little girls wept for sympathy and Bennie howled for his skates! I wept, too; but it was because I could never any more look through the knot-hole for Nannie. I knew her name, because I heard it so often. And then, in the midst of my dejection, I met her. It was by accident. Tina had come for me in the carriage, but Harland, having an errand at the harness shop, had sent her on ahead, and we two were waiting for him on the curb-stone. Of a sudden we heard an appalling outcry of canine yelps and boyish yells, and I saw a sickening sight, a wretched little dog with a tin can tied to his tail, which clattered against the bricks of the sidewalk as he bounded; and in the can a huge fire-cracker spitting fire! For sheer terror lest I should see the catastrophe, I covered up my face. And then I heard my Nannie's voice, 'Here, doggie! Here, poor doggie!' I let my little coward hands drop. I saw her welcome the terrified beast to the shelter of her skirts, while with one swift curve she plucked out the hissing red stick and hurled it with admirable certainty of aim straight at the pursuers. As they scampered away, she told them what she thought of them. Before they could rally, Harland came to the rescue with the carriage; and Tina pushed both of us into it. It was one of those double phaetons which we all used to have then. I don't know whether Tina's mercy would have included the dog; but he included himself with a flying leap into Nannie's lap."
"And that was how you met Nancy?" said Mrs. Clymer. "You took her home, didn't you, and found her conversation on the way very entertaining?"
"Entrancing. She was full of thrilling knowledge of the world. She went to school all alone. Her father was a carpenter, and she had a hatchet and a plane and a brace and bit all her very own. Her mother was dead, but she lived with her aunty, and she invited us most politely to get out and see her aunty, and her papa's shop in the back yard. 'We got a lovely home,' said Nannie."
"Was it?" laughed the youngest clubwoman.
"I thought it was; and, yes, I think it was, now. So specklessly, radiantly tidy. A tiny house of wood, but painted freshly in gray and white, and with a most wonderful garden. That belonged to Nannie's aunt. Nannie said she could make anything with a root grow. I remember she was out amid the phlox—such brilliant, luxuriant phlox as it was! She had on a white apron, which the sun made dazzling. By a wonderful coincidence, the aunt went to Tina's church, and Tina knew her; so Tina let me go inside the house, and the aunt gave us coffee hot from the stove, and delicious little spice cakes just out of the oven; and we carried out some to Harland; and it was a full half-hour before Tina's conscience stirred, and we had to go. By that time Nannie and I were very well acquainted. Yet I had always been amazingly slow about making friends.
"After this episode Nannie and I always nodded and grinned when we saw each other, going or coming from school. The next month Nannie appeared at our Sunday school and announced that she would always attend there if she might be in Miss Browning's class. Miss Browning taught my class. Fancy my happiness! It impressed me very much the way Nannie could make people do what she wanted. In summer another wonder happened. Nannie's father built our new stable. Nannie used to bring him his luncheon daily. Before the summer ended we were great chums."
"But did your mother approve of your intimacy?" asked Mrs. Waite, who was bewildered by conduct so opposed to her recollections of the Ridgelys.
"My mother was a wise woman. One day she sent me away on some pretext, and she asked Nannie into the house and showed her pictures and talked to her. Nannie adored my mother; and mamma never threw any obstacles in the way of my seeing Nannie, while Tina was always willing to take me to the Marshes; of course I never went alone. Tina thought Nannie one of the nicest little girls in town; and she had sense enough to see that while I was most often listless and shy with other girls, I was always happy with Nannie. I don't think I can quite express her charm. She was clever, but clever people have bored me. She was pretty, too; and she was a true, delicate-minded little gentlewoman, though her father was a mechanic and her aunt helped the family income by taking in fine washing; but it was none of those things. I think it was that she was so wholesome! Always cheerful. Always fearless. By consequence she was the most absolutely truthful being I ever knew. Aunt Kate"—to Mrs. Clymer—"you heard about the red paint? Shall I tell them?" At Mrs. Clymer's assent she continued, "It was a truly terrible experience. I was never so scared in my life; and I was always getting scared when I was little. Nannie's next-door neighbor was a little girl named Elsa Clarke, whose father was a painter by trade. He was an easy-tempered man, and sometimes used to let us paint. If we daubed ourselves (which we seldom failed to do), he would scrub us off with turpentine. I had some painful scenes with Tina; for even if the paint was gone, the scent of roses, you know. She was going to put a ban on the whole business, when Nannie contrived some oilcloth aprons out of a discarded table covering. This appeased her. One day Elsa's father gave us the dregs of a can of red paint. Another painter who was doing some work in the shop glowered at him, and from him to a white window sash that he had just finished. He was a very gruff old fellow, of whom I stood in dreadful fear. I thought he was very much such a looking man as the ogre in 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' 'Them kids will mess up something if you give 'em paint, you'll see,' the ogre growled, 'but they better keep clear of my sash, if they know what's good for 'em!' With that he followed Elsa's father out of the shop. We were left with our artistic fury. I don't know exactly how the calamity came about, but Elsa wanted the paint can which Nannie was using. If Elsa wanted anything and didn't get it, she grew angry. It was her papa's shop and her papa's paint and she had a right to have it, she would have it! 'But he gave it to us all,' I protested, rather shocked at the squabble. Nannie didn't say anything; she went on slapping the paint on a box in vast content. Then Elsa flew into a rage and laid hold of Nannie. I laid hold of her. And a dog in the household, hearing our loud voices, bounded joyously into the fray. And somehow Nannie tripped! The paint, the red, red paint made a ghastly cascade over the snowy whiteness of the ogre's window frame. Stupefied by the enormity of our mishap, we stood staring miserably at each other. Elsa burst into tears. As for me, I could hear my heart thump.
"'He's coming back,' gasped Elsa, 'and papa ain't with him. I saw him box a little girl's ears once jest for using his brush—let's run! Let's run! He'll think it was Jumper!' (Jumper was wagging his tail and affectionately sympathizing.)