"What are you doing? I want you to set the table. It is almost supper time and Thomas will soon be here."
Tabitha dropped the dress hastily on the rug beside the trunk, put the cover on the empty box and slipped it back in its place with the other six. Down went the tray on top of them, the lid of the trunk fell with a snap, and the white silk dress was no longer inside. With beating heart and red face she carried the garment into her own tiny room and hung it in the very darkest corner of the closet. Then she ran to set the table.
How the next day ever passed she never knew, for before her eyes wherever she looked danced that lovely, quaint old gown of shimmering silk, and she could think of nothing else. It hid the map of Europe when she opened her geography, it played leap-frog among common fractions when she tried to do her sums, it waved at the head of the Continental Army while she led those brave men to victory, and when it came to spelling class she could think of nothing but "s-i-l-k."
But Exhibition Day came at last. Aunt Maria was not going, as Tabitha well knew, so would not see her in the borrowed gown until too late to raise any objections. She had no intention of wearing the dress without Aunt Maria's knowledge, but she did intend to wear it first, and tell about it afterwards, accepting whatever punishment the woman saw fit to give her for the transgression. So she smuggled the gown out of the house in her school-bag, and up among the tall boulders beyond the Carson place, where there was no possibility of anyone finding her. Here she dressed, and under one great rock hid the once admired but now despised green gingham. Then with her long cape covering her quaintly gowned figure, she hurried up to Carrie's door to call for her playmate, having waited until the last minute in the hope that her friends would be gone. Nor was she disappointed. The doors were locked and no one came to answer her knock; so with flying feet she sped toward the hall, noting that only a few people were bound in that direction, and knowing that most of the expected visitors were already seated within.
"Oh, Theodora Gabrielle!" exclaimed the teacher as the child flew up the aisle to her place on the platform, "I was so afraid something had happened to keep you away. It would never do to have our best speaker absent, you know;" and she smiled into the shining black eyes of the breathless Tabitha; but the next instant the smile faded. Tabitha had loosened her cape, and Miss Brooks caught sight of the quaint, queer old gown underneath. "Child!" she cried involuntarily. "Whatever possessed you to put on that rig?"
The beloved silk dress called a "rig!" Tabitha was dismayed, and the tears came welling into the bright eyes, as with quivering lip she confessed, "It was the only white dress I could get, Miss Brooks. I thought it would be very 'propriate, for I am to speak a war piece, you know. Aunt Maria had this when she was a little girl, and she must be pretty much older than the war."
"I meant that the silk was too good for common wear, dear," fibbed the teacher, seeing the sorrow in the thin, brown, wistful face. "It is a pretty idea to wear a dress that was made in war times, and I never would have thought of it myself. But we must take off the ribbons from your hair, Theodora, and fix it in the old-fashioned way to go with your gown. I remember a picture of my mother with her hair done in the queerest braids. Come, we will have to hurry."
As this inspiration flashed through the young teacher's mind, she saw a way out of the dilemma so that neither child nor school should be ridiculed because of Tabitha's mistake; and she hurriedly completed the small girl's "war times toilette" so that when Tabitha emerged from under her skillful hands she was the admiration and envy of all her mates. And truly she presented a pretty picture as she stood before the none too critical audience and recited Sheridan's Ride with such vim and spirit that every heart was fired with patriotism and the applause was so prolonged that Miss Brooks told her she must speak another piece, even though it was not on the program. Purposely the teacher had left Tabitha's part in the exercises well toward the last, knowing that she could be depended upon to make a fitting climax for the afternoon's program, nor was she disappointed; and she fairly beamed upon the little girl as she gently pushed her toward the front of the platform to respond to her encore.
Having done so well with one war piece, Tabitha decided that Barbara Fritchie was a most appropriate selection to recite this second time, besides being quite in keeping with her old-fashioned dress. So she began the familiar lines:
Up from the meadow rich with corn
Clear in the cool September morn,