"Why are you talking to him?" her mother asked harshly. "I won't have you talking to him. Who will you scrape acquaintance with next?" Then she turned to Sammy, who stood shaking in his shoes, with all the rosy colour faded from his fair fat cheeks, too frightened to stir. "Go away," said Mrs. Caldwell, "you've no business here talking to my daughter, and I won't allow it."
Sammy sidled off, not daring to turn his back full till he was at a safe distance, lest he should be seized from behind and shaken. He was not a heroic figure in retreat, but Beth, in her indignation, noted nothing but the insult that had been offered him. For several days, when her mother was out, she watched and waited for him, anxious to atone; but Sammy kept to the other side of the road, and only cast furtive smiles at her as he ran by. It never occurred to Beth that he was less valiant than she was, or less willing to brave danger for her sake than she was for his. She thought he was keeping away for fear of getting her into trouble; and she beckoned to him again and again in order to explain that she did not care; but he only fled the faster. Then Beth wrote him a note. It was the first she had ever written voluntarily, and she shut herself up in the acting-room to compose it, in imitation of Aunt Grace Mary, whose beautiful delicate handwriting she always did her best to copy—with very indifferent success, however, for the connection between her hand and her head was imperfect. She could compose verses and phrases long before she could commit them to paper intelligibly; and it was not the composition of her note to Sammy that troubled her, but her bad writing. She made a religious ceremony of the effort, praying fervently, "Lord, let me write it well." Every day she presented a miscellaneous collection of petitions to the Lord, offering them up as the necessity arose, being in constant communication with Him. When she wanted to go out, she asked for fine weather; when she did not want to go out, she prayed that it might rain. She begged that she might not be found out when she went poaching on Uncle James's fields; that she might be allowed to catch something; that new clothes might be sent her from somewhere, she felt so ashamed in her dirty old shabby ones. She asked for boots and shoes and gloves, and for help with her lessons; and, when she had no special petition to offer, she would ejaculate at intervals, "Lord, send me good luck!" But, however great the variety of her daily wants, one prayer went up with the others always, "Lord, let me write well!" meaning, let me write a good hand; yet her writing did not improve, and she was much disheartened about it. She took the Lord into her confidence on the subject very frankly. When she had been naughty, and was not found out and punished, she thanked Him for His goodness; but why would He not let her write well? She asked Him the question again and again, lifting her grey eyes to the grey sky pathetically; and all the time, though she never suspected it, she was learning to write more than well, but in a very different sense of the word.
Her note to Sammy was as follows:—
Dear Sammy ,—Come and talk to me. Do not be afrade. I do not mind rows, being always in them. And she can't do anything to you. I miss you. I want to tell you things. Such nice things keep coming to me. They make me feel all comfortable inside. I looked out of the window in the dark last night. There was a frost. The sky was dark dark blue like sailor's suits only bright and the stars looked like holes bored in the floor of heaven to let the light through. It was so white and bright it must have been the light of heaven. I never saw such light on earth. Sunshine is more buffy. Do come Sammy I want you so Beth. P.S. I can't stop right yet; but I'm trying. It seems rather difficult to stop: but nobody can write without stops. I always look at stops in books when I read but sometimes you put a coma and sometimes a semicollon. I expect you know but I don't so you must teach me. Its so nice writing things down. Come to the back gait tonight.
When the letter was written in queer, crabbed characters, on one side of a half-sheet of paper, then folded so that she could write the address on the other side, because she had no envelope—she wondered how she should get it delivered. There was a coolness between her and Harriet. Beth resented the coarse insinuation about having a sweetheart, and shrank from hearing any more remarks of a like nature on the subject. And she couldn't send the letter by post because she had no stamp. Should she lay it on his doorstep. No, somebody else might get it. How then? She was standing on her own doorstep with the letter in her pocket when she asked herself the question, and just at the moment Sammy himself appeared, coming back from school. Quick as thought, Beth ran across the road, whipped out the letter and gave it to him. Sammy stood still in astonishment with his mouth open, gazing at it when he found it in his hand, as if he could not imagine how it got there.
As soon as it was dark, Beth stationed herself at the back gate, which looked out into Orchard Street, and waited and waited, but Sammy did not come. He had not been able to get out; that was it—she was sure of it; yet still she waited, although the evening was very cold. Her mother and Aunt Victoria had gone to dine with Lady Benyon. She did not know what Harriet was doing, but she had disposed of Bernadine for some time to come by lending her her best picture-book to daub with paint; so it was pretty safe to wait; and at first the hope of seeing Sammy come running round the corner was pleasure enough. As the time went on, however, she became impatient, and at last she ventured a little way up the street, then a little farther, and then she ran on boldly into Orchard Row. As she approached the Lees' back-gate, she became aware of a round thing that looked like a cannon-ball glued to the top, and her fond heart swelled, for she knew it must be Sammy's head.
"O Sammy! why didn't you come?" she cried.
"I didn't like," said Sammy.
"I've been waiting for hours," Beth expostulated with gentle reproach.
"So have I, and it's cold," said Sammy disconsolately.