“O Fred, I don’t know yet; mamma isn’t well enough to be talked to, and we’ll have to wait till papa comes home. Perhaps papa won’t think you are too young to drive Whiz just out to Rosewood. It isn’t like going to Parnassus, ten miles; you know he didn’t allow that.”
“Pretty well too if a fellow fourteen years old can’t be trusted with that old rack-o-bones,” said the youth scornfully, remembering that Preston at his age had driven Whiz; but then Preston and Fred were different boys.
“Well, I’ll be the one to ask him,” said Mary. “Shouldn’t you think the moon would make a great difference? I should.”
It was while Dr. Gray was carving the roast beef at dinner that Mary came out desperately with the spelling-school question. He seemed to be thinking of something else at first, but when brought to understand what she meant, he said Miss Pike was a sensible woman, and he approved of her, and Mary and Fred “might go and spell the whole school down if they could.”
This was beyond all expectation. Fred looked gratified, and Mary, slipping from her chair, sprang to her father and gave him a sudden embrace, which interfered with his carving and almost drove the knife through the platter.
All the afternoon her mind was much agitated. What dress should she wear? Did Ninny think mother would object to the best bonnet? And oh, she ought to be spelling every moment! Wouldn’t grandma please ask her all the hard words she could possibly think of?
Grandma gave out a black list,—eleemosynary, phthisic, poniard, and the like,—and though Mary sometimes tripped, she did admirably well. Logomachy, anagrams, and other spelling games were popular in the Gray family, and all the children were good spellers. Dr. Gray said, “They tell us that silent letters are to be dropped out of our language, and then the words will all look as they sound; but this has not been done yet, and meanwhile it is well to know how to spell words as they are printed now.”
Julia was in her mother’s room, and Mary was left again with the care of the children; but in her present distraction she quite forgot Ethel, and the child, left to her own devices, managed to get the lamp-scissors and cut off her hair. The zigzag notches, bristling up in all directions, were a droll sight.
“Oh, you little mischief,” cried Mary, angry, yet unable to help laughing. “This all comes of my reading you the story of the ‘Nine Little Goslings’ yesterday. Tell me, was that what made you think of it?”
Ethel nodded her sheared head silently.