All this was too much for poor little Pecy, who had tried to behave so well. She sprang up suddenly, overturned her chair, and, never stopping for her pink sun-bonnet, ran for dear life out of the house. She did not cease running till she reached the bank; and then she sat down upon some stones and cried. It was an immense relief to get away from such overstrained gentility. Pie in little plates indeed! As if her own hand were not clean enough to hold a piece of pie!
She looked up at dear Old Bluff, and thought what a grand thing it is to be a mountain and not be expected to know anything about the fashions. She was sure she should never wish to see anything more of polite society.
But here was the strangest part of it; she had a secret longing for this very thing! She had already begun to wash her face every day, and, as far as possible, to comb her tangled hair. She was ashamed of her uncouth language, which she now perceived was quite unlike that of the young people at Camp Comfort. Oh, if she could talk like them! If she could read, as they did, out of books! Above all, if she only knew how to “behave!” There was a skill in carrying a fork to one’s mouth with food on it, that passed her comprehension. How could people do it? It seemed vastly harder to her than walking a tight-rope, which she had seen done at a circus!
Oh dear, to think they had invited her to a grand dinner, and she couldn’t “behave,” and they had laughed at her! There was something in this little girl, or she would not have been capable of so much shame. She had naturally a shrewd, bright mind, which, of course, had been running to waste. She had seen cities and villages whizzing by her from car-windows in travelling, but her little life had all been spent in backwoods places, and Camp Comfort was really almost her first near view of civilized life. Now she was waking to a new world. If she could only get to it, if she could only live in it! She had as many eyes, ears, and fingers as anybody else: Why couldn’t she be a nice, proper, polite little girl,—say, for instance, like that pretty Flaxie Frizzle, who had treated her so kindly and offered to take her with her to church?
Flaxie’s mother was so nice! Perhaps she had cows, and needed a little girl to milk them? But, oh dear, she wouldn’t hire anybody that couldn’t “behave!”
After this, Pecielena hovered about Camp Comfort longingly, but would have got no farther than the door-stone, if Flaxie had not come out and urged her to enter.
“Oh yes, come in, Pecy, come in, and have some raisins.”
It had been a bright day for Pecy when the Quintette came to Camp Comfort, a brighter day than she knew. Miss Pike had a “plan” for her. She meant to win the child away from her “queer” father and all her miserable surroundings, and have her reared carefully in a good Christian family. But Miss Pike did not speak of this at present. She never talked much about her plans till they were well matured.