Read Ebook: Hoodie by Molesworth Mrs Baumer Lewis Christopher Edward Illustrator

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Ebook has 1099 lines and 55453 words, and 22 pages

The children all went to church in the afternoon. The morning service was too long for them, their mother sensibly thought, but the afternoon hour, or hour and a quarter at most, no one, not even wee Hec and Duke, found too much. And Hoodie was rather fond of going to church. What she thought of, perched up by herself in her own corner of the pew, no one ever knew; that she listened, or attempted to listen, to what was going on, was doubtful in the extreme. But still, as a rule, church had a soothing effect on her, the quiet and restfulness, the monotony itself, seemed to calm her fidgety querulousness; possibly even the sensation of her Sunday clothes and the admiring glances of the little school-children helped to smooth her down for the time being.

This special Sunday afternoon their mother was not with them. They went and returned under Martin's convoy, and till about half way on their way home again all went satisfactorily. Then unfortunately occurred the first ruffle. Maudie had been walking on in front with little Duke, Hoodie and Hec, each with a hand of Martin, behind, when Maudie stopped.

"Martin," she said, "may Duke walk with you a little? He says he's tired."

"Of course, poor dear," said Martin; "come here, Master Duke, and you, Miss Hoodie, go on a little with your sister."

Hoodie let go Martin's hand readily enough.

"Wonders will never cease," thought Martin, but alas, her rejoicing was premature. Hoodie let go her hand, but stood stock still without moving.

"No," she said deliberately, "I won't walk with Maudie. Why can't Hec walk with Maudie, and me stay here?"

"Because he's such a little boy, Miss Hoodie dear, and I daresay both he and Master Duke are getting tired. They've had a long walk you know."

Martin was forgetting her own advice to Maudie. He who stopped to reason with Hoodie was lost indeed!

"And so has me had a long walk, and so you might daresay me is tired too," returned Hoodie, standing her ground both actually and figuratively. Two fat little legs apart, two sturdy little feet planted firmly on the ground, there she stood looking up defiantly in Martin's face, armed for the fight.

"Was there ever such a child?" thought poor Martin. Maudie's words had indeed been quickly fulfilled--here already was a case in which the taking-no-notice system was impossible--the child could not be left by herself on the high-road, where according to present appearances it was evidently her intention to stay unless--she got her own way!

"But you must, Miss Hoodie," said Martin, attempting firmness and decision as a last resource.

Martin glanced back along the road despairingly. Several groups of the country people on their way home from church were approaching the little party as they stood on the footpath.

"Miss Hoodie," said Martin once more, "you are to walk on with Miss Maudie, do you hear?"

The Bright family were fast approaching. In despair Martin turned to Hoodie.

"I am obliged to let you walk with me, Miss Julian," she said, solemnly, "because I cannot have every one in the road see how naughty you are. But when we get home I shall speak to your Mamma, and ask her to let you go walks alone. You make us all miserable."

Hoodie took Martin's hand and marched on.

"I should like to go walks alone, werry much," she said, amiably, to which remark Martin did not make any reply.

The Bright family passed them with a friendly word to Martin, saying something in praise of the nice appearance of her little charges. And Hoodie smiled back to farmer Bright, as if she thought herself the best and sweetest-tempered of little girls. Then when they were out of sight, she suddenly dropped Martin's hand.

What was Hoodie saying to herself on in front where no one could hear her?

"They don't love me. They like me to be away. Nobody loves poor Hoodie. Hoodie can't be good when nobody loves her. It isn't Hoodie's fault."

And through her babyish brain there ran misty, dreamy ideas of something she would do to make "them" all sorry--she would go away somewhere "far, far," and never come back again. But where? This she could not yet settle about, but fortunately for the peace of the rest of the walk her cogitations kept her quiet till they were all at home again.

Martin's threat of speaking to Hoodie's mother was not at once carried out. And Martin herself began to think better of it when at tea-time Hoodie behaved herself quite respectably. The naughty mood had passed again for the time, it seemed.

Sitting round the table in the intervals of bread-and-butter and honey--for it was Sunday evening, "honey evening" the little boys called it--the children chatted together pleasantly. Martin's story had greatly impressed them.

"Weren't you frightened at first when you saw the big, big doggie, Martin?" said Maudie.

"No," said Duke, "you toldened Hoodie so. You didn't tolden me."

Hoodie looked up with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Peoples always calls each other 'dear' whenever they doesn't like each other," she remarked.

Maudie flashed round upon her.

"That isn't true. I do like Duke--don't I, Duke? And Hec too--don't I love you dearly, Hec and Duke?"

The two little boys clambered down from their chairs, by slow and ponderous degrees, and a hugging match of the three ensued.

"Children, children," cried Martin, "you know it's against the rules for you to get down from your chairs at tea. Miss Maudie, dear, you shouldn't encourage it."

"But Hoodie said unkind 'sings to Maudie, and we had to kiss dear Maudie," said the little boys. "Naughty Hoodie," and they glanced round indignantly at Hoodie.

A hard look came over Hoodie's face.

"Always naughty Hoodie," she muttered to herself. "Nobody loves Hoodie. Nebber mind. Don't care."

"Little boys," said Martin, "you must go back to your seats and finish your tea. And don't call Miss Hoodie naughty for nothing at all but a little joke."

Hoodie gave a quick glance at Martin.

"Martin," she said, gravely, "if there is no woofs now, is there any grandmothers?"

"Any grandmothers, Miss Hoodie?" repeated Martin. "How do you mean, my dear? of course every one has a grandmother, or has had."

"Oh!" said Hoodie; "I didn't know. And is grandmothers always in cottages?"

"Don't laugh at her for not understanding, Miss Maudie," said Martin; "besides, don't you remember your grandmother's address is Parkwood Cottage? Very likely she's thinking of that."

"Yes," said Hoodie, "I was 'sinking of zat. I want a grandmother in a cottage. Grandmother in a cottage would be very kind, and there is no woofs."

"Oh no, Miss Hoodie, there are no wolves," said Martin; "all the wolves were sent away long, long ago. Now, dears, you must have your hands washed and your hairs brushed to go down to the drawing-room."

Hoodie was very quiet that evening. Her father noticed it after the children had gone up to bed again, and said to her mother that he was in hopes the child was going to turn over a new leaf. And her mother replied with a smile that she had been speaking to her very seriously that morning, and was glad to see how well the little girl had taken it. So both father and mother felt satisfied and happy about the child, little imagining the queer confused whirl of ideas at that very moment chasing each other round her busy brain.

For Hoodie did not go to sleep till much later than the others, though she lay so still that her wakefulness was unnoticed. Under her pillow, wrapped up firstly in a piece of newspaper, over that in the clean pocket-handkerchief Martin had given her for church, were three biscuits she had got at dessert, two pieces of bread-and-butter, and one of bread and honey, which unobserved she had "saved" from tea. What she meant to do with these provisions was by no means clear, even in her own mind. She only knew that the proper thing was to have a basket of eatables of some kind, provided for a voyage of discovery such as that on which she was resolved.

"The little Hoodie-girl in the picture has a bastwick, and Martin had a bastwick when she was a Hoodie-girl," she said to herself dreamily. "I will get more bead-and-butter to-morrow and then I can go. After dinner-time Martin wented when she was a Hoodie-girl. I will go after dinner-time too. The grandmother in the cottage will love Hoodie and there is no woofs. Peoples here doesn't love Hoodie."

And so thinking she fell asleep.

"Him's not to come in here," she said; "Hoodie won't have him in here no more."

"'Cos I loved him yesterday and I don't love him to-day," replied Hoodie coolly.

"And how would you like if people spoke that way to you?" said Maudie virtuously. "Suppose we said we wouldn't have you in the nursery 'cos we don't love you to-day?"

Maudie did not catch the sense of the last few words, but Prince, being in his own mind by no means partial to the nursery, where the children's affection expressed itself in clutches and caresses very unsettling to his nerves, had taken advantage of the discussion to go off "of his own self," and in the lamentation over his running away, no more was said, and it was not till afterwards that the elder girl remembered her little sister's threat.

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