that it was painful to see her. I could not help being hurt; for you know what Bell is—brimful of nonsense and sparkle and bright speeches, but just as open as the day and as warm as the sunshine. If she could have been spoiled, we should have turned her head long ago; but she hasn’t a bit of silly vanity, and I never met any one before who didn’t see the pretty charm of her brightness and goodness—did you?
And yet, somehow, Laura sticks needles into her every time she speaks. She feels them, too, but it only makes her quiet, for she is too proud and sensitive to resent it. I can see that she is different in her ways, as if she felt she was being criticised. Polly is quite the reverse. If anybody hurts her feelings she makes creation scream, and I admire her courage.
Aunt Truth doesn’t know anything about all this, for Laura is a different girl when she is with her or Dr. Paul; not that she is deceitful, but that she is honestly anxious for their good opinion. You remember Aunt Truth’s hobby that we should never defend ourselves by attacking any one else, and none of us would ever complain, if we were hung, drawn, and quartered.
Laura was miffed at having to play Audrey, but we didn’t know that she could come until the last moment, and we were going to leave that part out.
‘I don’t believe you appreciate my generosity in taking this thankless part,’ she said to Bell, when we were rehearsing. ‘Nobody would ever catch you playing second fiddle, my dear. All leading parts reserved for Miss Winship, by order of the authors, I suppose.’
‘Indeed, Laura,’ Bell said, ‘if we had known you were coming we would have offered you the best part, but I only took Rosalind because I knew the lines, and the girls insisted.’
‘You’ve trained the girls well—hasn’t she, Geoffrey?’ asked Laura, with a queer kind of laugh.
But I will leave the unpleasant subject. I should not have spoken of it at all except that she has made me so uncomfortable to-day that it is fresh in my mind. Bell and Polly and I have talked the matter all over, and are going to try and make her like us, whether she wants to or not. We have agreed to be just as polite and generous as we possibly can, and see if she won’t ‘come round,’ for she is perfectly delighted with the camp, and wants to stay a month.
Polly says she is going to sing ‘Home Sweet Home’ to her every night, and drop double doses of the homoeopathic cure for home-sickness into her tea, with a view of creating the disease.
Good-bye, and a hundred kisses from your loving
Margery Daw.
V. The Camp Poetess Adds Her Store of Mental Riches to the General Fund
My darling,—I have a thousand things to tell you, but I cannot possibly say them in rhyme, merely because the committee insists upon it. I send you herewith all the poetry which has been written in camp since last Monday, and it has been a very prosy week.
I have given them to papa, and he says that the best of my own, which are all bad enough, is the following hammock-song.
I thought it out while I was swinging Margery, and here it is!—
To—fro,
Dreamily, slow,
Under the trees;
Swing—swing,
Drowsily sing
The birds and the bees;
Sleep—rest,
Slumber is best,
Wakefulness sad;
Rest—sleep,
Forget how to weep,
Dream and be glad!
Papa says it is all nonsense to say that slumber is best and wakefulness sad; and that it is possible to tell the truth in poetry. Perhaps it is, but why don’t they do it oftener, then? And how was he to know that Polly and Jack had just gone through a terrible battle of words in which I was peacemaker, and that Dicky had been as naughty as—Nero—all day? These two circumstances made me look at the world through blue glasses, and that is always the time one longs to write poetry.
I send you also Geoff’s verses, written to mamma, and slipped into the box when we were playing Machine Poetry:—
I know a woman fair and calm,
Whose shining tender eyes
Make, when I meet their earnest gaze,
Sweet thoughts within me rise.
And if all silver were her hair,
Or faded were her face,
She would not look to me less fair,
Nor lack a single grace.
And if I were a little child,
With childhood’s timid trust,
I think my heart would fly to her,
And love—because it must!
And if I were an earnest man,
With empty heart and life,
I think—(but I might change my mind)—
She’d be my chosen wife!
Isn’t that pretty? Oh, Elsie! I hope I shall grow old as beautifully as mamma does, so that people can write poetry to me if they feel like it! Here is Jack’s, for Polly’s birthday; he says he got the idea from a real poem which is just as silly as his:—
A pollywog from a wayside brook
Is a goodly gift for thee;
But a milk-white steed, or a venison sheep,
Will do very well for me.
For you a quivering asphodel
(Two ducks and a good fat hen),
For me a withering hollyhock
(For seven and three are ten!).
Rose-red locks and a pug for thee
(The falling dew is chill),
A dove, a rope, and a rose for me
(Oh, passionate, pale-blue pill!).
For you a greenery, yallery gown
(Hath one tomb room for four?),
Dig me a narrow gravelet here
(Oh, red is the stain of gore!!).
I told Jack I thought it extremely unhitched, but he says that’s the chief beauty of the imitation.
I
