Cicely and Other Stories
A >> Annie Fellows Johnston >> Cicely and Other Stories* * * * *
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| The # symbol is used to represent the musical symbol sharp. |
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* * * * *
CICELY
AND OTHER STORIES
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| Works of |
| Annie Fellows Johnston |
| |
| THE LITTLE COLONEL SERIES |
| The Little Colonel $ .50 |
| The Giant Scissors .50 |
| Two Little Knights of Kentucky .50 |
| (The three stories above are also published in one |
| volume, entitled The Little Colonel Stories, $1.50) |
| The Little Colonel's House Party 1.00 |
| The Little Colonel's Holidays 1.50 |
| The Little Colonel's Hero _net_, 1.20 |
| The Little Colonel at Boarding-School _net_, 1.20 |
| |
| OTHER BOOKS |
| Big Brother .50 |
| Ole Mammy's Torment .50 |
| The Story of Dago .50 |
| Cicely _net_, .40 |
| Aunt 'Liza's Hero _net_, .40 |
| Asa Holmes 1.00 |
| Flip's "Islands of Providence" 1.00 |
| Songs Ysame 1.00 |
| |
| L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY |
| 200 Summer Street, Boston, Mass. |
| |
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[Illustration: "THERE WERE VOICES PASSING HER DOOR."
(_See page 75_)]
Cosy Corner Series
CICELY
AND OTHER STORIES
By
Annie Fellows Johnston
Author of
"The Little Colonel's House Party," "The Little
Colonel's Holidays," "Two Little Knights
of Kentucky," etc.
_Illustrated by_
Sears Gallagher and others
Boston
L.C. Page & Company
1903
_Copyright, 1901_
BY PERRY MASON COMPANY
_Copyright, 1902_
BY L.C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Published, May, 1902
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C.H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
These stories first appeared in the _Youth's Companion_ and _Forward_.
The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of the editors in
permitting her to republish them in the present volume.
Messrs. L.C. Page & Company wish also to acknowledge the courtesy of
the editors, by which they were able to arrange for the use of the
original illustrations.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CICELY 11
ALIDA'S HOMELINESS 35
THE HAND OF DOUGLAS 59
ELSIE'S "PALMISTRY EVENING" 87
THEIR ANCESTRAL LATCH-STRING 111
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"THERE WERE VOICES PASSING HER DOOR"
(_See page 75_) _Frontispiece_
"THE CHEER AND WARMTH OF IT ALL COMFORTED HER" 31
"HID HER FACE IN A GREAT BUNCH OF ROSES" 55
"'WHY, I HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF THEM'" 67
"'WHAT IS THE MATTER?' HE REPEATED" 78
"IT WAS NOT HER VOICE ALONE WHICH DREW SO MANY ADMIRERS" 83
"'SHE HID HER FACE ON MY SHOULDER'" 100
"'LOOKING AT HER HAND A DOZEN TIMES A DAY'" 103
"'ASKED ME TO HUNT UP ALL THE REFERENCES'" 108
"PAUSING IN HER SCRUBBING" 116
"SHE ENTERTAINED THEM WITH STORIES OF HER TRAVELS" 122
"AT THE GATE HE TURNED FOR A LONG BACKWARD LOOK" 127
"'YOU NEEDN'T LOOK AT ME IN THAT WAY,' SHE WHISPERED, DEFIANTLY" 133
CICELY
CICELY
There was a noisy whir of sewing-machines in Madame Levaney's large
dressmaking establishment. Cicely Leeds's head ached as she bent over
the ruffles she was hemming. She was the youngest seamstress in the
room, and wore her hair hanging in two long braids.
It seemed a pity that such girlish shoulders should be learning to
stoop, and that her eyes had to bear such a constant strain. The light
was particularly bad this afternoon. Every curtain was rolled to the
top of its big window, but the dull December sky was as gray as a fog.
Even the snow on the surrounding housetops looked gray and dirty in
the smoky haze.
Now and then Cicely looked up from her work and glanced out of the
window. The cold grayness of the outdoor world made her shiver. It was
a world of sooty chimney-tops as she saw it, with a few chilly
sparrows huddled in a disconsolate row along the eaves. It would soon
be time to be going home, and the only home Cicely had now was a
cheerless little back bedroom in a cheap boarding-house. She dreaded
going back to it. It was at least warm in Madame Levaney's
steam-heated workrooms, and it was better to have the noise and
confusion than the cold solitude.
Cicely's chair was the one nearest the entrance to the parlour where
madame received her customers, and presently some one passing through
the door left it ajar. Above the hum of the machines Cicely could hear
a voice that she recognised. It was that of Miss Shelby, a young
society girl, who was one of madame's wealthiest customers.
"I've brought my cousin, Miss Balfour," Cicely heard her say, "and we
want to ask _such_ a favour of you, madame. You see my cousin stopped
here yesterday on her way East, intending to remain only one night
with us, but we've persuaded her to stay over to our party on New
Year's eve. Her trunks have gone on, and of course she hasn't a thing
with her in the way of an evening dress. But I told her you would
come to the rescue. You are always so clever,--you could get her up a
simple little party gown in no time. So, on the way down, we stopped
at Bailey's, and she bought the material for it. Show it to madame,
Rhoda. It's a perfect dream!"
Cicely heard the snapping of a string, the rustling of paper, and then
madame's affected little cry of admiration. But at the next word she
knew just how the little Frenchwoman was shrugging her shoulders, with
clasped hands and raised eyebrows.
"But, mademoiselle," Cicely heard her protesting, "it is _impossible_!
If you will but step to ze door one instant and obsairve! Evair' one
is beesy. Evair' one work, work, work to ze fullest capacitee. Look!
All ze gowns zat mus' be complete before ze New Year dawn, and only
two more day!"
She stepped to the door, and with a dramatic gesture pointed to the
busy sewing women and the chairs and tables covered with dresses in
all stages of construction.
"Only two day, and all zese yet to be feenish for zat same ball! Much
as I desire, it is not _possible_!"
Every one looked up as the two girls stood for a moment in the
doorway. Miss Shelby glanced around in a coldly indifferent way,
holding up her broadcloth skirt that it might escape the ravellings
and scraps scattered over the floor. She was a tall brunette as
elegantly dressed as any figure in madame's latest Parisian
fashion-plate.
"Why can't you put somebody else off to accommodate me just this
once?" she said. "It is a matter of great importance. My cousin has
already bought the material on my promise that you would make it up
for her. I think you might make a little extra effort in this case,
madame, when you remember that I was one of your first customers, and
that I really brought you half your trade."
The little Frenchwoman wrung her hands. "I _do_ remember,
mademoiselle! Indeed! Indeed! But you see for yourself ze situation.
What can I do?"
"Make some of the women come back at night," answered Miss Shelby,
turning back into the parlour, "and have them take some of the work
home to finish. I'm sure you might be obliging enough to favour me."
Miss Balfour had taken no part in the conversation. She stood beside
her cousin, fully as tall and handsome as she, and resembling her in
both face and figure, but there was something in her expression that
attracted Cicely as much as the other girl had repelled her.
Miss Shelby had not seemed to distinguish the sewing women from their
machines, but Rhoda Balfour noticed how pallid were some of the faces,
and how gray was the hair on the temples of the old woman in the
corner bending over her buttonholes. When her glance reached Cicely,
the appealing little figure in the black gown, she could not help but
notice the admiration that showed so plainly in the girl's face, and
involuntarily she smiled in response, a bright, friendly smile.
As she turned away she did not see the sudden flush that rose to
Cicely's cheeks, and did not know that her recognition had sent the
blood surging warmly through the sad and discouraged heart. It had
been two months since Cicely Leeds had been left alone in the strange
city, and this was the first time in all those weeks that any one had
smiled at her.
Sometimes it seemed to her that the loneliness would kill her if she
knew it must go on indefinitely. But Marcelle's promise helped her to
bear it. Marcelle was her older sister, the only person in the world
left to her, and Marcelle was teaching the village school at home. In
another year the last penny of the debts their father had left when he
died would be paid, and Marcelle would be free to send for Cicely
then, and life would not be so hard. Just now there was no other way
for Cicely to live but to take the small wages madame offered, and be
thankful that she was having such an opportunity to learn the
dressmaker's trade. She could set up a little establishment of her own
some day, when she went back to Marcelle.
Cicely did not hear the final words of Miss Shelby's argument, but a
few minutes later madame came back to the workroom with a bundle in
her arms. There was a worried frown on her face as she unrolled it and
called sharply to her forewoman.
Every seamstress in the room bent forward with an exclamation of
pleasure as the piece of dress-goods was unrolled. It was a soft,
shimmering silk, whose creamy surface was covered with rosebuds, as
dainty and pink as if they had been blown across it from some June
garden. Cicely caught her breath with a little gasp of delight, and
thought again of the sweet face that had smiled on her. Miss Balfour
would look like a rose herself in such a dress.
The next day Cicely saw the cutter at work on it, and then the
forewoman distributed the various parts into different hands. Cicely
wished that she could have a part in making it. She would have enjoyed
putting her finest stitches into something to be worn by the beautiful
girl who had smiled on her. It would be almost like doing it for a
friend. But she was kept busy stitching monotonous bias folds.
Just as she was slipping on her jacket to go home that evening, the
forewoman came up to her with a bundle. "I am sorry, Cicely," she
said, "but I shall have to ask you to take some work home with you
to-night. We are so rushed with all these orders we never can get
through unless every one of you works over-hours. Miss Shelby's extra
order is just the last straw that'll break the camel's back, I'm
afraid. Try to get every bit of this hand work done some way or other
before morning."
It was no part of the rose-pink party dress that Cicely had to work
on; only more monotonous bias folds. But as she turned up the lamp in
her chilly little room and began the weary stitching again, she felt
that in a way it was for Miss Balfour, and she sewed on
uncomplainingly.
She had intended to write to Marcelle that evening in order that her
sister might have a letter on New Year's day, but there would be no
time now. She wrapped a shawl around her and spread a blanket over her
feet, but more than once she had to stop and warm her stiff fingers
over the lamp. It was long after midnight when she finished, and she
crept into bed, her head still throbbing with a dull ache.
"The last day of the old year!" she said to herself, as she waded
through a newly fallen snow to her work the next morning. "Oh,
Marcelle, how can I ever hold out ten months longer? Nobody in this
whole city cares that I caught cold sitting up in a room without a
fire, or that I feel so lonely and bad this minute that I can't keep
back the tears."
It seemed to Cicely that she had never had such a wretched morning.
The loss of sleep the night before left her languid and nervous. Her
cold seemed to grow worse every moment, and madame and the forewoman
were both unusually cross. She felt ill and feverish when she took her
seat again after the lunch hour.
Presently madame came in, looking sharply about her, and walked up to
Cicely with the rosebud silk skirt in her hands. "Here!" she said,
hurriedly. "Put ze band on zis. Ze ozair woman who do zis alway have
gone home ill. An' be in one beeg haste, also, for ze time have arrive
for ze las' fitting. You hear?"
Cicely took it up, pleased and smiling. After all, she was to have a
part in making the beautiful rose gown that would surely give Miss
Balfour such pleasure. Her quick needle flew in and out, but her
thoughts flew still faster.
She had had a gown like that herself once; at least it was something
like that pattern, although the material was nothing but lawn. She had
worn it first on the day when she was fifteen years old, and her
mother had surprised her by a birthday party. And they had had tea out
in the old rose-garden, and had pelted one another with the great
velvety king roses, and she had torn her hand on a thorn. Ah, how
cruelly it hurt! It was a very present pain that made her cry out
now, not the memory of that old one.
Some one had overturned a chair just behind her, and Cicely's
nervousness made her jump forward with a violent start. With that
sudden movement the sharp needle she held was thrust deep into her
hand and two great drops of blood spurted out. With that sudden
movement, also, the silk skirt slipped from her lap, and she clutched
it to save it from touching the floor. Before she was aware of
anything but the sharp pain, before she saw the blood that the needle
had brought to the surface, two great stains blotted the front breadth
of the dainty skirt.
She gave a stifled scream, and grew white and numb. Almost instantly
madame saw and heard, and pounced down upon her. "I am ruin'!" she
shrieked, pointing to the stains. "Nozzing will take zem out!
Mademoiselle will be so angry I will lose ze trade of her!"
The irate woman took Cicely by the shoulders and shook her violently,
just as Miss Shelby and Miss Balfour were announced. They had come for
the final fitting, expecting to take the dress home with them.
Madame, still wildly indignant, went storming in to meet them, and
poor Cicely shrank back into the corner, with her face hidden against
the wall. Never in her life had she been so utterly friendless and
alone.
Miss Balfour's disappointed exclamation over the stained dress reached
the girl's ears. She heard madame's eager suggestions of possible
remedies, and then Miss Shelby's cold tones:
"Now if it had been the bodice, it would not have been so bad. It
could have been hidden by some of the ribbons or lace or flowers; but
to have it right down the middle of the front breadth--that's _too_
hopeless! There's nothing for it but to make over the skirt and put in
a whole new breadth. There isn't time for that, I suppose, before this
evening."
Madame looked at the clock and shook her head. "Ze women air rush to
ze grave now," she said. "Zay work half ze night las' night. Zat is
why zis girl say she air so nairvous zat she could not help ze needle
stab herself."
"I could just sit down and cry, I am so disappointed!" exclaimed Miss
Balfour. "I had set my heart on going to the party, and in that
dress."
Cicely's sobs shook her harder than ever as the words reached her, and
her tears started afresh. Miss Shelby's voice broke in:
"I am surprised that you would keep such a careless assistant, madame.
Of course, you will expect to make the loss good to my cousin. It will
ruin your trade to keep incompetent employees. It would be better to
let the woman go."
"It is a young girl which I have jus' take," said madame, with another
shrug. "I have feel for her because she was an orphan, and I take her
in ze goodness of my heart. Behold how she repay me! Disappoint my
customers, ruin my beesness!"
She was pointing to the stains and working herself up into a passion
again, when Miss Balfour interrupted her.
"I should like to see the girl, madame. Will you please call her?"
"_Certainement!_ Willingly, mademoiselle! Ze plaisure shall be yours
for to scold ze careless creature."
Cicely heard and shivered. It had been hard enough to bear madame's
angry reproaches, but to have the added burden of Miss Balfour's
displeasure was more than she could endure--the displeasure of the
only one who had smiled on her since she left Marcelle! A moment later
madame confronted her, and Rhoda could hear the girl's sobs.
"Oh, I can't go in! Indeed I can't, madame! It nearly kills me to
think I have spoiled that lovely dress, and that she cannot go
to-night after all. I wouldn't have done it for the world, for it was
almost like having her for my friend. She--she smiled at me--the other
day."
Rhoda looked at her cousin wonderingly. Could it be some one that she
knew, who seemed to care so much about her pleasure?
Then her eyes fell on the shrinking Cicely, whom madame was pushing
somewhat unceremoniously into the room. Rhoda saw the little
black-gowned figure with the tear-swollen face, and suddenly the
crimson spots on her evening gown held a new significance.
It flashed through her mind that the very life-blood of such girls was
being sacrificed for her own selfish pleasure. If she had not hurried
madame so, there would have been no night-work for this poor child, no
fagged-out nerves for her the next day.
Suddenly Miss Balfour crossed the room and, to her cousin's
astonishment, caught Cicely's cold hands in hers.
"Look up here, you poor little thing," she said, kindly. "Now don't
cry another tear, or grieve another bit about this. It's no matter at
all. I'll just get some new stuff to replace the front of the skirt,
and madame can make it over next week for me and send it on East after
me. I'll pay for it myself, of course, for I'll be very glad to have
the silk that must be ripped out. Mamma is making me a silk quilt, and
the rosebuds will work in beautifully. I shall have it put in,
blood-spots and all, to remind me that my selfish pleasure may often
prove a cruel thorn to somebody else. I don't want to go through the
world leaving scratches behind me."
"Why, Rhoda!" gasped Miss Shelby; but with a proud lifting of her
head, Miss Balfour went on:
"I realise it is my own fault in rushing you with the work, madame,
and the consequences of my own unreasonableness are not to be laid at
this girl's door. Do you understand, madame? Not a cent is to come out
of her wages, and you are to keep her and be good to her, if you want
my good-will. I am coming back this way in the spring, and this gown
is so beautifully made that I shall be glad to order my entire summer
wardrobe from you."
"Why, Rhoda Balfour!" exclaimed her cousin again, while madame bowed
and smiled and bowed again.
As for Cicely, she went back to the workroom almost dazed, and
tingling with the remembrance of Miss Balfour's friendly tones. It was
several hours later when she climbed the stairs to her little back
bedroom to light her coal-oil stove, and make her toast and tea. Her
eyes were still swollen from crying, but she had not felt so
light-hearted for weeks.
Just inside her door she stumbled over a big pasteboard box. There was
a note on top, and she hurried to light her lamp. "I know that you
will be glad to hear I am going to the party, after all," she read. "I
have found a very pretty white dress in my cousin's wardrobe that fits
me well enough. As long as you have had such a thorny time on my
account, it is only fair that you should share my roses; so I send
them with the earnest wish that the coming year may bring you no thorn
without some rose to cover it, and that it may be a very, very happy
New Year indeed to you. Sincerely your friend, Rhoda Balfour."
Cicely tore aside the paraffine paper, and found six great roses, each
with a leafy stem half as long as Cicely herself. She caught them up
in her arms and laid her face against their velvety petals. For a
moment, as she stood with closed eyes, drinking in their summer
fragrance, she could have almost believed she was back in the old
garden.
"Marcelle, dear," she murmured, "I can be brave now! I can hold out a
little longer, for she wrote, 'Sincerely your friend.'"
The little room was glorified in Cicely's eyes that night by the
flowers she loved best. She ate her scant supper as if she were at a
festival, sent a little letter of thanks that made the tears come to
Miss Balfour's handsome eyes, and afterward wrote a bright, hopeful
letter to Marcelle that lifted a burden from the elder sister's heart.
Marcelle had been half afraid that Cicely would be growing bitter
against all the world.
"Think of it, sister!" Cicely wrote. "American Beauties are a dollar
apiece, and I have _six_! There is a music-teacher who has the room
across the hall from mine. She is at home this week with a cold on her
lungs, and to-morrow, when I go to work, I am going to loan her all my
beautiful roses. It's too bad to have them 'wasting their sweetness on
the desert air' all day while I am gone. So she shall have them until
I come home at night."
Madame Levaney gave no holiday to her employees on New Year's day, but
Cicely did not care. She left her roses at Miss Waite's door with the
announcement that they were hers for the day, but that she would have
to call for them and claim them at night. The oddness of the
arrangement, and the quaint way in which Cicely made it, won Miss
Waite's heart, and when she heard the girl's step in the hall that
evening, she opened the door.
"Come right in," she called, cordially. "I can't spare the roses until
after supper, so you will have to come in and eat with me. You've no
idea how much I have enjoyed them!"
Cicely paused timidly on the threshold. There were the gorgeous
American Beauties in a tall vase in the middle of the table, between
some softly shaded candles. And there was a bright lamp on the open
piano, and a glowing coal fire in the grate. The little table was
spread for two, and a savoury smell of oysters stole out from the
chafing-dish Miss Wade had just uncovered.
"We'll celebrate the New Year together, and drink to our friendship in
good strong coffee," said Miss Waite, lifting the steaming pot from
the hearth. "Draw your chair right up to the table, please, while
everything is hot."
Only one who has been as cold and hungry and homesick as Cicely was,
can know how much that evening meant to her, or how the cheer and the
warmth of it all comforted her lonely little heart. The best of it was
that it was only a beginning, and there were few nights afterward,
during that long winter, when the warmth and light of Miss Waite's
room was not shared for awhile, at least, with the little seamstress.
The roses lasted more than a week; then Miss Waite helped Cicely to
gather up the petals as they fell, and together they packed them away
in a little rose-jar, according to an old recipe that Miss Waite read
out of her grandmother's time-yellowed note-book.