Chapter LXXXIII

“I don’t know about holding you both in my lap at once,” said Ruth smiling, as Nettie climbed up after Katy.

“Do, please,” said Nettie, “and now let us have a nice talk; tell us where we are going to live, mamma, and if we can have a kitty or a rabbit, or some live thing to play with, and if we are going to school, and if you are going to leave off writing now, and play with Katy and me, and go to walk with us, and ride with us. Shan’t we have some rides? What is the matter, mamma?” said the little chatterbox, noticing a tear in her mother’s eye.

“I was thinking, dear, how happy we are.”

“Isn’t that funny?” said Nettie to Katy, “that mamma should cry when she is happy? I never heard of such a thing. I don’t cry when I’m happy. Didn’t we have a good dinner, Katy? Oh, I like this house. It was such an old dark room we used to live in, and there was nothing pretty to look at, and mamma kept on writing, and I had nothing to play with, except a little mouse, who used to peep out of his hole, when it came dark, for some supper. I liked him, he was so cunning, but I couldn’t give him any supper, because—” here the little chatterbox glanced at her mother, and then placing her mouth to Katy’s ear, whispered, with a look the gravity of which was irresistible, “because mamma couldn’t support a mouse.”

Ruth laughed heartily as she overheard the remark, and Nettie thought her mother more of a puzzle than ever that she should keep laughing and crying so in the wrong place.

“What have you there, Nettie?” asked Katy.

“Something,” said Nettie, looking very wise, as she hid her chubby hands under her pinafore. “It is a secret. Mamma and I know,” said she with a very important air, “don’t we, mamma? Would you tell Katy, mother, if you were me?”

“Certainly,” said Ruth; “you know it would not be pleasant to keep such a great secret from Katy.”

Nettie looked very searchingly into her mother’s eyes, but she saw nothing there but sincerity.

“Won’t you ever tell, Katy, ever? it is a terrible secret.”

“No,” replied Katy, laughing.

“Not even to Mr. Walter?” asked Nettie, who had learned to consider Mr. Walter as their best friend, and the impersonation of all that was manly and chivalrous.

Katy shook her head negatively.

“Well, then,” said Nettie, hanging her head with a pretty shame, “I’m in love!”

Katy burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, rocking herself to and fro, and ejaculating, “Oh! mamma! oh! did you ever? Oh, how funny!”

“Funny?” said Nettie, with the greatest naîvete, “it wasn’t funny at all; it was very nice. I’ll tell you all how it happened, Katy. You see I used to get so tired when you were away, when I had nobody to play with, and mamma kept up such a thinking. So mamma said I might go to a little free school opposite, half-a-day, when I felt like it, and perhaps that would amuse me. Mamma told the teacher not to trouble herself about teaching me much. Well, I sat on a little low bench, and right opposite me, across the room, was such a pretty little boy! his name was Neddy. He had on a blue jacket, with twelve bright buttons on it; I counted them; and little plaid pants and drab gaiters; and his cheeks were so rosy, and his hair so curly, and his eyes so bright, oh, Katy!” and Nettie clasped her little hands together in a paroxysm of admiration. “Well, Katy, he kept smiling at me, and in recess he used to give me half his apple, and once, when nobody was looking,—would you tell her mamma?” said Nettie, doubtfully, as she ran up to her mother. “Won’t you tell, now, Katy, certainly?” again asked Nettie.

“No,” promised Katy.

“Not even to Mr. Walter?”

“No.”

“Well, once, when the teacher wasn’t looking, Katy, he took a piece of chalk and wrote ‘Nettie’ on the palm of his hand, and held it up to me and then kissed it;” and Nettie hid her glowing face on Katy’s neck, whispering, “wasn’t it beautiful, Katy?”

“Yes,” replied Katy, trying to keep from laughing.

“Well,” said Nettie, “I felt most ashamed to tell mamma, I don’t know why, though. I believe I was afraid that she would call it ‘silly,’ or something; and I felt just as if I should cry if she did. But, Katy, she did not think it silly a bit. She said it was beautiful to be loved, and that it made everything on earth look brighter; and that she was glad little Neddy loved me, and that I might love him just as much as ever I liked—just the same as if he were a little girl. Wasn’t that nice?” asked Nettie. “I always mean to tell mamma everything; don’t you, Katy?”

“But you have not told Katy, yet, what you have hidden under your apron, there,” said Ruth.

“Sure enough,” said Nettie, producing a little picture. “Well, Neddy whispered to me one day in recess, that he had drawn a pretty picture on purpose for me, and that he was going to have a lottery; I don’t know what a lottery is; but he cut a great many slips of paper, some long and some short, and the one who got the longest was to have the picture. Then he put a little tiny mark on the end of the longest, so that I should know it; and then I got the picture, you know.”

“Why did he take all that trouble?” asked the practical Katy. “Why didn’t he give it to you right out, if he wanted to?”

“Because—because,” said Nettie, twirling her thumbs, and blushing with a little feminine shame at her boy-lover’s want of independence, “he said—he—was—afraid—the—boys—would—laugh at him if they found it out.”

“Well, then, I wouldn’t have taken it, if I had been you,” said the phlegmatic Katy.

“But, you know, I loved him so,” said Nettie naîvely.