Hoodie

"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?"

"Oh, you silly girl," said Maudie, laughing; "of course not. Don't you remember our grandmother? She was here two years ago. But I suppose you're too little to remember."

"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.

The next morning happened to be rainy. Hoodie ate her breakfast in silence, and what she did not eat she quietly added to the contents of the pocket-handkerchief parcel. Martin noticed her fumbling at something, but thankful for the quiet state of the atmosphere – otherwise Hoodie's temper – thought it wiser to make no remarks. For after all it was a very April sort of sunshine; and two or three times before dinner there were signs of possible storms – once in particular, when the little boy had got Prince up into the nursery to play with them and Hoodie insisted on turning him out.

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

"Really, Hoodie," said Maudie, "this isn't all your room. Why won't you let poor Prince come in? It was only yesterday you were crying because he wouldn't come."

"'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?"

"Don't care," said Hoodie. "You can't send me out of the nursery. I'm not a dog. But if I like I can go of my own self," she added mysteriously. "And if peoples don't love me I sall go."

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.

But through dinner-time the hard, half-sullen look stayed on Hoodie's face, and again poor Martin shivered with fear that another storm was coming. Somewhat to her surprise things got no worse – not even when a message came up-stairs from "mother," that Maudie was to be ready to go out a drive with her at two, did Hoodie's rather curiously quiet manner desert her.

"I don't care. Nobody loves me," she repeated to herself, but so low that no one heard her.

"It'll be your turn next time, you know, Hoodie dear. Mother never forgets turns," said Magdalen consolingly, as, arrayed in her "best" white alpaca trimmed with blue, and white hat with blue feathers to match, she ran into the nursery to say good-bye to the stayers-at-home.

"And Miss Hoodie will be good and help me with the little boys, won't you, Miss Hoodie dear?" said Martin. "There's some ironing I do want to get done for your Mamma this afternoon, if I could leave you three alone for a little."

"Susan may stay with them," said Mrs. Caryll, who just then came into the nursery to see if Maudie was ready. "It is too damp still for the boys to go out, but Hoodie can play in the garden a little. She never catches cold and she will be the better for a run – eh, Hoodie?"

No answer. Mrs. Caryll turned to Martin with a question in her face. "Anything wrong again?" it seemed to say.

Martin shook her head.

"I think not, ma'am," she said in a very low voice, "but really there's no saying. But I think she'll be all right once you're started with Miss Magdalen."

Mrs. Caryll said no more. She took Maudie by the hand and left the nursery, only nodding good-bye to the little boys as she passed through the doorway.

"Good-bye, darlings," said Maudie. "I'll bring you back something nice for tea."

"Dood-bye, dear Maudie," called out Hec and Duke in return. Then they flew – no, I can hardly use that word with regard to their sturdy little legs' trot across the room – they trotted off to the window to see the carriage as it passed the corner of the drive and to kiss their little hands to Mamma and Maudie. And Hoodie remained determinedly looking out of the other window, from which no drive and no carriage were to be seen.

"Nobody calls me darling. Nobody cares for Hoodie," she said to herself. "Nebber mind. Hoodie will go far, far."

When Martin called to her a few minutes afterwards, to put her hat and jacket on for the run in the garden, which her mother had spoken of, she came at once, and stood quite still while her nurse dressed her. The submission struck Martin as rather suspicious.

"Now Miss Hoodie, my dear," she said, "you'll not go on the grass or where it's wet. Just run about on the nice dry gravel for half an hour or so, and if you see the gardener about, you may ask him to show you the rabbits."

Hoodie looked up in Martin's face with a rather curious expression.

"I won't run in the grass," was all she said. Martin let her go off without any misgiving. For all Hoodie's strange temper she was in some ways a particularly sensible child for her age. She was quite to be trusted to play alone in the garden, for instance – she might have been safely left within reach of the most beautiful flowers in the conservatory without any special warning; not one would have been touched. She was truly, as Martin said, a strange mixture and contradiction.

She had made her way half down the staircase, when she suddenly remembered her basket.

"Oh, my bastwick," she exclaimed. "I was nearly forgetting my bastwick," and up-stairs again she climbed to the cupboard, in one dark corner of which she had hidden it. Luckily it was still there; no one had touched it; so feeling herself quite equipped for the journey, Hoodie walked out of the front door, crossed the gravel drive, and made her way down a little path with a rustic gate at the end leading straight out on to the high road. When she got there she stood still and looked about her. Which way should she go? It had turned out a beautiful afternoon, though the morning had been so stormy. The road was nearly dry already, the sky overhead was blue, save here and there where little feathery clouds were flying about in some agitation; it might rain again before night, for though not exactly cold, there was no summer glow as yet, and the sunshine, though bright, had a very April feeling about it.

Hoodie stood still and looked about her, up and down the road. It was a pretty, peaceful scene – the broad well-kept highway, bordered at one side with beautiful old trees just bursting into bloom, and across, on the other side of the low hedge, the fresh green fields, all the fresher for the morning's rain, in some of which already the tender little lambkins were sporting about or cuddling in by the side of their warm woolly ewe-mothers.

"I wish I was a lamb," thought Hoodie, as her glance fell on them. Then as she looked away beyond the fields to where in the distance the land sloped upwards into softly rising hills, a flight of birds attracted her attention. How prettily they flew, waving, now upwards, now downwards, like one long ribbon against the sky. "Or a little bird," she added. "If I was up there I could see so nicely where to go, and I could fly, fly, till I got to the sun."

But just then the sound of wheels coming near brought her thoughts down to earth again. Which way should she go?

She must pass through a wood. That was the only thing that at present she felt sure of, and there was a wood she remembered some way down the road, past Mr. Bright's farm. So down the road Hoodie trotted, her basket firmly clasped in her hand, her little figure the only moving thing to be seen along the queen's highway. For the cart to which the wheels belonged had passed quickly – it was only the grocer from the neighbouring town, so on marched Hoodie undisturbed. A little on this side of farmer Bright's a lane turned off to the left. This lane, Hoodie decided, must be the way to the wood, so she left the road and went along the lane for about a quarter of a mile, till, to her perplexity, it ended in a sort of little croft with a stile at each side. Hoodie climbed up both stiles in turns and looked about her. The wood was not to be seen from either, but across a field from the second stile she saw the tops of some trees standing on lower ground.

"That must be the wood," thought Hoodie, and down she clambered again to fetch her basket which she had left on the other side. With some difficulty she hoisted it and herself up again, with greater difficulty got it and herself down the steps on the further side, and then set off triumphantly at a run in the direction of the trees she had seen.

So far she was right. These trees were the beginning of a wood – a pretty little wood with a tiny stream running through the middle, and little nests of ferns and mosses in among the stones and tree-stumps on its banks – a very pretty little wood it must be in summer-time with the trees more fully out and the ground dry and crisp, and clear of the last year's leaves which still gave it a desolate appearance. Hoodie's spirits rose. She was getting on famously. Soon she might expect to see the grandmother's cottage, where no doubt the kettle would be boiling on the fire to make tea for her, and the table all nicely spread. For already she was beginning to feel hungry; she had journeyed, it seemed to her, a very long way, and more than once she eyed her basket wistfully, wondering if she might eat just one piece of the bread-and-butter.