Quicksilver Sue

Mrs. Hart smiled down into the beaming face; it was impossible not to respond to such heartfelt joy.

"Dear Sue!" she said affectionately. "You must bring your new friend to see me soon."

"Oh, of course I shall!" cried Sue.

"And Mary and I were just wondering whether it would be pleasant for you three to have a picnic some day soon."

"Oh, Mrs. Hart, how perfectly delightful! When can we go? To-day? I'll run after Clarice and tell her."

"No, no, Quicksilver!" said Mary, catching Sue's skirt as she sprang up, and pulling her down to her seat again. "We can't go to-day, possibly. Perhaps to-morrow – what do you say, Mammy? or would Friday be better?"

Sue's face fell. "Friday!" she said. "Why, Mary, Friday is ever and ever so far off! I don't see how we can wait till Friday!"

"To-morrow will do very well," said Mrs. Hart. "I have a small chicken-pie that will be the very thing; and there are doughnuts and cookies. How is your mother feeling, Sue? Will she or Katy be able to get up something for you, do you think?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, Mrs. Hart! I'll make an angel-cake; and there is jam, and – well, Katy was going to show me how to make croquettes some time, and perhaps I'll learn how to-morrow, and then they will be all ready, you see; and oh, we'll have all kinds of things. Let's go and see about them now, Mary! Oh, and we'll ask the boys. Don't you think they will come, Mary? Clarice wants to know them. Isn't that sweet of her?"

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Hart and Mary, in one breath. "Has she seen them?"

"No; but she asked if there were any nice boys here, and of course I said yes, the nicest boys in the world – Tom and Teddy; and she asked me to introduce them to her; and – and so, you see!"

"I see!" said Mrs. Hart, with a quiet smile. "There are the boys now, back from fishing. Why don't you all go and have a good game of 'I spy' in the orchard?"

"Oh, good!" cried both girls.

They ran to the door just in time to meet two jolly, freckled boys who came rolling in, both talking at once. Sue stumbled and fell over one of them, knocking his cap off, and his basket out of his hand.

"Now, then, Quicksilver," said Tom, "where are you a-coming to? Thermometer smashed, and mercury running all over the lot, eh?"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Tom – I do indeed! But I saved you the trouble of taking off your hat, anyhow. Come along and play 'I spy' in the orchard."

"Hurrah!" cried the boys. "Where's Mammy? Oh, Mammy, pickereels! five fine fat festive pickereels! Fried for supper, please, Mammy! Coming, Quicksilver! All right, Ballast!" (Ballast was Mary's nickname, as the opposite of Quicksilver.) "Who'll count out?"

"I!" "Me!" "You!"

They tumbled out of the back door together, and the last sound Mrs. Hart heard was:

"Wonozol, zoo-ozol, zigozol, zan,
Bobtail, vinegar, tittle-tol, tan;
Harum-scarum, virgin marum,
Hy, zon, tus!"

CHAPTER IV

EARLY IN THE MORNING

At six o'clock on Thursday morning Sue was up and scanning the clouds. There were not many clouds to scan; the sun was rising bright and glorious in a wonderful blue sky.

"It's going to be a perfectly splendid day!" said Sue. "I must call Mary. I don't believe she is awake. Oh, I'll send a pigeon; that's just what I'll do. It will be lovely to be waked up by a pigeon this glorious morning; and I have to feed them, anyhow, because I said I would. I am never going to forget the pigeons again – never! The next time I do, I shall go without food for two days, and see how I like it."

Sue dashed into her dress, buttoned it half-way up, and rushed headlong down the stairs and through the kitchen. Katy, the maid of all work, was crossing the floor with a brimming pan of milk. Crash! Sue ran directly into her. The pan fell with a mighty splash; the milk flew over both Katy and Sue, wetting them from head to feet.

"Indade, then, Miss Sue, 'tis too bad of yez entirely!" cried Katy. "And laughin', too, after sp'ilin' me gown and desthroyin' me clane flure, let alone all the milk in the house gone."

"Oh, but, Katy, if you knew how funny you look, with the white milk all over your red face! I can't help laughing; I truly can't. And my dress is spoiled too, you see, so it's all right. I can't stop now; I'm in the most terrible hurry!"

She flew on, but popped her head back through the door to say:

"But I am sorry, Katy; I truly am! And if you'll just leave the milk there, I'll pick it up – I mean wipe it up – just as soon as I get back from the picnic."

Her smile was so irresistible that Katy's angry face softened in spite of herself.

"Sure it's merely a child she is," the good woman said. "Miss Lily's twice the sinse of her, but yet 'tis her takes the heart of one!"

She brought the mop and wiped up the milk, then went soberly to change her dress, wondering how the mistress would make her breakfast without the milk-toast which was usually all she could fancy in the morning.

Sue had already forgotten the milk. She ran on across the yard, where the dew lay thick and bright, to a small building that stood under a spreading apple-tree. It had been a shed once, and its general effect was still, Sue admitted, "a little sheddy"; but the door was very fine, being painted a light pea-green, the panels picked out with scarlet, and having a really splendid door-plate of bright tin, with "S. PENROSE" in black letters. Some white pigeons sat on the roof sunning themselves, and they fluttered down about the girl's head as she tried the door.

"Dear me!" said Sue. "How stupid of me to lock the door last night! I might have known I should forget the key this morning. Never mind; I can get in at the window."

She could, and did; but, catching her dress on a nail, tore a long, jagged rent in the skirt.

"Dear me!" said Sue, again. "And I don't believe there is another clean one, since I spilt the ink last night. Never mind!"

Sue ran up the narrow stairs, and, crossing a landing, entered a tiny room, papered with gay posters. There was plenty of room for the little table and two chairs, and if a third person should come in she could sit on the table. A narrow shelf ran all round the room. This was the Museum, and held specimens of every bird's nest in the neighboring country (all old nests; if Sue had caught any one robbing a nest, or stealing a new one, it would have gone hard with that person), and shells and fossils from the clay bank near the river. The boys played "Prehistoric Man" there a good deal, and sometimes they let Sue and Mary join them, which was great glory. Then there was smoked glass for eclipses (Sue smoked them after the last eclipse, a year ago, so as to be ready for the next one; but the next one was only the moon, which was tiresome, because you didn't need smoked glass), and a dried rattlesnake, and a portrait of Raphael framed in lobster-claws. Sue did not look at these treasures now, because she knew they were all there; but if any "picknickle or bucknickle" had been missing, she would have known it in an instant. Flinging herself into a chair, she hunted for a piece of paper; found one, but rejected it in favor of a smooth, thin sheet of birch bark, on which she wrote as follows:

"Dearest Juliet: It is the east, and thou art the sun, and it's time to get up. I pray thee, wake, sweet maid! This white bird, less snowy than thy neck, bears thee my morning greeting. Do hurry up and dress! Isn't this day perfectly fine? Sha'n't we have a glorious picnic? What are you going to wear? My cake is just lovely! I burned the first one, so this isn't angel, it's buttercup, because I had to take the yolks. Star of my night, send back a message by the bird of love to thy adored

    "Romeo."

Hastily folding the note into a rather tipsy cocked hat, Sue opened a little door upon a ladder-like staircase, and called: "Coo! coo! coo!"

Down fluttered the pigeons, a dozen or more, and taking one in her hands, she fastened a note to a bit of ribbon that hung round its neck.

"There!" she said. "Oh, you dear darlings! I must give you your corn before I do another thing."

The corn was in a little covered bin on the landing at the head of the stairs. This landing was called the anteroom, and was fully as large as a small table-cloth. Sue scattered the corn with a free hand, and the pigeons cooed, and scrambled for it as only pigeons can. She kept one good handful to feed the messenger bird, and several others perched on her shoulders and thrust their soft heads into her hand.

"Dear things!" said Sue, again. "Zuleika, do you love me? Do you, Leila and Hassan? Oh, I wonder if I look like Lili, in the Goethe book! If I were only tall, and had a big white hat and a long white gown with ruffles, I think perhaps – "

She stopped short, for a voice was calling from below: "Sue, Sue, where are you?"

Sue's face, which had been as bright as Lili's own, fell.

"Oh, Mary Hart!" she cried. "How could you?"

"How could I what?" and Mary's rosy face looked up from the foot of the staircase.

"Why, I supposed you were still sound asleep, and I was just going to send a pigeon over. See! The note is all fastened on; and it's a Romeo note, too; and now you have spoiled it all!"