SURPRISES.

When Ruby went to bed that night her last thought was of the caterpillars and of the pleasure they would give her teacher, and she was impatient for the morning to come that she might have Miss Ketchum tell her how much she had enjoyed them.

Miss Ketchum did not go up to her room after study hour, but after supper she went up for something, intending to return to the sitting-room at once, as she had charge of the girls that evening. It was almost dark in her room, but she did not stop to light the lamp, as she knew where to get her work-basket in the dark. In pa.s.sing the bureau she put out her hand and knocked something off, but stooping down on the floor and picking it up again, she concluded that it was merely an empty paper-box, such as Mrs. Boardman often put in her room when she found one, to use as a home for her pets. The cover rolled away, but Miss Ketchum did not stop to look for it, and went down to the sitting room again.

Of course you can guess what happened. Whether the caterpillars were asleep or not when the box fell, I could not tell you, but after that they were certainly very wide-awake, for they travelled out of the box and all over the room. Before Miss Ketchum had come up to go to bed they had made their way all over the room. There were some of them on the ceiling, some crawling over the white counter-pane on Miss Ketchum's bed, some upon her pillow, and a very fat, large caterpillar, that Ruby had found upon a tomato-plant, had crept up on the looking-gla.s.s and had gone to sleep there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISS KETCHUM AND THE CATERPILLARS (missing from book)]

Miss Ketchum was very much interested in caterpillars, but of course she did not want to have them walking all about her room in this way; so you can imagine how surprised and perhaps a little frightened she was when she came upstairs to bed, and struck a light, and saw the caterpillars making themselves quite at home all about her room. She could not understand it at first, and then it occurred to her that perhaps some of the girls had been playing a trick upon her, and had put them in the room to annoy her. Some of the scholars were unkind enough to tease Miss Ketchum sometimes, and it would not have surprised her if this had been the case to-night.

At last she remembered the box, and picking up the cover, she saw written carefully upon it, "With Ruby's love," and then she knew how it had happened.

Ruby had put them there to please her, and if the cover had stayed on the box, the caterpillars would have been quite safe, and would have been in their prison yet; but she remembered having knocked the box down, and it was undoubtedly then that they strayed out and wandered about the room.

Poor Miss Ketchum! She sighed as she looked about the room. She could not go to bed and perhaps have the caterpillars creeping all over her in the night, and yet it seemed like a hopeless task to catch them, and she had no idea how many there were.

But Ruby had meant to be so kind that she thought more of her little scholar's affection for her than she did of the work she had so unintentionally given her.

One by one she patiently captured them and returned them to their box.

She was not quite sure that she had got them all when she put the last one in, but there were so many that she felt tolerably certain that Ruby could not possibly have found more in one day.

It was quite late before she finally got to bed, and while Ruby was sound asleep and dreaming of Miss Ketchum's delight when she should find the addition to her pets, Miss Ketchum was smiling to herself as she thought of Ruby's intended kindness, and how it had turned out.

She made up her mind that Ruby should not know that the caterpillars had escaped, but that she should think that her gift had given all the pleasure that it was intended to, and so Ruby never knew of poor Miss Ketchum's caterpillar hunt at bed-time.

The next day Miss Ketchum thanked her for them, and explained to her that she would have to set some of them at liberty again, since she had some of a good many of the varieties, and two of each were all that she could take care of; but Ruby was delighted to hear that Miss Ketchum had never had some of the specimens before, and that she was quite sure that they would make beautiful b.u.t.terflies.

After this Ruby and Miss Ketchum were as good friends as Agnes had always been with her teacher, and Miss Ketchum found it a great help to have two little girls, instead of one, upon whom she could always rely for good behavior, and who could be trusted never to wilfully annoy her.

She had a great many treasures in her room that had been brought to her from China by a brother who had been a missionary there, and she was always glad to have Agnes and Ruby come and pay her a little visit, and look at whatever they wished. She knew they could be trusted to handle things carefully and not be meddlesome, and many a happy hour the two girls spent there. Miss Ketchum's room was a very large room, as it was the only one over the school-house, so she had plenty of s.p.a.ce to keep all her curiosities and her pets.

There was a little cupboard that stood in a corner, just as if it had been built for that particular s.p.a.ce, and in this corner closet Miss Ketchum kept a little tin of delicious seed-cakes, and some cups and saucers, and pretty little plates with b.u.t.terflies, and mandarins, and paG.o.das, and Chinese beauties upon them; and very often when the girls came to see her she would open this cupboard and they would have a little treat, which seemed all the more delightful because the plates were so odd. There was an open fireplace in the room, and when the days were cold and there was a snapping, blazing wood-fire, they used to ask Miss Ketchum if they might not bring their chestnuts and roast them in the hot ashes.

Miss Ketchum knew a great many stories, too, and sometimes, on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when the children had plenty of time, and would surely not have to hurry away in the most interesting part of the story, she would lean back in her big rocking-chair, and with the little girls sitting on ottomans, one each side of her, she would tell them delightful stories about when she was a little girl and went to school. Ruby and Agnes were glad that they did not live then, when there was no whole holiday on Sat.u.r.day, but they were very much interested in hearing all that Miss Ketchum had to tell them, and in comparing the things that she did when she went to school with what they did themselves.

Altogether Miss Ketchum was a very delightful friend to have, if, she was a little forgetful sometimes, and did like caterpillars; but Ruby and Agnes grew almost as fond of her pets as she was herself, as they learned how much there was of interest about them. They looked forward quite eagerly to the time when, instead of the ugly worm that had woven a chrysalis about himself and gone to sleep for the winter, there should burst forth a beautiful b.u.t.terfly. It made them more careful not to hurt creeping things, and if they found a brown worm crawling about where he might be stepped upon, the girls would always pick him up carefully upon a stick or leaf and put him in a safe place where he might keep out of danger.

CHAPTER XX.

PERSIMMONS.

The September days pa.s.sed away and the October days came and found Ruby both happy and good. She had not forgotten her home nor her dear mother and father, but she was learning to love her new home very dearly, and she had tried so hard to be good and give the teachers as little trouble as possible that they were all very fond of her. She found her lessons very pleasant, and as she loved study and was ambitious to always have perfect lessons she was very near the head in all her cla.s.ses.

Twice a week she wrote long letters home to her mother, and told her all about her doings; and her mother was so much better that she was able to write to Ruby two or three times a week,--such loving letters that Ruby always wished for a little while that she could put herself in an envelope and send herself home to her mother, instead of waiting for Christmas. Ruby was doing so well that both her Aunt Emma and her father and mother wanted her to stay until the end of the term at any rate. Ruby hoped that when she went home she would be able to take with her at least one of the five prizes which were to be given at Christmas. There was a composition prize, a deportment prize, a prize for grammar, one for spelling, and one for improvement in music. Ruby had worked so hard in all her cla.s.ses, and had been so careful to keep all the rules, that she was quite sure that she should take at least one prize home with her to show her father and mother how hard she had tried to be good.

If Ruthy could only have been with her, Ruby would have been quite contented; but with all her new friends she still missed the dear little friend who had been like a sister to her all her life.

A great many things that had seemed hard to Ruby when she first came were becoming so natural to her now that she never thought anything about them. The courtesying was no longer any trouble to her; on the contrary, she really liked it, and she amused her Aunt Emma one day by telling her that she thought that when she went home she should always courtesy to her father and mother when she went out of the room; for if it was respectful to courtesy to her teachers, it was certainly respectful to courtesy to any one else of whom she thought a great deal. She had learned to like egg-plant just as well as she did anything else, so her trouble over that had melted away into thin air; and she had found Agnes Van Kirk a very good friend to have, for she was a little girl who tried very hard to do right herself, and helped Ruby to do right, too.

Agnes was going to be a teacher some day, she hoped, and she was very fond of talking to Ruby about her plans. She was going to have a large boarding-school, and she was not quite sure whether she would have her girls courtesy or not when they went out of a room.

"Perhaps it will be old-fashioned by that time, you know," she said to Ruby, when the two girls had counted how many years must pa.s.s away before Agnes should have completed her education and opened her school.

"Of course I should not teach my girls to do old-fashioned things, that would make people laugh at them, but I want them to do everything that is nice. I mean to be such a teacher as Miss Chapman. She never scolds, but all the girls mind her, and even those who break the rules always wish they had n't when she looks at them. I can hardly wait, I am in such a hurry to begin my school."

"And I will come and see you, and look at the girls the way that lady looked at us the other day when she came to visit the school," said Ruby. "Do you remember how beautifully she was dressed, Agnes, and how pretty she was? I wonder if she meant to send her little girl here, and that was why she came. Won't it be fun to go and visit your school when I don't have any of the lessons to study, nor anything. I will be very grand, and they will never guess that we used to be little girls and go to school together. I don't want to be a school-teacher, though."

"What do you want to be?" asked Agnes.

"I think I shall write books," announced Ruby.

"Why, what ever made you think of that?" asked Agnes, in astonishment.

"You don't even like to write compositions, and how could you ever write books?"

"Oh, compositions are different from books," returned Ruby, airily. "I am sure I could write poetry, I like it so much. There is n't anything I like better than poetry day. I wish it was poetry day every Friday, instead of every other one being compositions. I don't think compositions are at all interesting. We have to write a composition for next time upon one of our walks. I think I will write about our walk this afternoon. I don't think there is ever very much to write about the walks we take. We just go out two and two, and we see the same things every time, and that is all there is of it."

"Perhaps something may happen to-day to give you something to write about," Agnes answered; and though she had only spoken in fun, without any idea that her words would come true, something did happen that afternoon, quite out of the usual course, and I am not sure but that Ruby would have rather that it had not happened, and that she would have had less to write about.

Miss Ketchum announced at the close of the afternoon school that the girls would go for their walk half an hour earlier than usual, as they were going to gather persimmons, and would want to have more time than for their regular walk.

This gathering of persimmons was a treat looked forward to by the girls, and they were very much pleased when they heard that they were to go this afternoon. They each had a little basket in which to bring home their spoils, and Ruby was quite as excited as the rest of them, wondering whether she would find enough to fill her basket. It was the first of November, and there had been several slight frosts, which, Ruby heard the teachers say, ought to ripen the persimmons.

"That is funny," she said to herself. "I should think it would spoil persimmons to be frozen. I never heard of anything being better because it had been out in the frost. I wonder what persimmons are like, anyway."

Ruby had never seen any persimmons in her life, as they did not grow near her home, and she had a vague idea that they were like apples, only smaller, perhaps. It did not take the girls very long to get ready, and in a little while they were all on their way, so happy that it was hard work to keep in procession, and not lose step with each other.

It was a beautiful day. The sky was so blue that not the tiniest little white cloud was floating about upon it anywhere, and the air was not very cold. There was just enough frostiness to make warm wraps very pleasant, and to make the girls find a brisk gait delightful.

The leaves had all dropped from the trees, and their bare, brown limbs stood out sharp and clear against the sky, and Ruby wondered whether the persimmons would not have fallen from the tree, too. She did n't ask any questions, however, but made up her mind to wait and see for herself. It was very hard for Ruby to admit that she did not know anything; and although Agnes could have told her all about the persimmons, she preferred to wait rather than ask her.

It was quite a long walk to the field where the persimmon-tree grew which was considered the special property of the school. In the woods there were several persimmon-trees, but the boys knew where those persimmons grew, and gathered them as soon as they ripened, and very often before they were ready to eat; so it was of no use going there to look for any. This tree stood in a field that belonged to a friend of Miss Chapman's, and he always kept it just for the girls, and was willing to send out his man to shake the tree and knock the persimmons down for them, if Jack Frost had not done it already. As soon as they reached the field, and the bars were let down, the girls could break their ranks and rush for the persimmon-tree, which grew in the middle of the field. It did not look very inviting, Ruby thought, as she ran along with the others. All the leaves had dropped off except a few which dangled as if the next puff of wind would send them down upon the ground with the others; and the persimmons, which hung thickly upon the branches, did not look at all as Ruby had fancied that they would.

There were several lying upon the ground, and Ruby wondered at the girls for picking them up so eagerly. They were all shrivelled, and the least touch would break their skins. Indeed some of them in falling had broken, and were lying in bunches, all mashed together.

Ruby did not want any such looking persimmons as those, and she looked carefully about for nice round ones, that were firm and hard.

"Come over here, Ruby," called Agnes. "Here are ever so many, and such nice ones. I am getting lots."

Ruby glanced over and saw that those in Agnes' basket were just the kind that she did not want.

"I see some here," she answered, and so she picked up the firm, hard fruit as quickly as she could.

Presently she wondered what they tasted like, and she put one in her mouth.

Did you ever have your mouth puckered up by a green persimmon? If you have, then you will know just how Ruby's mouth felt; and if you have not, you must imagine it, for I am sure I cannot tell you about it. It was a very green persimmon that Ruby had tasted, and she had taken such a bite of it before she could stop herself that it seemed to her as though she would never be able to open her mouth again. She was quite frightened at the way her mouth felt, and her eyes filled with tears as she went over to Agnes.

"Oh, it has done something to my mouth, and puckered it all up," she said, trying to keep from crying. "I never had such a dreadful feeling in my mouth. Do you suppose it will ever come out again? Oh, it is worse than a toothache, it truly is."