The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation by Annie Fellows Johnston

ALL through the rest of that week, and through New Year's Day, Lloyd / managed to keep her resolution bravely. Even when the time came for the / girls to go back to school without her, she went through the farewells / like a little Spartan, driving down to the station with tearful Betty, / who grieved over Lloyd's disappointment as if it had been her own.

When the train pulled out, with the four girls on the rear platform, she / stood waving her handkerchief cheerily as long as she could see an / answering flutter. Then she turned away, catching her breath in a deep / indrawn sob, that might have been followed by others if Rob had not been / with her. He saw her clench her hands and set her teeth together hard, / and knew what a fight she was making to choke back the tears, but he / wisely gave no sign that he saw and sympathized. He only proposed a / walk over to the blacksmith shop to see the red fox that Billy Kerr had / trapped and caged. But a little later, when she had regained her / self-control and was poking a stick between the slats of the coop where / the fox was confined, to make it stretch itself, he said, suddenly:

"By cricky, you were game, Lloyd! If it had been me, I couldn't have / gone to the station and watched the fellows go off without me, and joke / about it the way you did."

Lloyd went on rattling the stick between the slats and made no answer, / but Rob's approval brightened her spirits wonderfully. It was not until / the next day, when he, too, went back to school, that she fully realized / how lonely her winter was going to be. She strolled into her mother's / room, and threw herself listlessly into a chair by the window.

"What can I do, mothah? I mustn't read long, I mustn't study, Tarbaby is / lame, so I can't ride, and I've walked as far as I care to this / mawning."

"What would you like to do?" asked Mrs. Sherman, who was dressing to go / out.

"Nothing but things that I can't do," was the fretful answer. "It would / be lots of fun if I could go out in the kitchen and beat eggs, and make / custah'd pies and biscuits and things. I'd love to cook. I haven't had / a chance since I was at Ware's Wigwam. But Aunt Cindy scolds and / grumbles if anybody so much as looks into the kitchen. She says she / won't have me messing around in her way."

"I know," sighed Mrs. Sherman. "Cindy is getting more fussy and exacting / every year. But she has cooked for the family so long that she seems to / think the kitchen is hers. If she were not such a superior cook, I / wouldn't put up with her whims, but in these days, when everybody is / having so much trouble with servants, we'll have to humour her. She's a / faithful old creature. You might cook on the chafing-dish in the / dining-room. There are all sorts of things you could make on that."

Lloyd shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "But not bread and pies and / things you do with a rolling-pin. That's the pah't I like."

She sat a moment, swinging her foot in silence, and then broke out:

"If I were a girl in a story-book, this disappointment would turn me / into such a saintly, helpful creatuah that I'd be called 'The Angel of / the Home.' I've read about such girls. They keep things in ordah, and / mend and dust and put flowahs about, and make the house so bright and / cheerful that people wondah how they evah got along without them. Every / time they turn around, there are lovely, helpful things for them to do. / But what can _I_ do in a big house like this moah than I've always tried / to do? I've tried to be considerate of everybody's comfo't evah since I / stah'ted out to build a road of the loving hah't in everybody's memory. / The servants do everything heah, and don't want to be interfered with. I / wish we were dead poah, and lived in a plain little cottage and did our / own work. Then I wouldn't have time to get lonesome. I'd be lots / happiah.

"One day, when Miss Gilmer and I were talking about Ederyn in his / Dungeon of Disappointment, she said that we could always get out of our / troubles the same way that he did; that the cobwebs he twisted into / ropes were disagreeable to touch. Nobody likes to put their hands into / dusty cobwebs, and that they represent the disagreeable little tasks / that lie in wait for everybody. She said that, if we'll just grapple the / things that we dislike most to do, the little homely every-day duties, / and busy ourselves with them, they'll help us to rise above our / discontent. I've been trying all mawning to think of some such cobwebs / for me to take hold of, and there isn't a single one."

Mrs. Sherman smiled at the wobegone face turned toward her. "Fancy any / one being miserable over such a state of affairs as that!" she laughed. / "Actually complaining because there's nothing disagreeable for her to / do! Well, we'll have to look for some cobwebs to occupy you. Maybe if / you can't find them at home, you can do like the old woman who was / tossed up in a basket, seventy times as high as the moon. Don't you / remember how Mom Beck used to sing it to you?

"Old woman! Old woman! Old woman, said I, / / O whither, O whither, O whither so high? / / _To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky_, / / But I'll be back again, by and by."

She trilled it gaily as she fastened her belt, and took out her hat and / gloves.

"Fate must have given her just such a cobwebless home as you have, and / she had to soar high to rise above her troubles. Come on, little girl, / get your hat and coat, and we'll go in search of something disagreeable / for you to do; but I hope your quest won't take you seventy times as / high as the moon."

They drove down to the store to attend to the day's marketing. While / Mrs. Sherman was ordering her groceries, Lloyd went to the back of the / store, where one of the clerks was teaching tricks to a bright little / fox-terrier. She was so interested in the performance that she did not / know when Miss Allison came in, or how long she and her mother stood / discussing her.