Mother must have put all the blessed blankets in the house on the school-teacher's bed. I don't know what she had on her own, but we only had the old bag-quilt and a stack of old skirts, and other remnants of the family wardrobe, on ours. In the middle of the night, the whole confounded pile of them rolled off, and we nearly froze. Do what we boys would--tie ourselves in knots and coil into each other like ropes--we could n't get warm. We sat up in the bed in turns, and glared into the darkness towards the schoolmistress's room, which was n't more than three yards away; then we would lie back again and shiver. We were having a time. But at last we heard a noise from the young lady's room. We listened--all we knew.
Miss Ribbone was up and dressing. We could hear her teeth chattering and her knees knocking together. Then we heard her sneak back to bed again and felt disappointed and colder than ever, for we had hoped she was getting up early, and would n't want the bed any longer that night. Then we too crawled out and dressed and tried it that way.
In answer to Mother at breakfast, next morning, Miss Ribbone said she had "slept very well indeed."We did n't say anything.
She was n't much of an eater. School-teachers are n't as a rule. They pick, and paw, and fiddle round a meal in a way that gives a healthy-appetited person the jim-jams. She did n't touch the fried pumpkin. And the way she sat there at the table in her watch-chain and ribbons made poor old Dave, who sat opposite her in a ragged shirt without a shirt-button, feel quite miserable and awkward.
For a whole week she did n't take anything but bread and tea--though there was always plenty good pumpkin and all that. Mother used to speak to Dad about it, and wonder if she ate the little pumpkin-tarts she put up for her lunch. Dad could n't understand anyone not eating pumpkin, and said HE'D tackle GRASS before he'd starve.
"And did ever y' see such a object?" Mother went on. "The hands an' arms on her! Dear me! Why, I do believe if our Sal was to give her one squeeze she'd kill her. Oh, but the finery and clothes! Y' never see the like! Just look at her!" And Dad, the great oaf, with Joe at his heels, followed her into the young lady's bedroom.
"Look at that!" said Mother, pointing to a couple of dresses hanging on a nail--"she wears THEM on week-days, no less; and here" (raising the lid of a trunk and exposing a pile of clean and neatly-folded clothing that might have been anything, and drawing the articles forth one by one)--"look at them! There's that--and that--and this--and----""I say, what's this, Mother?" interrupted Joe, holding up something he had discovered.
"And that--an'----"
"Mother!"
"And this----"
"Eh, Mother?"
"Don't bother me, boy, it's her tooth-brush," and Mother pitched the clothes back into the trunk and glared round. Meanwhile, Joe was hard at his teeth with the brush.
"Oh, here!" and she dived at the bed and drew a night-gown from beneath the pillow, unfolded it, and held it up by the neck for inspection.
Dad, with his huge, ungainly, hairy paws behind him, stood mute, like the great pitiful elephant he was, and looked at the tucks and the rest--stupidly. "Where before did y'ever see such tucks and frills and lace on a night-shirt? Why, you'd think 't were for goin' to picnics in, 'stead o' goin' to bed with. Here, too! here's a pair of brand new stays, besides the ones she's on her back. Clothes!--she's nothin' else but clothes."Then they came out, and Joe began to spit and said he thought there must have been something on that brush.
Miss Ribbone did n't stay the full month--she left at the end of the second week; and Mother often used to wonder afterwards why the creature never came to see us.
