CHAPTER XVII
Laura's Version Of The Story
MARJORY, in the cottage kitchen, was alternately scolding and laughing at wo-begone Mabel when Jean and Bettie, released from their charge, ran back to Dandelion Cottage. Mabel, crying with indignation, sat on the kitchen stove rubbing her eyes with a pair of grimy fists—Mabel's hands always gathered dust.
"Oh Mabel! how could you!" groaned Jean, when Marjory had told the afternoon's story. "I'll never dare to leave you here again without some sensible person to look after you. Don't you see you've been almost—yes, quite—as bad as Laura?"
"I don't care," sobbed unrepentant Mabel. "If you'd heard those verses—and—and Marjory laughed at me."
"Couldn't help it," giggled Marjory, who was perched on the corner of the kitchen table.
"But surely," reproached gentle-mannered Jean, "it wasn't necessary to throw things."
"I guess," said Mabel, suddenly sitting up very straight and disclosing a puffy, tear-stained countenance that moved Marjory to fresh giggles, "if you'd felt those icy cold tomatoes go plump in your eye and every place on your very newest dress you'd have been pretty mad, too. Look at me! I was too surprised to move after I'd hit Mr. Milligan—I never saw him coming at all—and I guess every tomato Laura threw hit me some place."
"Yes," confirmed Marjory, "I'll say that much for Laura. She can certainly throw straighter than any girl I ever knew—she throws just like a boy."
Jean, still worried and disapproving, could not help laughing, for Laura's plump target showed only too good evidence of Laura's skill. Mabel's new, light blue gingham showed a round scarlet spot where each juicy missile had landed; and besides this, there were wide muddy circles where her tears had left high-water marks about each eye.
"But, dear me," said Jean, growing sober again, "think how low down and horrid it will sound when we tell about it at home. Suppose it should get into the papers! Apples and tomatoes! If boys had done it it would have sounded bad enough, but for girls to do such a thing! Oh dear, I do wish I'd been here to stop it!"
"To stop the tomatoes, you mean," said Mabel. "You couldn't have stopped anything else, for I just had to do something or burst. I've felt all the week just like something sizzling in a bottle and waiting to have the cork pulled! I'll never be able to do my suffering in silence the way you and Bettie do. Oh girls, I feel just loads better."
"Well, you may feel better," said irrepressible Marjory, "but you certainly look a lot worse. With those muddy rings on your face you look just like a little owl that isn't very wise."
"Oh dear," mourned Bettie, "if Miss Blossom had only stayed we wouldn't have had all this trouble with those people."
"No," said Marjory, shrewdly, "Miss Blossom would probably have made Laura over into a very good imitation of an honest citizen. I don't think, though, that even Miss Blossom could make Laura anything more than an imitation, because—well, because she's Laura. It's different with Mabel"
Mabel looked up expectantly, and Marjory, who was in a teasing mood, continued.
"Yes," said she, encouragingly, "Miss Blossom might have succeeded in making a nice, polite girl out of Mabel if she'd only had time"
"How much time?" demanded Mabel, with sudden suspicion.
"Oh, about a thousand years," replied Marjory, skipping prudently behind tall Jean.
"Never mind, Mabel," said Bettie, who always sided with the oppressed, slipping a thin arm about Mabel's plump shoulders. "We like you pretty well, anyway, and you've certainly had an awful time."
"Do you think," asked Mabel, with sudden concern, "that Mr. Milligan could get us turned out of the cottage? You know he threatened to."
"No," said Bettie, "the cottage is church property and no one could do anything about it with Mr. Black away because he's the senior warden. Father said only this morning that there was all sorts of church business waiting for him."
"Well," said Mabel, with a sigh of relief, "Mr. Black wouldn't turn us out, so we're perfectly safe—guess I'll go out on the porch and sing my Milligan song again."
"I guess you won't," said Jean. "There's a very good tub in the Bennett house and I'd advise you to go home and take a bath in it—you look as if you needed two baths and a shampoo. Besides, it's almost supper time."
Laura's version of the story, unfortunately, differed materially from the truth. There was no gainsaying the tomatoes, Mr. Milligan had seen those with his own eyes, but Laura claimed that she had been compelled to use those expensive vegetables as a means of self defence. According to Laura, whose imagination was as well trained as her arm, she had been the innocent victim of all sorts of persecution at the hands of the four girls. They had called her a thief and had insulted not only her but all the Milligans. Mabel, she declared, had opened hostilities that afternoon by throwing stones, and poor, abused Laura had only used the tomatoes as a last resort. The apple that struck Mr. Milligan was, she maintained, the very last of about four dozen.
Had the Milligans not been prejudiced, they might easily have learned how far from the truth this assertion was, for the porch of Dandelion Cottage was still bespattered with tomatoes but, in the Milligan yard, there were no traces of the recent encounter. This, to be sure, was no particular credit to Mabel for there might have been had Mr. Milligan delayed his coming by a very few minutes, for Mabel's pan still contained seven hard little apples and Mabel still longed to use them.
The Milligans, however, were prejudiced. Although Laura was often rude and disagreeable at home, she was the only little girl the Milligans had; in any quarrel with outsiders they naturally sided with their own flesh and blood, and, in spite of the tomatoes, they did so now. In her mother Laura found a staunch champion.
"I won't have those stuck-up little imps there another week," said Mrs. Milligan. "If you don't see that they're turned out, James, I will."
"They stick out their tongues at me every time they see me," fibbed Laura, whose own tongue was the only one that had been used for sticking-out purposes. "They said ma was no lady and"
"I'm going to complain of them this very night," said Mrs. Milligan, with quick resentment. "I'll show 'em whether I'm a lady or not."
"Who'll you complain to?" asked Laura, hopefully.
"The church warden, of course. These cottages both belong to the church."
"Mr. Black is the girls' best friend," said Laura. "He wouldn't believe anything against them—besides he's away."
"Mr. Downing isn't," said Mr. Milligan. "I paid him the rent last week. We'll threaten to leave if he doesn't turn them out. He's a sharp business man and he wouldn't lose the rent of this house for the sake of letting a lot of children use that cottage. I'll see him to-morrow."
"No," said Mrs. Milligan, "just leave the matter to me. I'll talk to Mr. Downing."
"Suit yourself," said Mr. Milligan, glad perhaps to shirk a disagreeable task.
After supper that evening, Mrs. Milligan put on her best bonnet and went to Mr. Downing's house, which was only about three blocks from her own. The evening was warm and she found Mr. and Mrs. Downing seated on their front porch. Mrs. Milligan accepted their invitation to take a chair and began at once to explain the reason for her visit.
The angry woman's tale lost nothing in the telling, indeed, it was not hard to discover how Laura came by her habit of exaggerating. When Mrs. Milligan went home half an hour later, Mr. Downing was convinced that the church property was in dangerous hands. He couldn't see what Mr. Black had been thinking of to allow careless, impudent children that played with matches, drove nails in the cottage plaster and insulted innocent neighbours, to occupy Dandelion Cottage.
"Some way," said Mrs. Downing, when the visitor had departed, "I don't like that woman. She isn't quite a lady."
"Nonsense, my dear," said Mr. Downing, "if only half the things she hints at are true, there would be reason enough for closing the cottage. The place itself doesn't amount to much, I've been told, but a fire started there would damage thousands of dollars' worth of property—besides, there's the rent from the house those people are in, we don't want to lose that you know."
"Still, there are always tenants"
"Not at this time of the year. I'll look into the matter as soon as I can find time."
"Remember," said Mrs. Downing, thinking of Mrs. Milligan's rasping tones, "that there are two sides to every story."
"My dear," said Mr. Downing, complacently, "I shall listen with the strictest impartiality to both sides."