Magic Elizabeth Page 5

  But Sally was still gazing in wonder at the fat swirling flakes of snow, which seemed to her to be exploding from the darkness beyond the window.

  “I had a sort of summer feeling,” she said.

  “Well, I’ve told you not to stay so near that fire,” scolded her mother. “Now come along before you fall asleep again!” And they went out of the room, across the flower-covered carpet of the upstairs hall, and off down the stairs, while the grandfather clock ticked and ticked. Sally’s dream faded away to nothing as they went down and down. They passed the stone angel, holding aloft her little flaming lamp (Sally touched her cold foot and, as always, a pleasant shiver went through her as she did so, as if the angel, in some secret way, had spoken to her); they pushed through the bead curtains and on through the parlor, where the gaslights on the walls sputtered a pleasant little tune to the faint accompaniment of the melodeon, which whispered its usual greeting at their approach. In almost every room of the house a fire purred like a living thing. And all around, the snow was falling, softly and softly, upon the garden and upon the roof, and no doubt upon the little schoolhouse down the road and the church and the big red barn. It was piling up along the edges of the windows; and far off beyond the muffling snow, there was the faintest tinkle of sleigh bells. How cozy and pleasant it was in here, with the fire crackling in the fireplaces, throwing leaping shadows on the walls, and the little gas flames winking at her, and how lovely it was to be hurrying toward a surprise. “What do you suppose it is, Elizabeth?” she asked, hugging the little doll. But Elizabeth, if she knew, did not say.

  “Will I like it?” she asked her mother.

  “I think so,” said her mother. “I rather think you will.”

  “Is it something to eat? Is it hot chocolate?”

  But her mother only laughed and hurried her on through the dining room, her long skirts whispering over the floor as she moved. As they passed the round dining-room table, Sally caught a glimpse of herself reflected in its shining surface, and she wondered, with just the edge of her mind, what if the girl in there was a real girl and she was just a reflection?

  “What funny things I’m thinking tonight,” she said to Elizabeth.

  By then they were pushing through the door into the warm kitchen.

  The front of the black iron wood stove glowed red. The comfortable smell of simmering soup swirled about the kitchen from the iron kettle at the back of the stove. A tremendous crackling and crashing of logs issued from the flaming throat of the stone fireplace. If the smaller fireplaces purred, this one roared. The ticking of the little church clock on the mantel could not even be heard.

  Sally’s father was kneeling on the hearth, his back to her. He was bending over something that she could not see.

  “Where is the surprise?” she asked her mother eagerly. But her mother did not answer at once.

  White-haired Aunt Tryphone sat in her rocking chair, her wrinkled old hands quiet upon the knitting in her lap, her gold-framed spectacles slipping down her nose. She was gazing down at the hearth, a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. Plump Mrs. Perkins was holding Sally’s baby brother Bub in her arms. His pink fists were waving in the firelight, his eyes were closed tight, and his mouth was screwed up and making the odd bubbling sounds for which he was famous. Mrs. Perkins was also looking at the hearth. “The little dears,” she was saying in a happy trembly sort of voice. “Just see the little dears.”

  “Here she is,” announced Sally’s mother as they approached the group around the fire. “I’ve brought Sally down to see.”

  “But where is the surprise?” Sally asked again, feeling as if she would burst into sparks like the fireplace logs if they did not tell her soon.

  Sally’s father turned his head and grinned at her over his curly black beard. Aunt Tryphone said in her shaky old voice, pointing a trembling finger at the hearth, “It’s right there. Just see, Sally dear.”

  Mrs. Perkins said, “The little dear tiny things.”

  “My dear papa once spoke with Mr. Washington,” said Aunt Tryphone. “And even that blessed man never saw dearer, I can assure you.”

  Sally’s father motioned to her and moved to let her in beside him. He pulled her close to him with a gentle hug and a kiss upon her ear.

  And there, on the hearth, in a round basket, lay Sally’s black cat Mrs. Niminy Piminy, curled comfortably around three very new kittens, whose eyes were tightly closed, but from whose tiny mouths came weak little mewing noises. Mrs. Niminy Piminy looked lazily up at Sally and blinked proudly. Her pink tongue darted out to lick the tiny round head of the orange kitten. The striped gray one rolled over on its back and mewed in astonishment, waving its stubby legs in the air.

  “Oh!” cried Sally, and she dropped Elizabeth, who fell with her chin on the edge of the basket, so that she was staring directly into the face of a very, very tiny all-black kitten. One of her soft cotton hands rested gently on the kitten’s small head.

  “Oh, look,” cried Sally, “Elizabeth’s chosen that one. It will have to be hers! Oh, Mrs. Niminy Piminy, how beautiful, oh, how beautiful they are!” And she softly stroked the head of her dear old cat, who purred a deep rolling purr that clearly expressed the utmost pride and satisfaction in her new family. The firelight danced on the happy flushed faces clustered in what might have seemed to Mrs. Niminy Piminy a congratulatory garland around her basket. Sally leaned over and hugged Mrs. Niminy Piminy, and then she hugged her again.

  Chapter 8 - The Doll

  Sally petted and admired the kittens to her heart’s content. Far above her the voices of the grownups murmured, Aunt Tryphone’s rocking chair creaked, and it all mingled with the crackling of the fire till it was hard to distinguish the various sounds from one another.

  “Time to go to bed,” said her mother suddenly, but when Sally begged, “Please, just a little longer,” her mother sighed and got up to stir the soup on the stove. Clink, clink went the spoon against the iron kettle. Mrs. Perkins took Bub upstairs to bed. The back door opened and let in a great swoosh of cold air as Sally’s father, after ruffling her hair with his big hand, went out to “see to the horses.” A feather of snowflakes drifted in through the opened door, lifted, fell, and melted in the warm kitchen before the flakes touched the floor. And after a time, the shadow of Aunt Tryphone’s rocking chair lay quite still on the hearth, for Aunt Tryphone had fallen asleep over her knitting.

  So it was that Sally, thoroughly happy, curled up and fell asleep by the fire, one hand still resting on Mrs. Niminy Piminy’s soft fur.

  She stirred and sighed when she felt a hand upon her shoulder.

  “Sally,” whispered a voice that seemed to be coming from very far away. Then, “Sally,” it said again, closer this time. She opened one eye and smiled sleepily.

  She closed the eye again immediately, for it seemed to her that it was Aunt Sarah who was bending over her, shaking her shoulder.

  “Come, Sally,” said what was unmistakably the voice of Aunt Sarah. “You’re awake now. Stand up.

  Sally opened both eyes this time. Yes, it was indeed Aunt Sarah, looking very cross.

  “Why, Mrs. Niminy Piminy,” Sally said in surprise. For a black cat was curled up in the crook of her arm, purring quite happily. “You came with me.” She rubbed her cheek gratefully against the cat’s silky fur.

  “Shadow seems to have taken a liking to you,” said Aunt Sarah gruffly.

  “Shadow!” cried Sally, and this time she sat up and stared down at Shadow, who blinked up at her in what seemed to be a surprisingly friendly manner. She smiled back at him rather timidly, and then hesitantly reached out and touched the top of his head gently with the tips of her fingers. Shadow purred and rubbed his head against the fingers.

  “He likes to be petted under the chin too,” said Aunt Sarah.

  Sally gazed at Shadow, who looked very much as if he were waiting expectantly, and stroked him beneath the chin. Shadow lifted his throat luxuriously and poured out his content
ment in a ripple of rising and falling purrs.

  “I didn’t think you liked cats, Sally,” said Aunt Sarah.

  Sally peeked up at Aunt Sarah and smiled shyly. “Oh, but I do,” she said. And she wasn’t afraid of Shadow any more, she thought. He seemed so much like Mrs. Niminy Piminy.

  But where was Mrs. Niminy Piminy? She looked into the mirror, but all that she saw was herself, and Shadow, and Aunt Sarah.

  “Oh,” she sighed, “it must have been a dream.” “You did look as if you were dreaming,” said Aunt Sarah. “You looked happier than I’ve ever seen you. It must have been a good dream.”

  “Oh, it was,” said Sally eagerly, “it was all about the other Sally, and Mrs. Niminy Piminy and the kittens.”

  Her aunt was staring down at her. Sally’s heart jolted, and she felt quite dizzy with anxiety. She remembered that her aunt had told her not to come to the attic. Sally looked down at the clothes she was wearing. Aunt Sarah must be furious with her for putting them on! She probably thought she had torn them! She would punish her for taking all the things out of the trunk. Her eyes turned miserably to the untidy piles on the floor.

  But her aunt, when she spoke, did not sound so much angry as puzzled. “Mrs. Niminy Piminy?” she said. “But how could you know? Oh I see!” she said as her eyes lit upon the little book that still lay open on the floor. “You read about her in the diary, I suppose. But come now, Sally, you’ve diddled and dawdled here quite long enough. It’s past time for lunch, and you have all these things to put neatly away. I hope you know how to be neat? And just look at your clothes over there in a pile, all wrinkled and dirty. What would your mother say? Hurry now and take all those old things off.”

  Yes, thought Sally, getting unhappily to her feet, that sounded more like the Aunt Sarah she was used to. And yet, she didn’t sound nearly so furious as Sally had feared. And somehow, she wasn’t quite so afraid of her. “I must be getting used to her,” she thought. Besides, the happiness of her dream had stayed with her; yes, the feeling of her dream had come back with her, and she was finding it quite hard not to smile.

  “Oh my!” cried Aunt Sarah as Sally rose to her feet and smoothed the long skirt.

  Sally looked anxiously at her. What had she done now?

  “Those clothes!” said Aunt Sarah. “Standing up like that, you look so much like — like the girl in the picture.” Her voice faded to a trembling whisper.

  Sally continued to look at her aunt. How old she was! She hadn’t really noticed before that Aunt Sarah was really a very old lady. Perhaps not quite so old as Aunt Tryphone, but very old indeed.

  After she had put everything back into the trunk, with her aunt’s assistance, and was changing back into her own clothes, her aunt asked, “What made you come up here, Sally? It seems to me that I asked you not to,” she added severely.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sally in a voice muffled by the blouse she was pulling over her head. “I was looking for Elizabeth.”

  “Did you say Elizabeth?” asked her aunt sharply as Sally’s head appeared over the top of the blouse.

  Sally nodded. “The doll in the picture,” she said.

  “Yes, I know,” said her aunt impatiently, “but the doll was lost a long time ago.”

  Sally nodded. “I know. On Christmas Eve. I didn’t know that when I came up, but I read about it in the diary.” How funny, she thought, to be talking to Aunt Sarah like this, just as if she was anybody. “But I thought probably the other Sally found her after that.”

  “Well, you ought to have asked me,” said her aunt. “I could have saved you a lot of trouble.”

  Sally stopped tying her shoe and looked up.

  “Because,” said her aunt, “the doll was never found.”

  “Never?” Sally’s voice echoed her dismay around the attic. The very dust seemed to droop, lose spirit.

  Her aunt shook her head from side to side. “Never,” she said. “No one ever could find her again.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible!” cried Sally. Tears misted her eyes, and she sniffed and brushed them away.

  “Terrible? Why so terrible?” snapped her aunt.

  “Because,” said Sally, “the poor other Sally must have been so sad. She loved Elizabeth.”

  Her aunt did not say anything for a moment. Then, “Sad?” she said. “I expect she was. But she got over it. People do. They grow up.”

  “I wish — ” said Sally.

  “What?” asked her aunt.

  “I don’t know. I wish, I guess, that Elizabeth wasn’t lost.”

  “No good wishing, Sally — too much wishing in the world. Not enough doing.”

  “But what could you do?”

  “About what, for goodness’ sake?”

  “Why, about finding Elizabeth.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know! All that’s over and done with. Shadow!” called her aunt suddenly. “Come over here.”

  Sally could hear Shadow bumping around somewhere behind the trunks.

  “There’s a space between the floor and the ceiling,” said her aunt, pointing, but Sally was not thinking about Shadow. “You see where the roof slopes down?” her aunt went on. “It doesn’t quite meet the floor, and Shadow loves to push things down in there. What are you up to, naughty boy?” she asked fondly, looking down at him.

  For Shadow had trotted obediently over to Aunt Sarah and was rubbing up against her leg.

  As Sally followed her aunt down from the attic, she was thinking to herself that maybe it wasn’t over and done with. Her dream had seemed so very real that she couldn’t feel that it was all over. And if Elizabeth had been lost in this very house, then why shouldn’t she be found in this very house? “Maybe I can find her,” she thought.

  At least she was going to try. But where, she wondered, did you begin?

  Chapter 9 - Mystery

  “What are you looking at?” asked Aunt Sarah as they were eating tuna-fish sandwiches at the kitchen table.

  Sally swallowed a bite of her sandwich and said, “The kitchen — it looks different.”

  “Different? Different from what?

  “Well, different from my dream,” she said.

  “Dreams, dreams,” said Aunt Sarah, but she did not sound unkind. “Well, tell me, how was it different?”

  “There was a fire in the fireplace,” said Sally.

  “Hasn’t been a fire there for years,” said Aunt Sarah.

  “And they were all sitting around it. Aunt Tryphone and the other Sally’s mother and her father, and Mrs. Perkins and little Bub. He was awfully cute.”

  “Little Bub,” said Aunt Sarah. “Yes, I suppose he was — cute, as you put it. How children do talk nowadays!”

  But Sally scarcely heard her. “Why, it’s a mystery!” she was saying. “There’s a real mystery in this house!”

  “What’s a mystery?” asked Aunt Sarah.

  “About Elizabeth.”

  Aunt Sarah sighed. “Still thinking about the doll, are you?”

  Sally nodded. “It really is a mystery, because how could she get lost, with everyone there in the room? How could she disappear from the top of the Christmas tree? Where could she go?”

  “Calm down, Sally, don’t talk with your mouth full.” Aunt Sarah sighed again. “I’m sure I don’t know. She simply disappeared. That’s all. No one’s even thought about it for years and years till you came along.”

  “But it seems so funny!” Sally insisted, almost forgetting that she was talking to Aunt Sarah, for she felt as if she was thinking out loud. “Where could she have gone? Dolls can’t walk.”

  To her astonishment, Aunt Sarah smiled. A very small and rather bleak smile it was perhaps, with somewhat the effect of sun breaking through winter clouds. “The other Sally, as you call her,” she said, “used to think that Elizabeth was a little bit magic. But what nonsense I’m talking! All I can say is that no one ever solved the mystery in all these years. And that’s what it’s going to stay, if you want to call it that — a
mystery.”

  “Could she have been caught in the branches? Yes, that’s it! Maybe she fell, and when they threw the tree out — oh, but that would mean she really was gone — ”

  “I expect they thought of that,” said Aunt Sarah. “Yes, they searched that tree needle by needle before it was burned, or probably they did.”

  “Then you really think they did?” cried Sally. “Then maybe she is here — but how do you know?” she asked.

  “You know things in a family,” said Aunt Sarah, standing up and beginning to clear the table.

  Sally, without thinking, began to help her as she did her mother at home, scraping and stacking the dishes upon the sink counter.

  “Well,” said Aunt Sarah, “I didn’t think modern children knew how to do things so nicely. Perhaps you are going to be of some help to me after all.”

  Sally guessed that this was the closest Aunt Sarah ever came to a real compliment, and despite the odd way in which it was put, she felt pleased. “Shall I dry the dishes?” she asked.

  “You’ll find a towel in that drawer over there.”

  Sally opened the drawer. Inside she found a neat pile of folded dish towels and a very old-looking gingerbread-boy cooky cutter.

  She lifted it out and looked at it.

  “That’s a very old cooky cutter,” said her aunt.

  “Yes,” said Sally. “Sometimes my mother lets me help make gingerbread boys at home. We have a cutter too. But not so big or so old.”

  “Does she?” said Aunt Sarah, turning on the faucet. “You make gingerbread boys together, do you? You like that, I suppose?”

  Sally nodded and dropped the cutter back into the drawer. She took out a towel and began to dry the dishes.