The Story of the Big Front Door | Page 5

kept her
dolls and "dressing-up things" in the old wardrobe, which was now put
to the same use by her little nieces, were not so very far back in the past,
and many of her story books were still to be found on the shelves
among later favorites.
Going up to the star chamber on the morning after the excitement over
the Brown house, she walked in upon an indignation meeting.
"Just when we wanted to play Crokonole!"
"It is too mean!"
"She might let him come, it spoils all our fun!"
This is what she heard, and she asked in surprise, "What in the world is
the matter?"
There was silence for a minute, during which the rain made a great
pattering outside; then little Helen, who was serenely busy with her
paper dolls, replied, "Ikey's grandma won't let him come over, 'cause he
took her fur rug and Sallie's clothes-pins."
"What did he want with the clothes-pins and rug?"
"We wanted them to play with, Aunt Zélie. You can do a great many
things with clothes-pins," Bess explained.
"Aleck was to have been King Richard--the rug was for him at the
banquet; and now he hasn't come and we can't do anything," said
Louise mournfully.
Aunt Zélie sat down on the sofa and folded her hands in her lap.
"I should like to know how many of our things have been carried over
to the Brown house garden," she said.
"We took some of the straw cushions and two or three cups that Mandy
said we might play with," replied Bess, watching her aunt's face

anxiously. There was another silence, during which Carl became
absorbed in a book and Louise gave her attention to Helen's dolls. Then
Aunt Zélie spoke:
"The more I think of this the more uncomfortable I feel about it."
"I can't see why," came from Carl.
"Because it seems to me such a lawless proceeding. Do you know that
there are people who say that no children were ever so lawless as
American children to-day?"
"That is poetry, auntie; you made a beautiful rhyme," laughed Louise.
But her aunt refused to smile.
"It is not poetry, but sad fact, I'm afraid. You may not have done much
actual harm, but you have shown no respect for other people's property.
You went into the Brown house garden without leave, and you
encouraged Ikey to carry off his grandmother's things without
permission. I have trusted you all summer--I thought I could; but this
makes me afraid that you ought to have someone with more experience
to watch over you. You know when I came back to you two years ago I
promised to stay so long as I could be a help to you, but--"
"Oh, Aunt Zélie! You do help us--don't go away!" cried Bess, clasping
her around the waist; Louise seized one of her hands tightly in both her
own, and Carl looked out the window with a flushed face.
"That is not fair, Aunt Zélie," was all he said.
He could never forget--nor could Bess--how she had come to them in
their loneliness, and taken the motherless little flock into her arms,
comforting them and wrapping them all about with her love and
sympathy. How could they ever do without her?
"You aren't going away, are you?" Helen asked, leaving her dolls and
coming to her side.

"I hope not, for I can't think what I should do without my children," she
answered. And then they all snuggled around her on the old sofa and
talked things over. It was astonishing what a difference it made--trying
to look at the matter from all sides. Even Mrs. Ford's indignation did
not seem so very unreasonable when you stopped to think how
inconvenient it was to be without clothes-pins on Monday morning.
"I know it does not seem exactly right as you put it, Aunt Zélie," Carl
acknowledged, "but it was such fun, we couldn't have had so good a
time anywhere else."
"Suppose you found the Arnold children playing in our garden some
day, would you think that because they had found that they couldn't
have so good a time anywhere else, it was all right?"
"Why, auntie, those Arnold boys are not nice at all; we couldn't have
them in our garden," cried Louise.
"No one was living in the Brown house--it is different," Carl began.
"I know what she means," said Bess. "Just because it is fun isn't a good
excuse."
"That is it," answered her aunt. "I believe in fun if only you do not put
it first, above thought for the feelings or property of others. I am sure
you did not mean to do wrong, but it would not do for me to let you go
on being thoughtless, would it?"