“To make up just a little bit for other things I did which weren’t quite so nice,” said Kathleen. “Here you are, Jenny-take yours and use it. I’m so glad to give it to you.” Jenny was very pleased indeed. She took the handkerchief-ease at once. “You are a brick!” she said, “Thanks most awfully, Here’s Elizabeth! Look-Elizabeth, come and see what you’ve got for an unbirthday present!” Soon both girls were examining their new handkerchief-cases in delight, and other children came round to see them, Kathleen felt proud when she heard their remarks.
“It’s much nicer to do something for other people instead of against them,” she thought. “But I’ll never, never be brave enough to own up to the School that it was I who played those tricks! I am nicer-and kinder too- hut I’m still just as such a coward!” ELIZABETH IN TROUBLE AGAIN.
The term went on happily, Now that the quarrels between Robert and Elizabeth, and between Kathleen and the others, had been cleared up, things were much better.
Elizabeth worked well and shot to the top of her class. Robert was sometimes second and sometimes third, which pleased Miss Ranger very much, for it was by sheer hard work that the boy did so well. Kathleen, too, worked a great deal better, and had stopped arguing in the silly way she once had, Mam’zelle was pleased with her, “The child in this class who has made the most improvement is the little Kathleen I” said Mam’zelle. “Alt, how I thought she was stupid! How I scolded her! But now, see, her French essay is the best, and she rolls her r’s in the right French way-not like you, R-r-r-r-robert, who will never, never get them right!” Robert smiled-and Kathleen went red with pleasure. She had never been praised in class before, and it was very pleasant. She began to wonder if she was as stupid as she had always thought herself to be.
“My memory does seem to be better,” she thought, “and I like working at my lessons now, I was bored before, Maybe I shan’t always be at the bottom of the class now! How marvellous! Wouldn’t Mother be pleased if I came out top in something!” She worked especially hard for Mam’zelle, and this was a great change for Kathleen, for ever since Mam’zelle had scolded her so badly she had disliked the French teacher and done her lessons carelessly. But now, somehow, things were different. For one thing the girl was healthier-she went out riding and walking with the others, and she even offered to help John, Elizabeth, and Peter in the school garden.
“Good gracious!” said John, “You’re the last person I would have thought wanted to help! Are you any good at gardening?” “Well, no, not much,” said Kathleen honestly. Three weeks before she would have boasted untruthfully that she knew everything about gardening, “But, John, I’d like to help a bit. Isn’t there anything I can do?” “You can wheel that rubbish over there to the rubbish-heap,” said John. “Then bring back the barrow and fork the next pile of rubbish in. It’s really too heavy for Peter to wheel.” Peter was very keen on gardening, and John was delighted to have him, Peter told John how Robert took him riding, and John grew quite interested in hearing about the horses, “I’d really have to try riding myself,” he said, “I’ve never much wanted to. I did when I first came to Whyteleafe, and then somehow I got so interested in gardening that I couldn’t think of anything else, But perhaps I’ll come to-morrow, Peter.” Peter spoke to Robert, and it was arranged that John, Peter, Robert, Elizabeth, and Kathleen should all go riding together the next morning-and off they all went, galloping over the hilts in the pale winter sunlight. John loved it, “I must come again,” he said, when he jumped down from the saddle, “That was fine. Goodness, Kathleen, what red cheeks you’ve got! You always used to look so pate! Coming to help me garden this week-end?” “Yes, please,” said Kathleen, overjoyed at being asked to help someone. She was beginning to find how lovely it was to make friends, and to be a friend. If you offered to help other people, they offered to help you in return, and that was how friendships began-and surety it was the nicest thing in the world to have good friends round you?
“It was quite true what William and Rita said,” thought Kathleen to herself. “I envied Jenny and said she was lucky because she had so many friends-and I thought that because I was an unlucky person none of those nice things happened to me. But now that I’m trying to be nicer, nice things happen to me too. It is our own selves that make us lucky or unlucky, it’s our own selves that bring us friendship and kindness, I was always groaning and grumbling about everything and thinking I would always be unlucky and wouldn’t be able to help it-but as soon as I changed myself, I changed the things that happened, too! What a pity that everyone doesn’t know that!” Elizabeth was working hard at her music, and Mr. Lewis was very pleased with her, She and Richard were once again playing duets, and the big boy loved playing with the quick-fingered little girl. She looked up to Richard and thought he was wonderful.
“Can we play our duets at the school concert again?” asked Elizabeth. “I do want to, Mr. Lewis. Shall we be good enough?” “Oh, yes,” said Mr. Lewis. “Richard is playing his violin, too. Have you heard him play the same piece that is on the gramophone record he got, Elizabeth?” “No,” said Elizabeth. “I haven’t, But I’d like to. Please play it to me, Richard.” So Richard was sent to fetch his violin, and the big, dreamy boy played a marvellous piece to his master and to Elizabeth. They both listened, enchanted.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” sighed Elizabeth, when it was finished, “Oh, I wish I could play like that, Can’t I learn to play the violin too, Mr. Lewis?” “My dear child, you already fill your days too full !” laughed the music-master. “No-stick to the piano.” “But Richard plays the piano too,” said Elizabeth, “And the violin!” “And he doesn’t do anything else!” said Mr. Lewis, “But nobody can make him do anything else, so he might as welt work hard at those, No one has ever made Richard pull a weed out of the garden, or ride a horse more than once, or keep even a harmless white mouse! He thinks of nothing but music.” “I’ll make him think of something else!” said Elizabeth, “Come and practise with me at lacrosse to-morrow, Richard! You can’t think how marvellous it feels to be good enough to play in a match!” But Richard wouldn’t come. He did play games sometimes, but so badly that he was worse than any child in the kindergarten. Not even determined little Elizabeth could make him leave his precious music, and she soon gave it up. Secretly she was very proud to play duets with him.
“One day Richard will be a famous musician and composer,” she told Jenny and Joan, “Then I shall be very proud to think that once I played duets with him.” There was to be a play at the school concert. The children in Elizabeth’s form were to write one themselves, and they spent a long time thinking it out, When at last they had worked out the plot, there came the labour of writing it, Jenny and Kathleen proved to be unexpectedly good at this. Jenny could manage conversation very well, and Kathleen had a good imagination and thought of all kinds of things. Before the week was out, the two were writing out the play together, with helpful and unhelpful remarks from the other members of the class.
It amused Elizabeth to see the two heads bent over the paper. “It’s just as funny to see Jenny and Kathleen like that as it was to see me and Robert,” she thought, “How silly we are when we quarrel! Well-I’ll never quarrel again!” It was a pity she said that, for she broke her word to hers elf the very next day! She quarrelled with John! They had built a big rubbish-heap, and John had said they would light it the next time they had an hour or two to spare. But when Elizabeth went to find John in the garden to light the fire, he wasn’t there, “Oh, bother!” thought the little girl. “I did so want to see the bonfire burning! Well-if John doesn’t come in the next few minutes I’ll light it myself. He won’t mind!” But she knew that he would mind, really, for although he trusted Elizabeth in a great many ways, things such as lighting bonfires he always did himself, Elizabeth fetched a box of matches. She struck one andheld it to some paper she had pushed into the heart of the rubbish-heap. It caught fire-and in a trice the bonfire was burning furiously! What a blaze it made! Blue smoke streamed out from it and flew over the shed nearby.