Dandelion Cottage/Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI
Mr. Downing's Apology
BY this time, of course, all the young housekeepers' relatives were deeply interested in the cottage. After living for a never-to-be-forgotten week with the four unhappiest little girls in town, all were eager to reinstate them in the restored treasure. The girls, having rushed home with the joyful news, were almost overwhelmed with unexpected offers of parental assistance. The grown-ups were not only willing but anxious to help. Then, too, the Mapes boys and the young Tuckers almost came to blows over who should have the honour of mending the roof with the bundles of shingles that Dr. Bennett insisted on furnishing. Marjory's Aunty Jane said that if somebody that could drive nails without smashing his thumb would mend the holes in the parlour floor she would give the girls a pretty ingrain carpet, one side of which looked almost new. Dr. Bennett himself laid a clean new floor in the little kitchen over the rough old one, and Mrs. Mapes mended the broken plaster in all the rooms by pasting unbleached muslin over the holes. Mr. Tucker replaced all broken panes of glass, while his busy wife found time to tack mosquito-netting over the kitchen and pantry windows.
So interested, indeed, were all the grownups and all the brothers, that the girls chuckled delightedly. It wouldn't have surprised them so very much if all their people had fallen suddenly to playing with dolls and to having tea-parties in the cottage; but the place was still far too disorderly for either of these juvenile occupations to prove attractive to anybody.
In the midst of the confusion, Mr. Downing stopped at the cottage door one noon, and asked for the girls, who eyed him doubtfully and resentfully as they met him, after Marjory had hesitatingly ushered him into the untidy little parlour.
Mr. Downing smiled at them in a friendly, but decidedly embarrassed manner. He had not forgotten his own lack of cordiality when the girls had called on him, and he wanted to atone for it. Mr. Black had tactfully but effectively pointed out to Mr. Downing, already deeply disgusted with the Milligans, the error of his ways, and Mr. Downing, as generous as he was hasty and irascible, was honest enough to admit that he had been mistaken in not only his estimate of Mr. Black, but in his treatment of the little cottagers. Now, eager to make amends, he looked somewhat anxiously from one to another of his silent hostesses, who in return looked questioningly at Mr. Downing. Surely, with Mr. Black in town, Mr. Downing couldn't be thinking of turning them out a second time; still, he had disappointed them before, probably he would again, and the girls meant to take no chances, so they kept still, with searching eyes glued upon Mr. Downing's countenance. All at once, they realised that they were looking into friendly eyes, and three of them jumped to the conclusion that the junior warden was not the heartless monster they had considered him.
"I came," said Mr. Downing, noticing the change of expression in Bettie's face, "to offer you, with my apologies, this key and this little document. The paper, as you will see, is signed by all the vestrymen—my own name is written very large—and it gives you the right to the use of this cottage until such time as the church feels rich enough to tear it down and build a new one. There is no immediate cause for alarm on this score, for there were only sixty-two cents in the plate last Sunday. I have come to the conclusion, young ladies, that I was over-hasty in my judgment. I didn't understand the matter, and I'm afraid I acted without due consideration—I often do. But I hope you'll forgive me for I sincerely beg all your pardons."
"It's all right," said Bettie, "as long as it was just a mistake. It's easy to forgive mistakes."
"Yes," said Marjory, sagely, "we all make 'em."
"It's all right, anyway," added Jean.
Mr. Downing looked expectantly at Mabel, who for once had preserved a dead silence.
"Well?" he asked, interrogatively.
"I don't suppose I can ever really quite forgive you," confessed Mabel, with evident reluctance. "It'll be awfully hard work, but I guess I can try."
"Perhaps my peace-offering will help your efforts a little," said Mr. Downing, smiling. "It seems to be coming in now at your gate."
The girls turned hastily to look, but all they could see was a very untidy man with a large book under his arm.
"These," said Mr. Downing, taking the book from the man, who had walked in at the open door, "are samples of inexpensive wall papers. You're to choose as much as you need of the kinds you like best and this man will put it wherever it will do the most good, and I'll pay the bill. Now, Miss Blue Eyes, do I stand a better chance of forgiveness?"
"Yes, yes!" cried Mabel. "I'm almost glad you needed to apologise. You did it beautifully, too. Mercy! when I apologise—and I have to do a fearful lot of apologising—I don't begin to do it so nicely."
"Perhaps," offered Mr. Downing, "when you've had as much practice as I have, it will come easier. I see, however, that you are far more suitable tenants than the Milligans would have been, for my humble apologies to them met with a very different reception. I assure you, if there's ever any rivalry between you again, that my vote goes with you—you're so easily satisfied. Now don't hesitate to choose whatever you want from this book. This paper-hanger is yours, too, until you're done with him."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," cried the girls, with happy voices, as Mr. Downing turned to go, "you couldn't have thought of a nicer peace-offering."
Of course it took a long, long time for so many young housekeepers to choose papers for the parlour and the two bedrooms, but after much discussion, and many differences of opinion, it was finally selected. The girls decided on green for the parlour, blue for one bedroom and pink for the other, and they were easily persuaded to choose small patterns.
Then the smiling paper-hanger worked with astonishing rapidity and said that he didn't object in the least to having four pairs of bright eyes watch from the doorway every strip go into place. It seemed to be no trouble at all to paper the little low~ceilinged cottage, and oh! how beautiful it was when it was all done. The cool, cucumbery green parlour was just the right shade to melt into the soft blue and white of the front bedroom. As for the dainty pink room, as Bettie said, rapturously, it fairly made one smell roses to look at it, it was so sweet.
It was finished by the following night, for no paper-hanger could have had the heart to linger over his work with so many anxious eyes following every movement. Mrs. Tucker washed and ironed and mended the white muslin curtains and, with such a bower to move into, the second moving-in and settling, the girls decided, was really better than the first. When their belongings were finally re-installed in the cottage even Mabel no longer felt resentful toward the Milligans.