But it was that night she prayed,
"Please make me pretty good but not quite as good as Gwen, because she never seems to have any fun."
"Those two children get on beautifully," said Grandmother. "They've never had the slightest quarrel. I really never expected that the visit would go off half so well."
Mother agreed - it was better to agree with Grandmother - but she had a queer conviction that the children weren't getting on at all. Though she couldn't have given the slightest reason for it.
3
Came a morning when Grandmother and Mother had to go into Harmony village. Grandmother was getting a new black satin made and Mother had a date with the dentist. They would be away most of the forenoon and Salome had been summoned away by the illness of a relative, but Gwendolen was so good and Marigold so much improved that they did not feel any special anxiety over leaving them alone. But just before they drove away Grandmother said to them,
"Now mind you, don't either of you stick your head between the bars of the gate."
Nobody to this day knows why Grandmother said that. Marigold believes it was simply predestination. Nobody ever HAD stuck her head between the bars of the gate and it had been there for ten years. A substantial gate of slender criss-cross iron bars. No flimsy wire gates for Cloud of Spruce. It had never occurred to Marigold to stick her head between the bars of the gate. Nor did it occur to her now.
But as soon as Grandmother and Mother had disappeared from sight down the road Gwendolen the model, who had been strangely silent all the morning, said deliberately,
"I AM going to stick my head through the bars of the gate."
Marigold couldn't believe her ears. After what Grandmother had said! The good, so-obedient Gwendolen!
"I'm not going to be bossed by an old woman any longer."
She marched down the steps and down the walk, followed by the suddenly alarmed Marigold.
"Oh, don't - don't, please, Gwennie," she begged. "I'm sure it isn't safe - the squares are so small. What if you couldn't get it out again?"
For answer, Gwendolen stuck her head through one of the oblong spaces between the bars. Pushed her head through to be exact - and it was a tight squeeze.
"There!" she said triumphantly, her mop of curls falling forward over her face and confirming a wild suspicion Marigold had felt at the breakfast-table - that Gwendolen had not washed behind her ears that morning.
"Oh, take it out - please, Gwennie," begged Marigold.
"I'll take it out when I please, Miss Prunes-and-prisms. I'm so sick of being good that I'm going to be just as bad as I want to be after this. I don't care how shocked you will be. You just watch the next thing I do."
Marigold's world seemed to spin around her. Before it grew steady again she heard Gwendolen give a frantic little yowl.
"Oh, I can't get my head out," she cried. "I can't - get - my - head - out."
Nor could she. The thick mop of curls falling forward made just the difference of getting in and getting out. Pull - writhe - twist - squirm as she might, she could not free herself. Marigold, in a panic, climbed over the gate and tried to push the head back - with no results save yelps of anguish from Gwendolen, who, if she were hurt as badly as she sounded, was very badly hurt indeed.
Gwendolen was certainly very uncomfortable. The unnatural position made her back and legs ache frightfully. She declared that the blood was running into her head and she would die. Marigold, shaking in the grip of this new terror, murmured faintly,
"Will it - do - any good - to pray?"
"Pray - pray. If you went for the blacksmith it would do more good than all the prayers in the world, you sickening, pious little cat!" said the spiritual Gwendolen.
The blacksmith! Phidime Gautier. Marigold went cold all over. She was in mortal dread of Phidime, who was a dead shot with tobacco-juice and not the least particular about his targets. She had never really believed the legend about the baby, but the impression of it was still in possession of her feelings. Phidime was very gruff and quick-tempered and never "stood for any kids" hanging round his shop. Marigold felt that she could never have the courage to go to Phidime.
"Oh, don't you think if I took you round the waist and pulled hard I could pull you out?" she gasped.
"Yes, and pull my head clean off," snapped Gwendolen. She gave another agonised squirm but to no effect, except that she nearly scraped one of her ears off. Suddenly she began shrieking like a maniac. "I can't stand this another minute - I can't," she gasped between shrieks. "Oh - I'm dying - I'm dying."
Marigold dared hesitate no longer. She tore off down the road like a mad thing. As she went the wild howls of Gwendolen Vincent could be heard faintly and more faintly. Was Gwennie dead? Or just yelled out?
"Hey, left a pie in the oven?" shouted Uncle Jed Clark as she spun by him.
Marigold answered not. To reach the blacksmith shop, to gasp out her tale, took all the breath she had.
"For de love of all de saints," said Phidime. He killed a nail on the floor with a squirt of tobacco-juice and hunted out a file very deliberately. Phidime had never seen any reason why he should hurry. And Gwennie might be dead!
Eventually the file was found, and he started up the road like the grim black ogre of fairy-tales. Gwendolen was not dead. She was still shrieking.
"Here now, stop dat yelling," said Phidime unsympathetically.
It took some time to file the bar and Phidime was not overly gentle. But at last it was done and Gwendolen Vincent was free, considerably rumpled and dishevelled, with a head that felt as if it were three sizes larger than ordinarily.
"Don't you go for do dat fool t'ing any more again," said Phidime warningly.
Gwendolen looked up at him and said spitefully,
"Old devil-face!"
Marigold nearly dropped in her tracks. Ladylike? Spiritual? Not to speak of commonly grateful?
"You keep dat sassy tongue of yours in your haid," said Phidime blackly as he turned away. Gwendolen stuck her tongue out at him.
Marigold was feeling a bit shrewish after her terror. She looked at Gwendolen and uttered the four most unpopular words in the world.
"I told you so," said Marigold.
"Oh, shut your head!"
This was indecent. "Shut your mouth" was an old friend - Marigold had often heard the boys at school using it - but "shut you head" was an interloper.
"I don't care if you ARE shocked, Miss Prim," said Gwendolen. "I'm through with trying to be as good as you. Nobody could be. I don't care WHAT Aunt Josephine says."
"Aunt - Jo-seph-ine!"
"Yes, Aunt Jo-seph-ine! She does nothing all the time she is at Rush Hill but sing your praises."
"Mine!" gasped Marigold.
"Yes. She just held you up as a perfect model - always telling me how good you were! I knew I'd hate you - and I didn't want to come here for a visit - I like to go somewhere where something's happening all the time - but Father made me. And I made up my mind I'd be just as ladylike as you. Such a week!"
"Aunt Josephine told me YOU were a model - a perfect lady. I've been trying to be as good as you," gasped Marigold.
They looked at each other for a moment - and understood. Gwendolen began to laugh.
"I just couldn't stand it a day longer. That's why I stuck my head in the gate."
"Aunt Josephine told me you said hymns before you went to sleep - and took an angel for your model - and - "
"I was just stuffing Aunt Josephine. My, but it was easy to pull her leg."
Which was wicked of course. But in proportion to the wickedness did Marigold's sudden and new-born affection for Gwendolen Vincent increase.