Free Nancy and Plum by Betty MacDonald

“Did Miss Gronk say anything about our not being with you at the cemetery?”
    Eunice said, “No, she didn’t even notice. She was too busy taking pills and rubbing liniment on her throat. Marybelle asked me where you were and I said you were at the other end of the cemetery playing house. She acted as if she didn’t believe me.”
    Nancy said, “I’m sorry you didn’t get to go with us, Eunice, but we didn’t even know we were going ourselves. We stopped to swing in a tree and you all got ahead of us and then we saw the Lookout sign.”
    Plum said, “Come on, there’s the tree. Let’s have one swing before we go home.”
    Nancy said, “We’d better not, Plum. Marybelle will tell and then maybe we can’t go to the school picnic.”
    Plum said, “Oh, all right.”
    Miss Gronk said, “Hurry up, girls. Old Tob is waitig ad I dough you’re all tired frob your busy day.”
    Plum and Nancy said, “Thank you for the nice time, Miss Gronk, and we hope your cold is much better.”
    Miss Gronk said, “Hurry up, girls, dod’t keep Tob waitig.”
    When they got home, Mrs. Monday shooed them into the kitchen and said, “Well, you’ve certainly had a nice day and I hope I won’t hear another word about picnics for a long time.”
    Marybelle said, “Oh, Aunty Marybelle, we had a horrid time. Miss Gronk smells awful and we ate in the cemetery.”
    Mrs. Monday said, “In the cemetery? Why in the world did she go there?”
    Marybelle said, “She had a terrible cold and anyway she wanted to put flowers on her sister Lulu’s grave. She wouldn’t let us talk. She made us walk single file and she spilled liniment on me and in my lunch basket.”
    Mrs. Monday said, “It certainly doesn’t sound like much of a picnic. Were the other children nice to you?”
    Marybelle said, “Nancy and Plum sneaked off and hid from me.”
    Mrs. Monday said, “Why did you hide from Marybelle, Nancy and Pamela?”
    Plum said, “We weren’t hiding from her. We were hiding from Miss Gronk. Her liniment smells awful and her hands are cold and damp.”
    Marybelle said, “And she made me hold her hand all day.”
    Mrs. Monday said, “Well, at least you got out in the fresh air, now let’s hear no more about it. Nancy and Pamela, if I am not mistaken, it is your turn to set the table. Go and wash your hands and get to work.”
    That night after they were in bed, Nancy said, “You know,Plum, I can close my eyes and it’s just as if I was back on Lookout Hill, I can see everything so plainly.”
    Plum said, “I can close my eyes and remember exactly how it felt to be swinging in that tree.”
    Nancy said, “Poor old Miss Gronk, with nothing in her head but colds and sad thoughts.”

6
A Magic Carpet
    I T WAS A CLEAR WARM S ATURDAY AFTERNOON , late in May. Miss Appleby, the Heavenly Valley librarian, and about twenty-eight children, ranging in age from five to thirteen years, were holding a story-telling session on the lawn in front of the little library building.
    In the process of getting settled, there had been the usual amount of high-spirited roggling, wrestling and jostling for positions close to Miss Appleby, but the minute her warm, pleasant voice began “And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles …” the children had become as motionless and quiet as the grass on which they sprawled. Now the only sounds that competedwith Miss Appleby’s reading were necessary sniffs or loud swallows and the buzz of an occasional inquisitive bee.
    Miss Appleby, her library books and her story-telling sessions were very popular with all the children in Heavenly Valley. To Nancy and Plum they were a magic carpet that whisked them out of the dreariness and drudgery of their lives at Mrs. Monday’s and transported them to palaces in India, canals in Holland, pioneer stockades during Indian wars, cattle ranches in the West, mountains in Switzerland, pagodas in China, igloos in Alaska, jungles in Africa,