In spite of various very natural temptations to resent and retaliate, Amy adhered to her resolution all the next day, bent on conquering her enemy by kindness. She began well, thanks to a silent reminder that came to her unexpectedly, but most opportunely. As she arranged her table that morning, while the little girls were in an anteroom filling the baskets, she took up her pet production—a little book, the antique cover of which her father had found among his treasures, and in which on leaves of vellum she had beautifully illuminated different texts. As she turned the pages rich in dainty devices with very pardonable pride, her eye fell upon one verse that made her stop and think. Framed in a brilliant scrollwork of scarlet, blue, and gold, with little spirits of good will helping one another up and down among the thorns and flowers, were the words, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
“I ought, but I don‘t,” thought Amy, as her eye went from the bright page to May’s discontented face behind the big vases, that could not hide the vacancies her pretty work had once filled. Amy stood a minute, turning the leaves in her hand, reading on each some sweet rebuke for all heartburnings and uncharitableness of spirit. Many wise and true sermons are preached us every day by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home; even a fair table may become a pulpit, if it can offer the good and helpful words which are never out of season. Amy’s conscience preached her a little sermon from that text, then and there, and she did what many of us do not always do—took the sermon to heart, and straightway put it in practice.
A group of girls were standing about May’s table, admiring the pretty things, and talking over the change of saleswomen. They dropped their voices, but Amy knew they were speaking of her, hearing one side of the story and judging accordingly. It was not pleasant, but a better spirit had come over her, and presently a chance offered for proving it. She heard May say sorrowfully—
“It’s too bad, for there is no time to make other things, and I don’t want to fill up with odds and ends. The table was just complete then: now it’s spoiled.”
“I dare say she’d put them back if you asked her,” suggested someone.
“How could I after all the fuss?” began May, but she did not finish, for Amy’s voice came across the hall, saying pleasantly—
“You may have them, and welcome, without asking, if you want them. I was just thinking I’d offer to put them back, for they belong to your table rather than mine. Here they are, please take them, and forgive me if I was hasty in carrying them away last night.”
As she spoke, Amy returned her contribution, with a nod and a smile, and hurried away again, feeling that it was easier to do a friendly thing than it was to stay and be thanked for it.
“Now, I call that lovely of her, don’t you?” cried one girl.
May’s answer was inaudible, but another young lady, whose temper was evidently a little soured by making lemonade, added, with a disagreeable laugh, “Very lovely, for she knew she wouldn’t sell them at her own table.”
Now, that was hard; when we make little sacrifices we like to have them appreciated, at least; and for a minute Amy was sorry she had done it, feeling that virtue was not always its own reward. But it is—as she presently discovered—for her spirits began to rise, and her table to blossom under her skillful hands, the girls were very kind, and that one little act seemed to have cleared the atmosphere amazingly.
It was a very long day and a hard one to Amy, as she sat behind her table, often quite alone, for the little girls deserted very soon: few cared to buy flowers in summer, and her bouquets began to droop long before night.
The art table was the most attractive in the room; there was a crowd about it all day long, and the tenders were constantly flying to and fro with important faces and rattling money boxes. Amy often looked wistfully across, longing to be there, where she felt at home and happy, instead of in a corner with nothing to do. It might seem no hardship to some of us, but to a pretty, blithe young girl, it was not only tedious, but very trying; and the thought of being found there in the evening by her family and Laurie and his friends made it a real martyrdom.
She did not go home till night, and then she looked so pale and quiet that they knew the day had been a hard one, though she made no complaint, and did not even tell what she had done. Her mother gave her an extra cordial cup of tea, Beth helped her dress, and made a charming little wreath for her hair, while Jo astonished her family by getting herself up with unusual care, and hinting darkly that the tables were about to be turned.
“Don’t do anything rude, pray, Jo. I won’t have any fuss made, so let it all pass and behave yourself,” begged Amy, as she departed early, hoping to find a reinforcement of flowers to refresh her poor little table.
“I merely intend to make myself entrancingly agreeable to everyone I know, and to keep them in your corner as long as possible. Teddy and his boys will lend a hand, and we’ll have a good time yet,” returned Jo, leaning over the gate to watch for Laurie. Presently the familiar tramp was heard in the dusk, and she ran out to meet him.
“Is that my boy?”
“As sure as this is my girl!” And Laurie tucked her hand under his arm with the air of a man whose every wish was gratified.
“Oh, Teddy, such doings!” And Jo told Amy’s wrongs with sisterly zeal.
“A flock of our fellows are going to drive over by-and-by, and I’ll be hanged if I don’t make them buy every flower she’s got, and camp down before her table afterward,” said Laurie, espousing her cause with warmth.
“The flowers are not at all nice, Amy says, and the fresh ones may not arrive in time. I don’t wish to be unjust or suspicious, but I shouldn’t wonder if they never came at all. When people do one mean thing they are very likely to do another,” observed Jo in a disgusted tone.
“Didn’t Hayes give you the best out of our gardens? I told him to.”
“I didn’t know that, he forgot, I suppose, and, as your grandpa was poorly, I didn’t like to worry him by asking, though I did want some.”
“Now, Jo, how could you think there was any need of asking! They are just as much yours as mine. Don’t we always go halves in everything?” began Laurie, in the tone that always made Jo turn thorny.
“Gracious, I hope not! Half of some of your things wouldn’t suit me at all. But we mustn’t stand philandering here. I’ve got to help Amy, so you go and make yourself splendid, and if you’ll be so very kind as to let Hayes take a few nice flowers up to the Hall, I’ll bless you forever.”
“Couldn’t you do it now?” asked Laurie, so suggestively that Jo shut the gate in his face with inhospitable haste, and called through the bars, “Go away, Teddy, I’m busy.”
Thanks to the conspirators, the tables were turned that night, for Hayes sent up a wilderness of flowers, with a lovely basket arranged in his best manner for a centerpiece; then the March family turned out en masse, and Jo exerted herself to some purpose, for people not only came, but stayed, laughing at her nonsense, admiring Amy’s taste, and apparently enjoying themselves very much. Laurie and his friends gallantly threw themselves into the breach, bought up the bouquets, encamped before the table, and made that corner the liveliest spot in the room. Amy was in her element now, and, out of gratitude, if nothing more, was as sprightly and gracious as possible—coming to the conclusion, about that time, that virtue was its own reward, after all.
Jo behaved herself with exemplary propriety, and when Amy was happily surrounded by her guard of honor, Jo circulated about the hall, picking up various bits of gossip, which enlightened her upon the subject of the Chester change of base. She reproached herself for her share of the ill feeling and resolved to exonerate Amy as soon as possible; she also discovered what Amy had done about the things in the morning, and considered her a model of magnanimity. As she passed the art table, she glanced over it for her sister’s things, but saw no signs of them. “Tucked away out of sight, I dare say,” thought Jo, who could forgive her own wrongs, but hotly resented any insult
offered to her family.
“Good evening, Miss Jo. How does Amy get on?” asked May with a conciliatory air, for she wanted to show that she also could be generous.
“She has sold everything she had that was worth selling, and now she is enjoying herself. The flower table is always attractive, you know, ‘especially to gentlemen.’ ”
Jo couldn’t resist giving that little slap, but May took it so meekly she regretted it a minute after, and fell to praising the great vases, which still remained unsold.
“Is Amy’s illumination anywhere about? I took a fancy to buy that for Father,” said Jo, very anxious to learn the fate of her sister’s work.
“Everything of Amy’s sold long ago; I took care that the right people saw them, and they made a nice little sum of money for us,” returned May, who had overcome sundry small temptations, as well as Amy, that day.
Much gratified, Jo rushed back to tell the good news, and Amy looked both touched and surprised by the report of May’s words and manner.
“Now, gentlemen, I want you to go and do your duty by the other tables as generously as you have by mine—especially the art table,” she said, ordering out “Teddy’s Own,” as the girls called the college friends.
“ ‘Charge, Chester, charge!’ is the motto for that table, but do your duty like men, and you’ll get your money’s worth of art in every sense of the word,” said the irrepressible Jo, as the devoted phalanx prepared to take the field.
“To hear is to obey, but March is fairer far than May,” said little Parker, making a frantic effort to be both witty and tender, and getting promptly quenched by Laurie, who said, “Very well, my son, for a small boy!” and walked him off, with a paternal pat on the head.
“Buy the vases,” whispered Amy to Laurie, as a final heaping of coals of fire on her enemy’s head.
To May’s great delight, Mr. Laurence not only bought the vases, but pervaded the hall with one under each arm. The other gentlemen speculated with equal rashness in all sorts of frail trifles, and wandered helplessly about afterward, burdened with wax flowers, painted fans, filigree portfolios, and other useful and appropriate purchases.