The Adventures of Dirty Rachel

By

Mary Fallon Fleming

Chapter 5

“Why, don’t you look pretty this morning,” Althea said.

Rachel took her place at the breakfast table in her new blue dress with the fine white floral pattern.  “Don’t you think she looks nice, Jamie?”

“Oh, yes, Ma’am,” Jamie said.  “And her hair is just so shiny and curly.  Where did you get that hair from, anyway?  From your ma?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said.  She looked down at her worn boots.  “I don’t remember my mother.  She died when I was born,” she said.  She experienced a moment of sadness as she spoke.

“Well, it sure is a beautiful color, and those long curls!  You’re just as pretty as a picture,” he said.  All the girls joined in, congratulating Rachel for her bath and for her transformed appearance.  Everybody except Gabriela, who still sat at the table, observing with a face of stone.

Lessons were finished, and it was play time.  Rachel and Jamie went behind the house to think up some new games.  Rachel wanted to play house.

“I don’t want to play house,” Jamie said.  “That’s a girl’s game.”  He thought for a moment.  “I know, let’s play army hospital.  We’ll hide under the picnic table and turn the benches on their side, and then you can put a mud plaster on my wounds,” he said.

Rachel was leery about playing in the mud in her new clothes, but she wanted to please Jamie.  “All right,” she said. 

They turned the benches over and crawled beneath the picnic table.  Jamie took off his boots and socks.  “Now pretend I got shot in the foot,” he said.  “It’s up to you to save my life, so I don’t die of gangrene.”

Well, death by gangrene.  That’s an awful thought.  Immediately she went to the pump in the backyard, where she found a handsome mud puddle, just asking to be made into a plaster for a poor, afflicted soldier.  She decided that making a plaster was not very different from making a mud pie.  She pushed up her three-quarter length sleeves and dug into the mud with her hands, but when she stood up with the make-believe plaster, the goo dripped all over her new dress.

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed.  “Just look at me!  What am I going to do now?  Do you think they’ll make me take a bath again?”

Jamie came out from beneath the picnic table.  “Uh, oh, we could be in trouble now,” he said.  “Come on, let’s get your hands and arms washed off,” he said as he headed for the pump.  “And don’t touch your face or hair until you’re clean.”

Rachel stood next to the pump, and Jamie washed her off as best he could.  But the new blue dress was a mess.

“Children, what are you doing?”  It was Gabriela, standing on the back porch.  She came down the steps with her hands on her hips.  “Just look at you, Rachel.  You ungrateful little wretch!  Get in the house.  That dress is going to have to be washed out.  No more play time for you.  You’ll have to stay in the house for the rest of the day.  We have nothing to put on you except your night gown.”

Rachel was crushed.  It was such a sunny day, and the garden was so enticing.  She didn’t want to go back in the house.  She wanted to go on the front porch and sit in the swing.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Jamie said.  “Come on, Rachel.  We were just playing army hospital,” he said to Gabriela.  Moping, they both followed Gabriela up the steps and through the back door.

“Why, what’s this?  I thought the two of you had gone outside to play,” Miss Margaret said.

“She’s filthy again,” Gabriela said.  “She’s just a little gutter rat.”

Dirty Rachel felt deeply ashamed.  She wondered if she would be punished by being sent to bed without any supper.  She stuck out her lower lip and glowered at Gabriela.  She didn’t like being called a gutter rat.

“Oh, now, it’s no catastrophe.  Come here, dear.  We can rinse out the dress and hang it on the line.  It should be dry in time for supper.  Maybe the two of you could ask to play cards with Althea,” Miss Margaret said. 

“All right, Ma’am,” Rachel said, but she could see that Gabriela wasn’t satisfied.

Althea brought Rachel up to her room and helped Rachel undress down to her pretty new underwear.  She rolled up the night gown and helped Rachel pull it over her head.  “Jamie!” Althea called down the stairs.  “Come on up and keep Rachel company while I wash out her dress,” she said.

Jamie was up presently.  There was a table in  the blind woman’s room where Althea had left a deck of cards. 

“So, can you play poker?” Jamie said.

Rachel shook her head.  “But I can play Crazy Eights,” she said.

“All right, then, Crazy Eights it is,” he said.  He cut the cards and shuffled real fancy, just like a river boat gambler.  Rachel was duly impressed.

“Say, where did you learn how to do that?” she said.

“My pa taught me,” Jamie said.  He dealt the cards.  But just then they heard a commotion downstairs.  Someone was raising their voice. 

“Shh,” Jamie said.  He got up and opened the door so they could hear what was being said.

“That’s Gabriela,” he said.  “I wonder what she’s up to?”  Rachel didn’t know.  She kept close to Jamie as they listened through the crack in the door.

“Then what is that little girl’s dress doing hanging out on the line?”  It was a woman’s voice, and Rachel recognized it immediately.

“Oh, my gosh, it’s Miss Bobbins!” she said.  “She’ll find us.  What are we going to do?”

“Quick,  into the dumbwaiter,” Jamie said.

“Rachel! Rachel!”  Miss Bobbins called.  Rachel could hear her footsteps coming down the hall.  They closed the double doors of the dumbwaiter moments before they heard Miss Bobbins in the room.

“Rachel, where are you?  Come out, I know you’re here,” she said.

The pulley of the dumbwaiter started to creak.  Jamie grabbed the rope with both hands.  “God, I hope this thing will hold us,” he whispered.

Miss Bobbins had stopped calling Rachel’s name.  Rachel could hear her footfalls as she lumbered about the room.  She imagined her looking under the beds and in the wardrobe for them.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered.  “She’s going to find us shortly.”

“Shh!” Jamie whispered.  Slowly, carefully, he let the rope slide through his hands, and Rachel could feel herself moving downward. She was terrified.  Would they fall three stories into the kitchen?  Would Miss Bobbins open up the dumbwaiter doors and catch them?

The moments dragged on into minutes, and the minutes ticked by like hours.  Finally they had descended in the wall far enough so they couldn’t hear Miss Bobbins anymore.

“OK,” Jamie said, still whispering.  “We’re going to make it into the kitchen, and then we’re going to run like anything for the woods.”

Rachel nodded, afraid to make a sound.  Jamie strained to hold the rope, and inch by inch they came down.  At last they arrived on the bottom floor.

Jamie opened the dumbwaiter doors gingerly.  “All right,” he said.  “The coast is clear.  We’d better get out of here.”

He jumped out of the dumbwaiter, and then he helped Rachel out of the contrivance.  Both of them ran to the back door and away they went as fast as they could go.  Rachel stopped momentarily at the clothesline.

“What are you doing?  Hurry up,” Jamie said.

“I want my dress,” Rachel said, but she was too small to reach it.

“Oh, all right then,” Jamie said.  He backtracked far enough to help her.  He pulled the dress from the line.  “Come on, let’s go,” he said.

They were scrambling now, running for everything that mattered in life.  Rachel didn’t know her way back to the lean-to.  She had a hard time keeping up with Jamie. 

“Don’t leave me!” she called after him.

Jamie slowed his steps.  “Come on, come on, they’ll catch us!” he said.  Down the lane they ran, across Main Street, and out to the quay. 

“Faster, faster!” Jamie called.

Rachel was so breathless she couldn’t answer.  Her legs felt heavy, and she thought her heart would burst.  But at last they reached the boardwalk.  Only a few more steps, and we’ll be safe!  Jamie crashed through the trees and underbrush. Rachel followed.  Safe!   They stopped running.  The green canopy of trees enveloped them.  At last they had reached the sanctuary of the woods.