Beauty and the Scarecrow

Chapter Two: A Funny Girl

At last, Jester had caught up with Maddie. He bid her a 'good morning' and complimented her on the book she had. Maddie asked if he had read it to which he replied that he hadn't. He was just trying to flatter her. He then handed her the flowers, asking if he could join her and her father for dinner that evening. Maddie told him that that evening wouldn't work. He asked if she was busy to which she replied that she wasn't. She just didn't want to have dinner with him. Saying no more, she walked off back home.

Oscar walked up to Jester, asking if he planned to move on. Jester told him no and that it was always the girls that were hard to get that were always the greatest prey. That's what he liked about Maddie. She just hasn't become fool enough to gain his favor. While Jester found that attractive, Oscar just thought it was basic dignity. But Jester became distracted when the models called him over.

Finally glad to be away from Jester, Maddie hurried back home where she heard the sound of a music box coming from her father's workshop. Inside, Henry was looking at the music box shaped like a windmill. The blades spun slowly as the music played. The center even opened up to reveal a scene all too familiar to him. Inside was a small model of a painter painting a portrait of a woman and her baby in the bedroom. In the woman's hand was a small rose. As Henry watched the painter's arm move up and down, he sang along to the tune.

'How does a moment last forever? How can a story never die? It is love we must hold on to. Never easy, but we try,' Maddie walked in, hearing him sing but didn't dare to interrupt, 'Sometimes our happiness is captured. Somehow a time and place stand still. Love lives on inside our hearts and always will.'

Maddie walked out from where she was standing with a plate of bread in her hands. Seeing her, Henry went back to tinkering with his new invention to make some final touches. Taking apart the bottom of the music box to reach the gears, he tried to ask Maddie for a pair of tweezers but Maddie was already ahead of him. Henry took them from her to take a cog out. He then tried to ask her for something but Maddie handed him a small cog instead. Henry tried to say that it wasn't the part he needed until he saw it actually was. He took it from her and put it into the music box. As Maddie was starting to declutter her father's workspace, Maddie asked him a question that was playing at her mind.

"Papa, do you think I'm odd?" Maddie asked her father.

Henry was taken slightly aback by her question.

"Odd? My daughter? Odd? Where did you get an idea like that?" Henry asked her.

"I don't know. People talk," Maddie explained simply.

"This is a small village, you know. Small-minded as well. But small also means safe. Even back in Paris, I knew a girl like you who was so... ahead of her time. So different. People mocked her. Until the day they all found themselves imitating her."

Maddie knew who her father was talking about. It was her mother. Maddie never knew her mother due to her passing away when Maddie was just a baby. Henry never spoke of her often as he was often still in mourning. While Maddie respected that, she still wished to know more. Maybe it would help her understand why she felt so different compared to the rest of the village who all saw themselves as normal people.

"Please, just tell me one more thing about her," Maddie begged her father.

Henry turned to the music box as if to change the subject. But looking back up to Maddie's eagerness, he relents.

"Your mother was... fearless," was all Henry said but he could see that Maddie wanted to know more, "Fearless."

With that, Henry closed his music box. Outside of their cottage, Henry carefully loads his music boxes onto his wagon, as Maddie tends to the family's old glue horse, Philippe. Henry climbed into the wagon and smiles down at his daughter.

"So, what would you like me to bring you from the market?" Henry asked Maddie before he left on his journey.

"A rose like the one in the painting," Maddie requested.

"You ask for that every year!"

"And every year, you bring it."

"Then I shall bring you another. You have my word."

Maddie smiled up at her father before stepping away, letting Henry leave with Philippe. They bid each other goodbye, saying that they would see each other the next day. Henry rode away while promising to return with the rose that was requested. Maddie smiled while mumbling for him to stay safe. Back inside, Maddie wrote on a scrap piece of paper, calculating how much soap she would need to do her and her father's washing. Her father may be gone for the day but she still had work and chores that needed to be done. Once she calculated the right amount, she ground up enough soap shards for her laundry and put them in a bag.

She then took that and the laundry to a hut at the edge of town with a barrel and pool of water. She put the soap and laundry into the barrel before letting a donkey help spin the laundry around. While she waited, she read her book to pass the time. As this was happening, a little girl who was watching her nearby asked what Maddie was doing. Maddie explained that she was doing the laundry before asking the girl to come over. She wanted to try and teach the young girl to read. She had a small word book with her to help people who were learning to read.

Maddie taught the little girl how to read one of the sentences. Unfortunately, a headmaster and an old woman caught them, seeming disgusted that Maddie was trying to teach another girl to read. The headmaster called Maddie out on what she was doing, asking if one girl who knew how to read was enough for the village. Believing that they needed to do something, the headmaster and the old woman had three men take Maddie's still-damp laundry and tipped it onto the gravel. Acting quickly, Maddie picked up the laundry and started to put it in her basket. Pere Robert even came over to help her, taking pity on her situation.