He promised, when he bade his wards good night, to call upon their aunt the next day, and place the subject before her; and he would do hisbest to win her approval, difficult as he knew that would be. In the meantime, they might be sure of his consent and support. He only wished to impress upon them, however, that they should decide upon a course which would necessitate as little outlay as possible.
“Saving money counts for as much as making it, in the long run,” said he. “Don’t forget that. And I am glad that you live in a place which has good public schools. Peter’s education must not be forgotten, nor should Victoria’s and Sophy’s. I shall not approve at all of any scheme which would interfere with their schooling. Don’t forget that, either.”
Needlessto say, Mrs. Wentworth Ward disapproved absolutely of her nieces’ projects. The mere fact of their defiance of her authority was unheard of, and that they should dream of such impossible plans for their self-support she considered at first beneath her notice. The children could not be in earnest, she said, and she thought it was scarcely the time for jesting.
When she was finally made to understand that the children were very much in earnest, she cancelled all her engagements for that afternoon and hurried to the Boston and Albany station. She must lose no time in informing them that they should never have her consent, and that they must at once give up any such absurd ideas as these undoubtedly were.
Long were the arguments and futile were the discussions which ensued upon her arrival. She found that her brother’s children had inheritedno small amount of the Starr determination, not to say obstinacy, and when they parted she was forced to acknowledge herself vanquished, for the time being at least. Mrs. Wentworth Ward comforted herself with the reflection, which she did not hesitate to put into words, that the time would come when they would grow weary of their efforts and be glad to yield and come to her for help.
“And my home is still open to you,” she said as she took her departure. “Though you defy my authority and persist in your headstrong course, I shall never forget that you are my brother’s children. The time will come when you will remember this. Mark my words!”
“Wouldn’t it be too dreadful if we did have to go to her for help, after all?” said Honor, as the train moved away. The three older girls had accompanied their aunt to the little station. “Wouldn’t she simply shriek at us, ‘I told you so!’”
“She will never have the chance if I can prevent it,” returned Katherine. “Rather than go to Aunt Sophia for help after all that has been said this afternoon I would rather—I would rather scrub floors.”
Which was Katherine’s favorite simile for the extreme of hard work, although the wildest flights of the imagination could scarcely picture her in such an employment.
“I shall never give Aunt Sophia any such satisfaction as that,” she added, with decision.
“I am perfectly astonished that she gave in at last,” remarked Victoria, as the three walked arm in arm across the lawn. “I really thought she would stick it out to the very end, and perhaps refuse to have anything more to do with us.”
“I didn’t,” said Katherine. “Do you know I think it is almost a relief to Aunt Sophia that she isn’t obliged to have us there, after all. We should interfere dreadfully with her regular ways, even if she did turn us to account, with her writing and her dusting, and I also think she is very curious to see what we do, and how we come out. She is already looking forward, I plainly see, to the time, when she can prove that she knows more than anybody else, and that we are all dismal failures. For that reason, girls, if for nothing else, we must prove that we are not. Wemustsucceed!”
“Do you think we were at all disrespectful to her?” said Honor.
“No, not a bit. We had to be emphatic. It was the only way to make her understand that we were in earnest.”
“I know, but she is father’s sister and our only near relative, even if she is aggravating, and I think she is fond of us in her own way. It was very good and generous of her to offer to do so much for us.”
“It is certainly in ‘her own way’ that she loves us, if she loves us at all,” said Katherine. “Honor, it must be a terrible bore to have such a conscience as you are burdened with. I’m glad it’s yours, and not mine, and I’m glad, too, that we came out victorious in the scrimmage with our beloved aunt, fond of us though she may be.”
By the end of the week, their plans were made, and they were ready to put them at once into action. The idea of a boarding-school was abandoned. That was absolutely impracticable, as they soon saw for themselves. They had no experience upon which to go to work, and no influence upon which they could depend to bring them pupils.
Honor, however, opened a day school for small children. There happened to be none already in Fordham, and among the friends of the Starrs there were a number who were glad, not only to help the girls in their efforts for self-support, but also to have a class formed for the children whom it was not desirable, because of their extreme youth, to send to the larger schools.
Katherine had already secured several music scholars and hoped for more, while she also intended to help Honor with the school, in which Sophy was to be a pupil. Victoria and Peter left the private schools which they had attended and were transferred to public ones, although Victoria secretly determined that this should be her last winter of study. She felt that she must unite with the others in working for the support of the family. Had not she been the one who had first suggested the idea? In the meantime she planted her violet bed and proceeded to investigate the cultivation of mushrooms.
The house servants were all informed that they must go, and a new “maid of all work” was engaged, who was expected to perform wonders in the kitchen and elsewhere. The gardener and thecoachman were also dismissed, and the horses and cows were sold. The girls had concluded that it would be unwise at present to attempt to make butter, for with their many other duties it would be impossible to attend to it. A man who lived near could be called upon to come occasionally if one were needed upon the place, and when spring approached they could engage some one regularly, if they decided to raise vegetables for sale.
At present their chief thought was the school. A room on the second floor was to be used for the purpose, the bedstead and bureau removed, and some desks, which Katherine went to Boston to buy, were to be placed there in readiness for the pupils. There had been some discussion about the purchase of these desks, Victoria suggesting that tables would do for the present, until they should have a little more ready money, and should also be able to see whether the number of scholars would warrant such an outlay.
But Katherine was strongly of the opinion that desks would add greatly to the professional appearance of the room, and would have, in consequence, a beneficial effect upon the children, and as Honor agreed with her in this, she went off triumphantlyto Boston with the money in her pocket with which she was to pay for them. Neither Honor nor Victoria was able to go with her, but she professed herself quite equal to the task of choosing the necessary articles without her sisters’ help.
When she returned she announced to them that she had bought not only six small desks with chairs to match, but also a larger desk for Honor, a map of the world to hang upon the wall, and a blackboard.
“You know it is really important to have all these things,” said she. “A schoolroom without a map would be like bread without butter, and this is the cheapest and the most complete thing you ever saw. The United States on one side, and the whole world on the other, and only a dollar. And you needn’t shake your head over the desk for Honor, Victoria! Of course she ought to have a desk.”
“I’m afraid our bread will soon be without butter if you go on in this way,” remarked Victoria. “Honor could have used a table with a drawer.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all!” said Katherine, impatiently. “You have such scrimpy ideas, Vic; I don’t see where you get them. And besides, Idid a stroke of business. They allowed me a discount of ten per cent at the furniture store because I was a professional, so it really paid to get all those things. It is great fun to be a professional. I get music cheaper at the music stores, just because I give lessons.”
“But did you have enough money for so many things?” asked the practical younger sister.
“Oh, I haven’t paid for them yet,” rejoined Katherine, easily. “They asked me if I would have them charged, and I said yes. I really thought it would be better to have a bill for them, and there may be more ready money when it comes in, and besides, I needed that money for something else—something that is to be a grand surprise for you all and is to help us make our fortunes. It is coming out by express this afternoon.”
“Katherine, what have you been getting?” exclaimed Honor and Victoria together.
“Oh, just wait!” cried Katherine, gaily, as she left them and went to her room to take off her hat and coat. “I tell you, it is to be a grand surprise. It is coming with the desks and chairs.”
“What do you suppose it is?” asked Honor.
“I am afraid to think,” returned Victoria, “and I think it was a great pity she had those things charged. Perhaps we shan’t have any money at all when the bill comes in.”
“Oh, don’t be afraid, child! Katherine is extravagant, I must confess, but we have six pupils promised, you know, for the school, and she has eight music scholars. We shall be all right, I hope.”
But in spite of these reassuring words Honor felt as uneasy as did Victoria about Katherine’s “surprise.”
“What do you think of the new maid?” asked Victoria, presently. The sisters were in Honor’s room, darning the family stockings by the waning light of the short November day.
“I don’t know what to think,” replied Honor, running her long needle in and out as she crossed and re-crossed a large hole. “I suppose Peter wears out his stockings so quickly because he is such a tramper, but this one is discouraging. Do you think it is worth while to spend our precious time over such a hole as this, Vic?”
“I think the stocking would stand a little more wear,” said Vic, laying down her own work andexamining critically that of her sister. “I like a good big hole if I am going to darn at all. Running over thin places bores me to death. It is just like life. A big hole is like a big calamity; you can rise above it. But the little botherations are like the thin places. You have got to go over them and patch them up, or else they will go altogether, and yet there is really nothing to show for it in the end, and the doing it tires you out. With a big hole or a big trouble you know just where you are and how you stand. But tell me what you think of the new maid.”
“I am afraid she is like the thin places in the stockings,” said Honor, laughing as she made the comparison. “She requires a great deal of attention, and I don’t know where she is going to burst out next.”
“What is her name?”
“That is the queerest part of her. She told me it was ‘B.’ Lafferty.”
“Bee?” repeated Victoria. “What a curious name! Do you suppose it is short for Beatrice?”
“Not at all. It is the letter B, and it really stands for Bridget, but she told me she never liked the name of Bridget and didn’t wish to be calledthat. I told her I thought I should, upon which she said she should take the next train back to Boston if we did. Her friends called her ‘B.,’ and we must call her ‘B.,’ or if not ‘B.’ it could be ‘Blanch.’ On the whole, she preferred Blanch, so I suppose it has got to be that, though I can’t imagine anything more inappropriate.”
“You may be thankful she didn’t request us to call her ‘Miss Lafferty,’” laughed Victoria. “I think she is going to be amusing.”
“I hope so,” said Honor, somewhat grimly. “To me at present it seems more tragic than amusing. She won’t have late dinner, for one thing. We have got to dine in the middle of the day after to-night. It really seems as if she meant to rule us, but I shan’t let her.”
The family were engaged in eating the last dinner which they were to be allowed to enjoy in the evening when the Fordham and Boston express wagon was heard coming down the Glen Arden avenue, and shortly afterwards the door which led into the front hall from the kitchen department was flung open by B. Lafferty, who announced as she did so that “a whole lot of furniters had come, and what was she to be afther doin’ wid ’em?”
“Bring them right in here, please,” said Honor. “Peter, won’t you go and help? We shall have to do a good deal ourselves, I suppose, now that we have only one girl,” she added, as Blanch’s heavy tread echoed in the distance, and Peter, who had heard of Katherine’s shopping expedition and was possessed of a lively curiosity, went willingly enough to investigate the result.
The chairs, desks, blackboard, and map had all been brought in, also a globe and a package containing chalk, pencils, copy-books, blank-books, and school stationery of all kinds, which Katherine had forgotten to mention, and then Peter appeared, staggering beneath the weight of a square box. It seemed to be heavy, and he set it down with a sigh of relief.
“There!” said he. “I suppose that is your surprise, Katherine. It weighs a ton, whatever it is.”
“Yes, that is it!” cried Katherine. “Oh, girls, I wonder what you will say when you see it! But look at the desks before we open it. Aren’t they too sweet for anything? And so cheap, too. I forgot to tell you I got a globe. You know a schoolroom is nothing without a globe.”
“But the surprise,” interposed Sophy. “Do show it to us quick, Kathie.”
“I’ve a good mind to make you all guess,” said Katherine, mischievously. She glanced from one to the other as she spoke. It almost seemed as if she were afraid to let them see it, Victoria thought, though she had assumed this air of triumph.
“Oh no, we can’t stop to guess,” said they, and Peter had already begun to remove the lid of the box.
“My eye!” exclaimed he. “Oh, my two eyes, what do I see? Katherine’s been and gone and done it this time!” And he burst into shouts of derisive laughter.
“Whatisit?” cried the others, as they crowded about and pushed the desks and chairs out of the way, in their haste to see the contents of the mysterious box.
“It is a typewriter,” announced Katherine.
“A typewriter!” repeated her sisters. “What—what for? Why did you buy a typewriter?”
“Why, you stupid children, to typewrite with, of course!”
“But do you know how?”
“No; certainly not. How should I? But I amgoing to learn. It was a tremendous bargain, and I have been thinking of them for some time without saying anything about it. You know the magazines are full of advertisements of them, and they have made me simply wild to have one. I thought it would be so useful for us to have one in the house, and we can make a lot of money with it.”
“How?” asked Honor.
Something in her voice made Katherine glance at her sister’s face; but Honor was standing in the shadow cast by the staircase, which went up from the centre of the hall.
“Doing typewriting for people, of course. You hear all the time of girls who are typewriters. How dull of comprehension you are to-night, Honor!”
“How much did you give for it?”
“My dear, it was awfully cheap! The man assured me it was a wonderful bargain!”
“They usually do,” remarked Honor, “but you haven’t yet named the price. How much was it, Katherine?”
“It is really a hundred-dollar machine, but they call it second-hand, though it has only been used a little, and so I got it for forty.”
“Forty dollars!” cried Victoria, while Honor’s feelings prevented her for the moment from finding words, and Peter gave utterance to a prolonged whistle of astonishment. “You don’t mean, Katherine, that you have actually spent forty dollars onthat?”
“I do,” said Katherine, with an assumption of boldness that she was far from feeling. “Only forty dollars. I assure you it is the cheapest thing I ever saw. I never dreamed of being able to get a decent one for less than fifty at the lowest—and when we are making money with it, you will thank me.”
“Buthoware we to make money with it?” asked Victoria, while Peter laughed with malicious glee. He had been so often remonstrated with himself for various misdemeanors that he was glad to see his chief critic undergoing the same unpleasant experience. “Do you know how to use it?”
“No, not yet; but that is easily learned. The man offered to give me a lesson, but I was in a hurry, and so he said I could come in any time. He showed me some books on the subject, which I bought, and I can easily puzzle it out myself, I think. It will be something to do in the evening.”
“Have you paid for it, or did you have it charged, too?”
It was Honor who asked the question. She had not spoken for some time, and her voice had the same note which Katherine, who was susceptible to voices, had remarked upon before.
“I paid for it,” she replied. “That is what I wanted the ready money for. I saw it in the window of a typewriter place as I was on my way to the furniture store. I knew I should have to pay ‘cash down’ for it, as they didn’t know me there, while they did at the furniture place. I hope you think I did right, girls. I hope you agree with me.”
“I think,” said Honor, turning slowly and looking at her sister,—“I think you are the most foolish and the most extravagant person I ever saw or heard of. The idea of your spending forty dollars on a typewriter, when we are so poor we can scarcely buy our food, and it was just as much as we could do to scrape the forty dollars together for you to take to Boston to buy the schoolroom furniture with. Oh, that we had never let you go! Can the thing be taken back?”
“No,” said Katherine, shortly.
“Why not?”
“Why of course it can’t, Honor, unless in exchange for another typewriter! Of course the man isn’t going to give me back the money. How foolish you are!”
“Foolishness must run in the family,” said Honor. “I think Aunt Sophia was quite right when she said we were nothing but children and not fit to take care of ourselves. If you go on in this way, we shall soon have to take refuge in Beacon Street, after all. I think you might at least have consulted us before you bought it. I suppose you were afraid to. That is the reason you were so anxious to go yourself to buy the desks. You had made up your mind before you went, to get this thing.”
“I hadn’t at all, Honor,” cried Katherine, stung by this accusation. “I hadn’t the least idea of doing it until I saw them in the window. If I had happened to go through any other street, I should never have dreamed of getting it. It was evidently intended that we should own a typewriter, for I was led right up to the window.”
“An easy sort of philosophy,” remarked Honor.
“Oh well,” interposed Victoria, “it is done, so there is no use in lamenting. We may as wellmake the best of it, though the next time you go to Boston, Katherine, I think Honor and I had better be on each side of you to keep you from being ‘led up’ to windows. If you had been ‘led’ to Toppan’s window, would you have bought all that you saw there? Or to Shreve’s, or Bigelow’s? Oh, Katherine!”
And then Victoria, who had been undecided for some time as to whether she should laugh or cry, began to laugh.
“I think it is too funny!” she exclaimed. “I feel as if we had a white elephant in the house. In addition to everything else that we have to do we have all got to learn typewriting, so as to make it pay! Oh, Katherine, Katherine!”
Honor hesitated a moment. The situation was amusing, and Victoria’s mirth was contagious, but she felt very angry. Then seeing that Katherine was looking troubled, she decided that she too had better try to laugh it off. After all, it was very funny. And presently they were all laughing so uproariously, that B. Lafferty again opened the door and peeped in at them, wondering what amusing article had come by express.
Suddenly, however, Katherine became sober.
“The girls and Peter could see Katherine, who sat in the hall below”
“You will see,” she said, “that after all I was wise to get it. When the money begins to pour in from it, you will see what a brilliant idea it was.”
“I can’t imagine how it is going to pour in, unless you are going to manufacture bank notes with it,” remarked Honor; “but we will see.”
They went back to their forgotten dinner, and after it was finished, they proceeded to arrange the schoolroom. It was again Saturday, and school was to open the following Monday.
Katherine slipped away before long, her absence being at first unnoticed by the others. Presently Peter also disappeared from the room, but he soon returned.
“If you want to see something rich,” said he, “come look over the banisters.”
As has been said, the stairway ascended from the centre of the large square hall. It was very broad, and a gallery ran around the second story, upon which opened the doors of the bedrooms. By leaning over the railing which guarded this gallery, the girls and Peter could see Katherine, who sat in the hall below. She was at work upon the typewriter, the “clickety-click” of the keyscoming at long intervals, while she studied the book of instructions.
“The lightning writer!” whispered Peter. “Don’t you wish you could write with a pen as fast as that?”
“Hush!” said Victoria; “don’t let her hear you. But, oh, Honor, we shall have to work extra hard to make up for Katherine’s extravagance! Whatshallwe do with her?”
“Peteris in one of his moods. He won’t come.”
So announced Sophy, returning from the barn for the third time one day towards the end of the following week.
“But we want him, Sophy. Did you tell him so?” asked Honor.
“That is just the reason he won’t come. When I said, ‘They want you,’ he said, ‘Let ’em want. I’ve got something else to do than be tied to Honor’s apron strings.’ What did he mean, Honor? You hardly ever wear an apron, and I never saw you tie Peter.”
Katherine, who was also present, laughed, as she invariably did when Sophy made a remark of this kind.
“You are the most literal young one I ever saw,” said she. “Did you really suppose, now, that—”
“Never mind!” interposed Honor, who saw that Sophy, always easily moved to tears by Katherine’s criticisms, looked ready to cry. “He means by that that he doesn’t want to do things for us. Very disobliging of him, I think. What is he doing?”
“Sitting on the fence just outside of the barn.”
“Dear me, I wish he would come! Well, Katherine, we shall have to do it ourselves. A boy can be so useful, and it does seem provoking to have one right in the family and not be able to turn him to account. I will hold the step-ladder while you go up. Isn’t it horrid to have to do all this ourselves? I do miss the servants dreadfully.”
The girls were hanging the parlor curtains for the first time in their lives.
“They are going to look horribly, too,” said Katherine. “I really think it would pay, Honor, to have a man come up from Fordham and do it. It wouldn’t cost much.”
“It would cost more than we have got at present,” replied Honor. “No,” she added a little drearily after a moment’s silence, “we’ve got to learn to do these things ourselves. Other peopledo, and there is no reason why we shouldn’t. Be careful, Katherine. You’re putting that ever so much higher on the right than you did on the left.”
In the meantime Sophy returned once more to the barn. She found that Peter had not moved from his position upon the fence, and as far as she could judge he was still in “one of his moods.” When he saw Sophy approaching for the fourth time, he fixed his gaze yet more intently upon the river, which gleamed beyond the tall pine trees in the grove.
Sophy was a small and slenderly built child of eight. The fact that she was so much younger than her sisters had perhaps caused her to be considered the baby of the family longer than would otherwise have been the case. She was not a pretty child, for her eyes were too large and staring for the small thin face, and the temporary absence of two of her front teeth gave her a grotesque expression. Her hair, which was straight, had been cut short for the sake of convenience, and her cheeks were pale for those of a country child.
Sophy adored her only brother with all the ardorof her childish heart. She considered him the tallest, the strongest, and the handsomest boy in all the town of Fordham, or Boston either, for that matter, and she was his willing slave at all times—a state of affairs which Peter was not slow to recognize and of which he availed himself on every possible occasion.
When Peter was “in one of his moods” he was to Sophy more fascinating than ever. She hung near him, wondering what was the matter, what troublesome thoughts were thronging his brain, and whether it would be possible to offer him any help. She longed to comfort him on these occasions, but never knew how to do it.
This afternoon she seated herself upon a convenient rock and leaned her chin upon her hand, her great brown eyes fastened upon her brother, who was perched upon the fence rail. Peter at first paid no attention to her presence. Then he stirred uneasily. He turned and looked at her, and then looked quickly away again. The stare of those big brown eyes was so unflinching.
“I wish you would go away,” said he at last.
“Why?” asked Sophy.
“Because I’m thinking, and—and you’re such a stare-cat.”
“I won’t any longer,” returned the obliging Sophy, and fixed her eyes at once upon the ground, only now and then raising them for a furtive glance at the motionless figure upon the fence. The mood was lasting a long time, she thought.
It was a mild day in November, and the purple haze in the atmosphere proved that it was Indian summer. There was a delicious smell of autumn in the air, and the smoke of burning brush was borne to them from the distance. One could hear sounds that seemed to come from far away, and in the pasture which lay to the right of the pine grove, a vast number of crows had alighted. Presently, having finished their conference, they rose with one accord and soared far above the tops of the tallest pine trees, cawing to one another as they went. Peter glanced up at them.
“I wish I were a crow,” said he.
Sophy gave a little sigh of relief. He had spoken; he was coming out of his mood.
“Why?” she asked, with alacrity.
“Oh, because—” And then he stopped.Sophy sighed again, this time with disappointment. He was not going to tell her! Presently, he again broke the silence.
“I wish I were anything,” said he; “anything but what I am.”
“Do you wish you were a girl?” asked his little sister.
“No!” exclaimed Peter; “of course not agirl! But anything else. A bird, a beetle, a squirrel. Something alive.”
This was difficult philosophy for Sophy to comprehend. Would the life of a beetle, or even of a bird, be preferable to that of a girl? And was not a girl “alive”? She was about to inquire further, when her brother spoke again.
“I’m tired of it,” said he. “Just tired of it! I’m not going to stand it any longer. I’m going to run away to sea. But if I disappear, Sophy, don’t you tell them where I’ve gone. Don’t tell the girls that I ever said anything about running away to sea; now mind!”
“No,” said Sophy, “I won’t, but I hope you won’t decide to go, Peter. It wouldn’t be a bit nice without you. Why do you want to go?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Peter, leaping to theground, and seating himself upon a rock. The fence rail had ceased to be comfortable.
“There is nothing for me to do. We are all poor, and the girls have to work, and I can’t do a thing. If I were as old as Honor, I could go into business right away, and make a fortune, and support you all. I’m the only boy in the family, and I ought to be the one to do it. I don’t see why I wasn’t the oldest instead of having three girls older than me to order me around. It just makes me mad. Why, if I had only been the oldest, I’d be finishing college now, and going into a law office, or I’d be a doctor and have lots of patients, or I’d go into business; stocks, or a bank, or something or other. Instead of that I’ve got to knock round here and fuss over little things the girls want me to do, and go to that hateful Hastings School down at Fordham. But what’s the use of talking to you? You don’t understand. You’re nothing but a girl, and a baby one at that.”
Sophy’s great brown eyes filled with tears.
“I know I’m a girl,” she faltered. “I wish I wasn’t, Peter. Indeed I do! I wish you’d please excuse me for being one, for I can’t really help it, but—but—I don’t think I’m such a baby.”
“I’d like to know what you are, then,” said her brother, crossly. “You’re crying now. That proves that you’re a baby. Do you suppose a boy would cry as easily as you do, or any one who wasn’t a baby?”
“Whatisthe matter?” cried a gay voice, as the rustle of dead leaves on the pasture path was heard, and Victoria came into sight. “I heard you ever so far off, and it sounded exactly as if you were scolding, Peter. I got off the train at Waterview and walked up, as I missed the one that connected. I’ve been thinking over something, and I want your advice, Peter.”
She saw at a glance that Sophy had been made unhappy, but she thought it wiser to pass it over unnoticed for the present.
“What is it?” asked her brother, interested in spite of himself. Then he added hastily: “But you’re only making that up to change the subject. You don’t really want my advice. You think I’m scolding Sophy, and so I am. Why, she cries if you say—”
“I do want your advice,” interrupted Victoria; “and if you can’t give it to me, I shall have to ask some other boy or man. It is aboutmushrooms. Do you know anything at all about them, and do you think it would pay to raise them? I have been reading up about them to-day in the Encyclopædia at school. That was the reason I missed the other train. It seems as if we could make some money out of them if we only tried. It says in the Encyclopædia that the cultivated ones don’t taste as good as the wild ones, but there must be a demand for them, for people use them when the others are out of season. I was wondering whether you would want to undertake it.”
“Do you mean me alone?” asked Peter.
“Yes. You see I have the violets to attend to, and lots of things in the house. We have so much dusting and all that sort of thing to do, now that we have only one maid, and with all I have to study, I really don’t think I can undertake anything more. Couldn’t you read up about them, and find out all you can? You might make a good deal that way.”
A gleam of something like interest had come into Peter’s hitherto depressed-looking face. It quickly faded, however.
“It’s such a little thing,” said he.
“Little? How do you mean?”
“Why, it doesn’t really amount to anything. What is raising mushrooms? Anybody could do that. I want to do something big. If I were only a man, now, I could support you all.”
“Yes, I know you could,” rejoined Victoria, quickly, “and it would be too lovely for anything; but you will be a man some day, Peter, and then you can do it, and in the meantime it seems as if the little things would count. And mushrooms are not so little, either. I mean the raising of them. Youmightbe able to make a good deal that way, and in other gardening.”
“They’d call me a mushroom, I suppose,” said Peter, gloomily, after he had reviewed the situation for a few moments in silence.
“Whatdoyou mean?”
“A mushroom, or perhaps a toadstool. More likely a toadstool.”
“Peter! Who would?”
“Those Hastings school-boys.”
“Would they? Why?”
“Because they are hateful,” said Peter, rising and walking about with his hands in his pockets. “The class I am in is nothing but aset of ruffians. I’d like to fight ’em, every one of ’em, and I will some day. They call me the ‘Glen Arden dude’ now. You see I’m the only boy there who has been to a private school. I wish father had never sent me to that school in Boston. I wish—”
“Never mind!” said Victoria, quickly. “Father always did what was quite right. What else do they say?”
“They say I’m tied to my sisters’ apron strings, just because they saw me with Honor and Katherine yesterday when I was carrying the bundles. I’ll never go to Fordham with any of you girls again, and I’m not going to carry your bundles if I do go.”
Quickly a look of scorn gathered in Victoria’s expressive face. Her brown eyes fairly gleamed with it as they regarded her brother.
“What a poor-spirited boy you must be, Peter!” said she.
“Poor-spirited!” exclaimed Peter. “Why, I’m willing to fight any boy or any two boys in that school, and I will yet. I’d like to know what you mean by that, Vic!”
“Oh, I don’t mean that you are not braveenough if there is any fighting to be done,” said she. “I’d trust you quickly enough for that, but I think you are very poor-spirited to be afraid to carry our bundles or be seen with any of us, just because those common boys that go to the Hastings School in Fordham chose to laugh at you for doing it. If you go on in this way, you won’t be the kind of man father was, or that Mr. Abbott is. Mr. Abbott is only too glad to do things for women, and father was just like him in that. And if you are not willing to do these little things for us now, I don’t believe you will take care of us when you grow up, so we may as well get accustomed to taking care of ourselves.”
Peter’s face flushed. He recognized the truth of Victoria’s remarks, although he had no intention of acknowledging it.
“See here,” said he, “I wish you’d stop! There is no one else in the world that I’d let say those things to me. If you were a fellow, I’d knock you down.”
“Oh no, you wouldn’t,” said Victoria, laughing good-humoredly, “for the very good reason that I should be engaged in knocking you down! You think over that mushroom plan, Peter,” shecontinued, as she rose from the rock upon which she had been sitting. “I must go into the house now and see what there is to be done. Come along, Sophy, and tell me how school went to-day.”
The sisters walked away together, leaving Peter to ruminate over Victoria’s remarks. He looked after them for a moment and then himself departed. He had suddenly determined to go to a certain florist who owned some large greenhouses in Fordham, and consult with him as to the best method of raising mushrooms. Perhaps it could be kept a secret from the boys at school. At any rate, the subject was worth considering.
He walked over to the village and took an electric car, which carried him in a short time almost to his destination, although it was a distance of some miles. Upon leaving the car, he had a walk of several blocks, and his way was through the most crowded street of Fordham,—the main street, in fact, upon which were most of the shops, and which at this hour of the afternoon, when the trains arrived at short intervals from Boston, was well filled with people.
Peter walked along, paying little attention to the passers-by, as his mind reviewed the lateconversation with Victoria, when he was attracted by some squirrels in a cage. The cage was standing upon a barrel outside of a provision store. The store was on a corner, and the squirrels were on the side street, which was a small one.
They were skipping about in the revolving cage, engaged in an ever-failing attempt to make progress, and compelled to pursue their ceaseless round of futile activity. Peter, as he watched them, wished that he could set them free. He wondered how much the provision dealer would sell them for. Then he remembered that there was little enough money to spare, and none with which to free squirrels.
For a wonder, no one else was watching the little animals. When they had first been placed there, a small crowd had gathered daily to look at their antics; but the Fordham youth had grown accustomed to them now, and Peter was the only one who stopped. Presently, however, another boy sauntered up, and stood a little beyond Peter. He was very shabbily dressed, and Peter, who was observant, noticed that he looked hungry. Instead of watching the squirrels, he found himself watching the boy, who was quite unconscious of it.
Presently the boy put out his hand and quietly abstracted an apple from a barrel that was standing there, and dropped it into his pocket. In a moment he repeated the operation. Then he moved slightly, and his gaze encountered Peter’s. Instantly his fist doubled up.
“If you’re going to tell on me, I’ll knock you down,” he said.
“I’m not going to tell on you, though I’m not afraid of your knocking me down,” returned Peter. “But what are you doing it for? It seems to me it’s a pretty mean thing to do.”
“I guess you’d do it if you was as hungry as me,” said the boy. “I mean to take another—there ain’t nobody looking.”
“Oh, I say, don’t!” said Peter. “Haven’t you got any money to pay for them?”
“Money! I ain’t seen a nickel for a week, and I ain’t had nothin’ to eat since yesterday morning.”
Peter put his hand in his pocket.
“I haven’t got much myself,” said he, pulling out a dime, a five-cent piece, and some pennies, which he placed in the palm of one hand while he searched the depths of his pockets with the other. “We haven’t got much money ourselves, nowadays, butwe’ve got enough to eat. It must be pretty bad to be hungry. I’ve got to keep five cents to get back to Fordham Falls, but I’d be glad if you’d take the rest, and I wish you’d go in and pay for those apples.”
He placed the money upon the top of the barrel which held the squirrels’ cage, and walked quickly away. The boy looked after him in astonishment. Then he took the money and went into the store with the apples which he had appropriated in his hand. He paid for them, and also for a loaf of bread, and then he hurried up the main street in the direction in which Peter had walked. He could not overtake him, however, and when he had reached the less thickly populated part of the town and still saw nothing of his benefactor, he turned aside into a narrow road, and sitting down, he began to devour the bread and apples, from time to time looking, as he ate, at the eight cents which remained of what Peter had given him. He felt like a millionaire.
In the meantime Peter went to the florist’s, and fortunately finding him at home, proceeded to question him closely on the subject for which he had come. After spending a half-hour in interesting conversation he left the place, and as it was yet tooearly for his car back to Fordham Falls, he took a roundabout way for the sake of using up his superfluous time.
As he walked he thought he heard the cry of an animal in pain. Peter was passionately fond of living creatures, be they insects, birds, or beasts, and the sound that he heard was undoubtedly the yelp of a suffering dog. He ran in the direction from which it proceeded, and very soon, upon turning a corner in the road, came upon two boys who were engaged in torturing a dog which they had tied to the fence rail.
Before they knew what had happened, one boy was rolling in the ditch by the side of the road, and the other was being pommelled and shaken by an infuriated person, who had apparently sprung out of the ground, so unexpectedly had his presence become known to them.
At first the surprise completely paralyzed the boys, one of whom was larger than Peter, the other smaller; but they soon recovered themselves, and it would undoubtedly have gone hard with the aggressor had he not been suddenly reinforced by help from the most unlooked-for quarter.
The boy whom Peter had met in front of theprovision store, had been eating his bread and apples not far from the scene of the fight. Hearing the sound of a scuffle, he ran down the road, and saw at once that his late benefactor was evidently getting the worst of it. Gratitude, added to the food which Peter had given him, gave strength to the newcomer, and in a few moments the victory was won.
The two young ruffians were prostrate in the road, and Peter walked away with the injured dog in his arms, accompanied by his new friend.
WhenVictoria and Sophy reached the house after their conversation with Peter, they found Honor and Katherine still struggling with the parlor curtains. Two windows were finished, and Katherine was in the act of mounting the step-ladder at the third, when her younger sisters appeared. At the same moment Blanch thrust her head in the doorway at the back of the hall.
“I forgot to tell yers,” said she, “there ain’t no bread in the house for supper.”
“Oh, Blanch!” cried Honor, turning to look at her, while she steadied the ladder. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I never thought of it. I thought yers’d know it yerselves.”
“How could we know it? I can’t spend all my time looking into the bread-box, and I had no idea the last baking would have given out so soon. You will have to make some biscuits or some corn bread.”
“I ain’t never made any. Of course I know how to make ’em, but as I ain’t never made any, yers mightn’t like ’em.”
“Very well,” replied Honor, with as much majesty of demeanor as she could assume when embracing a step-ladder. “I will show you how presently.”
Though Honor was not as tall as Katherine, and was very slight, she could be extremely dignified when she chose.
Blanch’s head disappeared, and the door closed with a bang.
“Why, Honor, do you know how yourself?” asked Victoria.
“No, I haven’t the least idea, but I’m not going to tell her so. I will look it up in the recipe book. It is a curious thing about B. Lafferty. She never will acknowledge that she can’t do a thing. She is the most conceited person, as well as the most aggravating, that I ever met.”
Katherine at the top of the ladder laughed as she adjusted the curtain.
“You must be taking lessons from her,” she said, “telling her that you would show her how to make biscuits. I wonder what they will be like!It is bad enough to have had to give up dining late to suit Miss B. Lafferty’s fancies, without having to go without bread for supper.”
“You take my place at the ladder, Vic,” said Honor, with the air of one who had determined to defy fate, “and I will find the recipe book andmake the biscuits!”
“How did school go to-day?” asked Victoria, when Honor had left them.
“Oh, beautifully! Minnie Chase pinched Bertha Hickens, which naturally had the effect of making Bertha howl loudly, and that frightened Carry Deane so badly that she began to cry, which so affected Tommy Deane that he began to cry, and presently the whole school was weeping and in an uproar. Lessons had to be stopped for at least twenty minutes while Honor and I wiped eyes and patted shoulders and scolded Minnie for being the cause of it all. Oh, it went beautifully! Another tack please, Vic, and a good big one. There, that is the last! Dear me,” continued Katherine, standing in the middle of the room and looking about her, “they don’t look as they ought to, but I can’t help it! Honor won’t have the man from Fordham, so we shall have to go with crooked curtains.I must rush now, for I have a music lesson to give. I would so much rather stay at home and practise!”
Honor had been wrestling with her recipe books and her biscuits for more than an hour, Katherine had given her music lesson and returned, and Victoria, aided by Sophy,—who was perhaps more of a hindrance than a help, but whom it pleased to be called into service,—had performed various household duties, and still Peter did not come back.
It was no unusual matter for him to be off in the woods and meadows for hours at a time, and therefore his sisters were not in the least alarmed by his absence, especially as Victoria suspected that he had acted upon her suggestion and had gone to consult the Fordham florist.
When the clock struck six, however, and he had not yet come, they began to wonder as to his whereabouts, and Sophy went to one of the second-story windows and took up her station there. The sun had set, but a young moon was shining brightly, and she could see plainly the beautiful lawn, dotted with the fine old trees now quite bare of leaves, across which Peter might be expected to come if he had gone to Fordham by the electric car, as Victoria supposed.
Sophy watched for some time in silence, but at last her scrutiny was rewarded.
“Here he comes,” she cried, “and he is carrying something, and there’s somebody with him! Who do you s’pose it is? It is a boy, and he looks raggedy, and it’s a dog! I really think it’s a truly dog! Vic, where are you?”
Sophy, in great excitement, ran from her post of observation and hurried down the stairs. The front door was thrown open, and Peter entered, tenderly carrying a good-sized yellow dog, whose leg was bound up and whose head lay limply upon his arm, and accompanied by a boy who, as Sophy had said, was “raggedy.”
The four sisters gathered from different parts of the house and surveyed the newcomers, surprise mingled with disapprobation being unmistakably depicted on the countenances of all, with the exception, perhaps, of Sophy’s.
“I want some witch hazel,” said Peter, “and some kind of an ointment or something. Vic, get it for me, will you? This dog’s leg is broken, and he has a lot of wounds. This is Dave Carney. He’s going to stay to tea.”
“Peter!” said four voices.
“Well,” said he, “what’s the matter?”
“You look exactly as if you had been in a fight.”
“So I have.”
“Oh, Peter! But are you—are you going to fix the dog’s leg here?”
“Oh, I’ll take him down to the barn, if you like. I suppose you will all make a terrible fuss, if I don’t. Isn’t he a nice dog? Some fellows were hurting him, but we floored ’em, Carney and I.”
Carney, in the meantime, had retired to the least conspicuous position that he could find. He stood far back by the door, and he twirled his shabby cap in his hand, looking the while as though he would prefer to be in any place but that in which he found himself.
Honor and Victoria, who were on the broad staircase, turned towards one another. Honor’s pretty eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, and her face said as plainly as though she had spoken, “What are we to do about it?”
“I will get the witch hazel,” said Victoria, aloud, “and will bring it down to the barn. You and—and your friend had better take the dog down there now, Peter, and make a bed for him.”
“Bring some old rags,” commanded Peter, “and something nice and soft for him to lie on. This would do,” he added, picking up a white chudda shawl which hung over the back of one of the hall chairs.
“My best white shawl!” cried Katherine, springing forward just in time to rescue it before it was wrapped about the suffering animal. “What are you thinking of, Peter? Do take that dirty dog out of the house! I never saw such a boy.”
Victoria, as she hurried up the stairs, sighed to herself.
“Oh, dear!” she thought. “I am afraid Katherine will say just the wrong thing, and before we know it Peter will insist upon keeping the dog in the house, and having the boy at the supper-table. Where did he pick them up?”
But Peter, whatever may have been his first impulse, decided that, after all, it would be the wiser course to repair to the barn, and here Victoria found him with his new friend, when she and Sophy followed with the remedies.
The dog was, without doubt, very much hurt; but he seemed to appreciate all that was being done for him, and he looked lovingly at Peter as he bathed his wounds and bound up his leg.
“How would you like to have your supper out here, Peter?” said Victoria, who had been pondering the situation. “Then you could stay near the dog and see that he is all right.”
“Well,” said Peter, slowly, “I don’t know but it would be a good plan. What do you say, Carney?”
But Carney was too bashful to speak.
It was a happy solution of the difficulty, and Victoria and Sophy hurried back to the house, and had soon packed a basket for the picnic in the barn. Honor’s biscuits, made so early in the afternoon, had risen and fallen again long since, and were now little lumps of hard and sodden dough; but the sisters thought that the boys would doubtless enjoy them, and they bestowed them with a generous hand.
“We can eat crackers ourselves,” said Katherine. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Honor, but—but—dolook in the bread-box to-morrow, please!”
Honor had seated herself in her place at the head of the table. The old silver service and the delicate cups and saucers gleamed in the light which fell from the candles. The table wascovered with a cloth of the finest damask, a silverjardinièreof ferns ornamented the centre, and at the four corners stood tall silver candlesticks of massive design. No one would ever have dreamed that the family who were to gather about this table had not all the money they needed.
The eldest sister leaned back in her chair and sighed.
“It is perfectly dreadful,” she exclaimed, “that I don’t know the first thing about cooking! What am I to do? I went into the kitchen determined that that odious B. Lafferty should never suspect that I hadn’t made biscuits every day of my life, but I couldn’t have impressed her that way, for she stood looking at me with the most supercilious expression. She insisted upon taking the dough and the roller right out of my hands. She declared that she knew better than I did about making them, and the worst of it was, I didn’t know whether she did or not, and these are the result. Hear them!”
Honor lifted one of the biscuits and let it drop upon the table. It sounded like the fall of a little stone.
“You will have to take cooking lessons,” said Katherine. “They don’t really cost much, and it would pay in the end.”
“They may not cost much, but when we have scarcely a cent in our pockets andowe bills, we can’t afford lessons in anything. No, I shall have to keep a sharp lookout on the bread-box, and trust to luck about other things. I am afraid she only knows how to make two puddings, for when I speak about the dessert, there is always some reason why it must be either cornstarch or tapioca. I am perfectly certain they are the only kinds she can make.”
“Why not give up having dessert?” suggested Victoria, as she adjusted the cover of the basket. “It would save a little money.”
“Victoria!” exclaimed her sisters together.
“We are coming down pretty low, if we can’t have dessert,” said Katherine. “What are you thinking of?”
“Only of saving money; and a lamp on the supper table would be cheaper than candles,” said Vic, as she took up the basket and left the room. “Come, Sophy. You carry the pitcher of milk. Don’t spill it, child.”
“I don’t know where Vic gets those scrimpy ideas,” said Katherine, when they had gone. “She actually said again to-day that she thought we could do without salad, that the sweet oil for the dressing was so expensive; and when we went to Boston together the other day, she insisted upon walking all the way from the station to Aunt Sophia’s, just to save five cents! She was perfectly horrified at my getting those embroidered handkerchiefs, and yet they were so cheap. It is a perfect bore to have her so.”
Honor said nothing. She thought that Victoria went to an extreme, perhaps; but it was better for the family purse than Katherine’s course, and the suggestion about the candles contained a good deal of common sense. A lamp would do just as well, and candles were expensive; but then they made the table look so much prettier. How provoking it was, thought Honor, to be obliged to do without so small and simple a luxury as candles on the supper-table!
With an air of resignation, she rose and lighted a lamp, which she placed upon the table. Then she blew out the candles, and removed them to the mantelpiece.
“Oh, Honor!” cried Katherine. “Why do you do that? You are getting to be as bad as Vic herself. You might at least leave them on the table unlighted.”
“For the mere show of them?” said Honor. “Never! and Vic is right. Candles are expensive. I wonder if there is anything else we can give up.”
And she looked about with a gesture of despair.
“Sugar in our tea, I suppose,” said Katherine, with what she considered fine sarcasm, “or even tea itself. Perhaps you would like to do without forks. We can sell the silver, for instance. For my part, I shall never give in to this stingy spirit that is taking possession of the rest of you. I am sure we are not as poor as all that, and we are certainly making money.”
Honor made no reply. When Katherine talked in this strain, it was useless to argue with her, and presently Victoria and Sophy returned, and they took their places at the table.
Dave Carney spent some time with Peter in the barn, and when he left, he promised to return the next day, and see how the dog was progressing. When Peter asked him where he lived, he returned an evasive answer. The two boys, so differentlyplaced in the world, found that they had much in common. Dave knew almost as much as Peter did about the ways of animals and birds, and was deeply interested in all that his new friend had to say upon the subject, besides recounting many of his own experiences in the woods.
When he came the next day, he offered to help Peter with his mushrooms, and in return for this Peter, at Victoria’s suggestion, presented him with a full suit of outgrown clothes which fitted him exactly; for although he was older than Peter, he was of slighter build and was shorter. Peter superintended his toilet when he tried on the garments at the barn, fastening his collar for him, and even tying a blue cravat about his neck. Finally he placed a brown cap upon his head.
“There,” said he, “you look like a regular dude.”
Dave surveyed himself in the little mirror and then glanced at his nice trousers and whole shoes. A pleased smile stole over his face, and then he looked at Peter.
“I’ll never forgit it,” said he.
It was finally arranged that Carney should come to Glen Arden every day to do whatever came to hand, in return for his three meals and a smallsum weekly. He was to take part in the mushroom culture and to assist Victoria with her violets, and also to carry coal for B. Lafferty. Even Honor, who had at first disapproved of this arrangement, found him useful in many different ways. He was always ready to go to the village upon an errand, or to make himself useful about the house. In fact, Dave Carney soon came to be regarded as an important and indispensable member of the family, and as he ate with Blanch in the kitchen, that difficulty no longer existed.
Peter told no one, not even Victoria, of the incident which led to his acquaintance with Carney, and the boy knew this, and his gratitude increased tenfold.
Peter made two warm friends that day. The dog soon recovered, and his devotion to the boy who had saved his life was touching in the extreme. When Peter was at home he never left him, and when he was at school he wandered disconsolately about the house or place, taking up his position at the head of the avenue when the time approached for his master to return, and rushing to meet him when he appeared in the distance.
Since his recovery and owing to the numerousbaths which Peter and Carney gave him he had so far improved in appearance that the sisters consented to his presence in the house; and they soon became greatly attached to him, although he paid but little attention to any one but his master. He was not a handsome dog, being tall and ungainly, with a coat of yellowish bristly hair. He was unmistakably a mongrel, and perhaps for that very reason was unusually intelligent. He knew each one of the family by name almost immediately, and seemed to understand everything that was said to him. Victoria declared that he was the brightest of the Starrs, and hence came his name.
There was great discussion upon this point, and for days the newcomer went unchristened. Apparently he had never had a name before, for although they tried every title by which a dog could possibly be known, he failed to respond, and only smiled roguishly at their efforts, for he was a happy-hearted dog with a most cheerful smile. Nothing that was suggested satisfied the critical Peter. Finally Honor said, “He will just have to go without a name. He will have to be known as the Starr dog.”
“Or the dog Starr,” said Victoria, quickly. “Doyou see? The dog-star! By the way, what is the name of the dog-star. Let us look it up in the Encyclopædia.”
They did so, and found that it was “Sirius,” and also that Sirius was the brightest of the fixed stars.
“And this is the brightest of these Starrs,” cried Victoria, as she hugged the long-suffering but none the less fortunate animal. “Do, Peter, name him Sirius!”
And for a wonder Peter consented; and although “Sirius” was a difficult name to call when one was in a hurry, for instance, it was such an appropriate title that no one objected.
In the meantime the month of November drew to a close, and on the first day of December the amount of mail for the family at Glen Arden was unusually large. There was the grocer’s bill, and the butcher’s bill, and there were other household accounts; but in addition to these there was the one from the school-furniture store in Boston. It was addressed to Honor, and with an exclamation of dismay she glanced at the amount. Fifty-five dollars and eighty cents!
“Oh, Katherine!” she said, looking at her sister, and letting the bill fall into her lap.
“What is the matter?” asked Katherine. “You look as if you had seen a ghost.”
“I have,” said Honor, solemnly. “This is the bill for the schoolroom furniture.”
“Well, you expected it, didn’t you? How much is it?”
“Fifty-five dollars and eighty cents!”
“I am sure that isn’t very much,” returned Katherine, easily. “Scarcely more than fifty dollars.”
“But we haven’t got it. How are we going to pay for it, and why did you get all these things?” groaned Honor, as she looked at the items. “Five dollars for the globe, and we could easily have done without it, or used a little cheap one. Five dollars for the blackboard! And all this for copy-books and blank-books! You ought never to have bought them, and if you did, you oughtn’t to have had them charged. And have you begun to make any money with your typewriter yet?”
Katherine did not reply.
“Have you even learned to use it yet? Have you doneanythingwith it? The money you spent on that typewriter might just as well have been thrown into the river. Katherine, Katherine,how could you do it! I verily believe we shall have to apply to Aunt Sophia for help.”
Katherine sprang from her seat.
“Never!” she said. “Honor, you are too absurd. I tell you, we are making money with the school and the music scholars. As for the typewriter, you are too disagreeable! Of course it will pay in time. I—I haven’t had time to learn to use it yet.”
She dared not add that her ardor had been somewhat lessened by a small paragraph which she had chanced to see in the newspaper. It was to the effect that the use of the typewriter unfitted the fingers for the piano, that they were apt to become stiff and to lose their accustomed skill. It was only a newspaper paragraph, to be sure, but it had frightened Katherine. She even acknowledged to herself that she regretted her purchase, but she had no intention of making this known to her sisters.
And in the meantime, how should the bills be paid?