>CHAPTER 14An Unexpected LetterThe next morning, Jean, with three large bananas as a peace offering, was the first to arrive at Dandelion Cottage. Jean, a wise young person for her years, had decided that a little hard work would clear the atmosphere, so, finding no one else in the house, she made a fire in the stove, put on the kettle, put up the leaf of the kitchen table, and began to take all the dishes from the pantry shelves. Dishwashing in the cottage was always far more enjoyable than this despised occupation usually is elsewhere, owing to the astonishingassortment of crockery the girls had accumulated. No two of the dishes—with the exception of a pair of plates bearing life-sized portraits of "The frog that would a-wooing go, whether his mother would let him or no"—bore the same pattern. There was a bewildering diversity, too, in the sizes and shapes of the cups and saucers, and an alarming variety in the matter of color. But, as the girls had declared gleefully a dozen times or more, it would be possible to set the table for seven courses when the time should come for Mr. Black's and Mrs. Crane's dinner party, because so many of the things almost matched if they didn't quite. Jean was thinking of this as she lifted the dishes from the shelf to the table, and lovingly arranged them in pairs, the pink sugar bowl beside the blue cream-pitcher, the yellow coffee cup beside the dull red Japanese tea cup, and the "Love-the-Giver" mug beside the "For my Little Friend" oatmeal bowl. She had just taken down the big, dusty, cracked pitcher that matched nothing else—which perhaps was the reason that it had remained high on the shelf since the day Mabel had used it for her lemonade—when the doorbell rang.Hastily wiping her dusty hands, Jean ran to the door. No one was there, but the postman was climbing the steps of the next house, so Jean slipped her fingers expectantly into the little, rusty iron letter-box.Perhaps there was something from Miss Blossom, who sometimes showed that she had not forgotten her little landladies.Sure enough, there was a large white letter, not from Miss Blossom to be sure, but from somebody. To the young cottagers, letters were always joyous happenings; they had no debts, consequently they were unacquainted with bills. With this auspicious beginning, for of course the coming of a totally unexpected letter was an auspicious beginning, it was surely going to be a cheerful, perhaps even a delightful, day. Jean hummed happily as she laid the unopened letter on the dining-room table, for of course a letter somewhat oddly addressed to "The Four Young Ladies at 224 Fremont Street, City," could be opened only when all four were present. When Marjory and Bettie came in, they fell upon the letter and examined every portion of the envelope, but neither girl could imagine who had sent it. It was impossible to wait for Mabel, who was always late, so Bettie obligingly ran to get her. Even so there was still a considerable wait while Mabel laced her shoes; but presently Bettie returned, with Mabel, still nibbling very-much-buttered toast, at her heels."You open it, Jean," panted Bettie. "You can read writing better than we can.""Hurry," urged Mabel, who could keep other personswaiting much more easily than she herself could wait."Here's a fork to open it with," said Marjory. "I can't find the scissors. Hurry up; maybe it's a party and we'll have to R. S. V. P. right away.""Oh, goody! If it is," squealed Mabel, "I can wear my new tan Oxfords.""It's from Yours respectably—no, Yours regretfully, John W. Downing," announced Jean. "The man that was here yesterday, you know.""Read it, read it," pleaded the others, crowding so close that Jean had to lift the letter above their heads in order to see it at all. "Do hurry up, we're crazy to hear it.""My Dear Young Ladies," read Jean in a voice that started bravely but grew fainter with every line. "It is with sincere regret that I write to inform you that it no longer suits the convenience of the vestrymen to have you occupy the church cottage on Fremont Street. It is to be rented as soon as a few necessary repairs can be made, and in the meantime you will oblige us greatly by moving out at once. Please deliver the key at your earliest convenience to me at either my house or this office."Yours regretfully,"John W. Downing."For as much as two minutes no one said a word. Jean had laid the open letter on the table. Marjory and Bettie with their arms tightly locked, as if both felt the need of support, reread the closely written page in silence. When they reached the end, they pushed it toward Mabel."What does it mean in plain English?" asked Mabel, hoping that both her eyes and her ears had deceived her."That somebody else is to have the cottage," said Jean, "and that in the meantime we're to move.""In the meantime!" blurted Mabel, with swift wrath. "I should say itwasthe meantime—the very meanest time anybody ever heard of. I'd just like to know what right 'Yours-respectably-John-W.-Downing' has to turn us out of our own house. I guess we paid our rent—I guess there's blisters on me yet—I guess I dug dandelions—I guess I—"But here Mabel's indignation turned to grief, and with one of her very best howls and a torrent of tears she buried her face in Jean's apron."Bettie," asked Jean with her arms about Mabel, "do you think it would do any good to ask your father about it? He's the minister, you know, and he might explain to Mr. Downing that we were promised the cottage for all summer.""Papa went away this morning and won't be homefor ten days. He has exchanged with somebody for the next two Sundays.""My pa-pa-papa's away, too," sobbed Mabel, "or he'd tell that vile Mr. Downing that it was all the Mill-ill-igans' fault.They'rethe folks that ought to be turned out, and I just wuh-wuh-wish they—they had been.""Why wouldn't it be a good idea," suggested Marjory, "for us all to go down to Mr. Downing's office and tell him all about it? You see, he hasn't lived here very long and perhaps he doesn't understand that we have paid our rent for all summer.""Yes," assented Jean, "that would probably be the best thing to do. He won't mind having us go to the office because he told us to take the key there. But whereishis office?""I know," said Bettie. "Here's the address on the letter, and the dentist I go to is right near there, so I can find it easily.""Then let's start right away," cried eager Mabel, uncovering a disheveled head and a tear-stained countenance. "Don't let's lose a minute.""Mercy, no," said Jean, taking Mabel by the shoulders and pushing her before her to the blue-room mirror. "Do you think you can goanyplace looking like that? Do you think youlooklike a desirable tenant? We've all got to be just as clean and neat aswe can be. We've got to impress him with our—our ladylikeness.""I'll braid Mabel's hair," offered Bettie, "if Marjory will run around the block and get all our hats. I'm wearing Dick's straw one with the blue ribbon just now, Marjory. You'll find it some place in our front hall if Tommy hasn't got it on.""Bring mine, too," said Jean; "it's in my room.""I don't knowwheremine is," said Mabel, "but if you can't find it you'd better wear your Sunday one and lend me your everyday one.""I don't see myself lending you any more hats," said Marjory, who had, like the other girls, brightened at the prospect of going to Mr. Downing's. "I haven't forgotten how you left the last one outdoors all night in the rain, and how it looked afterwards, when Aunty Jane made me wear it to punish me formycarelessness. You'll go in your own hat or none.""Well," said Mabel, meekly, "I guess you'll probably find it in my room under the bed, if it isn't in the parlor behind the sofa.""Now, remember," said Jean, who was retying the bow on Bettie's hair, "we're all to be polite, whatever happens, for we mustn't let Mr. Downing think we're anything like the Milligans. If he won't let us have the cottage when he knows about the rent's beingpaid—though I'm almost sure hewilllet us keep it—why, we'll just have to give it up and not let him see that we care.""I'll be good," promised Bettie."You needn't be afraid ofme," said Mabel. "I wouldn't humble myself tospeakto such a despisable man.">CHAPTER 15An Obdurate LandlordTwenty minutes later when Mr. Downing roared "Come in" in the terrifying voice he usually reserved for agents and other unexpected or unwelcome visitors, he was plainly very much surprised to see four pale girls with shocked, reproachful eyes file in and come to an embarrassed standstill just inside the office door, which closed of its own accord and left them imprisonedwith the enemy. They waited quietly."Oh, good morning," said he, in a much milder tone, as he swung about in his revolving chair. "What can I do for you? Have you brought the key so soon?""We came," said Jean, propelled suddenly forward by a vigorous push from the rear, "to see you about Dandelion Cottage. We think you've made a mistake.""Indeed!" said Mr. Downing, who did not at any time like to be considered mistaken. "Suppose you explain."So sweet-voiced Jean explained all about digging the dandelions to pay the rent, about Mr. Black's giving them the key at the end of the week, and about all the lovely times they had had and were still hoping to have in their precious cottage before giving it up for the winter.Mr. Downing, personally, did not like Mr. Black. He had a poor opinion of the older man's business ability, and perhaps a somewhat exalted opinion of his own. He considered Mr. Black old-fashioned and far too easy-going. He felt that parish affairs were more likely to flourish in the hands of a younger, shrewder, and more modern person, and he had an idea that he was that person. At any rate, now that Mr. Black was out of town, Mr. Downing was glad of an opportunity to display his own superior shrewdness.He would show the vestry a thing or two, and incidentally increase the parish income, which as everybody knew stood greatly in need of increasing. He had no patience with slipshod methods. He was truly sorry when business matters compelled him to appear hard-hearted; but to him it seemed little short of absurd for a man of Mr. Black's years to waste on four small girls a cottage that might be bringing in a comfortable sum every month in the year."Now that's a very pretty little story," said Mr. Downing, when Jean had finished. "But, you see, you've already had the cottage more than long enough to pay you for pulling those few weeds.""Few!" exclaimed Mabel, in indignant protest and forgetting her promise of silence. "Few!Why, there werebillionsof 'em. If we'd been paid two cents a hundred for them, we'd all berich. Mr. Black promised us we could have that cottage for all summer and our rent hasn't half perspired yet.""She meansexpired," explained Marjory, "but she's right for once. Mr. Black did say we could stay there all summer, and it isn't quite August yet, you know.""Hum," said Mr. Downing. "Nobody said anything tomeabout any such arrangement, and I'm keeping the books. I don't know what Mr. Black could have been thinking of if he made any such foolish promise as that. Of course it's not binding. Why, that cottageought to be renting for ten or twelve dollars a month!""But the plaster's very bad," pleaded Bettie, eagerly, "and the roof leaks in every room in the house but one, and something's the matter underneath so it's too cold for folks to live in during the winter. It was vacant for a long time beforewehad it.""It looked very comfortable tome," said Mr. Downing, who had lived in the town for only a few months and neither knew nor suspected the real condition of the house. "I'm afraid your arrangement with Mr. Black doesn't hold good. Mr. Morgan and I think it best to have the house vacated at once. You see, we're in danger of losing the rent from the next house, because the Milligans have threatened to move out if you don't.""If—if seven dollars and a half would do you any good," said Mabel, "and if you're mean enough to take all the money we've got in this world—""I'm not," said Mr. Downing. "I'm only reasonable, and I want you to be reasonable too. You must look at this thing from a business standpoint. You see, the rent from those two houses should bring in twenty-five dollars a month, which isn't more than a sufficient return for the money invested. The taxes—""A note for you, Mr. Downing," said a boy, who had quietly opened the office door."Why," said Mr. Downing, when he had read thenote, "this is really quite a remarkable coincidence. This communication is from Mr. Milligan, who has found a desirable tenant for the cottage he is now in, and wishes, himself, to occupy the cottage you are going to vacate. Very clever idea on Mr. Milligan's part. This will save him five dollars a month and is a most convenient arrangement all around. He wishes to move in at once.""Mr. Milligan!" gasped three of the astonished girls."Those Milligans inourhouse!" cried Mabel. "Well,isn'tthat the worst!""You see," said Mr. Downing, "it is really necessary for you to move at once. I think you had better begin without further loss of time. Good morning, good morning, all of you, and please believe me, I'm sorry about this, but it can't be helped.""I hope," said Mabel, summoning all her dignity for a parting shot, "that you'll never live long enough to regret this—this outrage. There are seven rolls of paper on the walls of that cottage that belong to us, and we expect to be paid for every one of them.""How much?" asked Mr. Downing, suppressing a smile, for Mabel was never more amusing than when she was very angry."Five cents a roll—thirty-five cents altogether."Mr. Downing gravely reached into his trouserspocket, fished up a handful of loose change, scrupulously counted out three dimes and a nickel, and handed them to Mabel, who, with averted eyes and chin held unnecessarily high, accepted the price of the Blossom wall paper haughtily, and, following the others, stalked from the office.The unhappy girls could not trust themselves to talk as they hastened homeward. They held hands tightly, walking four abreast along the quiet street, and barely managed to keep the tears back and the rapidly swelling lumps in their little throats successfully swallowed until Jean's trembling fingers had unlocked the cottage door.Then, with one accord, they rushed pell-mell for the blue-room bed, hurled themselves upon its excelsior pillows, and burst into tears. Jean and Bettie cried silently but bitterly; Marjory wept audibly, with long, shuddering sobs; but Mabel simply bawled. Mabel always did her crying on the excellent principle that, if a thing were worth doing at all, it was worth doing well. She was doing it so well on this occasion that Jean, who seldom cried and whose puffed, scarlet eyelids contrasted oddly and rather pathetically with her colorless cheeks, presently sat up to remonstrate."Mabel!" she said, slipping an arm about the chief mourner, "do you want the Milligans to hear you? We're on their side of the house, you know."Jean couldn't have used a better argument. Mabel stopped short in the middle of one of her very best howls, sat up, and shook her head vigorously."Well, I just guess I don't," said she. "I'd die first!""I thought so," said Jean, with just a faint glimmer of a smile. "We mustn't let those people guess how awfully we care. Go bathe your eyes, Mabel—there must be a little warm water in the tea kettle."Then the comforter turned to Bettie, and made the appeal that was most likely to reach that always-ready-to-help young person."Come, Bettie dear, you've cried long enough. We must get to work, for we've a tremendous lot to do. Don't you suppose that, if we had all the things packed in baskets or bundles, we could get a few of your brothers to help us move out after dark? I justcan'tlet those Milligans gloat over us while we go back and forth with things."Bettie's only response was a sob."Where in the world can we put the things?" asked Marjory, sitting up suddenly and displaying a blotched and swollen countenance very unlike her usual fair, rose-tinted face. "Of course we can each take our dolls and books home, but our furniture—""I'm going to ask Mother if we can't store it upstairs in our barn. I'm sure she'll let us.""Oh, IwishMr. Black were here. It doesn't seempossible we've really got to move. Theremustbe some way out of it. Oh, Bettie,couldn'twe write to Mr. Black?""It would take too-oo-oo long," sobbed Bettie, sitting up and mopping her eyes with the muslin window curtain, which she could easily reach from the foot of the bed. "He's way off in Washington. Oh, dear—oh, dear—oh, dear!""Why couldn't we telegraph?" demanded Marjory, with whom hope died hard. "Telegrams go pretty fast, don't they?""They cost terribly," said Bettie. "They're almost as expensive as express packages. Still, we might find out what it costs.""I dow the telegraph-mad," wheezed Mabel from the wash-basin. "I'll go hobe ad telephode hib ad ask what it costs—I've heard by father give hib bessages lots of tibes. Oh, by, by dose is all stuffed up.""Try a handkerchief," suggested Jean. "Go ask, if you want to; it won't do any harm, nor probably any good."Mabel ran home, taking care to keep her back turned toward the Milligan house. During her brief absence, the girls bathed their eyes and made sundry other futile attempts to do away with all outward signs of grief."He says," cried Mabel, bursting in excitedly, "thatsixty cents is the regular price in the daytime, but it's forty cents for a night message. It seems kind of mean to wake folks up in the middle of the night just to save twenty cents, doesn't it?""Yes," said Bettie. "I couldn't be impolite enough to do that to anybody I like as well as I like Mr. Black. If we haven't money enough to send a daytime message, we mustn't send any.""Well, we haven't," said Jean. "We've only thirty-five cents.""And we wouldn't have had that," said Mabel, "if I hadn't remembered that wall paper just in the nick of time."Strangely enough, not one of the girls thought of the money in the bank. Perhaps it did not occur to them that it would be possible to remove any portion of their precious seven dollars and a half without withdrawing it all; they knew little of business matters. Nor did they think of appealing to their parents for aid at this crisis. Indeed, they were all too dazed by the suddenness and tremendousness of the blow to think very clearly about anything. The sum needed seemed a large one to the girls, who habitually bought a cent's worth of candy at a time from the generous proprietor of the little corner shop. Mabel, the only one with an allowance, was, to her father's way of thinking, a hopeless little spendthrift, already deeplyplunged in debt by her unpaid fines for lateness to meals.The Tucker income did not go round even for the grown-ups, so of course there were few pennies for the Tucker children. Marjory's Aunty Jane had ideas of her own on the subject of spending-money for little girls—Marjory did not suspect that the good but rather austere woman made a weekly pilgrimage to the bank for the purpose of religiously depositing a small sum in her niece's name; and, if she had known it, Marjory would probably have been improvident enough to prefer spot cash in smaller amounts. Only that morning tender-hearted Jean had heard patient Mrs. Mapes lamenting because butter had gone up two cents a pound and because all the bills had seemed larger than those of the preceding month—Jean always took the family bills very much to heart.The girls sorrowfully concluded that there was nothing left for them to do but to obey Mr. Downing. They had looked forward with dread to giving up the cottage when winter should come, but the idea of losing it in midsummer was a thousand times worse."We'll just have to give it up," said grieved little Bettie. "There's nothing else wecando, with Mr. Black away. When I go home tonight I'll write to him and apologize for not being able to keep our promiseabout the dinner party. That's the hardest thing of all to give up.""But you don't know his address," objected Jean."Yes, I do, because Father wrote to him about some church business this morning, before going away, and gave Dick the letter to mail. Of course Dick forgot all about it and left it on the hall mantelpiece. It's probably there yet, for I'm the only person that ever remembers to mail Father's letters—he forgets them himself most of the time.""Now let's get to work," said Jean. "Since we have to move let's pretend we really want to. I've always thought it must be quite exciting to really truly move. You see, wemustget it over before the Milligans guess that we've begun, and there isn't any too much time left. I'll begin to take down the things in the parlor and tie them up in the bedclothes. We'll leave all the curtains until the last so that no one will know what we're doing.""I'll help you," said Bettie."Mabel and I might be packing the dishes," said Marjory. "It will be easier to do it while we have the table left to work on. Come along, Mabel."Mabel followed obediently. When the forlorn pair reached the kitchen, Marjory announced her intention of exploring the little shed for empty baskets, leaving Mabel to stack the cups and plates in compact piles.Mabel, without knowing just why she did it, picked up her old friend, the cracked lemonade-pitcher and gave it a little shake. Something rattled. Mabel, always an inquisitive young person, thrust her fingers into the dusty depths to bring up a piece of money—two pieces—three pieces—four pieces."Oh," she gasped, "it's my lemonade money! Oh, what a lucky omen! Girls!"The next instant Mabel clapped a plump, dusty hand over her own lips to keep them from announcing the discovery, and then, stealthily concealing the twenty cents in the pocket that still contained the wall-paper money, she stole quickly through the cottage and ran to her own home.>CHAPTER 16Mabel Plans a SurpriseThe girls were indignant later when they discovered Mabel's apparent desertion. It was precisely like Mabel, they said, to shirk when there was anything unpleasant to be done. For once, however, they were wronging Mabel—poor, self-sacrificing Mabel, who with fifty-five cents at her disposal was planning a beautiful surprise for her unappreciative cottage-mates. The girls might have known that nothing short of anambitious project for saving the cottage from the Milligans would have kept the child away when so much was going on. For Mabel was at that very moment doing what was for her the hardest kind of work; all alone in her own room at home she was laboriously composing a telegram.She had never sent a telegram, nor had she even read one. She could not consult her mother because Mrs. Bennett had inconsiderately gone down town to do her marketing. Dr. Bennett, however, was a very busy man and sometimes received a number of important messages in one day. Mabel felt that the occasion justified her studying several late specimens which she resurrected from the waste-paper basket under her father's desk. These, however, proved rather unsatisfactory models since none of them seemed to exactly fit the existing emergency. Most of them, indeed, were in cipher."I suppose," said Mabel, nibbling her penholder thoughtfully, "they make 'em short so they'll fit these little sheets of yellow paper, but there's lots more space theymightuse if they didn't leave such wide margins. I'll write small so I can say all I want to, but, dear me, I can't think of a thing to say."It took a long time, but the message was finished at last. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, Mabel folded it neatly and put it into an envelope which she carefullysealed. Then, putting on her hat, and taking the telegram with her, she ran to Bettie's home and opened the door—none of the four girls were required to ring each other's doorbells. There, sure enough, was the letter waiting to be mailed to Mr. Black. Mabel, who had thought to bring a pencil, copied the address in her big, vertical handwriting, and without further ado ran with it to her friend, the telegraph operator, whose office was just around the corner. All the distances in the little town were short, and Mabel had frequently been sent to the place with messages written by her father, so she did not feel the need of asking permission.The clerk opened the envelope—Mabel considered this decidedly rude of him—and proceeded to read the message. It took him a long time. Then he looked from Mabel's flushed cheeks and eager eyes to the little collection of nickels and dimes she had placed on the counter. Mabel wondered why the young man chewed the ends of his sandy mustache so vigorously. Perhaps he was amused at something; she looked about the little office to see what it could be that pleased him so greatly, but there seemed to be nothing to excite mirth. She decided that he was either a very cheerful young man naturally, or else he was feeling joyful because the clock said that it was nearly time for luncheon."It'll be all right, Miss Mabel," said he at last. "It'sa pretty good fifty-five cents' worth; but I guess Mr. Black won't object to that. I hope you'll always come to me when you have messages to send.""I won't if you go and read them all," said Mabel, at which her friend looked even more cheerful than he had before.Ten minutes later Mabel, mumbling something about having had an errand to attend to, presented herself at the cottage. Beyond a few meekly received reproaches from Marjory, no one said anything about the unexplained absence. Indeed, they were all too busy and too preoccupied to care, the greater grief of losing the cottage having swallowed up all lesser concerns.At a less trying time the girls would have discovered within ten minutes that Mabel was suffering from a suppressed secret; but everything was changed now. Although Mabel fairly bristled with importance and gave out sundry very broad hints, no one paid the slightest attention. Gradually, in the stress of packing, the matter of the telegram faded from Mabel's short memory, for preparing to move proved a most exciting operation, and also a harrowing one. Every few moments somebody would say: "Our last day," and then the other three would fall to weeping on anything that happened to come handy. Of course the packing had stirred up considerable dust; this, mingled withtears, added much to the forlornness of the cottagers' appearance when they went home at noon with their news.The parents and Aunty Jane said it was a shame, but all agreed that there was nothing to be done. All were sorry to have the girls deprived of the cottage, for the mothers had certainly found it a relief to have their little daughters' leisure hours so safely and happily occupied. Mabel's mother was especially sorry.Never was moving more melancholy nor house more forlorn when the moving, done after dark with great caution, and mostly through the dining-room window on the side of the house farthest from the Milligans, was finally accomplished. The Tucker boys had been only too delighted to help. By bedtime the cottage was empty of everything but the curtains on the Milligan side of the house. An hour later the tired girls were asleep; but under each pillow there was a handkerchief rolled in a tight, grimy little ball and soaked with tears.In the morning, the girls returned for a last look, and for the remaining curtains. Dandelion Cottage, stripped of its furniture and without its pictures, showed its age and all its infirmities. Great patches of plaster and wall paper were missing, for the gay posters had covered a multitude of defects. The indignant Tucker boys had disobeyed Bettie and had removednot only the tin they had put on the leaking roof, but the steps they had built at the back door, the drain they had found it necessary to place under the kitchen sink, and the bricks with which they had propped the tottering chimneys.Before the day was over, the tenants whom the Milligans had found for their own house were clamoring to move in, so the Milligans took possession of the cottage late that afternoon, getting the key from Mr. Downing, into whose keeping the girls had silently delivered it that morning. To do Mr. Downing justice, nothing had ever hurt him quite as much as did the dignified silence of the three pale girls who waited for a moment in the doorway, while equally pallid Jean went quietly forward to lay the key on his desk. He realized suddenly that not one of them could have spoken a word without bursting into tears; and for the rest of that day he hated himself most heartily.>CHAPTER 17Several Surprises Take EffectMr. Black opened the door of his hotel apartment in Washington one sultry noon in response to a vigorous, prolonged rapping from without. The bellboy handed him a telegram. When Mr. Black had read the long message he smiled and frowned, but cheerfully paid the three dollars and forty-one cents additional charges that the messenger demanded.It was Mabel's message; the clerk had transmitted itfaithfully, even to the two misspelled words that had proved too much for the excited little writer. If the receiving clerk had not considerately tucked in a few periods for the sake of clearness, there would have been no punctuation marks, because, as everybody knows, very few telegramsarepunctuated; but Mabel, of course, had not taken that into consideration. It was quite the longest message and certainly the most amusing one that Mr. Black had ever received. It read:"Dear Mr. Black,"We are well but terribly unhappy for the worst has happened. Cant you come to the reskew as they say in books for we are really in great trouble because the Milligans a very unpolite and untruthful family next door want dandelion cottage for themselves the pigs and Mr. Downing says we must move out at once and return the key our own darling key that you gave us. We are moving out now and crying so hard we can hardly write. I mean myself. Is Mr. Downing the boss of the whole church. Cant you tell him we truly paid the rent for all summer by digging dandelions. He does not believe us. We are too sad to write any more with love from your little friends"Jean Marjory Bettie and I."P. S. How about your dinner party if we lose the cottage?"Mr. Black read and reread the typewritten yellow sheet a great many times; sometimes he frowned, sometimes he chuckled; the postscript seemed to please him particularly, for whenever he reached that point his deep-set eyes twinkled merrily. Presently he propped the dispatch against the wall at the back of his table and sat down in front of it to write a reply. He wrote several messages, some long, some short; then he tore them all up—they seemed inadequate compared with Mabel's."That man Downing," said he, dropping the scraps into the waste-basket, "means well, but he muddles every pie he puts his finger in. Probably if I wire him he'll botch things worse than ever. Dear me, itistoo bad for those nice children to lose any part of their precious stay in that cottage, now, for of course they'll have to give it up when cold weather comes. If I can wind my business up today there isn't any good reason why I can't go straight through without stopping in Chicago. It's time I was home, anyway; it's pretty warm here for a man that likes a cold climate."Meanwhile, things were happening in Mr. Black's own town.It was a dark, threatening day when the Milligans, delighted at the success of their efforts to dislodge its rightful tenants, hurriedly moved into Dandelion Cottage; but, dark though it was, Mrs. Milligan soonbegan to find her new possession full of unsuspected blemishes. Now that the pictures were down and the rugs were up, she discovered the badly broken plaster, the tattered condition of the wall paper, the leaking drain, and the clumsily mended rat-holes. She found, too, that she had made a grievous mistake in her calculations. She had supposed that the tiny pantry was a third bedroom; with its neat muslin curtains, it certainly looked like one when viewed from the outside; and crafty Laura, intensely desirous of seeing the enemy ousted from the cottage at any price, had not considered it necessary to enlighten her mother."My goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Milligan, a thin woman with a shrewish countenance now much streaked with dust. "I thought you said there was a fine cellar under this house? It's barely three feet deep, and there's no stairs and no floor. It's full of old rubbish.""I never was down there," admitted Laura, dropping a dishpanful of cooking utensils with a crash and hastily making for safe quarters behind a mountain of Milligan furniture, "but I've often seen the trap door.""It hasn't been opened for years. And where's the nice big closet you said opened off the bedroom? There isn't a decent closet in this house. I don't see what possessed you—""It serves you right," said Mr. Milligan, unsympathetically. "You wouldn't wait for anything, but had to rush right in. I told you you'd better take your time about it, but no—""You know very well, James Milligan," snapped the irate lady, "that the Knapps wouldn't have taken our house if they couldn't have had it at once.""Well, Idon'tknow," growled Mr. Milligan, scowling crossly at the constantly growing heaps of incongruously mixed household goods, "where in Sam Hill you're going to put all that stuff. There isn't room for a cat to turn around, and the place ain't fit to live in, anyway."Bad as things looked, even Mr. Milligan did not guess that first busy day how hopelessly out of repair the cottage really was; but he was soon to find out.The summer had been an unusually dry one; so dry that the girls had been obliged to carry many pails of water to their garden every evening. The moving-day had been cloudy—out of sympathy, perhaps, for the little cottagers. That night it rained, the first long, steady downpour in weeks. This proved no gentle shower, but a fierce, robust, pelting flood. Seemingly a discriminating rain, too, choosing carefully between the just and the unjust, for most of it fell upon the Milligans. With the sole exception of the dining-room, every room in the house leaked like a sieve.The tired, disgusted Milligans, drenched in their beds, leaped hastily from their shower baths to look about, by candlelight, for shelter. Mr. Milligan spread a mattress, driest side up, on the dining-room floor, and the unfortunate family spent the rest of the night huddled in an uncomfortable heap in the one dry spot the house afforded.Very early the next morning they sent post-haste for Mr. Downing.Mr. Downing, who hated to be disturbed before eight, arrived at ten o'clock; and, with an expert carpenter, made a thorough examination of the house, which the rain had certainly not improved."It will take three hundred—possibly four hundred dollars," said the carpenter, who had been making a great many figures in a worn little note-book, "to make this place habitable. It needs a new roof, new chimneys, new floors, a new foundation, new plumbing, new plaster—in short, just abouteverythingexcept the four outside walls. Then there are no lights and no heating plant, which of course would be extra. It's probably one of the oldest houses in town. What's it renting for?""Ten dollars a month.""It isn't worth it. Half that money would be a high price. Even if it were placed in good repair it would be six years at least before you could expect to get themoney expended on repairs back in rent. The only thing to do is to tear it down and build a larger and more modern house that will bring a better rent, for there's no money in a ten-dollar house on a lot of this size—the taxes eat all the profits.""Well," said Mr. Downing, "this house certainly looked far more comfortable when I saw it the other day than it does now. Those children must have had the defects very well concealed. They deceived me completely.""They deceived us all," said Mrs. Milligan, resentfully. "Half of our furniture is ruined. Look at that sofa!"Mr. Downing looked. The drenched old-gold plush sofa certainly looked very much like a half-drowned Jersey calf."Of course," continued Mrs. Milligan, sharply, "we expect to have our losses made good. Then we've had all our trouble for nothing, too. Of course we can't stay here—the place isn't fit for pigs. I suppose the best thingwecan do is to move right back into our own house.""Ye-es," said Mr. Milligan, overlooking the fact that Mrs. Milligan had inadvertently called her family pigs, "it certainly looks like the best thing to do. I'll go and tell the Knapps that they'll have to move outat once—we can't spend another night under this roof."The Knapps, however, proved disobliging and flatly declined to move a second time. The Milligans had begged them to take the house off their hands, and they had signed a contract. Moreover, it was just the kind of house the Knapps had long been looking for, and now that they were moved, more than half settled, and altogether satisfied with their part of the bargain, they politely but firmly announced their intention of staying where they were until the lease should expire.There was nothing the former tenants could do about it. They were homeless and quite as helpless as the four little girls had been in similar circumstances; and they made a far greater fuss about it. By this they gained, however, nothing but the disapproval of everybody concerned; so, finally, the Milligans, disgusted with Dandelion Cottage, with Mr. Downing, and for once even a little bit with themselves, dejectedly hunted up a new home in a far less pleasant neighborhood, and moved hurriedly out of Dandelion Cottage—and, except for the memories they left behind them, out of the story.>CHAPTER 18A Hurried RetreatThe girls, of course, had been barred out while all these exciting latest events were taking place in their dear cottage; but Marjory, who lived next door to it, had seen something of the Milligans' hasty exit and had guessed at part of the truth. Mrs. Knapp, who seemed a pleasant, likable little woman, in spite of her unwillingness to accommodate her new landlord, unknowinglyconfirmed their suspicions when she told her friend Mrs. Crane about it; for Mrs. Crane, in her turn, told the news to the four little housekeepers the next morning as they sat homeless and forlorn on her doorstep. It was always Mrs. Crane to whom the Dandelion Cottagers turned whenever they were in need of consolation and, as in this case, consolation was usually forthcoming.The girls, in their excitement at hearing the news about their late possession, did not notice that sympathetic Mrs. Crane looked tired and worried as she sat, in the big red rocking chair on her porch, peeling potatoes."Oh!" squealed Mabel, from the broad arm of Mrs. Crane's chair, "I'm glad! I'm glad! I'm glad!""I can't help being a little bit glad, too," said fair-minded Jean. "I suppose it wasn't very pleasant for the Milligans, but I guess they deserved all they got.""They deserved a great deal more," said Marjory, resentfully. "Think of these last awful days!""If they'd hadmuchmore," said Mrs. Crane, "they'd have been drowned. Why, children! the place was just flooded.""I'm ashamed to tell of it," said Bettie, "but I'm awfully afraid that our boys took off part of the pieces of tin that they nailed on the roof last spring. I heardthem doingsomethingup there the night we moved; but Bob only grinned when I asked him about it.""Good for the boys!" cried Marjory, gleefully. "I wouldn't be unladylike enough to set traps for the Milligans myself, but I can't help feeling glad that somebody else did.""It was Bob's own tin," giggled delighted Mabel, almost tumbling into Mrs. Crane's potato pan in her joy. "I guess he had a right to take it home if he wanted to.""Anyway," said Jean, from her perch on the porch railing, "I'm glad they're gone.""But it doesn't dousany good," sighed Bettie. "And the summer's just flying.""Yes, it does," insisted Jean. "Wecanstand having the cottage empty—we can pretend, you know, that it's an enchanted castle that can be opened only by a certain magic key that—""Somebody's baby has swallowed," shrieked Mabel, the matter-of-fact."Mercy no, goosie," said Marjory. "She means a magic word that nobody can remember.""That's it," said Jean. "Of course we couldn't do even that with the cottage full of Milligans.""No," assented Marjory, "the most active imagination would refuse to activate—""Towhat?" gasped Mabel."To work," explained Marjory."I should say so," agreed Mabel, again threatening the potatoes. "It was just as much as I could do to come over here this morning to breathe the same air with that cottage with those folks in it staring me in the face, but now—""After all," sighed Bettie, sorrowfully, from the other arm of Mrs. Crane's big chair, "having the Milligans out of the cottage doesn't makemuchdifference, as long as we're out, too. Oh, Ididlove that little house so. I just hated to think of cold weather coming to drive us out; but I never dreamed of anything so dreadful as having to leave it right in this lovely warm weather.""If Mr. Black had stayed in town," said Mabel, feelingly, "we'd be dusting that darling cottage this very minute."Mrs. Crane sniffed in the odd way she always did whenever Mr. Black's name was mentioned. This scornful sniff, accompanying Mrs. Crane's evident disapproval of their dearest friend, was the only thing that the girls disliked about Mrs. Crane."Iknowyou'd like Mr. Black if you only knew him," said Bettie, earnestly. "In some ways you're a good deal like him. You're both the same color, your eyebrows turn up the same way at the outside corners, and you both like us. Mr. Black has a beautiful soul.""Indeed," said Mrs. Crane. "And haven't I a beautiful soul too?""Why, of course," said Bettie, leaning down to rub her cheek against Mrs. Crane's. "I meantbothof you. We like you both just the same.""Only it's different," explained Jean. "Mr. Black doesn't need us, and sometimes you do. Weliketo do things for you.""I'm glad of that," said Mrs. Crane, "for I need you this very minute. But don't you be too sure about his not needing you as well. He must lead a pretty lonely life, because it's years since his wife died. I never heard of anybody else liking her, but I guesshedid. He's one of the faithful kind, maybe, for he's lived all alone in that great big house ever since. I guess it does him good to have you little girls for friends.""What was his wife like?" asked Mabel, eagerly. "Did you use to know her?""No, indeed," said Mrs. Crane, again giving the objectionable sniff. "That is, not so very well—a little light-headed, useless thing, no more fit to keep house—but there! there. It doesn't make any differencenow, and I've learned that it isn't the best housekeepers that get married easiest. If it was, I wouldn't be so worriednow.""Is anything the matter?" asked Jean, quick to note the distress in Mrs. Crane's voice."Yes," returned the good woman, "there are two things the matter.""Your poor foot?" queried Bettie, instantly all sympathy."No, the foot's all right. It's Mr. Barlow and my eyes. Mr. Barlow is going to be married to a young lady he's been writing to for a long time, and I'm going to lose him because he wants to keep house. It won't be easy to find another lodger for that little, shabby, old-fashioned room. I'm trying to make a new rag carpet for it, but I'm all at a standstill because I can't see to thread my needle. I declare, I don't know what is going to become of me.""When I grow up," said Bettie, "you shall live with me.""But what am I to do while I'm waiting for you to grow up?" asked Mrs. Crane, smiling at Bettie's protecting manner."Let us be your eyes," suggested Jean. "Couldn't we thread about a million needles for you? Don't you think a million would last all day?""I should think it might," said Mrs. Crane, somewhat comforted. "I haven't quite a million, but if Marjory will get my cushion and a spool of cotton I'll be very glad to have you thread all I have."The girls worked in silence for fully five minutes.Then Mabel jabbed the solitary needle she had threaded into the sawdust cushion and said:"Don't you suppose Mr. Downing might let us have the cottagenow, if we went to him? Nobody else seems to care about it. What do you think, Mrs. Crane?""Why, my dear, I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to ask. You'd better see what your own people think about it.""Let's go ask them now," cried impetuous Mabel, springing to her feet. Forgetting all about the needles and without waiting to say good-by to Mrs. Crane, the eager girl made a diagonal rush for the corner nearest her own home.The others remained long enough to thread all the needles. Then they, too, went home with the news about the cottage and about Mrs. Crane. They were realizing, for the first time, that their good friend might become helpless long before they were ready to use her as a grandmother for their children, but they couldn't see just what was to be done about it. The idea of going to Mr. Downing, however, soon drove every other thought away, for the parents and Aunty Jane, too, advised them to ask. They even encouraged them.But when Jean and Bettie, hopefully dressed in their Sunday-best, and Marjory and Mabel, with their abundantlocks elaborately curled besides, presented themselves and their request at Mr. Downing's house that evening, they were not at all encouraged by their reception.Mr. Downing, a man of moods, had just come off second-best in an encounter with Mrs. Milligan, whom he had accidentally met on his way home to dinner, and, at the moment the girls appeared, the cottage was just about the last subject that the badgered man cared to discuss. Before Jean had fairly stated her errand, the enraged Mr. Downing roared "No!" so emphatically that his four alarmed visitors backed hurriedly off the Downing porch and fled as one girl. Mabel, to be sure, measured her length in the canna bed near the gate, but she scrambled up, snorting with fright and indignation, and none of them paused again in their flight until Jean's door, which seemed safest, had closed behind them.
>
An Unexpected Letter
The next morning, Jean, with three large bananas as a peace offering, was the first to arrive at Dandelion Cottage. Jean, a wise young person for her years, had decided that a little hard work would clear the atmosphere, so, finding no one else in the house, she made a fire in the stove, put on the kettle, put up the leaf of the kitchen table, and began to take all the dishes from the pantry shelves. Dishwashing in the cottage was always far more enjoyable than this despised occupation usually is elsewhere, owing to the astonishingassortment of crockery the girls had accumulated. No two of the dishes—with the exception of a pair of plates bearing life-sized portraits of "The frog that would a-wooing go, whether his mother would let him or no"—bore the same pattern. There was a bewildering diversity, too, in the sizes and shapes of the cups and saucers, and an alarming variety in the matter of color. But, as the girls had declared gleefully a dozen times or more, it would be possible to set the table for seven courses when the time should come for Mr. Black's and Mrs. Crane's dinner party, because so many of the things almost matched if they didn't quite. Jean was thinking of this as she lifted the dishes from the shelf to the table, and lovingly arranged them in pairs, the pink sugar bowl beside the blue cream-pitcher, the yellow coffee cup beside the dull red Japanese tea cup, and the "Love-the-Giver" mug beside the "For my Little Friend" oatmeal bowl. She had just taken down the big, dusty, cracked pitcher that matched nothing else—which perhaps was the reason that it had remained high on the shelf since the day Mabel had used it for her lemonade—when the doorbell rang.
Hastily wiping her dusty hands, Jean ran to the door. No one was there, but the postman was climbing the steps of the next house, so Jean slipped her fingers expectantly into the little, rusty iron letter-box.Perhaps there was something from Miss Blossom, who sometimes showed that she had not forgotten her little landladies.
Sure enough, there was a large white letter, not from Miss Blossom to be sure, but from somebody. To the young cottagers, letters were always joyous happenings; they had no debts, consequently they were unacquainted with bills. With this auspicious beginning, for of course the coming of a totally unexpected letter was an auspicious beginning, it was surely going to be a cheerful, perhaps even a delightful, day. Jean hummed happily as she laid the unopened letter on the dining-room table, for of course a letter somewhat oddly addressed to "The Four Young Ladies at 224 Fremont Street, City," could be opened only when all four were present. When Marjory and Bettie came in, they fell upon the letter and examined every portion of the envelope, but neither girl could imagine who had sent it. It was impossible to wait for Mabel, who was always late, so Bettie obligingly ran to get her. Even so there was still a considerable wait while Mabel laced her shoes; but presently Bettie returned, with Mabel, still nibbling very-much-buttered toast, at her heels.
"You open it, Jean," panted Bettie. "You can read writing better than we can."
"Hurry," urged Mabel, who could keep other personswaiting much more easily than she herself could wait.
"Here's a fork to open it with," said Marjory. "I can't find the scissors. Hurry up; maybe it's a party and we'll have to R. S. V. P. right away."
"Oh, goody! If it is," squealed Mabel, "I can wear my new tan Oxfords."
"It's from Yours respectably—no, Yours regretfully, John W. Downing," announced Jean. "The man that was here yesterday, you know."
"Read it, read it," pleaded the others, crowding so close that Jean had to lift the letter above their heads in order to see it at all. "Do hurry up, we're crazy to hear it."
"My Dear Young Ladies," read Jean in a voice that started bravely but grew fainter with every line. "It is with sincere regret that I write to inform you that it no longer suits the convenience of the vestrymen to have you occupy the church cottage on Fremont Street. It is to be rented as soon as a few necessary repairs can be made, and in the meantime you will oblige us greatly by moving out at once. Please deliver the key at your earliest convenience to me at either my house or this office."Yours regretfully,"John W. Downing."
"My Dear Young Ladies," read Jean in a voice that started bravely but grew fainter with every line. "It is with sincere regret that I write to inform you that it no longer suits the convenience of the vestrymen to have you occupy the church cottage on Fremont Street. It is to be rented as soon as a few necessary repairs can be made, and in the meantime you will oblige us greatly by moving out at once. Please deliver the key at your earliest convenience to me at either my house or this office.
"Yours regretfully,
"John W. Downing."
For as much as two minutes no one said a word. Jean had laid the open letter on the table. Marjory and Bettie with their arms tightly locked, as if both felt the need of support, reread the closely written page in silence. When they reached the end, they pushed it toward Mabel.
"What does it mean in plain English?" asked Mabel, hoping that both her eyes and her ears had deceived her.
"That somebody else is to have the cottage," said Jean, "and that in the meantime we're to move."
"In the meantime!" blurted Mabel, with swift wrath. "I should say itwasthe meantime—the very meanest time anybody ever heard of. I'd just like to know what right 'Yours-respectably-John-W.-Downing' has to turn us out of our own house. I guess we paid our rent—I guess there's blisters on me yet—I guess I dug dandelions—I guess I—"
But here Mabel's indignation turned to grief, and with one of her very best howls and a torrent of tears she buried her face in Jean's apron.
"Bettie," asked Jean with her arms about Mabel, "do you think it would do any good to ask your father about it? He's the minister, you know, and he might explain to Mr. Downing that we were promised the cottage for all summer."
"Papa went away this morning and won't be homefor ten days. He has exchanged with somebody for the next two Sundays."
"My pa-pa-papa's away, too," sobbed Mabel, "or he'd tell that vile Mr. Downing that it was all the Mill-ill-igans' fault.They'rethe folks that ought to be turned out, and I just wuh-wuh-wish they—they had been."
"Why wouldn't it be a good idea," suggested Marjory, "for us all to go down to Mr. Downing's office and tell him all about it? You see, he hasn't lived here very long and perhaps he doesn't understand that we have paid our rent for all summer."
"Yes," assented Jean, "that would probably be the best thing to do. He won't mind having us go to the office because he told us to take the key there. But whereishis office?"
"I know," said Bettie. "Here's the address on the letter, and the dentist I go to is right near there, so I can find it easily."
"Then let's start right away," cried eager Mabel, uncovering a disheveled head and a tear-stained countenance. "Don't let's lose a minute."
"Mercy, no," said Jean, taking Mabel by the shoulders and pushing her before her to the blue-room mirror. "Do you think you can goanyplace looking like that? Do you think youlooklike a desirable tenant? We've all got to be just as clean and neat aswe can be. We've got to impress him with our—our ladylikeness."
"I'll braid Mabel's hair," offered Bettie, "if Marjory will run around the block and get all our hats. I'm wearing Dick's straw one with the blue ribbon just now, Marjory. You'll find it some place in our front hall if Tommy hasn't got it on."
"Bring mine, too," said Jean; "it's in my room."
"I don't knowwheremine is," said Mabel, "but if you can't find it you'd better wear your Sunday one and lend me your everyday one."
"I don't see myself lending you any more hats," said Marjory, who had, like the other girls, brightened at the prospect of going to Mr. Downing's. "I haven't forgotten how you left the last one outdoors all night in the rain, and how it looked afterwards, when Aunty Jane made me wear it to punish me formycarelessness. You'll go in your own hat or none."
"Well," said Mabel, meekly, "I guess you'll probably find it in my room under the bed, if it isn't in the parlor behind the sofa."
"Now, remember," said Jean, who was retying the bow on Bettie's hair, "we're all to be polite, whatever happens, for we mustn't let Mr. Downing think we're anything like the Milligans. If he won't let us have the cottage when he knows about the rent's beingpaid—though I'm almost sure hewilllet us keep it—why, we'll just have to give it up and not let him see that we care."
"I'll be good," promised Bettie.
"You needn't be afraid ofme," said Mabel. "I wouldn't humble myself tospeakto such a despisable man."
>
An Obdurate Landlord
Twenty minutes later when Mr. Downing roared "Come in" in the terrifying voice he usually reserved for agents and other unexpected or unwelcome visitors, he was plainly very much surprised to see four pale girls with shocked, reproachful eyes file in and come to an embarrassed standstill just inside the office door, which closed of its own accord and left them imprisonedwith the enemy. They waited quietly.
"Oh, good morning," said he, in a much milder tone, as he swung about in his revolving chair. "What can I do for you? Have you brought the key so soon?"
"We came," said Jean, propelled suddenly forward by a vigorous push from the rear, "to see you about Dandelion Cottage. We think you've made a mistake."
"Indeed!" said Mr. Downing, who did not at any time like to be considered mistaken. "Suppose you explain."
So sweet-voiced Jean explained all about digging the dandelions to pay the rent, about Mr. Black's giving them the key at the end of the week, and about all the lovely times they had had and were still hoping to have in their precious cottage before giving it up for the winter.
Mr. Downing, personally, did not like Mr. Black. He had a poor opinion of the older man's business ability, and perhaps a somewhat exalted opinion of his own. He considered Mr. Black old-fashioned and far too easy-going. He felt that parish affairs were more likely to flourish in the hands of a younger, shrewder, and more modern person, and he had an idea that he was that person. At any rate, now that Mr. Black was out of town, Mr. Downing was glad of an opportunity to display his own superior shrewdness.He would show the vestry a thing or two, and incidentally increase the parish income, which as everybody knew stood greatly in need of increasing. He had no patience with slipshod methods. He was truly sorry when business matters compelled him to appear hard-hearted; but to him it seemed little short of absurd for a man of Mr. Black's years to waste on four small girls a cottage that might be bringing in a comfortable sum every month in the year.
"Now that's a very pretty little story," said Mr. Downing, when Jean had finished. "But, you see, you've already had the cottage more than long enough to pay you for pulling those few weeds."
"Few!" exclaimed Mabel, in indignant protest and forgetting her promise of silence. "Few!Why, there werebillionsof 'em. If we'd been paid two cents a hundred for them, we'd all berich. Mr. Black promised us we could have that cottage for all summer and our rent hasn't half perspired yet."
"She meansexpired," explained Marjory, "but she's right for once. Mr. Black did say we could stay there all summer, and it isn't quite August yet, you know."
"Hum," said Mr. Downing. "Nobody said anything tomeabout any such arrangement, and I'm keeping the books. I don't know what Mr. Black could have been thinking of if he made any such foolish promise as that. Of course it's not binding. Why, that cottageought to be renting for ten or twelve dollars a month!"
"But the plaster's very bad," pleaded Bettie, eagerly, "and the roof leaks in every room in the house but one, and something's the matter underneath so it's too cold for folks to live in during the winter. It was vacant for a long time beforewehad it."
"It looked very comfortable tome," said Mr. Downing, who had lived in the town for only a few months and neither knew nor suspected the real condition of the house. "I'm afraid your arrangement with Mr. Black doesn't hold good. Mr. Morgan and I think it best to have the house vacated at once. You see, we're in danger of losing the rent from the next house, because the Milligans have threatened to move out if you don't."
"If—if seven dollars and a half would do you any good," said Mabel, "and if you're mean enough to take all the money we've got in this world—"
"I'm not," said Mr. Downing. "I'm only reasonable, and I want you to be reasonable too. You must look at this thing from a business standpoint. You see, the rent from those two houses should bring in twenty-five dollars a month, which isn't more than a sufficient return for the money invested. The taxes—"
"A note for you, Mr. Downing," said a boy, who had quietly opened the office door.
"Why," said Mr. Downing, when he had read thenote, "this is really quite a remarkable coincidence. This communication is from Mr. Milligan, who has found a desirable tenant for the cottage he is now in, and wishes, himself, to occupy the cottage you are going to vacate. Very clever idea on Mr. Milligan's part. This will save him five dollars a month and is a most convenient arrangement all around. He wishes to move in at once."
"Mr. Milligan!" gasped three of the astonished girls.
"Those Milligans inourhouse!" cried Mabel. "Well,isn'tthat the worst!"
"You see," said Mr. Downing, "it is really necessary for you to move at once. I think you had better begin without further loss of time. Good morning, good morning, all of you, and please believe me, I'm sorry about this, but it can't be helped."
"I hope," said Mabel, summoning all her dignity for a parting shot, "that you'll never live long enough to regret this—this outrage. There are seven rolls of paper on the walls of that cottage that belong to us, and we expect to be paid for every one of them."
"How much?" asked Mr. Downing, suppressing a smile, for Mabel was never more amusing than when she was very angry.
"Five cents a roll—thirty-five cents altogether."
Mr. Downing gravely reached into his trouserspocket, fished up a handful of loose change, scrupulously counted out three dimes and a nickel, and handed them to Mabel, who, with averted eyes and chin held unnecessarily high, accepted the price of the Blossom wall paper haughtily, and, following the others, stalked from the office.
The unhappy girls could not trust themselves to talk as they hastened homeward. They held hands tightly, walking four abreast along the quiet street, and barely managed to keep the tears back and the rapidly swelling lumps in their little throats successfully swallowed until Jean's trembling fingers had unlocked the cottage door.
Then, with one accord, they rushed pell-mell for the blue-room bed, hurled themselves upon its excelsior pillows, and burst into tears. Jean and Bettie cried silently but bitterly; Marjory wept audibly, with long, shuddering sobs; but Mabel simply bawled. Mabel always did her crying on the excellent principle that, if a thing were worth doing at all, it was worth doing well. She was doing it so well on this occasion that Jean, who seldom cried and whose puffed, scarlet eyelids contrasted oddly and rather pathetically with her colorless cheeks, presently sat up to remonstrate.
"Mabel!" she said, slipping an arm about the chief mourner, "do you want the Milligans to hear you? We're on their side of the house, you know."
Jean couldn't have used a better argument. Mabel stopped short in the middle of one of her very best howls, sat up, and shook her head vigorously.
"Well, I just guess I don't," said she. "I'd die first!"
"I thought so," said Jean, with just a faint glimmer of a smile. "We mustn't let those people guess how awfully we care. Go bathe your eyes, Mabel—there must be a little warm water in the tea kettle."
Then the comforter turned to Bettie, and made the appeal that was most likely to reach that always-ready-to-help young person.
"Come, Bettie dear, you've cried long enough. We must get to work, for we've a tremendous lot to do. Don't you suppose that, if we had all the things packed in baskets or bundles, we could get a few of your brothers to help us move out after dark? I justcan'tlet those Milligans gloat over us while we go back and forth with things."
Bettie's only response was a sob.
"Where in the world can we put the things?" asked Marjory, sitting up suddenly and displaying a blotched and swollen countenance very unlike her usual fair, rose-tinted face. "Of course we can each take our dolls and books home, but our furniture—"
"I'm going to ask Mother if we can't store it upstairs in our barn. I'm sure she'll let us."
"Oh, IwishMr. Black were here. It doesn't seempossible we've really got to move. Theremustbe some way out of it. Oh, Bettie,couldn'twe write to Mr. Black?"
"It would take too-oo-oo long," sobbed Bettie, sitting up and mopping her eyes with the muslin window curtain, which she could easily reach from the foot of the bed. "He's way off in Washington. Oh, dear—oh, dear—oh, dear!"
"Why couldn't we telegraph?" demanded Marjory, with whom hope died hard. "Telegrams go pretty fast, don't they?"
"They cost terribly," said Bettie. "They're almost as expensive as express packages. Still, we might find out what it costs."
"I dow the telegraph-mad," wheezed Mabel from the wash-basin. "I'll go hobe ad telephode hib ad ask what it costs—I've heard by father give hib bessages lots of tibes. Oh, by, by dose is all stuffed up."
"Try a handkerchief," suggested Jean. "Go ask, if you want to; it won't do any harm, nor probably any good."
Mabel ran home, taking care to keep her back turned toward the Milligan house. During her brief absence, the girls bathed their eyes and made sundry other futile attempts to do away with all outward signs of grief.
"He says," cried Mabel, bursting in excitedly, "thatsixty cents is the regular price in the daytime, but it's forty cents for a night message. It seems kind of mean to wake folks up in the middle of the night just to save twenty cents, doesn't it?"
"Yes," said Bettie. "I couldn't be impolite enough to do that to anybody I like as well as I like Mr. Black. If we haven't money enough to send a daytime message, we mustn't send any."
"Well, we haven't," said Jean. "We've only thirty-five cents."
"And we wouldn't have had that," said Mabel, "if I hadn't remembered that wall paper just in the nick of time."
Strangely enough, not one of the girls thought of the money in the bank. Perhaps it did not occur to them that it would be possible to remove any portion of their precious seven dollars and a half without withdrawing it all; they knew little of business matters. Nor did they think of appealing to their parents for aid at this crisis. Indeed, they were all too dazed by the suddenness and tremendousness of the blow to think very clearly about anything. The sum needed seemed a large one to the girls, who habitually bought a cent's worth of candy at a time from the generous proprietor of the little corner shop. Mabel, the only one with an allowance, was, to her father's way of thinking, a hopeless little spendthrift, already deeplyplunged in debt by her unpaid fines for lateness to meals.
The Tucker income did not go round even for the grown-ups, so of course there were few pennies for the Tucker children. Marjory's Aunty Jane had ideas of her own on the subject of spending-money for little girls—Marjory did not suspect that the good but rather austere woman made a weekly pilgrimage to the bank for the purpose of religiously depositing a small sum in her niece's name; and, if she had known it, Marjory would probably have been improvident enough to prefer spot cash in smaller amounts. Only that morning tender-hearted Jean had heard patient Mrs. Mapes lamenting because butter had gone up two cents a pound and because all the bills had seemed larger than those of the preceding month—Jean always took the family bills very much to heart.
The girls sorrowfully concluded that there was nothing left for them to do but to obey Mr. Downing. They had looked forward with dread to giving up the cottage when winter should come, but the idea of losing it in midsummer was a thousand times worse.
"We'll just have to give it up," said grieved little Bettie. "There's nothing else wecando, with Mr. Black away. When I go home tonight I'll write to him and apologize for not being able to keep our promiseabout the dinner party. That's the hardest thing of all to give up."
"But you don't know his address," objected Jean.
"Yes, I do, because Father wrote to him about some church business this morning, before going away, and gave Dick the letter to mail. Of course Dick forgot all about it and left it on the hall mantelpiece. It's probably there yet, for I'm the only person that ever remembers to mail Father's letters—he forgets them himself most of the time."
"Now let's get to work," said Jean. "Since we have to move let's pretend we really want to. I've always thought it must be quite exciting to really truly move. You see, wemustget it over before the Milligans guess that we've begun, and there isn't any too much time left. I'll begin to take down the things in the parlor and tie them up in the bedclothes. We'll leave all the curtains until the last so that no one will know what we're doing."
"I'll help you," said Bettie.
"Mabel and I might be packing the dishes," said Marjory. "It will be easier to do it while we have the table left to work on. Come along, Mabel."
Mabel followed obediently. When the forlorn pair reached the kitchen, Marjory announced her intention of exploring the little shed for empty baskets, leaving Mabel to stack the cups and plates in compact piles.Mabel, without knowing just why she did it, picked up her old friend, the cracked lemonade-pitcher and gave it a little shake. Something rattled. Mabel, always an inquisitive young person, thrust her fingers into the dusty depths to bring up a piece of money—two pieces—three pieces—four pieces.
"Oh," she gasped, "it's my lemonade money! Oh, what a lucky omen! Girls!"
The next instant Mabel clapped a plump, dusty hand over her own lips to keep them from announcing the discovery, and then, stealthily concealing the twenty cents in the pocket that still contained the wall-paper money, she stole quickly through the cottage and ran to her own home.
>
Mabel Plans a Surprise
The girls were indignant later when they discovered Mabel's apparent desertion. It was precisely like Mabel, they said, to shirk when there was anything unpleasant to be done. For once, however, they were wronging Mabel—poor, self-sacrificing Mabel, who with fifty-five cents at her disposal was planning a beautiful surprise for her unappreciative cottage-mates. The girls might have known that nothing short of anambitious project for saving the cottage from the Milligans would have kept the child away when so much was going on. For Mabel was at that very moment doing what was for her the hardest kind of work; all alone in her own room at home she was laboriously composing a telegram.
She had never sent a telegram, nor had she even read one. She could not consult her mother because Mrs. Bennett had inconsiderately gone down town to do her marketing. Dr. Bennett, however, was a very busy man and sometimes received a number of important messages in one day. Mabel felt that the occasion justified her studying several late specimens which she resurrected from the waste-paper basket under her father's desk. These, however, proved rather unsatisfactory models since none of them seemed to exactly fit the existing emergency. Most of them, indeed, were in cipher.
"I suppose," said Mabel, nibbling her penholder thoughtfully, "they make 'em short so they'll fit these little sheets of yellow paper, but there's lots more space theymightuse if they didn't leave such wide margins. I'll write small so I can say all I want to, but, dear me, I can't think of a thing to say."
It took a long time, but the message was finished at last. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, Mabel folded it neatly and put it into an envelope which she carefullysealed. Then, putting on her hat, and taking the telegram with her, she ran to Bettie's home and opened the door—none of the four girls were required to ring each other's doorbells. There, sure enough, was the letter waiting to be mailed to Mr. Black. Mabel, who had thought to bring a pencil, copied the address in her big, vertical handwriting, and without further ado ran with it to her friend, the telegraph operator, whose office was just around the corner. All the distances in the little town were short, and Mabel had frequently been sent to the place with messages written by her father, so she did not feel the need of asking permission.
The clerk opened the envelope—Mabel considered this decidedly rude of him—and proceeded to read the message. It took him a long time. Then he looked from Mabel's flushed cheeks and eager eyes to the little collection of nickels and dimes she had placed on the counter. Mabel wondered why the young man chewed the ends of his sandy mustache so vigorously. Perhaps he was amused at something; she looked about the little office to see what it could be that pleased him so greatly, but there seemed to be nothing to excite mirth. She decided that he was either a very cheerful young man naturally, or else he was feeling joyful because the clock said that it was nearly time for luncheon.
"It'll be all right, Miss Mabel," said he at last. "It'sa pretty good fifty-five cents' worth; but I guess Mr. Black won't object to that. I hope you'll always come to me when you have messages to send."
"I won't if you go and read them all," said Mabel, at which her friend looked even more cheerful than he had before.
Ten minutes later Mabel, mumbling something about having had an errand to attend to, presented herself at the cottage. Beyond a few meekly received reproaches from Marjory, no one said anything about the unexplained absence. Indeed, they were all too busy and too preoccupied to care, the greater grief of losing the cottage having swallowed up all lesser concerns.
At a less trying time the girls would have discovered within ten minutes that Mabel was suffering from a suppressed secret; but everything was changed now. Although Mabel fairly bristled with importance and gave out sundry very broad hints, no one paid the slightest attention. Gradually, in the stress of packing, the matter of the telegram faded from Mabel's short memory, for preparing to move proved a most exciting operation, and also a harrowing one. Every few moments somebody would say: "Our last day," and then the other three would fall to weeping on anything that happened to come handy. Of course the packing had stirred up considerable dust; this, mingled withtears, added much to the forlornness of the cottagers' appearance when they went home at noon with their news.
The parents and Aunty Jane said it was a shame, but all agreed that there was nothing to be done. All were sorry to have the girls deprived of the cottage, for the mothers had certainly found it a relief to have their little daughters' leisure hours so safely and happily occupied. Mabel's mother was especially sorry.
Never was moving more melancholy nor house more forlorn when the moving, done after dark with great caution, and mostly through the dining-room window on the side of the house farthest from the Milligans, was finally accomplished. The Tucker boys had been only too delighted to help. By bedtime the cottage was empty of everything but the curtains on the Milligan side of the house. An hour later the tired girls were asleep; but under each pillow there was a handkerchief rolled in a tight, grimy little ball and soaked with tears.
In the morning, the girls returned for a last look, and for the remaining curtains. Dandelion Cottage, stripped of its furniture and without its pictures, showed its age and all its infirmities. Great patches of plaster and wall paper were missing, for the gay posters had covered a multitude of defects. The indignant Tucker boys had disobeyed Bettie and had removednot only the tin they had put on the leaking roof, but the steps they had built at the back door, the drain they had found it necessary to place under the kitchen sink, and the bricks with which they had propped the tottering chimneys.
Before the day was over, the tenants whom the Milligans had found for their own house were clamoring to move in, so the Milligans took possession of the cottage late that afternoon, getting the key from Mr. Downing, into whose keeping the girls had silently delivered it that morning. To do Mr. Downing justice, nothing had ever hurt him quite as much as did the dignified silence of the three pale girls who waited for a moment in the doorway, while equally pallid Jean went quietly forward to lay the key on his desk. He realized suddenly that not one of them could have spoken a word without bursting into tears; and for the rest of that day he hated himself most heartily.
>
Several Surprises Take Effect
Mr. Black opened the door of his hotel apartment in Washington one sultry noon in response to a vigorous, prolonged rapping from without. The bellboy handed him a telegram. When Mr. Black had read the long message he smiled and frowned, but cheerfully paid the three dollars and forty-one cents additional charges that the messenger demanded.
It was Mabel's message; the clerk had transmitted itfaithfully, even to the two misspelled words that had proved too much for the excited little writer. If the receiving clerk had not considerately tucked in a few periods for the sake of clearness, there would have been no punctuation marks, because, as everybody knows, very few telegramsarepunctuated; but Mabel, of course, had not taken that into consideration. It was quite the longest message and certainly the most amusing one that Mr. Black had ever received. It read:
"Dear Mr. Black,"We are well but terribly unhappy for the worst has happened. Cant you come to the reskew as they say in books for we are really in great trouble because the Milligans a very unpolite and untruthful family next door want dandelion cottage for themselves the pigs and Mr. Downing says we must move out at once and return the key our own darling key that you gave us. We are moving out now and crying so hard we can hardly write. I mean myself. Is Mr. Downing the boss of the whole church. Cant you tell him we truly paid the rent for all summer by digging dandelions. He does not believe us. We are too sad to write any more with love from your little friends"Jean Marjory Bettie and I."P. S. How about your dinner party if we lose the cottage?"
"Dear Mr. Black,
"We are well but terribly unhappy for the worst has happened. Cant you come to the reskew as they say in books for we are really in great trouble because the Milligans a very unpolite and untruthful family next door want dandelion cottage for themselves the pigs and Mr. Downing says we must move out at once and return the key our own darling key that you gave us. We are moving out now and crying so hard we can hardly write. I mean myself. Is Mr. Downing the boss of the whole church. Cant you tell him we truly paid the rent for all summer by digging dandelions. He does not believe us. We are too sad to write any more with love from your little friends
"Jean Marjory Bettie and I.
"P. S. How about your dinner party if we lose the cottage?"
Mr. Black read and reread the typewritten yellow sheet a great many times; sometimes he frowned, sometimes he chuckled; the postscript seemed to please him particularly, for whenever he reached that point his deep-set eyes twinkled merrily. Presently he propped the dispatch against the wall at the back of his table and sat down in front of it to write a reply. He wrote several messages, some long, some short; then he tore them all up—they seemed inadequate compared with Mabel's.
"That man Downing," said he, dropping the scraps into the waste-basket, "means well, but he muddles every pie he puts his finger in. Probably if I wire him he'll botch things worse than ever. Dear me, itistoo bad for those nice children to lose any part of their precious stay in that cottage, now, for of course they'll have to give it up when cold weather comes. If I can wind my business up today there isn't any good reason why I can't go straight through without stopping in Chicago. It's time I was home, anyway; it's pretty warm here for a man that likes a cold climate."
Meanwhile, things were happening in Mr. Black's own town.
It was a dark, threatening day when the Milligans, delighted at the success of their efforts to dislodge its rightful tenants, hurriedly moved into Dandelion Cottage; but, dark though it was, Mrs. Milligan soonbegan to find her new possession full of unsuspected blemishes. Now that the pictures were down and the rugs were up, she discovered the badly broken plaster, the tattered condition of the wall paper, the leaking drain, and the clumsily mended rat-holes. She found, too, that she had made a grievous mistake in her calculations. She had supposed that the tiny pantry was a third bedroom; with its neat muslin curtains, it certainly looked like one when viewed from the outside; and crafty Laura, intensely desirous of seeing the enemy ousted from the cottage at any price, had not considered it necessary to enlighten her mother.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Milligan, a thin woman with a shrewish countenance now much streaked with dust. "I thought you said there was a fine cellar under this house? It's barely three feet deep, and there's no stairs and no floor. It's full of old rubbish."
"I never was down there," admitted Laura, dropping a dishpanful of cooking utensils with a crash and hastily making for safe quarters behind a mountain of Milligan furniture, "but I've often seen the trap door."
"It hasn't been opened for years. And where's the nice big closet you said opened off the bedroom? There isn't a decent closet in this house. I don't see what possessed you—"
"It serves you right," said Mr. Milligan, unsympathetically. "You wouldn't wait for anything, but had to rush right in. I told you you'd better take your time about it, but no—"
"You know very well, James Milligan," snapped the irate lady, "that the Knapps wouldn't have taken our house if they couldn't have had it at once."
"Well, Idon'tknow," growled Mr. Milligan, scowling crossly at the constantly growing heaps of incongruously mixed household goods, "where in Sam Hill you're going to put all that stuff. There isn't room for a cat to turn around, and the place ain't fit to live in, anyway."
Bad as things looked, even Mr. Milligan did not guess that first busy day how hopelessly out of repair the cottage really was; but he was soon to find out.
The summer had been an unusually dry one; so dry that the girls had been obliged to carry many pails of water to their garden every evening. The moving-day had been cloudy—out of sympathy, perhaps, for the little cottagers. That night it rained, the first long, steady downpour in weeks. This proved no gentle shower, but a fierce, robust, pelting flood. Seemingly a discriminating rain, too, choosing carefully between the just and the unjust, for most of it fell upon the Milligans. With the sole exception of the dining-room, every room in the house leaked like a sieve.
The tired, disgusted Milligans, drenched in their beds, leaped hastily from their shower baths to look about, by candlelight, for shelter. Mr. Milligan spread a mattress, driest side up, on the dining-room floor, and the unfortunate family spent the rest of the night huddled in an uncomfortable heap in the one dry spot the house afforded.
Very early the next morning they sent post-haste for Mr. Downing.
Mr. Downing, who hated to be disturbed before eight, arrived at ten o'clock; and, with an expert carpenter, made a thorough examination of the house, which the rain had certainly not improved.
"It will take three hundred—possibly four hundred dollars," said the carpenter, who had been making a great many figures in a worn little note-book, "to make this place habitable. It needs a new roof, new chimneys, new floors, a new foundation, new plumbing, new plaster—in short, just abouteverythingexcept the four outside walls. Then there are no lights and no heating plant, which of course would be extra. It's probably one of the oldest houses in town. What's it renting for?"
"Ten dollars a month."
"It isn't worth it. Half that money would be a high price. Even if it were placed in good repair it would be six years at least before you could expect to get themoney expended on repairs back in rent. The only thing to do is to tear it down and build a larger and more modern house that will bring a better rent, for there's no money in a ten-dollar house on a lot of this size—the taxes eat all the profits."
"Well," said Mr. Downing, "this house certainly looked far more comfortable when I saw it the other day than it does now. Those children must have had the defects very well concealed. They deceived me completely."
"They deceived us all," said Mrs. Milligan, resentfully. "Half of our furniture is ruined. Look at that sofa!"
Mr. Downing looked. The drenched old-gold plush sofa certainly looked very much like a half-drowned Jersey calf.
"Of course," continued Mrs. Milligan, sharply, "we expect to have our losses made good. Then we've had all our trouble for nothing, too. Of course we can't stay here—the place isn't fit for pigs. I suppose the best thingwecan do is to move right back into our own house."
"Ye-es," said Mr. Milligan, overlooking the fact that Mrs. Milligan had inadvertently called her family pigs, "it certainly looks like the best thing to do. I'll go and tell the Knapps that they'll have to move outat once—we can't spend another night under this roof."
The Knapps, however, proved disobliging and flatly declined to move a second time. The Milligans had begged them to take the house off their hands, and they had signed a contract. Moreover, it was just the kind of house the Knapps had long been looking for, and now that they were moved, more than half settled, and altogether satisfied with their part of the bargain, they politely but firmly announced their intention of staying where they were until the lease should expire.
There was nothing the former tenants could do about it. They were homeless and quite as helpless as the four little girls had been in similar circumstances; and they made a far greater fuss about it. By this they gained, however, nothing but the disapproval of everybody concerned; so, finally, the Milligans, disgusted with Dandelion Cottage, with Mr. Downing, and for once even a little bit with themselves, dejectedly hunted up a new home in a far less pleasant neighborhood, and moved hurriedly out of Dandelion Cottage—and, except for the memories they left behind them, out of the story.
>
A Hurried Retreat
The girls, of course, had been barred out while all these exciting latest events were taking place in their dear cottage; but Marjory, who lived next door to it, had seen something of the Milligans' hasty exit and had guessed at part of the truth. Mrs. Knapp, who seemed a pleasant, likable little woman, in spite of her unwillingness to accommodate her new landlord, unknowinglyconfirmed their suspicions when she told her friend Mrs. Crane about it; for Mrs. Crane, in her turn, told the news to the four little housekeepers the next morning as they sat homeless and forlorn on her doorstep. It was always Mrs. Crane to whom the Dandelion Cottagers turned whenever they were in need of consolation and, as in this case, consolation was usually forthcoming.
The girls, in their excitement at hearing the news about their late possession, did not notice that sympathetic Mrs. Crane looked tired and worried as she sat, in the big red rocking chair on her porch, peeling potatoes.
"Oh!" squealed Mabel, from the broad arm of Mrs. Crane's chair, "I'm glad! I'm glad! I'm glad!"
"I can't help being a little bit glad, too," said fair-minded Jean. "I suppose it wasn't very pleasant for the Milligans, but I guess they deserved all they got."
"They deserved a great deal more," said Marjory, resentfully. "Think of these last awful days!"
"If they'd hadmuchmore," said Mrs. Crane, "they'd have been drowned. Why, children! the place was just flooded."
"I'm ashamed to tell of it," said Bettie, "but I'm awfully afraid that our boys took off part of the pieces of tin that they nailed on the roof last spring. I heardthem doingsomethingup there the night we moved; but Bob only grinned when I asked him about it."
"Good for the boys!" cried Marjory, gleefully. "I wouldn't be unladylike enough to set traps for the Milligans myself, but I can't help feeling glad that somebody else did."
"It was Bob's own tin," giggled delighted Mabel, almost tumbling into Mrs. Crane's potato pan in her joy. "I guess he had a right to take it home if he wanted to."
"Anyway," said Jean, from her perch on the porch railing, "I'm glad they're gone."
"But it doesn't dousany good," sighed Bettie. "And the summer's just flying."
"Yes, it does," insisted Jean. "Wecanstand having the cottage empty—we can pretend, you know, that it's an enchanted castle that can be opened only by a certain magic key that—"
"Somebody's baby has swallowed," shrieked Mabel, the matter-of-fact.
"Mercy no, goosie," said Marjory. "She means a magic word that nobody can remember."
"That's it," said Jean. "Of course we couldn't do even that with the cottage full of Milligans."
"No," assented Marjory, "the most active imagination would refuse to activate—"
"Towhat?" gasped Mabel.
"To work," explained Marjory.
"I should say so," agreed Mabel, again threatening the potatoes. "It was just as much as I could do to come over here this morning to breathe the same air with that cottage with those folks in it staring me in the face, but now—"
"After all," sighed Bettie, sorrowfully, from the other arm of Mrs. Crane's big chair, "having the Milligans out of the cottage doesn't makemuchdifference, as long as we're out, too. Oh, Ididlove that little house so. I just hated to think of cold weather coming to drive us out; but I never dreamed of anything so dreadful as having to leave it right in this lovely warm weather."
"If Mr. Black had stayed in town," said Mabel, feelingly, "we'd be dusting that darling cottage this very minute."
Mrs. Crane sniffed in the odd way she always did whenever Mr. Black's name was mentioned. This scornful sniff, accompanying Mrs. Crane's evident disapproval of their dearest friend, was the only thing that the girls disliked about Mrs. Crane.
"Iknowyou'd like Mr. Black if you only knew him," said Bettie, earnestly. "In some ways you're a good deal like him. You're both the same color, your eyebrows turn up the same way at the outside corners, and you both like us. Mr. Black has a beautiful soul."
"Indeed," said Mrs. Crane. "And haven't I a beautiful soul too?"
"Why, of course," said Bettie, leaning down to rub her cheek against Mrs. Crane's. "I meantbothof you. We like you both just the same."
"Only it's different," explained Jean. "Mr. Black doesn't need us, and sometimes you do. Weliketo do things for you."
"I'm glad of that," said Mrs. Crane, "for I need you this very minute. But don't you be too sure about his not needing you as well. He must lead a pretty lonely life, because it's years since his wife died. I never heard of anybody else liking her, but I guesshedid. He's one of the faithful kind, maybe, for he's lived all alone in that great big house ever since. I guess it does him good to have you little girls for friends."
"What was his wife like?" asked Mabel, eagerly. "Did you use to know her?"
"No, indeed," said Mrs. Crane, again giving the objectionable sniff. "That is, not so very well—a little light-headed, useless thing, no more fit to keep house—but there! there. It doesn't make any differencenow, and I've learned that it isn't the best housekeepers that get married easiest. If it was, I wouldn't be so worriednow."
"Is anything the matter?" asked Jean, quick to note the distress in Mrs. Crane's voice.
"Yes," returned the good woman, "there are two things the matter."
"Your poor foot?" queried Bettie, instantly all sympathy.
"No, the foot's all right. It's Mr. Barlow and my eyes. Mr. Barlow is going to be married to a young lady he's been writing to for a long time, and I'm going to lose him because he wants to keep house. It won't be easy to find another lodger for that little, shabby, old-fashioned room. I'm trying to make a new rag carpet for it, but I'm all at a standstill because I can't see to thread my needle. I declare, I don't know what is going to become of me."
"When I grow up," said Bettie, "you shall live with me."
"But what am I to do while I'm waiting for you to grow up?" asked Mrs. Crane, smiling at Bettie's protecting manner.
"Let us be your eyes," suggested Jean. "Couldn't we thread about a million needles for you? Don't you think a million would last all day?"
"I should think it might," said Mrs. Crane, somewhat comforted. "I haven't quite a million, but if Marjory will get my cushion and a spool of cotton I'll be very glad to have you thread all I have."
The girls worked in silence for fully five minutes.Then Mabel jabbed the solitary needle she had threaded into the sawdust cushion and said:
"Don't you suppose Mr. Downing might let us have the cottagenow, if we went to him? Nobody else seems to care about it. What do you think, Mrs. Crane?"
"Why, my dear, I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to ask. You'd better see what your own people think about it."
"Let's go ask them now," cried impetuous Mabel, springing to her feet. Forgetting all about the needles and without waiting to say good-by to Mrs. Crane, the eager girl made a diagonal rush for the corner nearest her own home.
The others remained long enough to thread all the needles. Then they, too, went home with the news about the cottage and about Mrs. Crane. They were realizing, for the first time, that their good friend might become helpless long before they were ready to use her as a grandmother for their children, but they couldn't see just what was to be done about it. The idea of going to Mr. Downing, however, soon drove every other thought away, for the parents and Aunty Jane, too, advised them to ask. They even encouraged them.
But when Jean and Bettie, hopefully dressed in their Sunday-best, and Marjory and Mabel, with their abundantlocks elaborately curled besides, presented themselves and their request at Mr. Downing's house that evening, they were not at all encouraged by their reception.
Mr. Downing, a man of moods, had just come off second-best in an encounter with Mrs. Milligan, whom he had accidentally met on his way home to dinner, and, at the moment the girls appeared, the cottage was just about the last subject that the badgered man cared to discuss. Before Jean had fairly stated her errand, the enraged Mr. Downing roared "No!" so emphatically that his four alarmed visitors backed hurriedly off the Downing porch and fled as one girl. Mabel, to be sure, measured her length in the canna bed near the gate, but she scrambled up, snorting with fright and indignation, and none of them paused again in their flight until Jean's door, which seemed safest, had closed behind them.