FINANCIAL PLANS
"This parliamentary business fusses me," exclaimed Helen. "Let's just talk, now that we've decided what we are going to do."
"Take a more comfortable chair," suggested Tom, pulling over a Morris chair nearer the fire.
Roger stirred up the flames and tossed on some pine cones.
"These cones remind me that our old people down by the bridge might like some. They have a funny open stove that they could use them in."
"What are they good for? Kindling?" asked Della.
"Ha! There speaks the city lady used only to steam! Certainly they are good for kindling on account of the pitch that's in them, but they're also great in an open fire to brighten it up when it is sinking somewhat and one or two at a time tossed on to a clear fire make a pretty sight."
"And a pretty snapping sound," added Dorothy, remembering the cones from the long leaf pines.
"Our old couple gets a bushel on Monday afternoon if it ever stops raining," promised Roger. "Dicky loves to pick them up, so he'll help."
"The honorary member of the United Service Club does his share of service work right nobly," declared James, who was a great friend of Dicky's.
"The thing for us to do first is to decide how we are to begin," said Helen.
"We might talk over the kinds of presents that the war orphans would like and then see which of them any of us can make," suggested Margaret wisely.
"Any sort of clothing would come in mighty handy, I should think," guessed James, "and I don't believe the orphans would have my early prejudices against receiving it for Christmas gifts."
"Poor little creatures, I rather suspect Santa Claus will be doing his heaviest work with clothing this year."
"As far as clothing is concerned," said Margaret, "we needn't put a limit on the amount we send or the sizes or the kinds. The distributors will be able to use everything they can lay their hands on when the Christmas Ship comes in and for many months later."
"Then let's inquire of our mothers what there is stowed away that we can have and let's look over our own things and weed out all we can that would be at all suitable and that our mothers will let us give away, and report here at the next meeting."
"While we're talking about the next meeting," broke in Dorothy while the others were nodding their assent to Helen's proposition, "won't you please come to my house next time?"
"We certainly will," agreed Della and Margaret.
"You bet," came from the boys.
"And Mother told me to offer the Club the use of our attic to store our stuff in. It's a big place with almost nothing in it."
"I'm sure Aunt Marion will be glad not to have anything else go into her attic," said Ethel Blue, andall the Mortons laughed as they thought of the condition of the Morton attic, whose walls were almost bulging with its contents.
"If that's settled we must remember to address all our bundles to 'Mrs. Leonard Smith, Church Street, Rosemont,'" James reminded them.
"It seems to me," Ethel Brown said slowly, thinking as she spoke, "that we might collect more clothing than we shall be able to find in our own families."
"There are a good many of us," suggested Della.
"There are two Watkinses and two Hancocks and five Mortons and one Smith—that's ten, but if the rest of you are like the Morton family—we wear our clothes pretty nearly down to the bone."
All the Mortons pealed at this and the rest could not help joining in.
"One thing we must not do," declared Helen. "We must not send a single old thing that isn't in perfect order. It's a poor present that you have to sit down and mend."
"We certainly won't," agreed Margaret. "I wear my clothes almost down to the skeleton, too, but I know I have some duds that I can make over into dresses for small children. I'm gladder every day that we took that sewing course last summer, Helen."
"Me, too. My dresses—or what's left of them—usually adorn Ethel Brown's graceful frame, but perhaps Mother will let us have for the orphans the clothes that would ordinarily go to Ethel Brown."
Ethel Brown looked worried.
"Ethel Brown doesn't know whether that will mean that she'll have to go without or whether she'llhave new clothes instead of the hand-me-downs," laughed Roger.
"I don't care," cried Ethel Brown. "I'd just as lief go without new clothes if Mother will let the Club have the money they'd cost."
"I've been thinking," said Tom, "that we're going to need money to work this undertaking through successfully. How are we going to get it?"
"But shall we need any to speak of?" inquired Margaret. "Fixing up our old clothes won't cost more than we can meet ourselves out of our allowances. I'm going to ask my Aunt Susy to let me have some of the girls' old things. The girls will be delighted; they're the ones who have the plain clothes."
"We'll fix them up with ruffles and bows before we send them away," smiled Helen.
"Why can't we ask everybody we come across for old clothes?" Ethel Blue wondered.
"Grandmother Emerson would be sure to have something in her attic and I shouldn't wonder if she'd be willing to ask the ladies at the Guild if they'd contribute," said Helen.
"Do we want to take things from outside of the Club?" objected Ethel Brown.
"I don't see why not," answered Margaret. "The idea is to get together for the orphans as many presents as possible, no matter where they come from. We're serving the orphans if we work as collectors just as much as if we made the clothes ourselves."
"Right-o," agreed Roger. "Let's tackle everybody we can on the old clo' question. We can ask the societies in our churches—"
"Why not in all the churches in town?" dared Ethel Blue.
The idea brought a pause, for the place was small enough for the churches to meet each other with an occasional rub.
"I believe that's a good idea," declared Tom, and as a clergyman's son they listened to his views with respect. "All the churches ought to be willing to come together on the neutral ground of this club and if we are willing to take the responsibility of doing the gathering and the packing and the expressing to the Christmas Ship I believe they'll be glad to do just the rummaging in their attics and the mending up."
"We needn't limit their offerings to clothes, either," said Della. "We'll take care of anything they'll send in."
"Let's put it up to them, I say," cried Roger. "There's at least one member of the Morton family in every society in our church and we ought to get the subject before every one of those groups of people by the end of next week and start things booming."
"We'll do the same at Glen Point," agreed Margaret.
"I can't promise quite as much for New York, because I don't know what Father's plans are for war relief work in his church, but I do feel pretty sure he'll suggest some way of helping us," said Della.
"That's decided, then—we'll lay our paws on everything we can get from every source," Tom summed up the discussion. "Now I come back towhat I said a few minutes ago—I think we're going to need more money to run this association than we're going to be able to rake up out of our own allowances, unless Margaret's is a good deal bigger than mine," and he nodded toward Margaret, who had objected to the more-money idea when he had offered it before.
"Just tell me how we'll need more," insisted Margaret.
"I figure it out that the part we boys will have to do in this transaction will be to district this town and Glen Point and make a house to house appeal for clothes and any sort of thing that would do for a Christmas present, all to be sent to Mrs. Smith's."
"That won't cost anything but a few carfares, and you can stand those," insisted Margaret.
"Carfares are all right and even a few express charges for some people who for some reason aren't able to deliver their parcels at Mrs. Smith's house. But if you girls are going to make over some of these clothes and perhaps make new garments you'll need some cash to buy materials with."
"Perhaps some of the dry goods people will contribute the materials."
"Maybe they will. But you mark my words—the cost of a little here and a little there mounts up amazingly in work of this sort and I know we're going to need cash."
"Tom's right," confirmed Della. "He's helped Father enough to know."
The idea of needing money, which they did not have, was depressing to the club members who sat around the fire staring into it gloomily.
"The question is, how to get it," went on Tom.
"People might give us money just as well as cloth, I suppose," suggested Margaret.
"I think it would be a thousand times more fun to make the money ourselves," said Ethel Blue.
"The infant's right," cried Tom. "It will be more fun and what's more important still, nobody can boss us because he's given us a five dollar bill."
"I suppose somebody might try," murmured Helen.
"They would," cried Tom and Della in concert.
"We aren't a clergyman's children for nothing," Tom went on humorously. "The importance a five dollar bill can have in the eyes of the giver and the way it swells in size as it leaves his hands is something that few people realize who haven't seen it happen."
"Let's be independent," cried Dorothy decidedly, and her wish was evidently to the mind of all the rest, for murmurs of approval went around the room.
"But if we're so high and mighty as not to take money contributions and if we nevertheless need money, what in the mischief are we going to do about it?" inquired Roger.
"We must earn it," said Helen. "I'll contribute the money Mother is going to pay me for making a dozen middy blouses for the Ethels. She ordered them from me last summer when I began to take the sewing course and I haven't quite finished them yet, but I'll have the last one done this week if I can get home from school promptly for a day or two."
"I can make some baskets for the Woman's Exchange," said Dorothy.
"I learned how to make Lady Baltimore cake the other day," said Margaret, "and I'll go to someladies in Glen Point who are going to have teas soon and ask them for orders."
"I can make cookies," murmured Ethel Brown, "but I don't know who'd buy them."
"You tell the kids at school that you've gone into the cooky business and you'll have all the work you can do for a while," prophesied Roger. "I know your cookies; they're bully."
"I don't notice that we boys are mentioning any means of making money," remarked James dryly. "I confess I'm stumped."
"I know what you can do," suggested Margaret. "Father said this morning that he was going to get a chauffeur next week if he could find one that wouldn't rob him of all the money he made. You can run the car—why don't you offer to work half time—afternoons after school, for half pay? That would help Father and he'd rather have you than a strange man."
"He'd rather have half time, too. He likes to run the car himself, only he gets tired running it all day on heavy days. Great head, Sis," and James made a gesture of stroking his sister's locks, to which she responded by making a face.
"I know what I can do," said Roger. "You know those bachelor girls about seventy-five apiece, over on Church Street near Aunt Louise's—the Miss Clarks? Well, they had an awful time last year getting their furnace attended to regularly. They had one man who proved to be a—er," Roger hesitated.
"Not a total abstainer?" inquired James elegantly.
"Thank you, Brother Hancock, for the use of your vocabulary. The next one stole the washingoff the line, and the next one—Oh, I don't know what he did, but the Miss Clarks were in a state of mind over the furnace and the furnace man all winter. Now, suppose I offer to take care of their furnace for them this winter? I believe they'd have me."
"I think they'd be mighty glad to get you," confirmed Helen. "Could you do that and take care of ours, too?"
"Sure thing, if I put my mind on it and don't chase off with the fellows every time I feel in the mood."
"Mother would like to have you take care of ours if you could manage three," said Dorothy.
"I'll do it," and Roger thumped his knee with decision.
"I wouldn't undertake too much," warned Helen. "It will mean a visit three times a day at each house, you know, and the last one pretty late in the evening."
"I'm game," insisted Roger. "You know I can be as steady as an old horse when I put my alleged mind on it. Mother never had any kick coming over my work in the furnace department last winter."
"She said you did it splendidly, but this means three times as much."
"I'll do it," and Roger nodded his head solemnly.
"It seems to be up to Della and me to tell what we can do," said Tom meditatively. "Father's secretary is away on a three months' holiday and I'm doing his typewriting for him and some other office stunts—as much as I can manage out of schoolhours. I'll turn over my pay to the Club treasury."
This was greeted with applause.
"I don't seem to have any accomplishments," sighed Della, her round head on one side. "The only thing I can think of is that I heard the ladies who have charge of the re-furnishing of the Rest Room in the Parish House say that they were going to find some one to stencil the window curtains. I might see if they'd let me do it and pay me. I didn't take that class at the Girls' Club last summer, but Dorothy and Ethel Brown could teach me."
"Of course."
"Or you could get the order from them, I'd fill it, and you could make the baskets for the Woman's Exchange," offered Dorothy.
Della brightened. That was a better arrangement.
"Try it," nodded Tom. "If you turn out one order well you'll get more; see if you don't."
"Our honorary member, Mr. Dicky Morton, might sell newspapers since he got broken in to that business last summer," laughed Ethel Brown. "Mother wouldn't let him do it here, I know, but he can weave awfully pretty things that he learned at the kindergarten and if there are any bazars this fall he could sell some of them on commission."
"Dicky really understands about the Club. I think he'd like to do something for the orphans," Helen agreed.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Ethel Blue, rising in her excitement; "I have a perfectly grand, galoptious idea. Why do we wait for somebody else to get up a bazar to sell Dicky's weaving? Let's have a bazar of our own. Why can't we have afair with some tables, and ice cream and cake for sale and an entertainment of some kind in the evening? We all know all sorts of stunts; we can do the whole thing ourselves. If we announce that we are doing it for the Christmas Ship I believe everybody in town would come—"
"—And in Glen Point and New York," Roger mocked her enthusiasm.
"You know we could fill the School Hall as easy as fiddle, Roger. You see everybody would know what we were at work on because we are going to begin collecting the clothes right off, so everybody will be interested."
Tom nodded approval.
"Perhaps we can do the advertising act when we do the collecting."
"If I drive Father, I see myself ringing up all the neighboring houses while he's in on his case," said James, "and it's just as easy to talk bazar part of the time as it is to chat old clo' the whole time."
"Can you get the School Hall free?" asked Tom.
"We'd have to pay for the lighting and the janitor, but that wouldn't be much," said Roger. "It would be better than the Parish House of any of the churches because if we had it in a church there'd surely be some people who wouldn't go because it was in a building belonging to a denomination they didn't approve of, but no one can make any kick about the schoolhouse."
"It's the natural neighborhood centre."
"We'll have the whole town there."
"If we let in some of the school kids we'll get all their families on the string," recommended Roger.
"I'm working up a feat that I've never seen anyone do," said Tom. "I'll turn it loose for the first time at our show."
"Remember, you're all coming to me next Saturday afternoon," Dorothy reminded them as the Hancocks and Watkinses put on their overgarments and sought out their umbrellas preparatory to going home.
"And we'll bring a list of what we can contribute ourselves and what we've collected so far and what we think we can collect and we'll turn in anything we've made."
"If there's anything we can work on while the Club is going on we'd better bring it," suggested Helen.
"Mother says we may have the sewing machine in the attic," said Dorothy.
"I believe I'll take my jig-saw over," suggested Roger. "Aunt Louise wouldn't mind, would she?"
"She'd be delighted. Bring everything," and Dorothy glowed with the hospitality that had been bottled up in her for years and until now had had but small opportunity to escape.
ROGER GOES FORAGING
ALTHOUGH Helen never had been president of any club before, yet she had seen enough of a number of associations in the high school and the church to understand the advantage of striking while the iron of enthusiasm was hot. For that reason she and Roger worked out the districting of Rosemont before they went to bed that night, and the next afternoon Roger went over to Glen Point on his bicycle, and, with James's help, did the same for that town. It was understood that Tom would not be able to come out again until Saturday, but he had agreed to be on hand early in the morning to do a good half day of canvassing. The girls were to speak to every one to whom they could bring up the subject conveniently, wherever they met them.
Roger began his work on Monday afternoon after school. He wheeled over to a part of the town where he did not know many people, his idea being that since that would be the most disagreeable place to tackle he would do it first and get it over with. He was a merry boy, with a pleasant way of speaking that won him friends at once, and he was not bothered with shyness, but he did hesitate for an instant at his first house. It was large and he thought that the owner ought to be prosperous enough to have plenty of old clothes lying about crying to be sent to the war orphans.
It was a maid whose grasp on the English languagewas a trifle uncertain who opened the door. Roger stated his desire.
"Old clothes?" she repeated after him. "I've no old clothes to give you," and she shut the door hastily.
Roger stood still with astonishment as if he were fastened to the upper step. Then his feelings stirred.
"The idiot!" he gasped. "She thought I wanted them for myself," and he looked down at his suit with a sudden realization that his long ride over one dusty road and a spill on another that had recently been oiled had not improved the appearance of his attire. However, he rang the bell again vigorously. The woman seemed somewhat disconcerted when she saw him still before her.
"I don't want the clothes—" began Roger.
"What did you say you did for?" inquired the maid sharply, and again she slammed the door.
By this time Roger's persistency was roused. He made up his mind that he was going to make himself understood even if he did not secure a contribution. Once more he rang the bell.
"You here!" almost screamed the girl as she saw once more his familiar face. "Why don't you go? I've nothing to give you."
"Look here," insisted Roger, his toe in the way of the door's shutting completely when she should try to slam it again; "look here, you don't understand what I want. Is your mistress at home?"
The girl was afraid to say that she was not, so she nodded.
"Tell her I want to see her."
"What's your name?"
"I'm Roger Morton, son of Lieutenant Morton. I live on Cedar Street. Can you remember that?"
She could not, but her ear had caught the military title and upstairs she conveyed the impression that at least a general was waiting at the door. When the mistress of the house appeared Roger pulled off his cap politely, and he was such a frank-faced boy that she knew at once that her maid's fears had been unnecessary, though she did not see where the military title came in. Roger explained who he was and what he wanted at sufficient length, and he was rewarded for his persistency by the promise of a bundle.
"I know your grandmother, Mrs. Emerson," said the lady, who had mentioned that she was Mrs. Warburton, "and your aunt, Mrs. Smith, has hired one of my houses, so I am glad on their account to help your enterprise, though of course its own appeal is enough."
Roger thanked her and took the precaution to inquire the names of her neighbors, before he presented himself at another door. He also reached such a pitch of friendliness that he borrowed a whisk broom from Mrs. Warburton and redeemed his clothes from the condition which had brought him into such disfavor with the maid-servant.
There was no one at home in the next house, but the next after that yielded a parcel which the old lady whom he interviewed said that he might have if he would take it away immediately.
"I might change my mind if you don't," she said. "I've been studying for ten days whether to makeover that dress with black silk or dark blue velvet. If I give the dress away I shan't be worried about it any longer."
"Very well," cried Roger, and he rolled the frock up as small as he could and fastened it to his handle bars.
There was no one at home at the next house, but the woman who came to the door at the next after that listened to his story with moist eyes.
"Come in," she said. "I can give you a great many garments. In fact there are so many that perhaps I'd better send them."
"Very well," returned Roger. "Please send them to my aunt's," and he gave the address.
"You see," hesitated Roger's hostess, now frankly wiping her eyes, "I had a little daughter about ten years old, and—and I never have been willing to part with her little dresses and coats, but how could I place them better than now?"
Roger swallowed hard.
"I guess she'd like to have 'em go over there," he stammered, and he was very glad when he escaped from the house, though he told his mother, "she seemed kind of glad to talk about the kid, so I didn't mind much."
"Count listening as one of the Club services," replied Mrs. Morton.
Back in his own part of town Roger felt that his trip had been profitable. A very fair number of garments and bundles had been promised, and he had told everybody he could to watch the local paper for the announcement of the entertainment to be given by the U. S. C.
"Everybody seemed interested," he reported athome. "I don't believe we'll have a mite of trouble in getting an audience."
It was at a cottage not far from the high school that Roger came upon his nearest approach to an adventure. When he touched the buzzer the door was opened by an elderly woman who spoke with a marked German accent. Roger explained his errand. To his horror the woman burst into tears. When he made a gesture of withdrawal she stopped him.
"My son—my son is mit de army," she exclaimed brokenly. "My son und de betrothed of my daughter. We cannot go to the Fatherland. The German ships go no more. If we go on an English or French ship we are kept in England. Here must we stay—here."
"You're safe here, at any rate," responded Roger, at a loss what reply to make that would be soothing in the face of such depressing facts.
"Safe!" retorted the woman scornfully. "Who cares to be safe? A woman's place is mit her men when they are in danger. My daughter and I—we should be in Germany and we cannot get there!"
"It's surely a shame if you want to go as much as that," returned Roger gently, and just then to his surprise there came through an inner door a young woman whom he recognized as his German teacher in the high school, Fräulein Hindenburg. Her face was disfigured with weeping and he knew now why she had seemed so ill and listless in her classes.
"You must not mind Mother," she said, looking surprised as she saw one of her pupils before her. "It is true that we would go if we could but we cannot, so we must stay here and wait."
Roger explained his errand.
"To work for the war orphans of all countries?" cried both women excitedly. "Gladly! Gladly!"
"We are knitting every day—scarfs, socks, wristlets," said the older woman. "Also will we so gladly make clothing for the children and toys and playthings—what we can."
Fräulein smiled a sad assent and Roger wheeled off, realizing that the pain caused by the war no longer existed for him only in his imagination; he had seen its tears.
So freely had people responded to Roger's appeal that he began to wonder how the Club was going to take care of all the garments that would soon be coming in. After that thought came into his mind he made a point of asking the givers if they would send their offerings as far as possible in condition to be shipped.
"Margaret and Helen can make over some of the clothes and the Ethels and Dorothy can help with the simple things, I suppose, but if there are many grown-up dresses like this one on my handle bar they won't have time to do anything else but dressmake," meditated Roger as he pedalled along.
Nowhere did he meet with a rebuff. Every one was pleased to be asked. Many offered to make new garments. One old woman who lived in a wheel-chair but who could use her hands, agreed to sew if the material should be sent her. Many mothers seemed to consider it a Heaven-sent opportunity to make a clearance of the nursery toys though Roger stoutly insisted that they must all be in working order before they were turned in.
"It's been perfectly splendid," breathed Rogerjoyfully as he finished his third afternoon and came into the house to report to his mother and Helen. "It's a delight to ask when you feel sure that you won't have to coax as you usually do when you're getting up anything. Everybody seems to jump at the chance."
Toward the end of the week Ethel Blue came in beaming.
"I've got some entirely new people interested," she cried.
"Who? Who?"
"The last people you'd ever think of—the women in the Old Ladies' Home."
"Why should you think them the very last to be interested?" asked Mrs. Emerson who happened to be at the Mortons' and whose fingers were carrying the flying yarn that her needles were manufacturing into a sock. "Most of them are mothers and it doesn't take a mother to be interested in such a cause as this. Every human being who has any imagination must feel for the sufferings of the poor children."
"It seemed queer to me because I've never seen them do anything but just sit there with their hands in their laps."
"Poor souls, nobody ever provides them with anything to do."
"Now all of them say that they'll be delighted to sew or knit or do anything they can if the materials are provided for them."
"Here's where we can begin to spend the money Mother has offered to advance us," cried Ethel Brown. "Can't we go right after school to-morrow and buy the yarn for them, Mother?"
"Indeed you may. Has Della sent you the knitting rules from the Red Cross yet?"
"We're expecting them in every mail. If they don't come before we take the wool to the Home we can start the ladies on scarfs. They're just straight pieces."
"Mrs. Hindenburg and Fräulein are knitting wristlets for the German soldiers. They could give the rule for them, I should think," suggested Roger, "and our old lady friends can just cut it in halves for the kids."
It was the next day that Helen came in from school all excitement.
"I've made a discovery as thrilling as Roger's about Fräulein!" she cried.
"What? Who is it about? Tell us."
"It's about Mademoiselle Millerand."
"Your French teacher?" asked Mrs. Emerson.
"She was new at school last year and you've heard us say she's the most fascinating little black-eyed creature."
"Perhaps she can't talk fast!" added Roger.
"What's the story about her?" demanded Ethel Brown.
"It's not a romantic story like Fräulein's; that is, there's no betrothed on the other side that she's crazy to get to; but she's going over to join the French Red Cross."
"That little thing!" cried Roger. "Why she doesn't look as if she had strength enough to last out a week!"
"She says she's had a year's training in nursing and that a nurse is taught to conserve her strength. She hopes she'll be sent to the front."
"The plucky little creature! When is she going?"
"As soon as she can put in a substitute at the school; she doesn't want to leave us in the lurch after she made a contract for the year."
"It may take some time after that to arrange for a sailing, I suppose."
"Perhaps so. Any way I think it would be nice if we gave her a send-off—"
"Just as we will Fräulein if her chance comes."
"We can make some travelling comforts."
"She won't be able to carry much," warned Mrs. Morton.
"Everything will have to be as small as possible, but we can hunt up the smallest size of everything. I think it will be fun!"
"She'll probably be very much pleased."
"I wish there was something rather special we could do for Fräulein too, so we could be perfectly impartial."
"Watch for the chance to do something extra nice for her. She's having the harder time of the two; it's always harder to stay and wait than it is to go into action, even when the action is dangerous."
While the Mortons were canvassing Rosemont, James and Margaret were doing the same work in Glen Point. Dr. Hancock had accepted his son's offer and James was now regularly engaged as his father's chauffeur, working after school hours every school day and on Saturday mornings. The Doctor insisted that he should have Saturday afternoons free so that he might go to the Club. He was also quite willing that James should follow the plan he had sketched at the last Club meeting and visit the neighbors of his father's patients while Doctor Hancockwas making his professional calls. The plan worked to a charm and James found Glen Point quite as ready as Rosemont to respond to the "bitter cry of the children."
"So many people are getting interested I almost feel as if it weren't our affair any longer," James complained to his father as they were driving home in the dusk one afternoon.
"Look out for that corner. That's a bad habit you have of shaving the curbstone. You needn't feel that way as long as your club is doing all the organizing and administration. That's the part that seems to make most people hesitate about doing good works. It isn't actual work they balk at; it's leadership."
"If handling the stuff and disposing of it is leadership then we're a 'going concern' all right," declared James. "Roger telephoned over this morning that the bundles were coming in to Mrs. Smith's at a great rate, and that a lot of people were making new garments and things that will turn up later."
"When is Tom coming out?"
"Saturday morning. I've saved one district for him to do then and that will finish up Glen Point as Roger and I sketched it out."
"It hasn't been so hard a job as you thought."
"Chasing round in the car has saved time. This is a bully job of yours, Dad."
"You won't hold it long if you cut corners like that, I warn you again."
"I'll try to cut 'emout," laughed James as he carefully turned into the Hancocks' avenue.
IN THE SMITH ATTIC
"GRANDFATHER EMERSON wants to give the Club a present," cried Ethel Brown as the last arrivals, the Hancocks, came up the stairs and entered the attic of Dorothy's house on Saturday afternoon.
The large room was half the width of the whole cottage and, with its low windows and sloping roof had a quaint appearance that was increased by its furnishing of tables and seats made from boxes covered with gay bits of chintz. Dorothy had not neglected her work for the orphans but she had found time to fit up the meeting place of the U. S. C. so that its members might not have to gather in bare surroundings. The afternoon sun shone brightly in through simple curtains of white cheesecloth, the sewing machine awaited Helen beside a window with a clear north light, and Roger's jig-saw was in a favorable position in a corner. Each one who came up the stairs gave an "Oh" of pleasure as the door opened upon this comfortable, cheerful room where there was nothing too good to be used and nothing too bad to have entrance to the society of beauty-loving folk. "What did your grandfather give us?" asked Margaret.
"Grandfather has been awfully interested in the Club from the very beginning, you know. The otherday he asked if we wouldn't like to have him give us club pins with our emblem on them."
"How perfectly dear of him!" ejaculated Delia.
"Don't let your hopes rise too high. I said it would be simply fine to have little forget-me-not pins like those we talked about at our very first meeting in the ravine at Chautauqua—do you remember?"
"Blue enamel," murmured Dorothy.
"He said he wanted us to have them, and that it was a lovely symbol and so on, and he'd seen some ducks of pins in New York that were just what we'd like, and some single flower ones for the boys—"
"Um. This suspense is wearing on me," remarked Roger.
"We talked it over and the way it came out was that Grandfather said that perhaps he'd better give us now the money the pins would cost and keep his present for later."
No one could resist a groan.
"He won't forget it. Grandfather never forgets to do what he promises. We'll get them some time or other. But I had a feeling that we'd like them later better even than now because we'd feel then that we'd really earned them after the Club had done something worth while, you know."
"I suppose we will," sighed Della, "but they do sound good to me."
"He was bound that we should have the forget-me-not in some form or other," went on Ethel Brown, "and he's sent us a rubber stamp with 'U. S. C.' on it and a forget-me-not at each end of the initials. There's an indelible pad that goes with it and we are to stamp everything we send out on some part where it won't be too conspicuous."
"It will be like signing a letter to the child the present goes to," said Dorothy.
"Isn't he a darling!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "I love him as much as if he were my own grandfather."
"He turned the money right over into my hand," continued Ethel Brown—"the money he didn't spend for the pins, I mean. It's fifteen dollars. What shall I do with it?"
"Pay for the yarn you bought for the women in the Old Ladies' Home to knit with," said Helen promptly.
"'"The time has come," the walrus said,'" quoted Tom, "when we must have a treasurer. It was all very well talking about not needing one when we didn't have a cent of money, but now we are on the way toward being multis and we can't get on any longer without some one to look after it."
"Let's make Tom treasurer and then he can fuss over the old accounts himself," suggested Roger.
Roger's loathing for keeping accounts was so well known that every one laughed.
"Not I," objected Tom. "I'm not at all the right one. It ought to be one of you people who live out here where we're going to do our work. You'll have hurry calls for cash very often and it would be a nuisance to have to wait a day to write or phone me. No, sir, Roger's the feller for that job."
"No, Roger isn't," persisted that young man disgustedly. "I buck, I kick, I remonstrate, I protest, I refuse."
"Here, here," called Ethel Blue. "Who said you could have James's vocabulary?"
"Well, James, then," said Tom. "It doesn't make much difference who it is as long as he lives inthese precincts and not as far away as I do. Madam President, I nominate Mr. Hancock for treasurer of the United Service Club."
"You hear the nomination," responded Helen. "Is it seconded?"
"I second it with both hands and an equal number of feet," replied Roger enthusiastically.
"Now is the opportunity for a discussion of the merits of the candidate," observed Helen drily.
"There are many things that might be said," rejoined Dorothy, "but because it would probably embarrass him—"
"Oh, say!" came from James. "Are they as bad as that?"
"As I was remarking when I was interrupted," continued Dorothy severely, "because it might make the candidate feel queer if he were to hear all the compliments we should pay him, I think we won't say anything."
"I'll trust old Roger not to pay compliments," responded James.
"Old Roger is in such a good humor because this job is being worked off on to your shoulders instead of his that he might utter some blandishments that would surprise you."
"I wouldn't risk it!"
"Are you ready to vote?" asked Helen.
"We are," came ringing back, and the resulting ballot placed James in the treasurership, the only dissenting vote being his own. His first official act after the money was put into his hands was to give it back to Ethel Brown in part repayment of the sum which her mother had advanced for the yarn for the Old Ladies' Home.
"Here's another bundle," announced Mrs. Smith, appearing with a large parcel as the Club members were looking over the collection that had come in. All the contributions were piled in a corner, and already they made a considerable mound.
"Roger will have to apply some of his scientific management ideas to that mass of stuff," laughed Mrs. Smith.
"I wish we could spread them out so that we could get an idea of what is which."
"Couldn't we boys make some sort of rack divided into cubes or even knock together a set of plain shelves? That would lift them off the floor."
"I wish you would," said Helen. "Then we ought to put a tag on each bundle telling who sent it and what is in it."
"And what we think can be done with it, if it isn't in condition to send off just as it is," added Ethel Brown.
"I believe I saw some planks in the cellar that would make sufficiently good shelves for what you need," said Mrs. Smith. "Suppose you boys go down stairs with me and take a look at them while the girls are making out the tags."
So the boys trooped after their hostess while Ethel Brown unscrewed the cap of her fountain pen and wrote on the tags that Dorothy cut out of cardboard, and Ethel Blue fitted them with strings, so that they might be tied on to the parcels.
"These dresses and coats came from Mrs. Ames," said Helen. "They belonged to her daughter who died, and they're all right for a child of ten, so we'll just mark the bundle, 'From Mrs. Ames,' and 'O.K.,' and put it away."
"There's an empty packing box over in that corner," said Dorothy. "Wouldn't it be a good scheme to put the bundles we shan't have to alter at all, right into it?"
"Great. Then we shan't have to touch them again until the time comes to tie them up in fancy paper to make them look Christmassy."
"Here's the dress Mrs. Lancaster couldn't decide whether to have made over with black silk or blue velvet."
"Mrs. Lancaster," murmured Ethel Brown, making out her card.
"That certainly can't go as it is," pronounced Della.
"There's material enough in it for two children's dresses," decided Margaret. "Mark it, 'Will make two dresses.'"
"Here's Maud Delano's jacket. She told Roger she'd send this over when she got her new one."
"It came this morning. It's all right except for tightening a button or two," and Ethel Brown inscribed, "Coat; tighten buttons" on the slip which Della tied on to one of the incompetent fasteners.
"Good for Mrs. Warburton!" cried Helen.
"What's she done?"
"Here's a great roll of pink flannelette—and blue, too—among her things. We can make dresses and wrappers and sacques and petticoats out of that."
"It always seems just as warm as woolen stuff to me," said Dorothy. "Of course it can't be."
"Cotton is never so warm as wool, but if it's warm enough why ask for anything different. What's in your mind?" inquired Margaret.
"I was wondering if we couldn't do something toforward the cotton crusade at the same time that we're helping the war orphans."
"You mean by making things out of cotton materials?"
"Yes. The orphans will want the warmest sort of clothing for winter, I suppose, but spring is coming after winter and summer after that, and I don't believe anything we send is going to be wasted."
"They might wear two cotton garments one over the other," suggested Della.
"I don't say that we'd better make all our clothes out of cotton material, but where it doesn't make any especial difference I don't see why we shouldn't choose cotton stuff. After all, it's the war that has spoiled the cotton trade so we're still working for war sufferers only they'll be on this side of the Atlantic. You know they say the southern cotton planters are having a serious time of it because they aren't selling any cotton to speak of in Europe."
"Let's do it!" cried Ethel Blue and she told their decision to James who had come up to measure the attic doorway for some reason connected with the planks they had found.
"It's a great idea. Bully for Dorothy," he cried working away with a footrule. "This will go all right," he decided, and ran down again to give a lift to the other carpenters.
There were eight planks each about six feet long that Mrs. Smith had discovered in the cellar. A telephone to Mrs. Warburton had gained her consent to their use and the boys set about fitting them together as soon as they were on the top floor. Fortunately they were already planed and of so good a length for the purpose they were to be used for thatnothing was needed but hammer and nails to produce a set of shelves quite adequate for the purpose. Two of the boards made the sides, and between them the remaining six were nailed at intervals.
"We can set it against the wall over here," decided Tom, "and it won't need a back."
"Which is lucky," James declared, "cos there ain't no planks to make a back of."
"Let's nail a block of wood or a triangle of wood under the bottom shelf in the corners," advised Roger, "so the animal won't wobble."
"If we had enough wood and a saw we could make nice cubby-holes, one for each bundle," remarked Tom, his head on one side.
"Tom's getting enthusiastic over carpentering. We haven't either any more wood or a saw, old man, so there won't be any cubby-holes this time," decreed Roger.
"It will do perfectly well this way," said Helen. "Now if you'll help us up with these bundles—"
It was a presentable beginning for their collection. Two parcels in addition to Mrs. Ames's had gone into the packing case in the corner, but three shelves of the new set were filled with tight rolls, each with its tag forward so that no time would be lost in examining the contents, again.
"That's what I call a good beginning," announced Helen after the boys had swept up their shavings and had taken them and their hammers and the remaining nails down stairs.
"What next, Madam President?" inquired James when they returned. The girls were already spreading out the pink and blue flannelette on a plank tablethat had been left in the attic by the carpenters who had built the house.
"We are going to cut some little wrappers out of this material. I think you boys had better fix up some sort of table over on that side of the room and get your pasting equipment ready, for we'll need oodles of boxes of all sizes and you might as well begin right off to make them."
"Right-o," agreed Roger. "Methinks I saw an aged table top minus legs leaning against the wall in the cellar. Couldn't we anchor it on to this wall with a couple of hinges and then its two legs will be a good enough prop?"
"If they're both on the same side."
"It seems to me they are."
"Any superfluous hinges around the house, Dorothy?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Never mind, I'll get a pair when I go after the pasteboard and the flour for the paste and a bowl for a pastepot, and a—no,threebrushes for us three boys to smear the paste with and some coarse cotton cloth for binders."
"Don't forget the oil of cloves to keep your paste from turning sour," Dorothy cried after them.
"And mind you boil it thoroughly," said Margaret.
The boys started again towards the cellar when Roger's eye happened to fall on the cutting operations of the girls.
"Pshaw!" he cried in scorn. "You are time-wasters! Why don't you cut out several garments at once and not have to go through all that spreading out and pinning down process every time? Isaw a tailor the other day cutting a pile of trousers two feet high."
"What with, I should like to know?" inquired Della mystified.
"He did have a knife run by electricity," admitted Roger, "but there's no reason why you can't cut four or five of those things just as easily as one."
"We'll go on down and get the table top," said James, and he and Tom departed.
"Now, then, watch your Uncle Roger. Is this tissue paper affair your pattern? All you need to do is to fasten your cloth tightly down on to your table four thicknesses instead of one. Thumb tacks, Dorothy? Good child! Now lay your pattern on it—yes, thumb-tack it down if you want to—and go ahead. You've got new, sharp shears. Don't be in a hurry. There you are—and you've saved yourself the fuss of doing that three times more."