CHAPTER VIEASTER EGGS

CHAPTER VIEASTER EGGS

“ONE rainy Saturday is liable to be followed by another,” said Winnie to Joanne as she was waiting for the latter to get ready for a meeting of the Sunflower Troop, “so I don’t think we’d better count on that trip to the country yet a while. Moreover, next Sunday will be Easter and we must do something for the good of humanity between whiles.”

“What are we supposed to do?” inquired Joanne, pausing in the act of adjusting her hat.

“Something orphanly, I imagine. We generally take them on at such times. I hope you’re not going to weep this week because the country trip is deferred.”

“You hush!” Joanne pounded Winnie with a pretense of wrath. “Of course I shall not. My point of view has moved several inches in the past few days, so I have leaped far beyond the weepy stage, I hope. The next thing I have to look out for is pertness. I can be awfully sassy, Winnie.”

“I don’t doubt it,” returned Winnie with a grin, “but don’t you hate a pert miss?”

“Oh, dear, do you suppose any one ever called me that?”

“Very likely,” replied Winnie jauntily; she was nothing if not candid.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Joanne again. “The war is over but the reconstruction stage isn’t and I see where I’ve got to keep up the fight. I certainly do hate pertness, but also do I despise milk-and-wateriness.”

“One doesn’t have to be insipid and cringing to be perfectly respectful and courteous,” responded Winnie. “For example, do you consider Claudia a meechin person?”

“Far be it from me to say so.”

“Did you ever know her to be anything but courteous and gracious?”

“Well, no-o,” Joanne admitted.

“Then, take back the pertness thou gavest, what is its smartness to me?” Winnie sang.

“Oh, Win!”

“I win, you win, we both win. Come on if you’re ready.” And off they went, arriving a little late but just in time for squad formation.

Miss Dodge had gone off on an Easter holiday, so her lieutenant, Miss Chesney, was in charge. She was a dark-eyed, alert little person, active and cheery, and the girls all liked her. When the meeting had arrived at the point of discussing Easter gifts she made the announcement: “We talked it over at the last Court of Honor and we think that eggs for our special orphanswill be the best thing we can decide upon. Can each of you contribute two eggs?”

“Sugar, colored or just plain raw?” inquired Winnie.

“Plain raw, I think. Why can’t we have a coloring party? You might bring the eggs to my house and we’ll dye them there. Can you do that?”

“Yes, indeed,” came in a chorus.

“Saturday morning, then.”

This was agreed upon and then the girls fell to discussing the subjects most interesting to them and finally played games till it was time to separate and go home.

“If we could only get eggs direct from the country maybe we could get them cheaper and could bring more than two apiece,” said Claudia. “Counting the two patrols we’d have less than forty eggs and we should have about fifty, four dozen, we’ll say.”

“But who would know where to go for them?” said Virgie. “I don’t believe any of the country people we could reach would sell them any cheaper than we could get them in town, and there would be all the bother of going after them.”

“Oh,” spoke up Joanne, “I wonder if we couldn’t get them from Mrs. Clover. She has lots and lots of hens and she is so far out of town that I don’t believe she sends her eggs all the way in, and I doubt if they give her city prices at the country store. Besides she is the kindest thing and if she knew they were for theorphans she wouldn’t stick on the highest price, and you all know what the highest price is these days.”

“Good scheme, Jo,” cried Winnie. “Can you find out all about it, how much they’d be and how we can get them?”

“I think so. Perhaps they could be sent down on a canal boat. I’ll talk to Cousin Ned about it. I’ll write him a note and leave it at his apartment on my way home, then he’s sure to get it when he comes in. I never know just when to catch him, so I’ll tell him to call me up.”

With this plan in view she went into the big schoolroom, where at her desk she wrote her note which ran this way:

“Dear and blessed Cousin Ned,“I want to talk to you about eggs just as soon as possible. Will you please call me up at the very first oportunity you have after you get home and oblige“your devoted Cousin Joanne.”

“Dear and blessed Cousin Ned,

“I want to talk to you about eggs just as soon as possible. Will you please call me up at the very first oportunity you have after you get home and oblige

“your devoted Cousin Joanne.”

She showed the note to Winnie into whose eyes came a little twinkle of amusement. “Now what’s the matter?” asked Joanne in a resigned tone.

“You don’t spell opportunity with one p but with two, and Jo, dear, you do write the scan’lousest fist, so childish, as if you’d just passed beyond pot-hooks and loops.”

“Well,” began Joanne protestingly, “he’ll knowwhat I mean and that’s the main thing, besides I don’t care. I have just begun, really, for I hate to write, and never have done more than I could help. My governesses never insisted upon my writing out things as they do here at school. Then, too, lots of clever people write atrociously.”

“That’s not the point, you blessed little goose. I’ll tell you something, make a confession, as it were. I used to feel just as you do till I had to write Miss Dodge a note, and when she saw how fearfully I muddled it she asked me what was the idea, and I answered much as you have done. Then she asked, ‘Don’t you want to write like a perfect lady?’ or words to that effect. That gave me a jog and I began to open my eyes. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘when you are older if you were obliged to write to a stranger and he or she were to see such writing and such spelling you would be set down as a perfect ignoramus.’ Well, so you see that wasn’t exactly my ambition and I went to it with a vim and now, if I do say it, I am rather proud of my secretarial powers.”

Joanne shook her head dubiously. “I’ll never come to that pass, I know.”

“Maybe not, but you can at least improve on a mess like this.” Winnie gave a contemptuous flip to the note on Joanne’s desk.

“Oh, dear, Winnie, you are so brutally frank.”

“Am I? I’m afraid I do go too far sometimes, but, Jo, my beloved little ducky dear, if you did but knowhow anxious I am that you should stand above criticism it wouldn’t worry you in the least when I jump on you in this way.”

“Am I criticized?” asked Joanne anxiously.

“Of course you are, all of us are. Did you ever know a set of girls who didn’t criticize?”

“I don’t know many girls, at least not so very well, just those I have happened to meet in travelling about, and I know scarcely any boys. Gradda never liked me to play with boys, though there was one on the steamer when we came up from Bermuda, and she let me make friends with him; he was so nice, a Boy Scout, and we had fine talks. It was his mother who told us about the Everleigh school and the Girl Scouts. She is the most adorable person I ever met, the queen of my dreams. I took some snap shots of her and one I have had enlarged; I will show it to you some day if I think of it.”

Winnie looked at her a little compassionately. “You haven’t had much real home life, have you?” she said gently.

“Not so very much. Sometimes we have had a furnished cottage in the summer, but generally we have stayed at boarding houses and hotels in summer and winter. There seemed no use in having a settled home with Grad away most of the time, and with the need of going south in winter and north in summer. But now, we do have a home, a real one, and it is such a joy to all of us, especially to Grad and me. I thinkGradda cares less for it on account of the servant question. She feels so helpless when the cooks leave.”

“That’s where little Girl Scout Jo should come in.”

“I don’t see how I am ever to learn housewifely things when Gradda doesn’t like me to go in the kitchen.”

“Your chance will come,” Winnie assured her. Then some of the other girls joined them and their talk was over.

It was that evening that Joanne was called to the ’phone by her Cousin Ned. “What’s this about eggs?” he said. “My name isn’t Hennery.”

Of course Joanne giggled, then she explained.

“Fine scheme,” declared Mr. Pattison. “We could use some fresh eggs ourselves. What’s the matter with going up after them to-morrow afternoon?”

“Oh, Cousin Ned, do you mean me?” inquired Joanne joyously.

“Who else? Your Cousin Sue has other fish to fry, I know. Can you?”

“Just hold the wire a minute till I ask Gradda.” It was scarcely more than a minute before she was back again and saying: “I can go. At first Gradda was inclined to say no, but Grad backed me up and so it is all right. What time shall I be ready?”

“About two o’clock. I think we can easily make it and get back before dark. If we don’t there will be no great harm done; there’s a good road.” He hung up and Joanne returned to the library to find that hergrandmother had gone up to her room to write a letter and that her grandfather was alone reading the evening paper.

Presently the paper was flung aside and Dr. Selden looked over to where Joanne was toiling over the intricacies of a piece of crocheting. He watched her for a few minutes before he said: “Well, Pickings, how goes it?”

Joanne laid down her work. “It’s very puzzlesome,” she declared. “I can’t make the rows come out even; they’re either too long or too short, and yet I try to count the stitches. I’m afraid I’ll never be an expert at fancy work. I think I’ll make you a garment, Grad. What would you like?”

“A breakfast jacket or a Tuxedo wouldn’t be bad,” he replied with a quizzical look in his eyes. “Everything in the way of clothing is so high-priced now that I would be very grateful for any little help in the way of a coat of some sort.”

“Now, Grad, you know I couldn’t make a coat.”

“You said a garment and isn’t a coat a garment?”

“Yes, but it would be a funny looking coat if I made it, that is if I sewed it. When I learn to knit I might make you a sweater. Would you like that? You could wear it when you go up to Cousin Ned’s to fish.”

“I’d be delighted to have it. When do you think you will get it done?”

“Oh, dear, I don’t know. I haven’t even begun to learn knitting. Win said crochet was easier, but Idon’t believe it is, at least not for me. Grad, how did you learn to spell and write as well as you do?”

“Oho! I thought you didn’t think those accomplishments necessary. You’ve always maintained that you would use a typewriter, and that spelling didn’t matter so long as one understood what was written.”

“Yes, I know, but I have changed my mind. You see a lot of my school work has to be written and I get fearful marks sometimes just because I make so many mistakes and write so horribly. How did you learn? I love the way you write.”

“Well, let me see. I shall have to go back fifty years or more when it was considered a part of every one’s education to write a good hand. We had a special teacher at school and I remember laboring painstakingly to make my copybook the best in my class. As for spelling, it was a great thing when one could jump from the foot to the head of the class when a particularly hard word was given out. We used to stand in a row against the wall. Sometimes the whole school would be in the spelling match, and the last one left standing had outspelled the others, for as each one missed a word down he must sit.”

“How exciting! I wish they would do that way now. It was like a play, wasn’t it? Were you ever the last one left standing?”

“Yes, I was several times, as I remember it, but if I happened to be the first to miss a word how disgraced I did feel. I was very ambitious about mywriting and practised penmanship in the evenings after I had studied my lessons. My father, who was an exceedingly good penman, would set me a copy on my slate.”

“I’m going to do that,” declared Joanne, throwing down her crocheting. “I haven’t a slate, to be sure, but I can use paper. Will you set me a copy, Grad? I’d love to write like you.” She fumbled among the papers on his desk and finally brought forth a large sheet upon which her grandfather amusedly set her a copy at which she labored till bedtime.

“That is a most ambitious child,” said Dr. Selden as his wife entered the room after seeing Joanne tucked in.

“I am afraid she is too ambitious,” replied Mrs. Selden. “I am afraid all these new interests are too exciting for her.”

“Has she complained of headache lately?”

“No,” returned Mrs. Selden after considering the question, “come to think of it, she has not for a long time.”

“She tells me she is almost up to her normal weight and measurements.”

“How in the world does she know?”

“She keeps a strict account on a card she had given her by her Girl Scout captain. Fine idea that Girl Scout plan.”

“Yes, in some directions, but she wants to do such queer things like laundry work and cooking and suchthings. I never learned them and up to the present have never had to cook a meal and I have always been able to find a laundress.”

“Then you are very lucky if one may believe the tales one hears. Let her learn; it won’t hurt her a bit.”

Mrs. Selden lifted her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders but made no reply. Being of a conventional make up, and unaccustomed to alter the standards of her youth, she could see no reason for allowing Joanne to do the things which she had never been called upon to do, and rather resented the fact that her husband approved of the modern point of view.

Dr. Selden picked up his paper again, but laid it down to say: “What do you think Joanne proposes to do?”

“I’m sure I don’t know; something absurd, I suppose.”

“First she proposed to make me a garment. I suggested a coat, but it came down at last to a sweater, and I firmly believe she will make it. Then she has a suddenly acquired passion for learning to spell and write well, and has been practising on a copy I set her. Where is it?” He picked up the paper Joanne had left on the table. “There, shows improvement already. Get that child headed the right way and there’s no telling where she will bring up. We are mighty fortunate in having sent her to the right school.”

“I hope it may prove so in the end,” said Mrs.Selden. “I have not been altogether pleased with some things Joanne has reported.”

“What, for example?”

“Oh, this laundry work idea and the cooking, for one thing.”

“Don’t you worry over that. The day may come when you will be thankful she has those accomplishments.”

“Oh, Gregory, how you talk. Those are not accomplishments.”

“No, not in the same category as painting on satin and playing the Maiden’s Prayer, I admit,” then feeling that he had made himself disagreeable he changed the subject.

The quest for eggs was made speedily and successfully. There was but one halt on the way and that was when Joanne suddenly said: “Oh, Cousin Ned, do you mind stopping at that candy store we’re coming to? I want to get an egg.”

Mr. Pattison slowed down though he said: “I thought we were going to get the eggs in the country.”

“Of course, but I thought it would be nice to take a chocolate egg to Pablo; he sees plenty of the other kind, but I don’t believe any one will think to give him a fancy one.”

“Excellent idea. Here you are. Don’t be too particular in making a selection; we’re in a hurry, you know.”

Joanne wasted no time in making her purchase, andcame out presently with a little paper bag in her hand. “I got two,” she said as she climbed into the tonneau. “One is for Unc’ Aaron.”

Her cousin chuckled. “I doubt if the old fellow ever saw such a thing.”

“But don’t you think he’ll like it?”

“He’ll be tickled to death.”

And indeed it would be hard to say which was the more pleased, the old man or the boy. Unc’ Aaron showed every one of his remaining teeth as he took the egg gingerly in his wrinkled brown hand. “Jes’ erzackly matches mah complexion,” he said with a grin, “an’ all dese yer little white crinkly-cranklies on it sutt’nly is pretty. I keeps it on mah mankelpiece, Miss Jo.”

“Oh, no, you mustn’t,” returned Joanne in alarm; “it will all melt. You must eat it.”

Unc’ Aaron scratched his old gray head and looked around helplessly at Pablo.

“It’s all creamy and sugary inside,” explained Joanne.

Unc’ Aaron pawed at Pablo with a funny sidewise movement as he spluttered with laughter. “Laws, honey,” he exclaimed, “I a-thinkin’ all de time it one o’ dese yer mak believes, jes’ fur a pretty, an’ not fur no mastification. Yas, miss, I eats it ef yuh says so.” He was still doubtful of its fitness for food, but rather than disappoint the young lady he was ready to swallow it whole if she demanded it.

As for Pablo, his English was unequal to the occasion and he poured forth his thanks in appreciative Spanish winding up with the assertion that he kissed her hand and placed himself at her feet.

Then there was a brief visit to Chico when Joanne had scarce more than time to kiss his dark head and give him a lump of sugar she had brought him, before Mrs. Clover called to her to come and see her baby chicks and yellow ducklings, then Cousin Ned was ready to go and off they started with a big basket of eggs, two bottles of cream, and other country products.

The evening sun spread a soft light upon the land, picking out sparkles in the river and touching to a vivid green the young leaves on the most adventurous of the trees. In the distance old Sugarloaf loomed up faintly blue, while from a scraggy sycamore a cardinal bird showed his splendor against a background of pines. Once in a while the plaintive note of a peewee or the cheerier whistle of a robin greeted them as they sped along, and once from out a depth of dense forest sounded the liquid song of a wood-thrush.

For a long time Joanne sat in silence. Her cousin, too, seemed lost in thought. After a while, however, he asked: “What are you thinking about, Jo?”

“I’m not thinking; I’m just enjoying,” she made answer. “It is all so lovely that I want it to soak in. One thing I did think about a little while ago was that I mean to study the birds. It seems to me I never shall have a better chance.”

“You couldn’t find a better locality,” her cousin assured her. Then they lapsed into silence again and soon were threading their way through the city’s streets, reaching home with not an egg broken.

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