CHAPTER IXWORKReturn to Table of Contents
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It was still raining when Maida got up the next day. It rained all the morning. She listened carefully at a quarter to twelve for the one-session bell but it did not ring. Just before school began in the afternoon Rosie came into the shop. Maida saw at once that something had happened to her. Rosie’s face looked strange and she dragged across the room instead of pattering with her usual quick, light step.
“What do you think’s happened, Maida?” Rosie asked.
“I don’t know. Oh, what?” Maida asked affrighted.
“When I came home from school this noon mother wasn’t there. But Aunt Theresa was there—she’d cooked the dinner. She said that mother had gone away for a visit and that she wouldn’t be back for some time. She said she was going to keep house for father and me while mother was gone.I feel dreadfully homesick and lonesome without mother.”
“Oh Rosie, I am sorry,” Maida said. “But perhaps your mother won’t stay long. Do you like your Aunt Theresa?”
“Oh, yes, I like her. But of course she isn’t mother.”
“No, of course. Nobody is like your mother.”
“Oh, yes; there’s something else I had to tell you. The W.M.N.T.’s are going to meet at Dicky’s after school this afternoon. Be sure to come, Maida.”
“Of course I’ll come.” Maida’s whole face sparkled. “That is, if Granny doesn’t think it’s too wet.”
Rosie lingered for a few moments but she did not seem like her usual happy-go-lucky self. And when she left, Maida noticed that instead of running across the street she actually walked.
All the morning long Maida talked of nothing to Granny but the prospective meeting of the W.M.N.T.’s. “Just think, Granny, I never belonged to a club before,” she said again and again.
Very early she had put out on her bed the clothes that she intended to wear—a tanbrownserge of which she was particularly fond, and her favorite “tire” of a delicate, soft lawn. She kept rushing to the window to study the sky. It continued to look like the inside of a dull tin cup. She would not have eaten any lunch at all if Granny had not told her that she must. And her heart sank steadily all the afternoon for the rain continued to come down.
“I don’t suppose I can go, Granny,” she faltered when the clock struck four.
“Sure an youcan,” Granny responded briskly.
But she wrapped Maida up, as Maida herself said: “As if I was one of papa’s carved crystals come all the way from China.”
First Granny put on a sweater, then a coat, then over all a raincoat. She put a hood on her head and a veil over that. She made her wear rubber boots and take an umbrella. Maida got into a gale of laughter during the dressing.
“I ought to be wrapped in excelsior now,” she said. “If I fall down in the puddle in the court, Granny,” she threatened merrily, “I never can pick myself up. I’ll either have to roll and roll and roll until I get onto dry land or I’ll have to wait until somebody comes and shovels me out.”
But she did not fall into the puddle. She walked carefully along the edge and then ran as swiftly as her clothes and lameness would permit. She arrived in Dicky’s garret, red-cheeked and breathless.
Arthur and Rosie had already come. Rosie was playing on the floor with Delia and the puppy that she had rescued from the tin-can persecution. Rosie was growling, the dog was yelping and Delia was squealing—but all three with delight.
Arthur and Dicky sat opposite each other, working at the round table.
“What do you think of that dog now, Maida?” Rosie asked proudly. “His name is‘Tag.’You wouldn’t know him for the same dog, would you? Isn’t he a nice-looking little puppy?”
Tag did look like another dog. He wore a collar and his yellowy coat shone like satin. His whole manner had changed. He came running over to Maida and stood looking at her with the most spirited air in the world, his head on one side, one paw up and one ear cocked inquisitively. His tail wriggled so fast that Delia thinking it some wonderfulnew toy, kept trying to catch it and hold it in her little fingers.
“He’s a lovely doggie,” Maida said. “I wish I’d brought Fluff.”
“And did you ever see such a dear baby,” Rosie went on, hugging Delia. “Oh, if I only had a baby brother or sister!”
“She’s a darling,” Maida agreed heartily. “Babies are so much more fun than dolls, don’t you think so, Rosie?”
“Dolls!” No words can express the contempt that was in Miss Brine’s accent.
“What are you doing, Dicky?” Maida asked, limping over to the table.
“Making things,” Dicky said cheerfully.
On the table were piles of mysterious-looking objects made entirely of paper. Some were of white paper and others of brown, but they were all decorated with trimmings of colored tissue.
“What are they?” Maida asked. “Aren’t they lovely? I never saw anything like them in my life.”
Dicky blushed all over his face at this compliment but it was evident that he was delighted. “Well, those are paper-boxes,” he said, pointing to the different piles of things, “and those are steamships. Thoseare the old-fashioned kind with double smokestacks. Those are double-boats, jackets, pants, badges, nose-pinchers, lamp-lighters, firemen’s caps and soldier caps.”
“Oh, that’s why you buy all that colored paper,” Maida said in a tone of great satisfaction. “I’ve often wondered.” She examined Dicky’s work carefully. She could see that it was done with remarkable precision and skill. “Oh, what fun to do things like that. I do wish you’d show me how to make them, Dicky. I’m such a useless girl. I can’t make a single thing.”
“I’ll show you, sure,” Dicky offered generously.
“What are you making so many for?” Maida queried.
“Well, you see it’s this way,” Dicky began in a business-like air. “Arthur and Rosie and I are going to have a fair. We’ve had a fair every spring and every fall for the last three years. That’s how we get our money for Christmas and the Fourth of July. Arthur whittles things out of wood—he’ll show you what he can do in a minute—he’s a crackajack. Rosie makes candy. And I make these paper things.”
“And do you make much money?” Maida asked, deeply interested.
“Don’t make any money at all,” Dicky said. “The children pay us in nails. I charge them ten nails a-piece for the easy things and twenty nails for the hardest. Arthur can get more for his stuff because it’s harder to do.”
“But what do you want nails for?” Maida asked in bewilderment.
“Why, nails are junk.”
“And what’s junk?”
The three children stared at her. “Don’t you know whatjunkis, Maida?” Rosie asked in despair.
“No.”
“Junk’s old iron,” Dicky explained. “And you sell it to the junkman. Once we made forty cents out of one of these fairs. One reason we’re beginning so early this year, I’ve got something very particular I want to buy my mother for a Christmas present. Can you keep a secret, Maida?”
Maida nodded.
“Well, it’s a fur collar for her neck. They have them down in a store on Main street every winter—two dollars and ninetyeightcents. It seems an awful lot but I’ve got over a dollar saved up. And I guess I can do it if I work hard.”
“How much have you made ordinarily?” Maida asked thoughtfully.
“Once we made forty cents a-piece but that’s the most.”
“I tell you what you do,” Maida burst out impetuously after a moment of silence in which she considered this statement. “When the time comes for you to hold your fair, I’ll lend you my shop for a day. I’ll take all the things out of the window and I’ll clean all the shelves off and you boys can put your things there. I’ll clear out the showcases for Rosie’s candy. Won’t that be lovely?” She smiled happily.
“It would be grand business for us,” Dicky said soberly, “but somehow it doesn’t seem quite fair to you.”
“Oh, please don’t think of that,” Maida said. “I’d just love to do it. And you must teach me how to make things so that I can help you. You will take the shop, Dicky?” she pleaded. “And you, Rosie? And Arthur?” She looked from one to the other with all her heart in her eyes.
But nobody spoke for a moment. “It seems somehow as if we oughtn’t to,” Dicky said awkwardly at last.
Maida’s lip trembled. At first she could not understand. Here she was aching to do a kindness to these three friends of hers. And they, for some unknown reason, would not permit it. It was not that they disliked her, she knew. What was it? She tried to put herself in their place. Suddenly it came to her what the difficulty was. They did not want to be so much in her debt. How could she prevent that? She must let them do something for her that would lessen that debt. But what? She thought very hard. In a flash it came to her—a plan by which she could make it all right.
“You see,” she began eagerly, “I wanted to ask you three to help me in something, but I can’t do it unless you let me help you. Listen—the next holiday is Halloween. I want to decorate my shop with a lot of real jack-o’-lanterns cut from pumpkins. It will be hard work and a lot of it and I was hoping that perhaps you’d help me with this.”
The three faces lighted up.
“Of course we will,” Dicky said heartily.
“Gee, I bet Dicky and I could make some great lanterns,” Arthur said reflectively.
“And I’ll help you fix up the store,” Rosie said with enthusiasm. “I just love to make things look pretty.”
“It’s a bargain then,” Maida said. “And now you must teach me how to help you this very afternoon, Dicky.”
They fell to work with a vim. At least three of them did. Rosie continued to frisk with Delia and Tag on the floor. Dicky started Maida on the caps first. He said that those were the easiest. And, indeed she had very little trouble with anything until she came to the boxes. She had to do her first box over and over again before it would come right. But Dicky was very patient with her. He kept telling her that she did better than most beginners or she would have given it up. When she made her first good box, her face beamed with satisfaction.
“Do you mind if I take it home, Dicky?” she asked. “I’d like to show it to my father when he comes. It’s the first thing I ever made in my life.”
“Of course,” Dicky said.
“Don’t the other children ever try to copy your things?” Maida asked.
“They try to,” Arthur answered, “but they never do so well as Dicky.”
“You ought to see their nose-pinchers,” Rosie laughed. “They can’t stand up straight. And their boxes and steamships are the wobbliest things.”
“I’m going to get all kinds of stuff for things we make for the fair,” Maida said reflectively. “Gold and silver paper and colored stars and pretty fancy pictures for trimmings. You see if you’re going to charge real money you must make them more beautiful than those for which you only charged nails.”
“That’s right,” Dicky said. “By George, that will be great! You go ahead and buy whatever you think is right, Maida, and I’ll pay you for it from what we take in at the fair.”
“That’s settled. What do you whittle, Arthur?”
“Oh, all kinds of things—things I made up myself and things I learned how to do in sloyd in school. I make bread-boards and rolling pins and shinny sticks and catsand little baskets out of cherry-stones.”
“Jiminy crickets, he’s forgetting the boats,” Dicky burst in enthusiastically. “He makes the dandiest boats you ever saw in your life.”
Maida looked at Arthur in awe. “I never heard anything like it! Can you make anything for girls?”
“Made me a set of the darlingest dolls’ furniture you ever saw in your life,” Rosie put in from the floor.
“Say, did you get into any trouble last night?” Arthur turned suddenly to Rosie. “I forgot to ask you.”
“Arthur and Rosie hooked jack yesterday, in all that rain,” Dicky explained to Maida. “They knew a place where they could get a whole lot of old iron and they were afraid if they waited, it would be gone.”
“I should say I did,” Rosie answered Arthur’s question. “Somebody went and tattled to my mother. Of course, I was wet through to the skin and that gave the whole thing away, anyway. I got the worst scolding and mother sent me to bed without my supper. But I climbed out the window and went over to see Maida. I don’t mind! Ihate school and as long as I live I shall never go except when I want to—never, never, never! I guess I’m not going to be shut up studying when I’d rather be out in the open air. Wouldn’t you hook jack if you wanted to, Maida?”
Maida did not reply for an instant. She hated to have Rosie ask this question, point-blank for she did not want to answer it. If she said exactly what she thought there might be trouble. And it seemed to her that she would do almost anything rather than lose Rosie’s friendship. But Maida had been taught to believe that the truth is the most precious thing in the world. And so she told the truth after a while but it was with a great effort.
“No, I wouldn’t,” she said.
“Oh, that’s all right foryouto say,” Rosie said firing up. “You don’t have to go to school. You live the easiest life that anybody can—just sitting in a chair and tending shop all day. What do you know about it, anyway?”
Maida’s lips quivered. “It is true I don’t go to school, Rosie,” she said. “But it isn’t because I don’t want to. I’d give anything on earth if I could go. I watchthat line of children every morning and afternoon of my life and wish andwishand WISH I was in it. And when the windows are opened and I hear the singing and reading, it seems as if I just couldn’t stand it.”
“Oh, well,” Rosie’s tone was still scornful. “I don’t believe, even if you did go to school, that you’d ever do anything bad. You’d never be anything but a fraid-cat and teacher’s pet.”
“I guess I’d be so glad to be there, I’d do anything the teacher asked,” Maida said dejectedly. “I do a lot of things that bother Granny but I guess I never have been a very naughty girl. You can’t be very naughty with your leg all crooked under you.” Maida’s voice had grown bitter. The children looked at her in amazement. “But what’s the use of talking to you two,” she went on. “You could never understand. I guess Dicky knows what I mean, though.”
To their great surprise, Maida put her head down on the table and cried.
For a moment the room was perfectly silent. The fire snapped and Dicky went over to look at it. He stood with his backturned to the other children but a suspicious snuffle came from his direction. Arthur Duncan walked to the window and stood looking out. Rosie sat still, her eyes downcast, her little white teeth biting her red lips. Then suddenly she jumped to her feet, ran like a whirlwind to Maida’s side. She put her arms about the bowed figure.
“Oh, do excuse me, Maida,” she begged. “I know I’m the worst girl in the world. Everybody says so and I guess it’s true. But I do love you and I wouldn’t have hurt your feelings for anything. I don’t believe you’d be a fraid-cat or teacher’s pet—I truly don’t. Please excuse me.”
Maida wiped her tears away. “Of course I’ll excuse you! But just the same, Rosie, I hope you won’t hook jack any more for someday you’ll be sorry.”
“I’m going to make some candy now,” Rosie said, adroitly changing the subject. “I brought some molasses and butter and everything I need.” She began to bustle about the stove. Soon they were all laughing again.
Maida had never pulled candy before and she thought it the most enchanting fun in the world. It was hard to keep at work,though, when it was such a temptation to stop and eat it. But she persevered and succeeded in pulling hers whiter than anybody’s. She laughed and talked so busily that, when she started to put on her things, all traces of tears had disappeared.
The rain had stopped. The puddle was of monster size after so long a storm. They came out just in time to help Molly fish Tim out of the water and to prevent Betsy from giving a stray kitten a bath. Following Rosie and Arthur, Maida waded through it from one end to the other—it seemed the most perilous of adventures to her.
After that meeting, the W.M.N.T.’s were busier than they had ever been. Every other afternoon, and always when it was bad weather, they worked at Maida’s house. Granny gave Maida a closet all to herself and as fast as the things were finished they were put in boxes and stowed away on its capacious shelves.
Arthur whittled and carved industriously. His work went slower than Dicky’s of course but, still, it went with remarkable quickness. Maida often stopped her own work on the paper things to watch Arthur’s. It was a constant marvel to her that suchbig, awkward-looking hands could perform feats of such delicacy. Her own fingers, small and delicate as they were, bungled surprisingly at times.
“And as for the paste,” Maida said in disgust to Rosie one day, “you’d think that I fell into the paste-pot every day. I wash it off my hands and face. I pick it off of my clothes and sometimes Granny combs it out of my hair.”
Often after dinner, the W.M.N.T.’s would call in a body on Maida. Then would follow long hours of such fun that Maida hated to hear the clock strike nine. Always there would be molasses-candy making by the capable Rosie at the kitchen stove and corn-popping by the vigorous Arthur on the living-room hearth. After the candy had cooled and the pop corn had been flooded in melted butter, they would gather about the hearth to roast apples and chestnuts and to listen to the fairy-tales that Maida would read.
The one thing which she could do and they could not was to read with the ease and expression of a grown person. As many of her books were in French as in English and it was the wonder of the otherW.M.N.T.’s that she could read a French story, translating as she went. Her books were a delight to Arthur and Dicky and she lent them freely. Rosie liked to listen to stories but she did not care to read.
Maida was very happy nowadays. Laura was the only person in the Court who had caused her any uneasiness. Since the day that Laura had made herself so disagreeable, Maida had avoided her steadily. Best of all, perhaps, Maida’s health had improved so much that even her limp was slowly disappearing.
In the course of time, the children taught Maida the secret language of the W.M.N.T.’s. They could hold long conversations that were unintelligible to anybody else. When at first they used it in fun before Maida, she could not understand a word. After they had explained it to her, she wondered that she had ever been puzzled.
“It’s as easy as anything,” Rosy said. “You take off the first sound of a word and put it on the end with anayadded to it like MAN—an-may. BOY—oy-bay. GIRL—irl-gay. When a word is just one sound like I or O, or when it begins with a vowel like EEL or US or OUT, you addway, like I—I-way. O—O-way. EEL—eel-way. US—us-way. OUT—out-way.”
Thus Maida could say to Rosie:
“Are-way ou-yay oing-gay o-tay ool-schay o-tay ay-day?” and mean simply, “Are you going to school to-day?”
And sometimes to Maida’s grief, Rosie would reply roguishly:
“O-nay I-way am-way oing-gay o-tay ook-hay ack-jay ith-way Arthur-way.”
Billy Potter was finally invited to join the W.M.N.T.’s too. He never missed a meeting if he could possibly help it.
“Why do you call Maida,‘Petronilla’?” Dicky asked him curiously one day when Maida had run home for more paper.
“Petronilla is the name of a little girl in a fairy-tale that I read when I was a little boy,” Billy answered.
“And was she like Maida?” Arthur asked.
“Very.”
“How?” Rosie inquired.
“Petronilla had a gold star set in her forehead by a fairy when she was a baby,” Billy explained. “It was a magic star. Nobody but fairies could see it but it was always there. Anybody who came withinthe light of Petronilla’s star, no matter how wicked or hopeless or unhappy he was, was made better and hopefuller and happier.”
Nobody spoke for an instant.
Then, “I guess Maida’s got the star all right,” Dicky said.
Billy was very interested in the secret language. At first when they talked this gibberish before him, he listened mystified. But to their great surprise he never asked a question. They went right on talking as if he were not present. In an interval of silence, Billy said softly:
“I-way onder-way if-way I-way ought-bay a-way uart-quay of-way ice-way-eam-cray, ese-thay ildren-chay ould-way eat-way it-way.”
For a moment nobody could speak. Then a deafening, “es-yay!” was shouted at the top of four pairs of lungs.
CHAPTER XPLAYReturn to Table of Contents
Return to Table of Contents
But although the W.M.N.T.’s worked very hard, you must not suppose that they left no time to play. Indeed, the weather was so fine that it was hard to stay in the house. The beautiful Indian summer had come and each new day dawned more perfect than the last. The trees had become so gorgeous that it was as if the streets were lined with burning torches. Whenever a breeze came, they seemed to flicker and flame and flare. Maida and Rosie used to shuffle along the gutters gathering pocketsful of glossy horse-chestnuts and handfuls of gorgeous leaves.
Sometimes it seemed to Maida that she did not need to play, that there was fun enough in just being out-of-doors. But she did play a great deal for she was well enough to join in all the fun now and it seemed to her that she never could get enough of any one game.
She would play house and paper-dolls and ring-games with the little children in the morning when the older ones were in school. She would play jackstones with the bigger girls in the afternoon. She would play running games with the crowd of girls and boys, of whom the W.M.N.T.’s were the leaders, towards night. Then sometimes she would grumble to Granny because the days were so short.
Of all the games, Hoist-the-Sail was her favorite. She often served as captain on her side. But whether she called or awaited the cry, “Liberty poles are bending—hoist the sail!” a thrill ran through her that made her blood dance.
“It’s no use in talking, Granny,” Maida said joyfully one day. “My leg is getting stronger. I jumped twenty jumps to-day without stopping.”
After that her progress was rapid. She learned to jump in the rope with Rosie.
They were a pretty sight. People passing often gave them more than one glance—Rosie so vivid and sparkling, in the scarlet cape and hat all velvety jet-blacks, satiny olives and brilliant crimsons—Maida slim, delicate, fairy-like in her long squirrel-coatand cap, her airy ringlets streaming in the breeze and the eyes that had once been so wistful now shining with happiness.
“Do you know what you look like, Maida?” Rosie said once. Before Maida could answer, she went on. “You look like that little mermaid princess in Anderson’s fairy tales—the one who had to suffer so to get legs like mortals.”
“Do I?” Maida laughed. “Now isn’t it strange I have always thought that you look like somebody in a fairy tale, too. You’re like Rose-Red in‘Rose-Red and Snow-White.’I think,” she added, flushing, for she was a little afraid that it was not polite to say things like this, “that you are the beautifulest girl I ever saw.”
“Why, that’s just what I think of you,” Rosie said in surprise.
“I just love black hair,” Maida said.
“And I just adore golden hair,” Rosie said. “Now, isn’t that strange?”
“I guess,” Maida announced after a moment of thought, “people like what they haven’t got.”
After a while, Rosie taught Maida to jump in the big rope with a half a dozen children at once. Maida never tired of this. Whenshe heard the rope swishing through the air, a kind of excitement came over her. She was proud to think that she had caught the trick—that something inside would warn her when to jump—that she could be sure that this warning would not come an instant too soon or too late. The consciousness of a new strength and a new power made a different child of her. It made her eyes sparkle like gray diamonds. It made her cheeks glow like pink peonies.
By this time she could spin tops with the best of them—sometimes she had five tops going at once. This was a sport of which the W.M.N.T.’s never tired. They kept it up long into the twilight. Sometimes Granny would have to ring the dinner-bell a half a dozen times before Maida appeared. Maida did not mean to be disobedient. She simply did not hear the bell. Granny’s scoldings for this carelessness were very gentle—Maida’s face was too radiant with her triumph in this new skill.
There was something about Primrose Court—the rows of trees welded into a yellow arch high over their heads, the sky showing through in diamond-shaped glints of blue, the tiny trim houses and theirtinier, trimmer yards, the doves pink-toeing everywhere, their throats bubbling color as wonderful as the old Venetian glass in the Beacon Street house, the children running and shouting, the very smell of the dust which their pattering feet threw up—something in the look of all this made Maida’s spirits leap.
“I’m happy,happy, HAPPY,” Maida said one day. The next—Rosie came rushing into the shop with a frightened face.
“Oh, Maida,” she panted, “a terrible thing has happened. Laura Lathrop’s got diphtheria—they say she’s going to die.”
“Oh, Rosie, how dreadful! Who told you so?”
“Annie the cook told Aunt Theresa. Dr. Ames went there three times yesterday. Annie says Mrs. Lathrop looks something awful.”
“The poor, poor woman,” Granny murmured compassionately.
“Oh, I’m so sorry I was cross to Laura,” Maida said, conscience-stricken. “Oh, I do hope she won’t die.”
“It must be dreadful for Laura,” Rosie continued, “Harold can’t go near her. Nobodygoes into the room but her mother and the nurse.”
The news cast a deep gloom over the Court. The little children—Betsy, Molly and Tim played as usual for they could not understand the situation. But the noisy fun of the older children ceased entirely. They gathered on the corner and talked in low voices, watching with dread any movement in the Lathrop house. For a week or more Primrose Court was the quietest spot in the neighborhood.
“They say she’s sinking,” Rosie said that first night.
The thought of it colored Maida’s dreams.
“She’s got through the night all right,” Rosie reported in the morning, her face shining with hope. “And they think she’s a little better.” But late the next afternoon, Rosie appeared again, her face dark with dread, “Laura’s worse again.”
Two or three days passed. Sometimes Laura was better. Oftener she was worse. Dr. Ames’s carriage seemed always to be driving into the Court.
“Annie says she’s dying,” Rosie retailed despairingly. “They don’t think she’ll livethrough the night. Oh, won’t it be dreadful to wake up to-morrow and find the crape on the door.”
The thought of what she might see in the morning kept Maida awake a long time that night. When she arose her first glance was for the Lathrop door. There was no crape.
“No better,” Rosie dropped in to say on her way to school “but,” she added hopefully, “she’s no worse.”
Maida watched the Lathrop house all day, dreading to see the undertaker’s wagon drive up. But it did not come—not that day, nor the next, nor the next.
“They think she’s getting better,” Rosie reported joyfully one day.
And gradually Laura did get better. But it was many days before she was well enough to sit up.
“Mrs. Lathrop says,” Rosie burst in one day with an excited face, “that if we all gather in front of the house to-morrow at one o’clock, she’ll lift Laura up to the window so that we can see her. She says Laura is crazy to see us all.”
“Oh, Rosie, I’m so glad!” Maida exclaimed, delighted. Seizing each other bythe waist, the two little girls danced about the room.
“Oh, I’m going to be so good to Laura when she gets well,” Maida said.
“So am I,” Rosie declared with equal fervor. “The last thing I ever said to her was that she was ‘a hateful little smarty-cat.’”
Five minutes before one, the next day, all the children in Primrose Court gathered on the lawn in front of Laura’s window. Maida led Molly by one hand and Tim by the other. Rosie led Betsy and Delia. Dorothy Clark held Fluff and Mabel held Tag. Promptly at one o’clock, Mrs. Lathrop appeared at the window, carrying a little, thin, white wisp of a girl, all muffled up in a big shawl.
The children broke into shouts of joy. The boys waved their hats and the girls their handkerchiefs. Tag barked madly and Rosie declared afterwards that even Fluff looked excited. But Maida stood still with the tears streaming down her cheeks—Laura’s face looked so tiny, her eyes so big and sad. From her own experience, Maida could guess how weak Laura felt.
Laura stayed only an instant at the window. One feeble wave of her claw-like hand and she was gone.
“Annie says Mrs. Lathrop is worn to a shadow trying to find things to entertain Laura,” Rosie said one night to Maida and Billy Potter. “She’s read all her books to her and played all her games with her and Laura keeps saying she wished she had something new.”
“Oh, I do wish we could think of something to do for her,” Maida said wistfully. “I know just how she feels. If I could only think of a new toy—but Laura has everything. And then the trouble with toys is that after you’ve played with them once, there’s no more fun in them. I know what that is. If we all had telephones, we could talk to her once in a while. But even that would tire her, I guess.”
Billy jumped. “I know what we can do for Laura,” he said. “I’ll have to have Mrs. Lathrop’s permission though.” He seized his hat and made for the door. “I’d better see her about it to-night.” The door slammed.
It had all happened so suddenly that thechildren gazed after him with wide-open mouths and eyes.
“What do you suppose it’s going to be, Maida?” Rosie asked finally.
“I don’t know,” Maida answered. “I haven’t the least idea. But if Billy makes it, you may be sure it will be wonderful.”
When Billy came back, they asked him a hundred questions. But they could not get a word out of him in regard to the new toy.
He appeared at the shop early the next morning with a suit-case full of bundles. Then followed doings that, for a long time, were a mystery to everybody. A crowd of excited children followed him about, asking him dozens of questions and chattering frantically among themselves.
First, he opened one of the bundles—out dropped eight little pulleys. Second, he went up into Maida’s bedroom and fastened one of the little pulleys on the sill outside her window. Third, he did the same thing in Rosie’s house, in Arthur’s and in Dicky’s. Fourth, he fastened four of the little pulleys at the playroom window in the Lathrop house.
“Oh, what is he doing?” “I can’t thinkof anything.” “Oh, I wish he’d tell us,” came from the children who watched these manœuvres from the street.
Fifth, Billy opened another bundle—this time, out came four coils of a thin rope.
“I know now,” Arthur called up to him, “but I won’t tell.”
Billy grinned.
And, sure enough, “You watch him,” was all Arthur would say to the entreaties of his friends.
Sixth, Billy ran a double line of rope between Maida’s and Laura’s window, a second between Rosie’s and Laura’s, a third between Arthur’s and Laura’s, a fourth between Dicky’s and Laura’s.
Last, Billy opened another bundle. Out dropped four square tin boxes, each with a cover and a handle.
“I’ve guessed it! I’ve guessed it!” Maida and Rosie screamed together. “It’s a telephone.”
“That’s the answer,” Billy confessed. He went from house to house fastening a box to the lower rope.
“Now when you want to say anything to Laura,” he said on his return, “just write a note, put it in the box, pull on the upperstring and it will sail over to her window. Suppose you all run home and write something now. I’ll go over to Laura’s to see how it works.”
The children scattered. In a few moments, four excited little faces appeared at as many windows. The telephone worked perfectly. Billy handed Mrs. Lathrop the notes to deliver to Laura.
“Oh, Mr. Potter,” Mrs. Lathrop said suddenly, “there’s a matter that I wished to speak to you about. That little Flynn girl has lived in the family of Mr. Jerome Westabrook, hasn’t she?”
Billy’s eyes “skrinkled up.” “Yes, Mrs. Lathrop,” he admitted, “she lived in the Westabrook family for several years.”
“So I guessed,” Mrs. Lathrop said. “She’s a very sweet little girl,” she went on earnestly for she had been touched by the sight of Maida’s grief the day that she held Laura to the window. “I hope Mr. Westabrook’s own little girl is as sweet.”
“She is, Mrs. Lathrop, I assure you she is,” Billy said gravely.
“What is the name of the Westabrook child?”
“Elizabeth Fairfax Westabrook.”
“What is she like?”
“She’s a good deal like Maida,” Billy said, his eyes beginning to “skrinkle up” again. “They could easily pass for sisters.”
“I suppose that’s why the Westabrooks have been so good to the little Flynn girl,” Mrs. Lathrop went on, “for they certainly are very good to her. It is quite evident that Maida’s clothes belonged once to the little Westabrook girl.”
“You are quite right, Mrs. Lathrop. They were made for the little Westabrook girl.”
Mrs. Lathrop always declared afterwards that it was the telephone that really cured Laura. Certainly, it proved to be the most exciting of toys to the little invalid. There was always something waiting for her when she waked up in the morning and the tin boxes kept bobbing from window to window until long after dark. The girls kept her informed of what was going on in the neighborhood and the boys sent her jokes and conundrums and puzzle pictures cut from the newspapers. Gifts came to her at all hours. Sometimes it would be a bit of wood-carving—a grotesque face, perhaps—thatArthur had done. Sometimes it was a bit of Dicky’s pretty paper-work. Rosie sent her specimens of her cooking from candy to hot roasted potatoes, and Maida sent her daily translations of an exciting fairy tale which she was reading in French for the first time.
Pretty soon Laura was well enough to answer the notes herself. She wrote each of her correspondents a long, grateful and affectionate letter. By and by, she was able to sit in a chair at the window and watch the games. The children remembered every few moments to look and wave to her and she always waved back. At last came the morning when a very thin, pale Laura was wheeled out into the sunshine. After that she grew well by leaps and bounds. In a day or two, she could stand in the ring-games with the little children. By the end of a week, she seemed quite herself.
One morning every child in Primrose Court received a letter in the mail. It was written on gay-tinted paper with a pretty picture at the top. It read:
“You are cordially invited to a Halloween party to be given by Miss LauraLathrop at 29 Primrose Court on Saturday evening, October 31, at a half after seven.”
But as Maida ceased gradually to worry about Laura, she began to be troubled about Rosie. For Rosie was not the same child. Much of the time she was silent, moody and listless.
One afternoon she came over to the shop, bringing the Clark twins with her. For awhile she and Maida played “house” with the little girls. Suddenly, Rosie tired of this game and sent the children home. Then for a time, she frolicked with Fluff while Maida read aloud. As suddenly as she had stopped playing “house” she interrupted Maida.
“Don’t read any more,” she commanded, “I want to talk with you.”
Maida had felt the whole afternoon that there was something on Rosie’s mind for whenever the scowl came between Rosie’s eyebrows, it meant trouble. Maida closed her book and sat waiting.
“Maida,” Rosie asked, “do you remember your mother?”
“Oh, yes,” Maida answered, “perfectly. She was very beautiful. I could not forgether any more than a wonderful picture. She used to come and kiss me every night before she went to dinner with papa. She always smelled so sweet—whenever I see any flowers, I think of her. And she wore such beautiful dresses and jewels. She loved sparkly things, I guess—sometimes she looked like a fairy queen. Once she had a new lace gown all made of roses of lace and she had a diamond fastened in every rose to make it look like dew. When her hair was down, it came to her knees. She let me brush it sometimes with her gold brush.”
“A gold brush,” Rosie said in an awed tone.
“Yes, it was gold with her initials in diamonds on it. Papa gave her a whole set one birthday.”
“How old were you when she died?” Rosie asked after a pause in which her scowl grew deeper.
“Eight.”
“What did she die of?”
“I don’t know,” Maida answered. “You see I was so little that I didn’t understand about dying. I had never heard of it. They told me one day that my mother hadgone away. I used to ask every day when she was coming back and they’d say‘next week’and‘next week’and‘next week’until one day I got so impatient that I cried. Then they told me that my mother was living far away in a beautiful country and she would never come back. They said that I must not cry for she still loved me and was always watching over me. It was a great comfort to know that and of course I never cried after that for fear of worrying her. But at first it was very lonely. Why, Rosie—” She stopped terrified. “What’s the matter?”
Rosie had thrown herself on the couch, and was crying bitterly. “Oh, Maida,” she sobbed, “that’s exactly what they say to me when I ask them—‘next week’ and ‘next week’ and ‘next week’ until I’m sick of it. My mother is dead and I know it.”
“Oh, Rosie!” Maida protested. “Oh no, no, no—your mother is not dead. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it.”
“She is,” Rosie persisted. “I know she is. Oh, what shall I do? Think how naughty I was! What shall I do?” She sobbed so convulsively that Maida was frightened.
“Listen, Rosie,” she said. “You don’tknowyour mother is dead. And I for one don’t believe that she is.”
“But they said the same thing to you,” Rosie protested passionately.
“I think it was because I was sick,” Maida said after a moment in which she thought the matter out. “They were afraid that I might die if they told me the truth. But whether your mother is alive or dead, the only way you can make up for being naughty is to be as good to your Aunt Theresa as you can. Oh, Rosie, please go to school every day.”
“Do you suppose I could ever hook jack again?” Rosie asked bitterly. She dried her eyes. “I guess I’ll go home now,” she said, “and see if I can help Aunt Theresa with the supper. And I’m going to get her to teach me how to cook everything so that I can help mother—if she ever comes home.”
The next day Rosie came into the shop with the happiest look that she had worn for a long time.
“I peeled the potatoes for Aunt Theresa, last night,” she announced, “and set the table and wiped the dishes. She was realsurprised. She asked me what had got into me?”
“I’m glad,” Maida approved.
“I asked her when mother was coming back and she said the same thing, ‘Next week, I think.’” Rosie’s lip quivered.
“I think she’ll come back, Rosie,” Maida insisted. “And now let’s not talk any more about it. Let’s come out to play.”
Mindful of her own lecture on obedience to Rosie, Maida skipped home the first time Granny rang the bell.
Granny met her at the door. Her eyes were shining with mischief. “You’ve got a visitor,” she said. Maida could see that she was trying to keep her lips prim at the corners. She wondered who it was. Could it be—
She ran into the living-room. Her father jumped up from the easy-chair to meet her.
“Well, well, well, Miss Rosy-Cheeks. No need to ask how you are!” he said kissing her.
“Oh papa, papa, I never was so happy in all my life. If you could only be here with me all the time, there wouldn’t be another thing in the world that I wanted. Don’tyou think you could give up Wall Street and come to live in this Court? You might open a shop too. Papa, I know you’d make a good shopkeeper although it isn’t so easy as a lot of people think. But I’d teach you all I know—and, then, it’s such fun. You could have a big shop for I know just how you like big things—just as I like little ones.”
“Buffalo” Westabrook laughed. “I may have to come to it yet but it doesn’t look like it this moment. My gracious, Posie, how you have improved! I never would know you for the same child. Where did you get those dimples? I never saw them in your face before. Your mother had them, though.”
The shadow, that the mention of her mother’s name always brought, darkened his face. “How you are growing to look like her!” he said.
Maida knew that she must not let him stay sad. “Dimples!” she squealed. “Really, papa?” She ran over to the mirror, climbed up on a chair and peeked in. Her face fell. “I don’t see any,” she said mournfully.
“And you’re losing your limp,” Mr.Westabrook said. Then catching sight of her woe-begone face, he laughed. “That’s because you’ve stopped smiling, you little goose,” he said. “Grin and you’ll see them.”
Obedient, Maida grinned so hard that it hurt. But the grin softened to a smile of perfect happiness. For, sure enough, pricking through the round of her soft, pink cheeks, were a pair of tiny hollows.