"Uncle Fred, I'm going to play being poor for a whole week," said Alene, meeting Mr. Dawson at the gate one evening.
"What put that idea into your head, child?"
"You see it's so much more exciting to do things when you haven't money! We felt quite hilarious this afternoon when Nettie discovered that one could get a great big sugar cake for a cent at the new bakery. It was Ivy's treat and we all went in a crowd and bought half a dozen for five cents! We really don't see how they can afford to give such big ones!"
"They depend on large sales and small profits, no doubt; besides it will attract other customers. A good advertisement too, for here am I, for one, who would have gone past the new bakery a hundred times, never once glancing that way, never dreaming of those elephantine sugar cakes, were it not for you! Are you sure the bakery didn't bribe you girls to sound their praises?"
"The idea!"
"It's not so foolish after all; I'm almost famished for one of those sugar cakes. Greedy Alene, to devour them every one!"
"No, I did not! There was Laura and Ivy, and Nettie and Claude, and Lois and little Elmer, besides myself, to divide among!"
"Which suggests my school days and problems in arithmetic! I think this would be a question in short division or would it be short cake?"
"No, indeed! We all had almost enough! But, Uncle, do behave! Here's my purse; I want you to keep it."
"'With all my lordly goods I thee endow!' Why, thank you, Miss Dawson! I hear the gold pieces clinking! But I don't know if my mamma will allow me to accept such valuable presents!"
There was a little gurgling laugh from Alene.
"Do let me finish! I only want you to keep it for me until the end of the week!"
"Indian giver! Indian giver! Take your old purse! I guess it was only the clink of pennies I heard, anyway!"
Alene clasped her hands behind her back.
"You must keep it or I can't play being poor! Now Uncle, won't you be good! I feel so ashamed to have so much when the other girls have so little, and I want to try it for just one little week; besides, it will be fun!"
"Fun for you, but what a temptation to put in your own Uncle's way! However I don't want to be too selfish. I'll keep the purse."
"For a week. Thank you, Uncle!"
"Have you any more stray pennies to put in my charge?"
"I have exactly six cents left and I must get along on that."
"Won't you allow me to contribute an occasional quarter?"
"Well, not more than a nickel at a time. Just pretend I'm a poor little girl who is hired to run errands at the Towers!"
"And if you demand part of the content of the purse?"
"Don't give it to me! But I shan't!"
Alene held her week's allowance in her hand until they entered the house; then she placed it beside her plate at dinner. She found it troublesome keeping track of it.
"I need a small purse to put it in. There's a pretty one for a quarter at Nixon's store—ah, I forgot already, I haven't enough money."
Uncle Fred offered her the use of a flat red-morocco pocketbook, but Alene said it was not convenient to carry, and besides, people would expect so much from its size! She at last decided to use a small knit bag of crimson silk with silver rings, which she kept in a box upstairs.
The next day she had a long letter to mail to her parents, and the girls accompanied her to the post-office.
On the way back they heard music.
They soon came to where the players stood, a crippled Italian and a little, dark-skinned boy, with a harp and violin.
At the conclusion of several numbers the boy went through the crowd, holding out his battered cap.
Laura put in all she had, a bright new cent.
"I haven't a penny," lamented Ivy.
"I have just one solitary, shamed little fellow, done up in crimson satin and silver buckles," announced Alene, taking the pretty bag from her wrist.
Ivy giggled.
"Everybody is looking, Alene! They expect a piece of silver, at least, from that gorgeous purse!"
"Well, I can't help it! I paid a nickle postage on my letter, you know!"
"Yes, I know, but the rest of the town is in ignorance of that great expenditure."
"You needn't laugh, Miss Bonner. Considering the amount of my capital, it was a big payment to meet!"
"And so early, too, in your poverty-stricken career, I can sympathize with you," said Laura.
The bright bag with its shining rings, over which the heads of the three girls were bent, seemed to have attracted the attention of the crowd as Ivy had said, and the penny, hidden away in its crimson corner, while Alene fumbled in vain for it, held them longer in the public gaze.
Laura gave a relieved sigh and Ivy a squeak of delight when it at last appeared, and Alene dropped it, as if it burned her fingers, into the outstretched cap.
As she turned away with cheeks that were blazing to match the hue of the bag, a tall boy standing near lifted his hat courteously, and gave way to her.
"Sir Mark!" whispered the irrepressible Ivy. "And looking as grave as a cemetery, without the ghost of a smile!"
"If he hadn't, I'd never,neverhave spoken to him again!" declared Alene. "Girls, I can sympathize now with those who would like to help others and can't."
"Giant Generosity with his pigmy purse," suggested Ivy.
"It's so much pleasanter as well as more blessed to give," remarked Laura.
"But, after all, money isn't everything!" said Alene. "If we are poor we can still give love and sympathy and unselfishness—"
"And advice," broke in Ivy. "And feel the richer the more we give!"
Alene said never a word to her uncle, that evening, relative to the state of her finances. She kept her collapsed purse hidden away.
"When one is poor, one is too proud to beg!" Which reflection did not keep her from being very glad when Mr. Dawson remarked:
"Here, child, is a nickle for the little maid who trimmed my lamp so nicely."
She dropped him a courtesy.
"Thank you, Uncle. I think she will be very glad to get it. I feel quite prosperous again," she said, shutting the coin away in her crimson bag.
Mr. Dawson laughed.
"I suspect you will find that wealth has its uses, and when you are of age and have command of a large sum of money, I only hope that you will use it well. I think your experiences as a Happy-Go-Lucky will teach you much that you would not otherwise learn."
"There's one thing I should like to do—find that clever doctor who cures the lame children, and have him cure Ivy. When I'm grown up I'll build a hospital just for the poor children—but then it will be too late to help her!"
"My friend Dr. Medway, who assists in those operations, promised to pay me a visit this summer," remarked the gentleman.
Alene clapped her hands.
"Oh, I'm so glad!"
"What about, Miss Jump-at-Conclusions?"
"To think that if I'm not grown up, someone else is," said Alene mysteriously.
Uncle Fred made no reply but smiled thoughtfully as he puffed away at his pipe.
Heralded by Prince's loud barking, and escorted by Jed and Kizzie, who ran out to investigate, a vendor, laden with a large square basket, came to the kitchen door. Alene, who was at luncheon, hurriedly gulped down her coffee and joined the group.
The man opened his basket and exhibited some really fine specimens of Mexican drawn-work, beaded moccasins and Indian blankets.
Mrs. Major bought a centre piece, Kizzie a collar-and-cuff set, and Alene looked longingly at a pair of dainty moccasins that were now, alas, beyond her means. She thought regretfully of the cut-steel purse in Uncle Fred's possession.
"But even if he were here I wouldn't ask for it. That would be breaking my word," she said sturdily. The man used all his persuasive powers in vain; she looked and longed and sadly shook her head.
At last he took from the bottom of the basket a long wooden box, and raised the lid.
"How lovely!" They all crowded round with cries of admiration.
"You thinka them vair fine!" the man said, picking up a handful and turning them over in the light till they shone like fairy lanterns of rainbow-tinted dew.
"Here-a is whata you call heem, black fire opal, here-a meelk, here-a cherry, here-a blue!" cried the seller volubly.
Alene stood in silent ecstasy! How she would love to buy three, one each for Laura, Ivy and herself! She knew she could borrow the money from Mrs. Major, and repay her upon Uncle Fred's return that evening, or even let it stand until the next week, when she would regain her fortune but—
"And here-a, leettle lady, ees de jewelry—de feela-gree broocha and de Swastika charm," continued the man persuasively, having noted the little girl's indecision. The others, who were aware of her vow of voluntary poverty, looked on in sympathy and were ready, as she knew, to help her if she desired.
"The other girls often wish to buy, and it's just as hard for them when they can't; besides, it wouldn't be right to borrow for such things when one is poor, and I'm not supposed to know this week that I'll be able to afford it next," reasoned Alene, shaking her head the more energetically to fortify her resolution.
The man, disappointed, slowly repacked his wares, shouldered them and shambled away, while Alene stood looking on.
"After all, opals are unlucky," said Kizzie consolingly.
Alene felt Prince's soft nose against her hand.
"You feel sorry, don't you, old fellow? But this is what the rest of the Happy-Go-Luckys have to bear all the time! I've been used to going through the world picking up everything I fancied, with never a thought for others who had to go without. This is a sort of experience week for me! But cheer up, Prince Sobersides, and come along for a run!"
"Girls, this is the Crimson Bag's last night, and it's my treat!" announced Alene, when she met her friends Saturday evening.
They proceeded blithely down the street, dressed in their best, in honor of the evening which was generally observed in the town as the gala time of the week, when the stores were kept open to accommodate the workingmen who were paid that night, and the young people promenaded Main Street as far as the ice-cream parlors.
When the girls reached "Clyde's Parlors and Restaurant," as the highly gilded sign in the window proclaimed it, they found the place crowded.
Ivy gave Laura a nudge and the latter, turning suddenly, collided with another girl.
"I beg your pardon—Oh, Hermione, is it you?"
"You can't think it's my ghost that nearly knocked your hat off! Ah, there's your other two-thirds, Alene and Ivy! How d'you do, girls?" She paused for a chat until Vera with several other girls came along on their way out of the store.
"Ah, good evening, Alene! Let me introduce my friends," she said, proceeding with the ceremony and totally ignoring Laura and Ivy.
"And these are my friends, Miss Lee and Miss Bonner," said Alene.
Vera soon hurried her party away, but they had gone only a few steps when she paused at a show case, apparently much interested in its contents.
"I want to see what Alene Dawson is going to buy!" she explained in an undertone. "That's the reason she likes to go with those girls; she can 'show off' more with them and act the Lady Bountiful! Mamma says it's a shame for her uncle to allow her so much money to throw away!"
Hermione shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, come along, girls; it's none of our affair," said she, but Vera's words had aroused the curiosity of the others and they loitered beside her.
All unconscious of their spying, Alene and her friends went their way. Instead of taking seats at one of the many little tables placed invitingly around, they stopped at the next counter. Alene unfastened the crimson bag and gravely searched within it.
"More show!" whispered Vera.
"Three Dill pickles, please; you need not wrap them up," said Alene, laying a nickle on the counter.
Then Vera made a hasty retreat amid the raillery of her friends.
"Letters for the whole bunch!" cried Lafe Bonner, coming into the sitting-room on his return from the post-office. "Hugh Bonner, E—s—q—Esquimau—wonder why they call his nibs that? Master Donald Bonner, Master Roy Bonner, Little Claude Bonner, Master Walter Bonner and—" Lafe stammered and got very red when he saw the address 'Gen. Lafayette Bonner.' "One for me, too," he continued hurriedly; "and last for Mrs. L. Bonner."
All the members of the family in reach took their letters, and Ivy, seated at her new writing desk in the corner next to the window, turned round expectantly, saying,
"Where's mine?"
Lafe held up his empty hands.
"You may search me! Somebody's forgotten this time!"
"Come here," commanded Ivy.
Lafe advanced, wearing a guileless expression until Ivy ran her hand into his empty coat pocket, and fumbling round, found a snug space in the lining and brought forth the missing epistle.
"Of course I couldn't fool her in that," mused Lafe sheepishly, when he read the contents of his high titled note:
The opening of the mail, always an important event in the town, had proved a pleasantly exciting one that day.
There was a shower of white envelopes from the little square window. Almost everyone who called received one or more, according to the number of children in the family; many regular inquirers who were never known to get even a circular, were at last rewarded, and proudly waved their little white banners so that all the world might see. The unusually large number of mail-bearing pedestrians gave Main Street a gala air.
Ivy, on watch at the window, hugged herself and smiled contentedly, for was she not one of the conspirators who, in league with the Post-office Department, had sent all those little white flags a-flutter through the town?
It was Mr. Dawson who had suggested the idea.
"You have enjoyed so many merry-makings at your friends' hands, don't you think it would be a good thing to make some return, Alene alanna?" he inquired one evening, when they sat by the library table, he smoking a pipe as usual, while Alene finished a page of a daily journal which she sent each week to her parents.
She beamed at the questioner across the table.
"Oh, Uncle Fred, I'd love to! What shall we do? May I get the girls to help, and make it a regular Happy-Go-Lucky affair?"
"Certainly—and the boys, too, if you wish. I notice they are generally mustered in, 'to help or to hinder,' as the case may be. You might have an outside party if the weather is fine."
"And then we could invite so many more!"
"Invite all the town if you wish. I'll see that there's enough big sugar cakes to go round if we break the bakery. Suppose you ask Mrs. Major and Kizzie in, and see how it strikes them!"
Alene skipped away and soon returned with the buxom housekeeper and the rosy little maid, all in a stir of excitement.
"I see Alene had no trouble in finding enthusiastic allies," said Uncle Fred in his genial way, that always set people at ease.
Everybody found seats and a pleasant hour followed in offering suggestions and making plans, while Prince lay on the rug lazily nodding approbation, or giving a friendly bark when Alene asked his opinion.
That was only the beginning of a happy time. The girls were deep in blissful preparations the next ten days; the cheerful helpers, Mat and Hugh, held many consultations with Jed and the gardener and Uncle Fred; an array of pavilions, swings, maypoles, rustic seats and tables sprang up in the Towers' grounds, and the kitchen range glowed like a furnace, turning out enough good things to feed a multitude.
Laura, Ivy, and Alene spent two afternoons in the library, making out lists and addressing invitations. Uncle Fred peeped in once or twice, bringing sheets of postage-stamps.
"May I take a few invitations? There are some fellows big and little I'd like to ask," he inquired.
Alene glanced up from her task, pen in hard and nodded absent-mindedly.
"I suppose so."
Apparently overwhelmed by her condescension, he furtively picked up half a dozen invitations and slouched away with a culprit-like mien that made Ivy lean back in her chair and laugh till she was out of breath.
Alene gazed at her wonderingly with such an innocent air that another explosion resulted, and sober Laura, all unaware of the little by-play, gave Ivy a smart rap on the back, which only increased her mirth.
"Hysterics?" inquired Alene.
"I thought she was choking, but she's only practising to be a contortionist," returned Laura, gazing apprehensively at the convulsed figure beside her.
"You girls will be the death of me, along with Mr. Dawson; he looked so funny," explained Ivy, in gasps, wiping her eyes.
They settled back to work with a will.
"Shall we ask Mark Griffin?" inquired Laura. "I have him on my list."
"So have I."
"And I!"
"One invitation will answer, I fancy! Kindly address it, Miss Dawson."
"And now the Happy-Go-Luckys may be as reckless as they please; fall off tree-tops, get lost in the grape-arbors, or tumble into the fountain—it's all the same," cried Ivy.
"Ifhe comes!"
"Perhaps he won't, without his band of buccaneers. I wonder if they are the Torchlights," said Alene.
"He 'shut up like a clam' as Mat says, when I asked him that day, but I got even with his High Mightiness," returned Laura.
"Say, girls," broke in Ivy, "I feel kind of lonesome! Everybody in town will have a bid but us."
"Poor child, she shall have one!" Alene held out for inspection a missive duly stamped and addressed.
"Now, Ivy, you might address Hermione's, and I'll send Vera's."
Ivy made a grimace.
"I'm glad you don't put it the other way!"
"I'd like to ask Hermione to help in our tissue-paper work, but we can't ask her without Vera."
"Hermione's a dear, so for her sake let's set up with Vera," said Laura.
Ivy gave a prodigious groan.
"'Take the bitter with the sweet,' though it will be Vera bitter."
So it came to pass that the library was the scene of many more busy hours, and the working-force of the Happy-Go-Luckys was increased by the Ramsey girls, who threw themselves heartily into the making of tissue-paper caps, rosettes and flowers, in which Vera proved an adept, and her productions were so much admired and praised by the others that she became quite amiable, and gave them no reason to regret the invitation.
The time went fast enough to these busy workers, though it seemed very slow to the rest of the young people.
Every lawn in town flew yards of dainty garments all belaced and beruffled; many small frocks and waists having seen much service were patched and mended to see more, there was an epidemic of ribbons, curling-irons, and fancy slippers, which grew worse as the great day approached, and when it came at last—as fine a day as one could wish—each house sent forth its quota of shining-faced, bedizened merry-makers to besiege the Towers' gates.
The smaller children were directed to the library, where they were captured by the larger girls, decorated with tissue-paper favors and set loose; "like a flock of birds and butterflies," as Hermione said, or "a plague of hungry locusts," to quote Ivy, who stood on the porch at the front door watching their flight.
"I don't want this old red cap," declared Claude.
"And I want a yellow one like Lawa's weaf," wailed Lois, while Nettie, for once figuring as amiability, with a blue top-knot on her golden tresses, only lingered with the others to give them countenance, as it were.
"Shoo, shoo!" cried the unfeeling Ivy, waving them away with her skirts. "Who are those boys who went past just now, looking so much amused, Laura? The short one stared at you as if he knew you."
"I didn't notice," returned Laura, glancing after the lads.
"It's that boy you made buy the white pitcher," said Alene.
"The other looks like one of Mark Griffin's soldiers of misfortune. Hoy, Mat!" Ivy hailed the latter in passing. "Who are those boys?"
"Bud Waters and Artie Orr; they came with Mark Griffin and Jack Lever,—there's Jack now."
"That thin boy leaning on the cane? I wondered who he was!"
"Yes, he's been laid up with a broken leg; is just able to hobble round; that's the reason we haven't seen him and Mark together for so long. They are hobnobbing with the Stony Road gang to-day."
"The gang? Why, are they all here?"
"Five or six, I should say. Mr. Dawson seemed to know them and sent Jed to show them round."
"That explains where Uncle Fred's invitations went."
"I shouldn't wonder if he knows all about the Torchlights, too!"
"Neither should I, Laura."
"The Torchlights?" cried Vera; "Who are they?"
"'A sort of club,'" said Laura, shutting her lips together in an imitation of Mark.
In the middle of the afternoon as Ivy sat alone on a bench beneath a tree, listening to the band and watching the children circling merrily round a number of maypoles, she heard a voice at her side:
"Excuse me, but may I have part of your seat?"
"Why, certainly!" she said, making room for the speaker, a middle-aged man with genial blue eyes and a blonde beard, who was dressed in an easy-fitting, light suit, and carried a large book which he placed with his hat on the grass at his feet.
"I guess he's a friend of the housekeeper's; I noticed him speaking with her to-day," thought Ivy, her gaze straying back to the light-footed dancers.
"It looks easy, twirling those ribbons around the poles, but isn't it rather warm weather, for dancing?"
Ivy turned upon him a pair of eyes full of pity for his ignorance.
"Why, it would be lovely! I'm sure I'd never think of the heat if—" she glanced eloquently at the crutches which leaned against the tree.
"It's too bad, at a time like this especially; I shouldn't like that either! Though my dancing days are past, I like to walk a lot and gather 'yarbs an' things,'" he said. Taking up the big black book, he displayed a collection of pressed plants, leaves and flowers, in which Ivy took so much interest that he showed her through the book, explaining the value and rarity of his treasures gathered from many places, and relating incidents connected with his travels in search of them.
Ivy gave a sigh of admiration.
"How lovely to travel that way! One could write a book about it!"
"Do you like to write? I hope then you will get a chance some day to visit all those countries."
Ivy shook her head.
"Not hopping around on those," she said bitterly, and with a few sympathetic questions he drew from her the sad story of her affliction. She was afterwards surprised at her own volubility, being, as a rule, very shy with strangers.
"I have seen children who were even worse than you completely cured," he said; he related several instances while Ivy listened with flaming cheeks and glistening eyes. A dozen questions trembled on her tongue when a crowd of girls came along, one of whom paused beside her, saying,
"Ivy, Ivy, come on! Don't you hear the bell?"
"Oh, Laura, I forgot all about eating," said Ivy somewhat ruefully.
The stranger smiled.
"Then you are the only one to forget, for see, the youngsters are racing from everywhere right upon us." He glanced at his watch. "Four o'clock—it's time for me to seek my place at the visitors' table!" He picked up his book and hat while the girls hurried away.
The children assembled in front of the Towers and marched in five battalions headed by chiefs wearing different colored tissue-paper wreaths.
Laura with yellow roses led the yellow-capped tots; Vera with blue flowers, the blue-capped ones; Hermione crowned with lilacs, the lavender; Ivy in crimson roses, the red, and Alene in pink roses, the pink.
A few of the children marched in wrong companies. Lois, despite her blue cap, clung closely to her beloved "Lawa."
"With Claude it's not color blindness, but Nettie," explained Ivy, when that rebellious red-cap was seen stepping brazenly in Vera's train.
Vera for once seemed to forget herself in seeing to the welfare of her small charges, who one and all regarded her with admiring eyes; she enjoyed the sensation of being the centre of attraction and graciously accepted their homage, although the majority were "nobodies" whom she had affected to despise.
"Vera bitter has become Vera sweet," observed Ivy, giving a shy nod to the Botanist who was seated with the other grown-ups at the visitors' table watching the children filing past. Beside him was Mrs. Ramsey, resplendent in black net over coral-colored silk, who at that moment was explaining for his benefit:
"The tall, fair girl, wearing blue flowers, is my daughter Vera, and there is Hermione, my oldest, in white with the lilac wreath."
"The Happy-Go-Luckys are partial to tissue-paper," Mr. Dawson said, smilingly.
"The dear girls! And the tots look like fairies in those pretty caps!" said the lady, proud of her daughters' success.
"This active life has certainly done wonders for Freddie's little niece. She was pale and delicate when she came here in the spring and look at her now!" and Miss Marlin, a slight little woman in Quakerish gray, smiled at Alene whose cheeks outvied the roses in her wreath.
"Her mother will be delighted to find her so improved," said Mrs. Ramsey. "My girls think the world of Alene and that funny club, the what-do-you-call-'ems?"
"The Happy-Go-Luckys," suggested Mrs. Major, who wore her best black silk in honor of the day.
The Happy-Go-Luckys, unconscious of having won a champion, passed on to their respective tables; soon all were placed and with mirth and laughter the feast began.
And what a feast it was!
"Niagaras of lemonade, seas of milk and coffee, pyramids of fruit, hills of candy, mountains of cake, whole continents of toothsome things—"
"Not forgetting Sandwich Islands," said Jack Lever, interrupting Mat's flow of oratory.
"Is that in reference to our cannibalistic appetites?" inquired Mark Griffin.
"'The bogie man will get you if you don't be good!'" squealed Artie Orr in a high falsetto voice.
"Who is that farmer-looking gentleman at the visitors' table? The one speaking to Mr. Dawson?" Ivy asked in an aside of Kizzie who flitted from one table to another, her rosy face like a small sun shining above a cloud of pink and white lawn.
"He's visitin' Mr. Fred—he's from the city, I think. He just came to-day and I didn't hear his name."
"Why, that's Dr. Medway," said Alene; "he's from Dr. Luke's hospital."
"I never dreamed he was a doctor! I talked away like a graphophone, and he told me about many children worse than I am who were cured, just think!"
"Oh, Ivy, Ivy, he'll cure you then!" cried Alene with a quick breath of ecstasy.
Ivy's joy subsided; the tears came in her eyes.
"But I guess it would cost a fortune," she said dejectedly.
Shortly after lunch Dr. Medway, sauntering along the walk enjoying a cigar and escorted by Prince, who had taken a fancy to him, was arrested by a voice.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but are you Dr. Medway?"
"I am. What can I do for you, young man?"
"Ivy, the little lame girl—I'm her brother, Hugh Bonner—you told her about so many cures—Oh, sir, if you would undertake to cure her—why, I haven't any money now, but I'd pay you some day if it took me a lifetime, and I'd—I'd work my fingers to the bone for you!" cried the lad, forgetting in his earnestness the dignified speech he had prepared, and speaking with all the intensity of his long-cherished desire.
"You are a good brother, Hugh, my lad, but I'm not a Shylock. I heard of the little girl before I came here. I shall see your mother about her to-morrow; and be assured the main thing is to cure Ivy—nothing else matters!" and the doctor gave Hugh's hand a vigorous grip.
"Where is Lois?" Laura flitted from one group of people to another, growing anxious in her continued failure to get any information.
"She was naughty, and she's gone!" screamed Claude and Nettie, who came rushing hand in hand out the front door.
"Where did she go?"
"Over the roof."
Laura grew pale.
"The roof? Whereabouts? Where is she, I say? Where were you?" She took hold of their shoulders as if to shake the answers out of them.
Alas, when they spoke her worst fears were confirmed! The children had climbed the four flights of steps to the tower room, where Lois had crawled out upon the roof; they called to her and in trying to turn she had slipped out of sight over the edge.
Laura ran moaning toward the foot of the tower, dreading to find a little crushed body lying there inert, but no! the crowd was gazing upward horror-stricken, and she caught a glimpse of a white object clinging to a swinging ladder high up in the air.
Between the second story and the sloping tower roof a scaffold had been erected by workmen who were repairing the walls. Fearing possible injury to the children by falling stones, Mr. Dawson had instructed them not to work on the day of the picnic and they had secured the scaffold from the reach of mischievous boys, placing it fortunately just in position to arrest the child's fall.
"If only she doesn't get dizzy!" a voice was saying and Laura for the first time noticed that a boy was scaling the wall. Favored by the thick vines and uneven stones up he went with the agility of an acrobat. He was bareheaded and the sun shone on his face, reddened with exertion, and on his sandy hair and Laura recognized him as one of the Stony Road boys, the one she had talked with on the glass-boat.
"It's Bud Waters—the rest of us were too heavy to try it, and he was off like a squirrel, soon as he saw the child," explained Mat hurriedly. He was with a crowd of boys, among whom were Mark, Hugh, and Jed, carrying a coil of rope.
"We're going up to the roof—if she only holds out that long!"
"Mat, Mat, it's our Lois!" wailed Laura. She saw Mat's face blanch, and the crowd passed, leaving her half crazed. She knew that Alene and Ivy were standing beside her with tears in their eyes, murmuring half audible prayers, but she did not see them. Her gaze turned steadily upon the little hanging figure, and on the boy who went climbing up the wall.
Ah, he has almost reached the goal—he has grasped the ladder—a thrill went through the crowd—he is holding the little one safe from harm! Then, seated beside her on the ladder, he gave a whoop of joy that was answered by the crowd's enthusiastic cries. A moment later the other boys were seen at the narrow windows above and the rope came gliding over the roof.
Then everything became a blur to Laura; she heard a shout of many voices and knew no more until she found herself sitting on a bench with Mrs. Major fanning her, Miss Marlin demanding fiercely from everybody why she had forgotten to bring her lavender salts, Kizzie dancing round with a glass of water, and Ivy and Alene kneeling on the grass chafing her hands, and then, oh blessed sight, Uncle Fred coming across the lawn with Lois safe in his arms!
On seeing her big sister, she stuck a tiny finger into her mouth half abashed.
"Lawa, don't cwy! I didn't mean to go so far down the woof!" she cried, cuddling into Laura's arms.
"Oh, girls! I could kneel to that boy! I'd go and kiss him now only I know boys hate to be fussed over!" declared Laura.
"I'll give him a bushel of kisses!" cried Lois rapturously, whereupon they kissed her all round while Nettie looked on enviously at the stir the little maid was making.
"I wonder why when I'm naughty I get a scolding instead of kisses," she confided to Claude.
"I suppose it's because you've never been quite that naughty, though you've been pretty bad," he said, which latter assurance consoled his chum.
Later in the evening when the smaller children had gone home, some of the others proposed a visit to the tower room to view the sunset, and a gay crowd scurried up the stairs.
Ivy, who could climb the stairs almost as nimbly as her mates, lingered in the rear with Jack Lever.
"It's pretty hard lines," he remarked smilingly, answering her sympathetic expression.
"Yes, indeed, but you will be all right in no time! Just be thankful it won't last for years and years!"
"The brave little gipsy!" thought Jack. He gave her a kindly glance, noting with an insight gained by his late acquaintance with pain, the marks of suffering always so pathetic on a childish face.
"Things like this teach us a lot, don't you think? I feel as if I'd become quite old, tied so long to a sofa, like a thing-um-bub—those lace affairs the girls make, you know—"
"A tidy?"
"Untidy I call 'em, always sticking to a fellow's coat! If it wasn't for the Torchlights, I'd have gone all to pieces."
Ivy started, but curbing her curiosity and profiting by Laura's experience she merely repeated,
"The—the Torchlights?"
"Yes, our club, you know."
Ivy felt that Jack was ready and willing to enlarge upon the theme; she chuckled inwardly, gleefully anticipating the tale she would have for the other girls.
Alas, at that moment Jed came up the stairs with a large pitcher of lemonade and glasses on a tray, and Kizzie followed with a huge frosted cake.
"We thought you would like this, along with the sunset," she said.
Together they climbed the fourth and last flight of stairs and received a noisy greeting from the others on entering the tower room.
Jack gave them an elaborate bow.
"I assure you, my friends, we feel flattered by this demonstrative welcome."
"We don't want to throw cold lemonade on your joy, me boy, but your credentials are excellent," returned Mat, taking the cake from Kizzie.
Jed and the little maid, assisted by the boys, proceeded to pour out lemonade and to cut cake amid the clinking of glasses and merry talk.
The tower room was of octagon shape; crimson tapestry curtains edged with tarnished gilt fringe hung at the eight narrow windows, and a rug of faded crimson velvet half covered the painted floor. A heavy walnut table and a revolving bookcase graced the centre of the room, and an old fashioned wooden settee and several ancient chairs stood round, now occupied by the young people who ate and drank and chattered, the majority quite unmindful of their journey's object—Old Sol, in his departing splendor, glorifying the clouds with prismatic color, ere he sank beyond the far-reaching hills.
"You look quite uplifted," cried Alene, when Ivy, one of the few onlookers, turned from the window.
She gave an expressive glance backward toward the fast-fading sky.
"It's that and something Hugh just told me. He spoke to Dr. Medway—"
"Yes, I know, and oh, I'm so glad!"
"And I too!" cried Laura, joining them.
"I like Dr. Medway; he never once called me 'an interesting case' but talked as if I were just a little girl he would like to see cured. When I think of it I feel so queer, I have to keep tight hold of my crutches, to keep from floating away into the air, like a balloon!" Ivy glanced across the room. "Things seem to be upside down, for there I imagine I see Hugh and Mark Griffin buzzing together like two old gossips!"
"It's not imagination; all the boys are as amiable as the children when they play Mrs. Come-to-See! They were tottering on the brink of friendship and Lois toppled them over into each other's arms."
"You Happy-Go-Luckys look to your laurels; Hugh and I belong to a club of our own now!" called Mat.
"What, the Torchlights?" chorused the three.
He looked surprised.
"How did you know about it?"
They looked wise but said not a word, and Ivy whispered to the girls how near she had come to finding out.
At that moment, taking a glass of lemonade, Mark Griffin stood up.
"To the clever and plucky,The Happy-Go-Lucky—club!"
he cried, with a sly smile, which told them he knew all about it.
"How did you know?" asked one.
"Who told you?"
"Hugh, that was shabby of you!"
"You girls are always patching up some mystery or other. How was I to know?" said Hugh.
Jack Lever, who was leaning against the table, came over and sat on the settee beside the girls.
"Mark didn't play fair; he never said a word about it till Mat and Hugh had told your secret, so to get even I'll tell you his."
Amid the girls' applause and Mark's protests he commenced.
"You ought to know Phillip Gamer, the first Torchlight, ran away from home when he was twelve to join the Salvation Army. He was a drummer boy in the ranks until a detective, hired by his dad, shadowed him and brought him home, but last year at school he said the Army had helped him to a view of a question which had puzzled him all his life. His mother declared that even as a baby, he had protested in lusty tones against silver-backed hair-brushes and perfumed soaps, and when the nurse perambulated him in the park, a bunch of ragged, barefoot kids would surround the beaming youngster in his silk-lined carriage. There might be a dozen other baby vehicles round, which they wouldn't think of touching, nor of speaking to those tony babies, but they seemed to overlook Phil's frills and laces and took to him like brothers.
"At school he refused one of the high-priced rooms, because it would separate him in a way from the boys he wished most to meet, the boys who thought things out for themselves. Phil's coming knocked out that feeling,—a sort of caste—which divided the rich scholars from the poor; his room was a meeting point—the plane upon which they became fellow-men. Here the Torchlights came into being. Our counter-sign, The Brotherhood of Man, and though there was only one of us who intended to work as a minister in the slums, each was pledged to individual effort in his own locality.
"Mark and I were the only Torchlights from this town, and the first thing I did when I got home was to break my bones in a runaway, and that put me out of the race."
"But it didn't keep him from doing a lot for the boys," said Mark. "Every week we all visited him and had a jolly evening with games, reading and singing and a dandy lunch. At first Jack's people rather scouted the idea of entertaining the Stony Road gang. The first night one of them cut a fine china plate in two, and another shied egg-shells over his shoulder against the wall. Mrs. Lever was horrified, but we begged her to wait and give us another trial."
"Now mother and the rest are completely won over and help us lots. I believe I would have knocked my brains out against the wall this summer, only for the Torchlights. I found we can't do good to others without receiving a reactionary benefit. As Phil says, many a rich lad joins in a patronizing way, thinking he's going to revolutionize things, and soon finds it's himself that needs to be done over."
"We were surprised to find a sister club ahead of us here, but we are not at all jealous!" said Mark.
"We can help each other out."
"I thank you in the name of the Happy-Go-Luckys! The Torchlights are fine!" said Laura heartily.
"We might all take for our club poem this little verse," and, half embarrassed by the sudden silence, Alene recited softly—
"'Jesus bids us shine,With a clear pure light,Like a little candle,Burning in the night.In the world is darkness,So we must shine,You in your corner,And I in mine.'"