“Dear Friend:–I shan’t come to study algebra any more. I’ve given up the idea of going to school any longer. I thank you very much for trying to help me, but it’s no use.“Yours truly,“Lucy Haines.”
“Dear Friend:–I shan’t come to study algebra any more. I’ve given up the idea of going to school any longer. I thank you very much for trying to help me, but it’s no use.
“Yours truly,“Lucy Haines.”
“I thought it was something like that,” Claire remarked triumphantly when the note was read aloud, and she reflected with some satisfaction that she alone had suggested the rightful explanation of Lucy’s action.
“I must say I’m disappointed in that girl,” declared Peggy, absently smoothing out the crumpled paper. Her bright face was clouded. “Wednesday she was just as interested and ambitious asshe could be. And now she’s given up. It doesn’t seem like her.”
“I must say she doesn’t show a great deal of gratitude,” exclaimed Ruth, always ready to rush to Peggy’s defence. “Here you’ve been using your vacation to teach her, when you might have been enjoying yourself, and then all at once she gets tired of it. It doesn’t seem to occur to her that if you were like most girls, you’d be the one to give up.”
The expression of Peggy’s face suggested that she was rather absorbed in her own thoughts, and giving but scant heed to the words of her champion.
“Do you know, girls,” she said slowly, “I’m going over to see Lucy and find out what this means.”
There was a chorus of protests. “Don’t you do it, Peggy,” Amy cried indignantly. And Priscilla remarked, “I wouldn’t tease her into accepting a kindness that she hadn’t the sense to appreciate.”
“It was too much for you to do anyway,” Ruth chimed in. “I think it’s a good thing she’s tired of it, myself.” But Peggy was not to be dissuaded from her purpose. Under the uncompromising statements of the bald little note, there was somethingthat claimed her sympathy. Even the straggling lines, so little suggestive of the Lucy Haines she knew, carried the suggestion of appeal. “I’m not going to coax her into doing anything,” Peggy explained. “But–” and this with unmistakable firmness–“I’m going to find out.”
After dinner, when the other girls were indulging in afternoon naps, or lounging on the porch, Peggy donned a broad-brimmed shade hat, and with Hobo at her heels, started toward Lucy’s home. The zig-zag path crossing the pastures was both shorter and pleasanter than the road, and Peggy rather enjoyed getting the better of such obstacles as snake fences and brooks that must be crossed on stepping stones. Such things gave to an otherwise prosaic ramble the fine flavor of adventure.
She was flushed and warm, and looking, had she known it, unusually pretty, with her moist hair curling in rings about her forehead, when she came in sight of Lucy’s home, a straggling cottage which would have been improved by paint and the services of a carpenter. Both lacks were partially concealed by vines which climbed over its sagging porch, and tall rows of hollyhocks, generously screening with their showy beauty its weather-beaten sides. A girl was in the back yard chopping wood, a rather slatternlygirl with disordered hair. Peggy descended on her briskly to ask if Lucy were at home.
Hatchet in hand, the girl faced about. Peggy’s head whirled. She made a confused effort to recall whether Lucy had ever mentioned a sister, a sister considerably older, and not nearly so nice. Then her momentary confusion passed, and she realized she was facing Lucy herself. The shock of her discovery showed in her voice as she exclaimed, “Why, it’s you!”
“Of course,” said Lucy a little coldly, but she cast a half-apologetic downward glance at her untidy dress, and her color rose. With obvious reluctance she asked, “Won’t you come in?”
Peggy was conscious of a thrill of righteous indignation. She stood very straight and her eyes met those of the other girl squarely. “Lucy, are you angry with me?”
Lucy Haines did not answer immediately. Her bared throat twitched hysterically and all at once the eyes which looked into Peggy’s brimmed over.
“Don’t, please!” she said in a choked voice. “Me angry! Why, you’re the kindest girl I ever dreamed of. Till I’m dead I’ll love to think about you and how good you are. But it’s no use.”
Peggy seated herself on the woodpile. Her native cheerfulness had returned with a rush.
“Now, Lucy Haines, let’s talk like two sensible people. If I’m as nice as all that, you ought to be willing to trust me a little. What’s the reason it’s no use? What’s made all the difference since Wednesday?”
Lucy’s silence was like a barrier between them. If it had not been for the tears upon her cheeks, Peggy would have been inclined to distrust her memory of that momentary softening. The girl’s confidence came at last reluctantly, as if dragged from depths far under the surface, like water raised in buckets from a well.
“My money’s gone.”
Peggy had an uncomfortable feeling that she must grope her way. “Your money’s gone?” she repeated, to gain time.
“Yes, the money I’ve been saving up. The money that was to help me get through school next year. You know how I’ve worked this summer. And there isn’t a thing to show for it.”
“How much was it?”
“Forty dollars.”
All at once Peggy felt an insane desire to laugh. The impulse was without doubt, purely nervous.For though there seemed to her a surprising discrepancy between the sum named and the despair for which it was responsible, the humorous aspect of the case was not the one which would naturally appeal to a disposition like Peggy’s. Desperately she fought against the impulse, coughed, bit her twitching lips, and finally acknowledged defeat in a little hysterical giggle. Lucy stared at her, too astonished to be angry.
“There!” Now that the mischief was done, Peggy felt serious enough to meet all the requirements of the case. “I’ve laughed and I’m glad of it. For it’s a joke. Forty dollars! A girl as bright as you are, ready to sell out for forty dollars. It’s enough to make anybody laugh.”
Lucy put her hand to her forehead. “But it was all I had,” she said rather piteously.
“All you had. But not all you can get. Why, I had a friend who went into a business office last winter. She’s earning forty dollars a month now, and they’ll raise her after she’s been with them a year. Forty dollars means a month’s work for a beginner. You’ve lost a month, and you talk as if everything had been lost.”
The rear door of the cottage opened, and a young man appeared, a distinctly unprepossessing youngman, whose shabby clothing somehow suggested a corresponding shabbiness of soul. He stood irresolute for a moment, then turned and struck off across the fields, his shambling gait increasing the unfavorable impression that Peggy had instantly formed.
Lucy regarded her visitor with burning eyes.
“I didn’t mean to tell anybody,” she said. “I thought my pride wouldn’t let me, but what’s the use of my being proud? That was my brother, and he drinks. I guess you’d know it to look at him, wouldn’t you? It was he who stole my money. That’s the kind of people I belong to.”
Peggy got to her feet. She had an odd feeling that she could not do her subject justice sitting on a woodpile, with her feet dangling.
“Lucy Haines,” she said with a severity partly contradicted by the kindness of her eyes, “I’m ashamed of you. I can tell just by the little I know of you, what kind of ancestors you had, and you ought to be thankful for them every day you live. Think of all the sickly people in the world, that can’t more than half live at best, and you with your splendid, strong body. And think of the stupid ones, who try to learn and can’t, and you seeing through everything like a flash. I know what kindof people you belong to, Lucy Haines, and you ought to be proud and thankful, too.”
The immediate effect of this outburst was a surprise. Lucy Haines sat down on the chopping-block and began to cry. She cried as if the pent-up sorrows of her life were at last finding outlet, cried as if she never meant to stop. Peggy in her dismay tried coaxing, scolding, petting, each in turn, and at last gave up the vain endeavor, and took her old place on the woodpile, to wait till Lucy should have come to the end of her tears.
At last the figure in the soiled calico was no longer shaken by convulsive sobs. Lucy turned toward the patient watcher on the woodpile, and in spite of her swollen lids and blood-shot eyes, Peggy knew it was the old Lucy looking up at her. “Well?” she demanded cheerfully. “It’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Lucy agreed hesitatingly. “I’m going to try again, if that’s what you mean.”
“And you’ll come to-morrow?”
“Yes, I’ll come to-morrow, if you’re not too disgusted to bother with me any longer,” said Lucy humbly.
“Well, it’s time for Hobo and me to be going home.” Peggy jumped to her feet, crossed brisklyto the unkempt figure, and stooping, kissed a tear-stained cheek. And then Lucy’s arms went about her, and clasped her close in passionate gratitude.
“Peggy Raymond,” said a stifled voice, “I can’t do anything to pay you back, but this. I promise you I’ll make you proud of me yet. You were ashamed of me to-day, but if I live, I’ll make you proud of me.” And Peggy had one more bewildering impression to add to the varied catalogue of characteristics which made up the Lucy Haines, whom she was beginning to think she had never known till that day.
In spite of this triumphant conclusion to her enterprise, Peggy returned to the cottage heavy of heart. There is always a danger that the sensitive and sympathetic will find the revelation of the misery in the world overwhelming, bringing the temptation to shut one’s eyes to suffering, or else in its contemplation, to lose the joy out of life. And as it only takes an added drop to cause a full cup to brim over, Peggy’s dejection reached the overflowing point, through no other agency than the yellow hen.
The girls all noticed that Peggy was silent, as well as uncommunicative. She fenced skilfully to evade direct answers to their questions, but she didnot seem inclined to introduce new topics of conversation. And when Amy called her from the kitchen, where she and Ruth were getting supper, Peggy sat staring abstractedly ahead of her till the call was repeated.
Priscilla glanced up from her magazine. “Say, Peggy, the girls are calling you. Probably they are having trouble with the muffins.”
“Oh, I didn’t hear,” Peggy sprang to her feet, and went hastily through the house to the kitchen. But it was not domestic difficulties which accounted for Amy’s summons. She stood at the window, flattening her nose against the screen.
“Peggy, I wish you’d tell me what this old vixen is about. Is she trying to punish one of the chickens, or is it only a game?”
For ten days past the yellow hen had been freed from the restraints of the coop, and by day had led her brood in adventurous quest of grasshoppers, and at sunset had conducted them to the waiting nest in the rear of the woodshed. But at the present moment, a peculiar scene was being enacted. At the open door of the woodshed, a sleepy brood huddled close, awaiting the return of their mother, who with an air of determination was pursuing a squawking chick, running as if for his life.
Around the cherry-tree they circled, once, twice, thrice. Then the pursuer overtook her foster-child, and pecked him savagely. It was not a game.
The yellow hen strutted off in the direction of her peeping brood, clucking complacently, as if she congratulated herself on solving some problem satisfactorily. The poor little outcast followed with a piteous pipe, which caused the Spartan mother to turn and repeat her admonition.
For a moment Peggy was at a loss for an explanation. Then she understood. “I know,” she cried. “He’s a different breed from the others, and he’s outgrown them, and the senseless old creature thinks he doesn’t belong to her. She’s just got to be nice to him, that’s all.”
But Peggy’s efforts at discipline were unavailing. The speckled chicken surreptitiously introduced under the yellow hen’s hovering wings, enjoyed the briefest possible period of maternal protection. Before Peggy could get back into the house, the yellow hen was chasing him all around the woodshed, and Peggy found it necessary to make him comfortable for the night in a basket set behind the stove.
And this was the little drop which made her cup overflow. The forlorn peeping of the outcastchicken seemed to blend with poor Lucy’s sobs. Peggy wondered if it could be that the voice of earth’s suffering was like the hum of the insects on a summer night, so constant that one might not hear it at all, but an overwhelming chorus if one listened.
“Peggy Raymond, do you think you’re coming down with anything?” Amy demanded crossly, at half-past nine o’clock that evening. “Because you’re about as much like yourself as chalk is like cheese.”
Peggy stood up.
“No, I’m not comingdown withanything,” she said lightly, “but I’m goingup tosomething, and that’s my bed. I believe I’m sleepy.”
Before she climbed the stairs, she went out into the kitchen to be sure that the speckled chicken was comfortable. As she touched the basket he answered with a soft, comfortable sound like the coo of a baby, or the chirp of a sleepy little bird, the sound that speaks of warmth and contentment. Peggy stood beside the basket thinking.
“There! I knew something was wrong.” Amy had followed her friend out into the kitchen. “You’re crying over that chicken. Why, you silly Peg!”
But Amy had misinterpreted the moist eyes. That little contented sound from the basket back of the stove had brought a message to Peggy. She had made the chicken comfortable in spite of its unnatural mother. She had rekindled ambition in Lucy’s heart in spite of her thieving brother. All at once Peggy understood that the compensation for insight is the joy of helpfulness. It was not meant for any heart to bear the burden of earth’s grief, but only to lighten it as one can, and be glad.
And so, after all, Peggy went up to bed comforted.
Peggy had a bright idea. Any one familiar with the Peggy disposition would have guessed as much from a number of infallible signs. There were periods of abstraction, characterized by long silences or random replies. There were thoughtful little frowns, and sudden dimpling smiles, all for no reason apparent. And when Peggy reached the point of saying to herself in a confidential undertone, “There! That’s just the thing!” speculation ran riot in Dolittle Cottage.
But though the guessing was both varied and ingenious, it was all wide of the mark. The announcement of Peggy’s project at the breakfast-table one morning took everybody by surprise. “Look here, girls,” began Peggy, betraying a degree of nervous excitement in her reckless salting of her scrambled eggs, “what would you think of our giving a benefit performance?”
“Performance of what?” asked half the table.And the other half wanted to know, “Whose benefit?” Peggy answered the last question first.
“Lucy Haines’. She’s had–that is, she isn’t going to have some of the money she was counting on for next year,” Peggy flattered herself that this discreet statement gave no hint of the heartache and humiliation poor Lucy had undergone. “And even if we didn’t make very much, a little would help her out.”
“But, Peggy, what could we do?” cried Amy, setting down her glass of milk with an emphasis that sent part of its contents splashing over the brim. “None of us sing any to speak of, except Priscilla, and she and Claire are the only ones who play. I don’t see–”
“Well, I’ve been wondering why we couldn’t repeat that little farce we gave at school last June. It wouldn’t be much work, for we all know our parts. Beside ours, there was only one that amounted to anything. I thought maybe Claire would take that. The other characters have so little to do that we could easily pick up girls for the parts. Lucy herself might take one.”
“And Rosetta Muriel,” suggested Amy, rather maliciously. It was so seldom Peggy really disliked anybody that the temptation to make frequentmention of their pretentious neighbor was too much for Amy’s fun-loving disposition. Unconsciously Peggy’s face assumed an expression suggestive of just having swallowed a dose of quinine. “I suppose so,” she agreed grudgingly, and Amy indulged in a wicked chuckle.
“But where could we give it, Peggy?” Ruth asked with animation. It was easy to see that the suggestion had made a most favorable impression on the company. The little comedy had been given during commencement week and had proved the most popular feature of that festive period. The performers had not had time to forget their parts, and a very few rehearsals would be sufficient to assure a smooth presentation. Peggy, delighted with the friendly reception accorded her plan, continued her explanation.
“Why, I think they’ll let us have it in the schoolhouse. It’s just standing empty all summer. I’ll have to see Mr. Robbins about that, Mr. Silas Robbins. He’s the committee man who hires teachers, and everything of that sort. And, of course, Lucy ought to know what we are planning before we do anything further. It won’t be necessary to have her name put in the paper, or anything like that, but I’m sure the people will be more interestedif they know it is a benefit for one of their own girls.”
Lucy Haines, on learning the latest of Peggy’s schemes for her advantage seemed rather overwhelmed. As a matter of fact, she exaggerated the generosity of the girls who had so cordially endorsed Peggy’s plan. The summer days were all very delightful, but the presentation of the little play promised that agreeable variety without which all pleasures pall. Indeed, Lucy’s expression of gratitude, fervent if not fluent, rendered Priscilla really uncomfortable.
“I wish you’d make her understand, Peggy,” she said, “that though we’re awfully glad to help her, we’re not a collection of philanthropists. I’m afraid she doesn’t understand that this play is going to be lots of fun.”
Other misunderstandings had to be cleared up before everything was running smoothly. When Peggy called on Mr. Silas Robbins, and stated her errand, that excellent man failed to grasp her explanation, and took her for the manager of a theatrical troupe.
“You don’t mean that you’re running a show at your age! I call it a shame. You don’t look a day older than my Ettie. Haven’t you got a homeand folks, child, or what is it that’s druv you into this dog’s life?”
Of course it was necessary for Peggy to begin at the beginning, and in the course of twenty minutes or so, the good man began to understand. As the extent of his blunder gradually dawned upon him, he threw back his head and broke into a hearty guffaw whose enjoyment was contagious. Peggy joined him, and then there was an exultant note in her laughter. Observation had taught her that when a man is laughing, it is one of the hardest things in the world for him to say no.
“Now, suppose we start over again, and go kind of slow,” said Mr. Silas Robbins. “I’ve got as far as this, that you’re all high-school girls and want to give a show. It would take a reg’lar racehorse of a brain to keep up with that tongue of yourn.”
Peggy’s further explanations were characterized by the utmost deliberation, so that Mr. Robbins had time to ask any questions that occurred to him, and the outcome justified her expectation. Not only did she secure the use of the school building, but Mr. Silas Robbins agreed to purchase tickets for himself and family.
“And to think I took you for a perfessional,”said Mr. Robbins, smiling very broadly as he turned back to his waiting horses. “If there’s anything in your show funnier’n that, it’ll be wuth the price. Going to ask a quarter, be you? That’s right. Folks don’t appreciate a cheap ten-cent show, the way they do one they’ve got to pay a good price for.”
Peggy met a similarly cordial reception at the office of theWeekly Arena, the country paper, on which she was relying for free advertising. Mr. Smart, the editor, was a careworn little man, whose frayed and faded business suit suggested that too many subscriptions were paid in potatoes and cord wood, and too few in the coin of the realm. He agreed to her request with a readiness Peggy thought wonderfully kind, though it would have surprised her less, had she realized with what eagerness Mr. Smart was continually seeking items with a news value.
“I’ll make one or two references to it in this issue,” Mr. Smart promised, “to sort of pique curiosity, you know. And next week you might give me a little write-up of the thing. Outline the plot, without giving away the surprises, and put it on thick about its being funny. Itisfunny, ain’t it?”
“Oh, yes, very.”
“That’s the talk,” said Mr. Smart approvingly. “I don’t know how it is with city people. Sometimes it seems to me that they must like to have their feelings harrowed up, judging from the kind of plays they go to see. But here in the country, we like to get our money’s worth of laughing. And, by the way, I suppose you understand, Miss, that it’s customary for the Press to receive two complimentary tickets.”
Notwithstanding this cordial and valuable support, Peggy was to find that the lot of an actor-manager is not altogether free from thorns. Claire had obligingly agreed to accept the vacantrôlein the cast, but after one reading of the little play, a marked decrease in her enthusiasm was observable.
“Do you know I don’t like the part ofAdelaidea bit,” she confided to Priscilla. “I’d like to playHazel. I’m going to ask Amy if she’d mind changing with me.”
Priscilla stared.
“Of course she’d mind. She knows her part and has played it once. You couldn’t ask her to learn a new one just because you prefer hers.”
Claire’s air of depression became more marked.
“Priscilla,” she quavered, “I don’t see how I’mgoing to play that part. I don’t know how I’ll endure it.”
Priscilla’s amazement grew. “Why, what’s wrong with it? I think it’s particularly cute.”
“Why, we’re quarrelling every minute, you and I. And at the end of the second act, you say–” Claire’s voice died away in a dejected whimper. But there was little balm for her grievance in Priscilla’s unfeeling laughter.
“Well, what of it? There’s nothing real about it. A quarrel in a play isn’t anything.”
“It’s something to me,” replied Claire, in tones nicely balanced between despondency and tenderness. “When I think of your glaring at me and saying such cruel, cruel things, it seems as if it would almost kill me.” She found her handkerchief, and actually shed a few tears, while Priscilla choked down her exasperation, and tried to answer with fitting nonchalance.
“Sorry you feel that way. We might ask Dorothea Clarke, the girl who took the part before, to come up for a week, just to play it. Though I must say,” concluded Priscilla, her irritation getting the better of her good resolutions, “that your idea impresses me as too silly for words.”
The suggestion that Claire’s coöperation was notnecessary to the success of the undertaking was all that was needed. Claire had no intention of being reduced to the position of an on-looker, while the others enjoyed the fun and reaped the plaudits of the enterprise. Nothing more was heard of Claire’s giving up her part, but in the rehearsals she showed such a total lack of spirit, and played therôleassigned her with so unmistakable an air of injury, that patient Peggy was driven to the verge of desperation.
Nor were her troubles confined to Claire. Rosetta Muriel who had been offered an unexacting part in the cast, confided to Peggy her intentions in regard to costume. “I’m going to have an apple-green silk. The skirt’ll be scant, of course, and draped a little right here. And which do you think would be stylisher, a square neck or–”
Peggy had by now recovered herself sufficiently to interrupt. “Why, you’re cast for a parlor-maid.”
“I know it,” said Rosetta Muriel, indifferently.
“You can’t dress in apple-green silk. You ought to have a plain black dress and a little white apron.”
Rosetta Muriel flushed and tossed her head.
“I don’t know what difference that makes. Ifyou’re going on the stage you want to look as nice as you can, I should think.”
“One can look very nice in a black dress and a white apron. I’m going to be a frumpy old woman, with the worst rig you ever saw. But of course,” concluded Peggy firmly, perceiving that Rosetta Muriel was inclined to argue the point, “If you’d rather not take the part, I can probably find some one else. But whoever takes it, will have to be dressed suitably.”
That argument was as effective with Rosetta Muriel as it had been with Claire. She yielded as the other girl had done, and as ungraciously. “It’s easy enough to see through that,” she told herself angrily. “Those city girls want to be the whole thing. They’re afraid to let me dress up nice, for fear folks will look at somebody else.” And it argues well for the strength of Rosetta Muriel’s vanity that for the moment she actually believed her preposterous charge.
Plans for the play absorbed the leisure of the cottagers. Little else was talked of. To Jerry Morton had been assigned the responsibility of organizing an orchestra of local talent, and he came twice a day or oftener, to report progress or ask counsel. The tan shoes, whose excessively pointedtoes betrayed that probably they were as old, if not older than Jerry himself, but which in Jerry’s estimation were synonymous with unpretentious elegance, appeared so frequently that the razor-like tips began to look somewhat scarred and battered, as if they might perhaps retire from active service in ten years’ time, or so. But the tan shoes were not Jerry’s only concession to the social amenities. An unwonted attention was given to grimy knuckles and finger-nails. More than once he made his appearance with his usually frowsy hair as sleek as the coat of a water rat, and dripping, in further likeness to the animal mentioned. Peggy, whose original interest in Jerry had been intensified by the favorable impression he had made on Graham, hailed these signs of awakening with satisfaction, and laid plans to bring about still more startling changes.
The little comedy did not require much in the way of scenery. But to present even a simple home scene on the schoolhouse platform, necessitated considerable planning, to say nothing of hard work. Arrangements were made for extra benches to put back of the battered desks, for theWeekly Arenahad exhibited a noble determination to earn the two complimentary tickets, and Peggy felt sure ofa full house. Farmer Cole had agreed to lend Joe for the important day, and it looked as if the hired man would not find his post a sinecure.
“If ever a place was misnamed,” Aunt Abigail remarked one day, “this is the spot. Dolittle Cottage. Do-littleCottage,” she repeated, with an emphasis calculated to make her meaning apparent to the most obtuse. “In the course of a few weeks we have become a preparatory school and an orphan asylum.” She looked significantly at Peggy who sat on the steps, feeding the speckled chicken from a spoon. “And our last development is a theatrical agency. Well, I can’t say that it is exactly my idea of a quiet, restful summer.”
The hour of preparation was at its height, and the great occasion less than a week away, when Peggy received news which sent her already buoyant spirits climbing like a rocket. The rural delivery had brought her several letters, and as Priscilla noticed, she pounced first on a missive in a business-like envelope, with a typewritten address. She had hardly read two lines before she interrupted herself with a joyous squeal.
“Girls, isn’t it glorious! Elaine is coming Saturday.”
“Elaine! Why, I thought she said she couldn’t.”Priscilla’s answer was a little less spontaneous than usual.
“Her mother and Grace have been invited somewhere, and they insisted on her coming here. She’s worked so hard, and they feel she needs a change.” Peggy was reading down the page, her bright face aglow with anticipation, but Priscilla’s look indicated no corresponding pleasure, and she answered with a non-committal murmur, when Peggy added, “She’ll be here for the play. I’m so glad.”
And Priscilla struggling to express a degree of satisfaction in the prospect, did not guess how soon she would echo Peggy’s words from the bottom of her heart.
The little country schoolhouse had been the scene of varied activity that morning. Even in term time, when the battered desks were occupied, it is a question whether a forenoon’s program would have been more strenuous. Equipped with tape-measures the girls had calculated to a nicety just how much furniture the platform could accommodate, and still give the performers room to make their entrances and exits without colliding with the armchair or overturning the small table. The question of extra benches had also come up for consideration, and the girls had demonstrated to their complete satisfaction that two people of ordinary size could be seated comfortably at each desk. Absorbed in these fascinating calculations, they had failed to notice how rapidly the time was passing, till Dorothy began to complain of being hungry.
“You’re as good as an alarm-clock,” declared Priscilla, consulting her watch. “It’s half-past eleven, Peggy.”
“Is it? Then we mustn’t wait another minute. If Aunt Abigail is back from her walk, she may be hungry too.” Aunt Abigail had been invited to attend the preliminary inspection of the schoolroom, but had declined, frankly avowing her preference for a walk. Jerry had told her of a somewhat rare fern growing half a mile from the cottage, and Aunt Abigail who intermittently was an enthusiastic amateur botanist had professed a desire to see this particular species in its native haunts.
“Don’t hurry, Peg,” pleaded Amy, as the procession headed for the cottage at a more rapid pace than Amy approved on a summer morning. “It’s more than likely that she isn’t home yet. You know she never thinks anything about the time if she’s interested.”
As Amy’s conjecture was based on an intimate knowledge of Aunt Abigail’s peculiarities, no one was surprised to find it correct. The front door of the cottage was locked, and the key was hanging on a nail in full view, a custom of the trusting community which had gradually come into favor at Dolittle Cottage. The girls trooped indoors, and preparations for dinner began forthwith, even Dorothy lending her aid. Dorothy loved to shell peas, that ordinarily prosaic task being enlivened by thecertainty that she would drop at least two-thirds of the agile vegetables, and be compelled to pursue them into the most unlikely hiding-places.
The peas were shelled at last, and Dorothy comforted for the untimely fate of several luckless spheres which had rolled under the feet of preoccupied workers, and, according to Dorothy, had been “scrunched.” Another twenty minutes and Peggy announced that dinner was ready. “If Aunt Abigail would only come. Things won’t be so good if they wait.”
“I won’t be so good ifIwait, either,” Dorothy declared. “’Cause it makes me cross to get hungry.”
Dorothy was provided with an aid to uprightness in the shape of a slice of bread and butter, and the others seated themselves on the porch to await Aunt Abigail’s return. It is an open secret that time spent in waiting invariably drags. The wittiest find their ideas deserting them under such circumstances. The most congenial friends have nothing to say to each other. There are, as a rule, any number of things one can do while one is waiting, but unluckily there is nothing one feels inclined to do. Up till one o’clock conversation was spasmodic. For the next half hour silence reigned, and eachface became expressive of a sense of injury and patient suffering. At quarter of two, open revolt was reached.
“Peggy, how much longer are you going to wait?” Amy demanded. “Everything is probably spoiled by now.”
Peggy did her best to be encouraging. “Oh, not exactly spoiled. But it doesn’t do a dinner any good to wait an hour or two after it is cooked.”
“Why not sit down? She’s sure to be here by the time we’re fairly started,” suggested Ruth.
“I’d as soon wait as not.” Claire’s face was angelically patient. “I haven’t a bit of appetite any more. I suppose it’s because my head always begins to ache so if I don’t eat at the regular hour.”
Peggy rose to her feet rather hastily. “Come on,” she said briskly. “We’ll begin. Probably that’ll be just the way to bring her.” And she wondered why it was that Claire’s patient sweetness was so much more trying than Amy’s fretful complaint.
But the device for bringing Aunt Abigail home proved unsuccessful. Peggy put her dinner on the back of the stove to keep warm, and it was still simmering, undisturbed, when the platter and the various serving dishes on the table had been scrapedclean, for the loss of appetite of which Claire complained was by no means universal. The work of clearing the table and washing the dishes was usually protracted, for every other minute some one ran out on the porch to see if Aunt Abigail were approaching. By three o’clock a general uneasiness began to make itself evident.
“I believe I’ll go over to the place where those ferns grow,” Peggy declared. “Even if she’s forgotten all about her dinner, it can’t be good for her to go so long without eating. Don’t you want to come with me, Amy?”
Amy, who seemed less concerned than any of the company, blithely accepted the invitation. “We’ll probably find her with a great armful of ferns and her hat tipped over one ear, and she’ll be perfectly astonished to know that it’s after twelve o’clock. Oh, you don’t know Aunt Abigail as well as I do.”
But though they searched the section of the woods Jerry had designated as thehabitatof the rare fern, and called Aunt Abigail’s name at frequent intervals, there was no answer, nor did they find anything to indicate that there had been an earlier visitor to the locality. Amy’s confidence seemed a little shaken by this discovery and she made no objection to the rapidity of their returnto the cottage. Ruth came hurrying out to meet them. “Has she come?” Amy called, her voice betraying her change of mood.
“No. Haven’t you found her?” It was of course an unnecessary question, for the anxious faces of the two girls would have told that their quest had been unsuccessful, even if their failure had not been sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that Aunt Abigail was not accompanying them.
“We’d better go right over to Coles’,” Peggy said after a minute’s pause. “Perhaps Mrs. Cole found she was alone, and asked her to dinner.”
“I’ve been there,” was Ruth’s disappointing reply. “And I went down to Mrs. Snooks’, too. I thought Aunt Abigail might have gone there to borrow something. You know she was so unwilling to give up the idea. But Mrs. Snooks was sitting out on the porch, and she said she hadn’t seen her.”
The others had gathered around them as they stood talking. The speckled chicken, who, as a result of being brought up “by hand,” was developing an extravagant fondness for human society, came up peeping shrilly, evidently under the impression that in so sizable a gathering, there must be some one who had nothing better to do than ministerto his wants. Hobo, too, made his appearance, and he alone of the company gave no sign of mental disturbance. Amy pushed him away impatiently as he rubbed against her, the effect of worry on Amy’s temperament having the not unusual result of making her short-tempered. Then a bright idea flashed into her head.
“Peggy, maybe he could track her.”
“Who could?”
“Why, Hobo. We can let him smell something Aunt Abigail has worn, and then if he’s any good, he ought to be able to follow the trail. I don’t see how we’re going to hunt for her, unless we try something like that.”
Peggy did not regard the suggestion in a particularly hopeful light, but at the same time she had nothing better to suggest. To continue the search for Aunt Abigail without a single clue as to the direction she had taken, was not unlike looking for the proverbial needle in the haymow. Accordingly, Peggy followed without protest, while the other girls, relieved by the mere suggestion of a definite program, hurried into the house and up the stairs to Aunt Abigail’s room. A moment later they reappeared, each bearing something selected from Aunt Abigail’s belongings.
The various articles were deposited in a circle about Hobo, as if he had been a heathen idol, and Aunt Abigail’s worsted shawl and silk work-bag, votive offerings. Hobo did not in the least understand the meaning of this new game, but he was pleased to find himself the centre of attention, and thumped his tail against the porch with a sound like persistent knocking.
“I don’t believe I’d give him this,” exclaimed Peggy, picking up the work-bag and sniffing thoughtfully. “It smells so strong of peppermint that it’s likely to mislead him.”
“She always carried peppermint drops in that bag,” said Amy. The use of the past tense was such an unconscious admission of fearing the worst, that the girls looked at one another aghast. And then Peggy, with a desperate realization that something must be done, and that immediately, seized the worsted shawl, and knelt down before Hobo. “Find her, good fellow,” she urged, holding the wrap close to the dog’s nose.
Over the fleecy mound, Hobo regarded Peggy with bright, intelligent eyes. “He’s smelling of it,” said a thrilled voice in the background.
“Yes, and he looks as if he understood,” cried another voice. “See how his eyes shine.”
Even Peggy’s doubts were vanishing before Hobo’s air of absorbed attention. “Find her, Hobo,” she insisted. “Find Aunt Abigail.”
The little group stood breathless, while Hobo descended the steps, and nose to earth, followed the winding gravelled path for half its distance. Then taking an abrupt turn, he struck off across the lawn. Their hearts in their mouths the girls hurried after. Peggy heard Priscilla just behind her, saying that it was perfectly wonderful. Priscilla had always retained a trace of her first disapproval of Hobo’s admission into the family circle, and even at that anxious moment, Peggy felt a little thrill of satisfaction over the fact that the wisdom of her charity had been vindicated.
Hobo ambled across the lawn, stopped abruptly at the foot of the pear-tree, and there seated himself, looking up into the branches, and wagging his tail, with an air of having abundantly satisfied his own expectations. Peggy’s efforts to induce him to take up the trail were useless. Familiar as they all were with Aunt Abigail’s eccentricities, it was impossible to believe that she had improved the occasion of their absence to climb a pear-tree, especially as its fruit had been gathered weeks earlier. Moreover, even granting the possibility ofso erratic a proceeding, she must have descended from her perch, unless she had continued her journey by airship. Peggy brought the worsted shawl, and renewed her appeals and commands, while Hobo continued to wag his tail, apparently under the impression that he was being praised for some remarkable achievement.
“There’s no use wasting any more time,” Amy cried at last, “on a dog as stupid as that one.”
“He never pretended to be a bloodhound,” said Peggy, her sense of justice driving her to the defence of her protégé. And then she dropped the shawl and ran to meet Jerry Morton, whose cheery whistle usually announced his coming some time in advance of his actual arrival.
Jerry had come to ask the opinion of the company as to the advisability of occupying the second intermission by a banjo duet. But before he could introduce the subject, his attention was claimed by the news of Aunt Abigail’s mysterious disappearance. As all the girls talked at once, the resulting explanation was somewhat confused, and Jerry gathered the impression that Hobo was being held responsible for driving Aunt Abigail into the pear-tree. Corrected on this point, his face suddenly acquired an expression of extreme seriousness.
“I saw long ’bout noon–but ’tain’t likely that had anything to do with it.”
“What was it?” cried the girls in chorus, each conscious of a chilly sensation in the neighborhood of the spine. And Amy added fiercely, “If you know anything, Jerry, tell it quick! We’re losing lots of time.”
“Well, it was a band of gypsies.”
There was a minute of awed silence. “But you don’t think–” Amy began, and paused helplessly.
“I don’t think anything but–well, they had three wagons–you know the kind–and in the bottom of the last one, I could see somebody lying stretched out and all covered over with a blanket. I thought most likely one of the men had been drinking and was just sleeping it off. But, of course–”
Jerry paused, overwhelmed at the sight of the horror depicted on the faces of his auditors. Vainly he racked his brain for a less harassing explanation of the fact that Aunt Abigail had disappeared some time during the forenoon, and at five o’clock was still missing. Peggy, her lips very white, attempted to reassure herself and the others, by attacking the theory he had suggested.
“But, Jerry, what would gypsies want with anold lady like Aunt Abigail? I thought they only stole babies.”
“Yes, and they come back after a while and claim their fathers’ estates,” chimed in Amy hysterically.
Jerry would have liked to be consoling, but did not see his way clear to that end. He accordingly observed that real gypsies would steal anything they could lay their hands on. And when he had finished this expression of his inmost convictions, Amy burst into tears.
“Oh, why are we wasting time?” she cried. “We ought to get Mr. Cole and Joe and all the men around to drive after those people and see who was under that blanket. Oh, dear. Oh, dear!”
Dorothy was pulling Peggy’s skirt. “Aunt Peggy! Aunt Peggy, listen!”
“Oh, hush, Dorothy. I can’t attend to you.”
“But listen, Aunt Peggy–”
“Dorothy, you’re a naughty girl. I can’t listen.”
Dorothy too burst into sobs. “I just wanted to tell you,” she wailed, “that Aunt Abigail was a-sitting on the porch.”
Peggy spun about. The astonishing news was true. On the porch sat Aunt Abigail, swaying slightly in one of the willow rockers, with her meditativegaze fixed on the western sky. After the first inevitable half minutes of stupefaction, there was a wild rush for the house.
“It seems to me I never saw the sky prettier,” was Aunt Abigail’s astonishing beginning. But no one was in the mood to join her in discussing the beauties of nature. “Where have you been?” was the cry echoed from lip to lip.
Aunt Abigail smoothed a wrinkle in her skirt, and for the first time since undertaking the chaperonage of the Terrace girls, she looked a trifle discomfited.
“I found such an interesting story in the garret,” she said, “a continued story it was, and it ran through an entire year, fifty-two numbers. I had a little difficulty in finding every instalment, but I succeeded at last. You girls will enjoy reading it. I am afraid–” Aunt Abigail glanced uneasily at the rosy west, and left the sentence unfinished. “I hope,” she said instead, “that you didn’t wait dinner for me.”
“But the door was locked,” said Peggy, finding it almost impossible to believe that their alarm had been groundless.
“Yes. I thought it wasn’t quite safe to leave the door unlocked, when I would be in the third story, but I didn’t want to have to hurry down tolet you in. I locked the front door on the outside, and hung up the key. Then I went in by the back door and locked it on the inside.”
“And you mean that you’ve been in the garret all these hours?” cried Amy in accents of exasperation. Her face gave no hint of its usual easy-going good-nature. Though the tears were still undried upon her cheeks, ominous lightning played in her eyes. It really looked as if she could not easily forgive Aunt Abigail for her failure to be kidnapped by gypsies.
And just at the right moment somebody giggled. Among other benefits that laughter confers on the race, it not infrequently serves as a lightning conductor. With all the anxiety they had suffered, the situation was ludicrous nevertheless. While they had agonized below stairs, Aunt Abigail had sat on the garret floor, absorbed in a sensational serial story, oblivious to everything but the next chapter. An uncontrollable titter went the rounds. It gained volume, like a seaward flowing brook. It swelled to a roar. And Amy, who for a moment had stood silent and disdainful, as if she defied the current to sweep her off her feet, gave up all at once, and laughed with the rest.
Aunt Abigail laughed too, though more as ifshe wished to appear companionable than because she really saw the joke. When the silence of exhaustion followed the uproar, and the girls were wiping their wet eyes and each avoiding the glances of her neighbor, for fear of going off into another paroxysm, Aunt Abigail made a remark which helped to explain her failure to enter into the fun.
“I really hope you didn’t wait dinner,” repeated Aunt Abigail politely. “And if–if it’s the same to the rest of you, I vote for an early supper.”
“In less than twenty-four hours Elaine will be here.”
“You’ve been saying that for a week,” Priscilla commented tartly. The two girls had the porch to themselves, Priscilla stretched her lazy length in the hammock, while Peggy had curled herself into the biggest chair in a position which only a kitten or a school girl could by any possibility consider comfortable. Life at Dolittle Cottage was not favorable totête-à-têtes, and Priscilla found ground for a grievance in the fact that on one of the rare occasions when they were alone together, Peggy should occupy the time in discussing the approaching visit of another friend. Though Priscilla had been making a gallant fight against her besetting weakness, it occasionally took her off her guard.
“If I’ve been saying that for a week,” observed Peggy with unruffled good nature, “I’ve been talkingnonsense. For this is the first day it’s been true.”
“Don’t be silly, Peggy. You know perfectly well what I mean. For a week you haven’t been able to talk of anything but Elaine’s coming.”
Peggy made no reply. There was a critical note in the accusation which she found vaguely irritating, and it seemed to her the wisest course to let the matter drop where it was. But Priscilla was in the unreasonable mood when even silence is sufficient ground for resentment.
“Dear me, Peggy, I didn’t mean to reduce you to absolute dumbness. By all means talk of Elaine, if that’s the only topic of interest.”
“See here, Priscilla!” Peggy straightened herself, an unwonted color in her cheeks. For all her sweetness of disposition, she had a temper of her own, and was perhaps no less lovable on that account. “I thought we’d settled this thing long ago. You know I’m fond of Elaine,” she went on steadily, “and after her hard year, I’m delighted that she can have an outing up here with the rest of us. It isn’t anything I’m ashamed of, and it isn’t anything you’ve a right to call me to account for. I don’t care any the less for you because I care for Elaine, too.”
There are few better tests of character than its response to frankness. A girl of another sort would have found in this straightforward speech additional cause for umbrage. Priscilla showed that her faults were only superficial after all, by her immediate surrender.
“Oh, Peggy,” she exclaimed, a choke in her voice. “You don’t need to tell me that. I don’t know what ails me sometimes. I should think you’d lose all patience with me.”
A tear splashed down upon her cheek, and Peggy, surprised and touched, leaned forward to pat the heaving shoulder consolingly. “Never mind, dear. We won’t say another word about it.”
“Just one more,” pleaded Priscilla. “You know, Peggy, that even when I’m hateful, I love you better than anybody in the world except my father and mother. But if you weren’t the dearest girl on earth–”
The screen door flew open, and slammed shut with an explosive effect which might have startled listeners unused to such phenomena. But in a cottage filled with young folks, doors are so likely to slam that this miniature thunder-clap did not cause either head to turn. It was rather the singular silence following which led Peggy to lift her eyes,and it was the expression on Peggy’s face which brought Priscilla to the realization that something out of the ordinary was taking place.
Claire stood by the screen door, her hands clenched, her face scarlet, her whole demeanor indicating the intensity of her struggle for self-control. Priscilla looked at her aghast, all sorts of alarming speculations racing through her mind. “Oh, what is the matter?” she cried.
“I heard every word.”
“You heard–” Priscilla broke off, and turned on Peggy a blank face. “Do you know what she means? What has she heard?”
“Oh, you needn’t try to get out of it,” Claire’s voice was suddenly shrill and rasping. “So Miss Peggy Raymond is the dearest girl on earth, is she, and you love her better than anybody in the world! It won’t do any good for you to deny it.”
“I haven’t any intention of denying it,” Priscilla replied, choosing her words with care. Instantly she knew that this meant the end of the friendship, which had by degrees become a burden rather than a joy. Claire’s exactions, her extravagant protests of an affection which in its expression proved itself to be nothing but self-love, had been the one discordantnote in the summer’s harmony. To have the unreal bond dissolved, even in so drastic a fashion, came as a relief. “I haven’t any wish to deny it,” Priscilla repeated, as Claire gasped hysterically. “Everybody who knows me knows that Peggy’s my best friend.”
“And what about me?” The tragic tone of Claire’s inquiry threw its absurdity into temporary eclipse. “I’m nobody, I suppose. I can just be set aside when it suits your pleasure. And you called yourself my friend.”
“Why, Claire,” Peggy began, throwing herself into the breach with her usual irresistible impulse toward peacemaking, but, to the angry girl, this well-meant interference was additional provocation. “Oh, don’t you say anything,” she cried, turning savagely on the would-be pacificator. “You ought to be satisfied. It’s all your fault.”
“My fault!” The accusation was too preposterous to be taken seriously. Peggy could not keep from smiling.
“Oh, yes, I don’t wonder that you laugh,” exclaimed Claire, finding in that involuntary twitching of the lips new fuel for her wrath. “It’s what you’ve been plotting all the time, and now you’ve done it, so, of course, you’re satisfied.”
Peggy’s impulse to laughter had passed. She turned rather pale, and sat silent, not deigning to reply to such a charge, while Claire rushed on recklessly. “Of course, after this, nothing would induce me to stay in this house another night.”
“I should hope not,” remarked Priscilla with deadly coldness. She might have forgiven Claire’s attack on herself, but such treatment of Peggy was not to be overlooked. The eyes of the two girls met like clashing swords.
But in spite of Claire’s declaration that nothing would induce her to spend another night at Dolittle Cottage, when it was ascertained that the first train on which she could take her departure left at ten o’clock next morning, she did not seek the hospitality of Mrs. Snooks’ roof, nor even suggest sleeping on the lawn. After her first paroxysm of anger was over, she became abnormally and painfully polite, begged everybody’s pardon for nothing at all, and proffered extravagant thanks for the simplest service. She declined to come down to supper on the pretext that she was too busy packing. And when Peggy carried up a well-laden tray, Claire received her with courteous protests.
“Oh, dear me! You shouldn’t have done that. I had no idea of your taking any trouble on myaccount. I’m not at all hungry, you know.” Claire would have given much for sufficient strength of will to refuse to taste another morsel of food in Dolittle Cottage, but being angry is, unluckily, no safeguard against being hungry.
As a matter of fact, the voice of Claire’s appetite was too insistent to allow her to give herself the satisfaction of haughtily declining to profit by Peggy’s thoughtfulness. “Just set the tray down anywhere,” she continued, packing ostentatiously, “and if I get time and feel like it, I’ll eat a mouthful.” And Peggy departed, relieved by her sincere conviction that no one in the cottage would go to bed without a satisfactory evening meal.
As Claire was to leave at ten, and Elaine arrived at eleven, it was but natural that the girls who were to meet the new arrival should accompany the departing guest on the four-mile drive to the station. Indeed, if they depended on the stage, it was necessary that they should go together, as this conveyance made but one trip a day in each direction. Peggy did not wish to delegate to any of the other girls the responsibility of meeting Elaine, whom she regarded as her especial guest, and since Claire had come to the cottage on Priscilla’s invitation, Peggy felt that it devolved on Priscilla to see heroff, in spite of the unfortunate termination of the visit.
“As for seeing her off, I shall be glad enough to do that,” declared Priscilla, who, now that her tongue was loosed, was atoning for many days of repression. “But, Peggy, I don’t see how I can stand a four-mile drive with that girl.”
“I’ll be there too, honey, and with the stage driver listening to every word, we can’t talk about anything except the scenery. Please come, Priscilla. Don’t give her any excuse for thinking that you haven’t done everything that could possibly be expected of you.”
Accordingly, the stage calling the next morning found three passengers awaiting its arrival, and the keenly observant driver, who occasionally turned his head, and proffered an observation, in case the conversation languished, must have formed an entirely new conception of girls of seventeen. Had they all been seventy, and the merest acquaintances, they could not have treated one another with more precise politeness, nor have conversed with greater decorum. Altogether, Priscilla had some show of reason for referring later to the drive as “ghastly.” Unluckily, Claire’s train was thirty minutes late, and the tension was accordingly prolonged for thatlength of time. As Peggy attempted to make conversation out of such material as the weather and the time Claire would reach home, Priscilla was reflecting that if she were obliged to wait much longer she would disgrace herself either by laughing or by crying, or by indulging in both diversions at one and the same moment.
But the whistle sounded in time to save Priscilla’s hardly tried self-control. The girls shook hands primly. Peggy and Priscilla wished Claire a pleasant journey. Claire replied by effusive thanks. At length, to the relief of all three, she handed her suitcase to an obsequious porter and stepped aboard the Pullman.
“Now be ready,” Peggy cried, clutching Priscilla’s arm. “Wave your hand if she looks out.” But Claire did not deign so much as a glance at her late companions, and the train which bore her out of the heart of the green hills, carried her forever out of the lives of the two who watched her departure.
The girls seated themselves on one of the station benches to await Elaine’s train. Peggy was a little sober, for unjustified as she knew Claire’s suspicions to be, she could not help asking herself how it was that she had gained so little of Claire’s confidencein a summer’s association. And Priscilla’s face, too, was overcast, but for a different reason.
“Peggy,” she exclaimed abruptly, “do you know I feel as if I’d been looking at myself in the mirror.”
“Then you ought to feel more cheerful than you look,” returned Peggy with a sweeping glance, and a smile, designed to express her conviction that Priscilla was an unusually handsome girl.
But Priscilla was not to be turned aside by the little compliment. “It isn’t any reason to be cheerful. I mean, Peggy, that this affair with Claire has just helped to show me what I’m like myself.”
Peggy broke into excited protests, to which Priscilla listened unmoved.
“It’s exactly the same thing. I’ve been jealous of Elaine in just the same way she has been jealous of you. And both of us called it love, when all the time it was just the meanest kind of selfishness. I wonder why it is that your faults never look very bad till you see them in somebody else.”
“If you imagine that you’re like Claire Fendall,” interjected Peggy, seething with indignation, “you’re badly mistaken, that’s all.”
But glad as Priscilla would have been to accept the comforting assurance she shook her head with decision. “It’s exactly the same thing,” she insisted.“But I really hope–Why, Peggy, what’s the matter?”
If Peggy’s convulsive movement had not been sufficient to account for the startled question, the expression of her face was abundant ground for the inquiry. “Why, Peggy,” Priscilla repeated in real consternation, “what is it? What has happened?”
“I never thought of it till this minute. She’s spoiled everything.”
“Who? Claire? What has she spoiled?”
“Our play,” groaned Peggy. “It comes off on Tuesday, and has been advertised in the last three issues of theArena. We can’t possibly find anybody to take her place. What are we going to do?”
“Dorothea Clarke played it last June. Why not telegraph for her to come up. We just can’t have a fizzle at the last minute.”
“Why, Dolly Clarke is in California! Somebody spoke of it in a letter only last week.” Peggy groaned again. “I wonder if Claire didn’t think that her going would spoil everything. Or if she just didn’t care.”
Priscilla was inclined to favor the latter hypothesis, yet even in her resentment she realized that any amount of criticism of Claire would not savethe situation. Vainly the girls grappled with the problem, to end by looking at each other despairingly.
When Elaine stepped off the train at eleven o’clock she was immediately conscious of missing something in her welcome. It was not that Peggy did not seem glad to see her, for the steadfast eyes that met her own were beaming with affection. Priscilla too was unusually cordial. And yet Elaine missed something, the spontaneous overflowing of light hearts.
“What is it?” she asked, looking from one to the other, as the stage driver went for her little trunk. “Is anybody ill? Is anything wrong? Somehow you look–”
Peggy and Priscilla exchanged glances. Peggy laughed.
“We might as well tell her now as later. Perhaps when that’s off our minds, we’ll be able to think of something else. You know, I wrote you about the benefit we got up for Lucy Haines.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, we’re going to give the little farce we learned for commencement week. It happened that we four girls took all the principal parts but one, and Claire Fendall agreed to take that. You wereat one of our rehearsals last spring, weren’t you? Well, this was Adelaide’s part.”
“Yes, I remember. The girl who was always losing her temper over things.”
“Well, unluckily, Claire lost her temper over something, and went home just an hour ago. And the play is for Tuesday night. We can’t possibly postpone it, because there is no way of getting word to the people. The paper only comes out once a week. Did you ever hear of anything so dreadful?”
Elaine was musing. “If I remember, it isn’t such a very long part.”
“Why, it isn’t as long as Priscilla’s or mine, but Adelaide is one of the leading characters. She couldn’t possibly be left out.”
“I didn’t mean that. I was only going to suggest–” Elaine hesitated, with a little of her old-time shyness. “I was only going to say that if you couldn’t do any better, I’d take the part.”
“Take the part?” Peggy looked at her friend in an amazement which temporarily obscured her gratitude. “But we give the thing Tuesday night.”
“Yes, I know.” Elaine smiled a little at the conflict of hope and incredulity written on Peggy’s expressive face. “But I really have a very quickmemory, Peggy, though I don’t retain things as long as lots of other people. And before I came to Friendly Terrace I took part in school theatricals quite often. I can’t promise to distinguish myself, but I’m sure I can get through the part and save the day.”
And then, to Elaine’s secret amazement, it was Priscilla’s arm that went about her waist, and Priscilla’s voice that cried, with a thrill of sincerity there was no mistaking:
“Oh, Peggy, isn’t it splendid to have her here?”