CHAPTER VITHE BOY IN THE CLUB
You hear that boy laughing? You think he’s all fun?But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done.
You hear that boy laughing? You think he’s all fun?But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done.
You hear that boy laughing? You think he’s all fun?But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done.
You hear that boy laughing? You think he’s all fun?
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes.
BEN HOLT, driving slowly along the main business street of Berkeley, Friday morning, about half-past nine o’clock, stopped his horse as he saw the tall figure and met the gray eyes of Elsa Danforth’s uncle.
“Good morning, sir,” the boy said, jumping from the sleigh with a sudden inspiration. “I would like to ask your advice, sir,” he added, diffidently.
Mr. Danforth had instantly recognized the boy of the Club. “Well, Ben, my boy; what is it about?” he asked in his quick way of speaking.
Ben’s usually cheerful face was very sober and earnest. Mr. Danforth noticed on the seat of the sleigh a queer-shaped bundle covered with whatlooked suspiciously like a blue-and-white flannel night-shirt.
“What do you want my advice about? Christmas presents?” the tall man asked kindly, seeing that the boy found some difficulty in making his request.
“No, sir, it isn’t Christmas presents,” Ben replied sadly, taking a few steps forward and putting his arm around Jerry’s long nose. “I am going to run away, sir; but I had promised to give five of the little Convalescings a sleigh-ride this morning, at eleven o’clock, and I’ve been trying to find some safe fellow—man,” said Ben, correcting himself,—“who will take them for me, somebody the head-nurse will trust. Do you suppose you could do it?” The boy looked up with such a wistful expression that Mr. Danforth felt quite touched, although he felt also, that Ben was looking him over very carefully and trying to decide whether the head-nurse would approve of him. “You could leave Jerry at my house when you come home; it’s not a very long ways to walk back to Elsa’s. Of course I—I couldn’t tell mother of mine that—that I was going to run away.” Ben’s face showed that he was very miserable.
“Let me get into the sleigh with you and we willtalk it over,” Mr. Danforth said, stepping in quickly. Ben sprang in at the other side and pushed the blue-and-white flannel bundle to the floor, under the seat.
“Now, first of all, tell me why you are going to run away?” Mr. Danforth inquired in such a friendly, sympathetic tone that Ben could not help opening his heart at once.
“I want to earn a lot of money, sir. You see, my father’s away teaching, and he isn’t very well, so he can’t send us much money. And mother—mother has to buy so many things, she was counting on her fingers last night,—coal, and things to eat, and clothes, and pay the hired man, and pay the rent, and she just gets all the fingers paid off and she has to begin again. She spent her last money yesterday for coal, and she won’t have any more till the first of January, and I can’t stand it, sir; I’ve got to earn some money to help her.” Ben turned aside with a sound very much like a sob, but which of course must not be heard from a boy who was going to run away. Bravely facing ahead again after a moment he added: “I want to earn a lot of money, so that mother won’t have to work so hard and so that we can go and live with father.”
“Do you help your mother any now?” Mr. Danforth inquired in the same quick, sympathetic voice.
“Yes, sir, a little; I feed and take care of the hens and I do errands and shovel snow and help with the market-garden, and I talk over things with mother, and I take the Convalescings out driving pleasant Saturday mornings and vacations.” Ben named everything he could think of, for he wanted to prove that he was a capable and trusty boy. He looked up, anxiously: “Maybe, as you live in the city, you could tell me where to begin work?”
“Who will do all those things for your mother if you run away, Ben?” came the next question.
“Why—she can hire a boy with the money I send,” Ben answered, miserably.
“I wouldn’t run away just yet, Ben, if I were you,” said Mr. Danforth very gravely. “Your mother might get used to that other boy. Boys who run away always want to come back home, and once in awhile their fathers and mothers won’t let them come back, but send them off to some institution. Think it over awhile, Ben. It’s queer, but you are the very boy I wanted to see this morning.”
Ben turned questioningly toward his companion. There was a keen, clear sparkle in Mr. Danforth’s gray eyes, and good-humoured lines around his firm mouth.
“What do you say to our spending a part of the morning at that wonderful hut near your house, which Elsa has told me about? We can talk some more of your running away, and I want your advice about a Christmas surprise for the Club.”
Seeing the hesitation which yet remained in Ben’s earnest blue eyes, Mr. Danforth continued: “Now, Ben, I have given you my advice, and it’s only fair that you should give me yours. I think I shall want to hire you and your horse some day next week, and I will pay you fifty cents an hour, and for this morning’s time, too.”
“Jerry’s a fine horse to work, because he’s so steady, sir,” replied Ben, yielding by slow degrees. “But the Convalescings expect me at eleven o’clock.”
Jerry had turned, unheeded by Ben, into Berkeley Avenue and was jogging quite spiritedly in the direction of home.
“It is not ten o’clock yet,” said Mr. Danforth, taking out his watch. “You can help me an hourand then keep your engagement with the children. I wouldn’t have you disappoint them.”
“All right, sir,” Ben said, more cheerfully than he had yet spoken, although his face sobered again immediately as he added: “I’ll leave my bundle in the hut, then it will be ready any time I decide to start. Of course, I’d lots rather earn some money and stay at home. But it’s sorrowful-like, sir, to see your mother needing money so much.” Again Ben turned aside his face, and when Mr. Danforth kindly looked the other way, the boy drew his red-mittened hand across his eyes.
Any one who had been near the log-hut in the tall pine woods not far from Ben’s home that morning, would have seen a broad-shouldered man in a heavy winter overcoat and a slip of a boy in a tight blue reefer jacket sitting in the warm sunshine on the sheltered platform of the hut, very earnestly talking together and advising one another, while old Jerry, blanketed carefully, stood near by without being hitched, and overhead, dusky crows and gleaming bluejays chattered vigorously, a gray chickadee or a downy woodpecker occasionally putting in a word.
Mr. Ned Danforth had surprised and delighted his niece Elsa almost beyond bounds by appearingin Berkeley the evening before, and announcing that he should stay at least until Christmas, a whole week.
After his father, Judge Danforth, had died, and after the death of Elsa’s father a few months later, Mr. Ned Danforth had agreed with his stepmother that it was wise for her to close her New York home, and also that Berkeley was a good place for motherless and fatherless Elsa to live in. Some day, when his little niece should become a young lady, Mr. Danforth hoped to have her live with him. He had missed the child greatly, indeed, out of his New York life, and his flying visit to Berkeley of a few weeks ago—the first time he had seen Elsa since September—had caused him to wonder whether she was wholly happy in her life alone with Mrs. Danforth, although the child made no complaint.
It was particularly to set his mind at rest upon this point that he had told Elsa he would pay her fifty cents a week if she would write a four-page letter to him twice a week; for he felt that in these letters she would probably tell him freely just what he wanted to know. Before this, Elsa had written him once a week, and always a short letter, saying that grandmother was well and she was well; thatschool was pleasant because she liked her school-girl friends; that Berkeley was a pretty place and the weather was growing colder; that she missed him ever and ever so much, and was his affectionate little niece, Elsa.
But the first long letter he received had run thus:
“Dearest Uncle Ned:—“Grandmother is well and so am I. O, I am so glad you came to see me. Please come again soon. School is most over and I am sorry for I shall miss seeing my little girl friends. Grandmother does not like to have little girls come to see me. She lets me go to the Club though. Miss Ruth is lovely. I take a red rose to her most every day and she puts it in to a tall green glass vase in her window so I see it when I go to bed and it doesent make me feel so lonesum. I shall be sorry when school closes because it will seem lonesummer to eat breakfast and supper alone. It is a very nice nayborhood. Miss Ruth is busy most of the time taking care of her poor sick aunt who doesent like children I guess because she told us to go right away children one day she had asked the club to go up stairs to see her. Betty White has the beautifulest nursery to sleep in you eversaw it makes me think of very interesting picture book or a Jacobs coat of many colors. Bettys mother lets her decide things. I wish grandmother would let me. I wish grandmother would let me have some pink or blue paper on my room. It is all so white. I feels if I slept out doors in snow.“I am reading David Copperfield. I think it is a very good and interesting book and it is so real and true. I like Agnes W. better than any caracter and I think D. C. is sorry he fell in love with Dora and I wish he had more courage when he is with Urriah H and tell U. H. that he is a sneak and coward and give him a blow or two. I like Mr. Peggotty and Ham and Peggotty and Aunt Bettesy Trotwood and I also like Mr. Dick and all two gether it is a fine book. Will you tell me the name of a book to read next because when school closes I will have to read to keep from being lonesum like September when I first came. This is four pages and I wish you would come to see your poor lonesum“Elsa.“P. S. dont forget about the hut.“P. S. David was so crushed and frightened when he was little and had no good times. I think he hasent got over it yet.”
“Dearest Uncle Ned:—
“Grandmother is well and so am I. O, I am so glad you came to see me. Please come again soon. School is most over and I am sorry for I shall miss seeing my little girl friends. Grandmother does not like to have little girls come to see me. She lets me go to the Club though. Miss Ruth is lovely. I take a red rose to her most every day and she puts it in to a tall green glass vase in her window so I see it when I go to bed and it doesent make me feel so lonesum. I shall be sorry when school closes because it will seem lonesummer to eat breakfast and supper alone. It is a very nice nayborhood. Miss Ruth is busy most of the time taking care of her poor sick aunt who doesent like children I guess because she told us to go right away children one day she had asked the club to go up stairs to see her. Betty White has the beautifulest nursery to sleep in you eversaw it makes me think of very interesting picture book or a Jacobs coat of many colors. Bettys mother lets her decide things. I wish grandmother would let me. I wish grandmother would let me have some pink or blue paper on my room. It is all so white. I feels if I slept out doors in snow.
“I am reading David Copperfield. I think it is a very good and interesting book and it is so real and true. I like Agnes W. better than any caracter and I think D. C. is sorry he fell in love with Dora and I wish he had more courage when he is with Urriah H and tell U. H. that he is a sneak and coward and give him a blow or two. I like Mr. Peggotty and Ham and Peggotty and Aunt Bettesy Trotwood and I also like Mr. Dick and all two gether it is a fine book. Will you tell me the name of a book to read next because when school closes I will have to read to keep from being lonesum like September when I first came. This is four pages and I wish you would come to see your poor lonesum
“Elsa.
“P. S. dont forget about the hut.
“P. S. David was so crushed and frightened when he was little and had no good times. I think he hasent got over it yet.”
Mr. Danforth had decided from this and just such another long letter, that his little niece was leading a lonely and repressed life with her grandmother, and that it was this fact which was making the child pale-faced and hollow-eyed, rather than the school-life, as Mrs. Danforth had suggested. So when the head of the banking-house to which he belonged decided to establish a branch office in the large city near Berkeley, Mr. Danforth at once agreed to take charge of it. What were New York clubs and big dinners in comparison with the welfare and happiness of one little pathetic, gray-eyed, “lonesum” girl?
And this was the reason of Mr. Ned Danforth’s being in Berkeley, although he had not as yet told Elsa that he would soon come to stay permanently.
Thursday had been the last day of the school term, and this Friday would be the last meeting of the Club before Christmas. Ben and Alice had called for Betty at half-past two o’clock. Mrs. White had with difficulty kept them and Betty from starting for Ruth Warren’s before three o’clock.
The moment Elsa, watching from the hall window, saw the little group leave Betty’s house, she sped like an arrow to join them, having been ready for the last half-hour.
It was a merry, excited group of four children who ran up the front steps of the Warren house very promptly at three o’clock on the afternoon of December 18. Elsa had forgotten all about being sorry that school had closed, now that Uncle Ned had come; Ben had forgotten all about his intense desire to run away from home; Alice had forgotten all about the cold which had kept her from the last Club meeting, and Betty, on her part, had forgotten pretty nearly all that she had learned in school the last term; indeed, she had almost forgotten that there ever was any school.
The open fire was burning brightly; the five unfinished sets of paper dolls, the paints and the brushes were ready on the table; and Miss Ruth, in her golden-brown, fur-trimmed gown, welcomed the Club with a feeling of real pleasure in having all these lively children coming to her house. She was heartily glad her Aunt Virginia had decided that she liked the children’s noise, for Ben came in with an unmistakable “Whoop!” and cried out, “No more school!” and the other children began talking rapidly.
“May I bring my Christmas presents and keep them here?” questioned Betty. “Max and Janet find every single thing I hide away.”
“My Uncle Ned has come to stay till Christmas,” exclaimed Elsa; “he’s gone to the city this afternoon, or maybe I shouldn’t have wanted to come even to the Club!”
“I’ve brought back the two sets of paper dolls you sent for me to paint,” piped in Alice. “And Ben’s brought something to show you.”
Thereupon Ben opened the box he had in his hand, and blushing with pride, showed the Club ten tops he had carved, carefully and well, painted with bright colours. “They are for the Convalescings,” he explained when the girls gave him a chance to speak; “and I think I’ll have time to make a few more.”
“Mamma is making some of the beautifulest rag dolls,” exclaimed Alice enthusiastically.
“We must finish painting the paper dolls this afternoon,” cried Betty, “for just think, Christmas comes a week from to-day.”
“Can we take the dolls out to the Convalescent Home, Miss Ruth?” Elsa asked, with shining eyes.
“Yes, we can all go there Christmas morning. I have arranged that with Miss Hartwell. With the dolls Mrs. Holt is making, and ours, we shall have enough to give a doll to every little girl there; and with Ben’s tops and some tin soldiers whichI am going to provide for the boys, we shall have something for every boy.”
“O, goody!” exclaimed Betty, while Elsa and Alice clapped their hands, and Ben turned a somersault on the hearth-rug.
“Now please finish the story, Miss Ruth,” said Betty. “You left off where Ruth’s grandmother—I mean your grandmother—was going to let you go to see the little old lady the next morning.”
Betty, Alice, and Elsa immediately drew their chairs up to the table, and chose their paint-brushes, ready to begin on the paper dolls. But Ben remained standing before the fireplace, and, after putting one hand in his pocket to make sure he had not lost the two silver quarter dollars he had earned that morning, he clasped his hands behind him. Ben was dreadfully hungry, for he had been outdoors all the morning, and even the good dinner he had eaten since then had left his appetite unsatisfied. He forgot that Miss Ruth always had something for the Club to eat, so he looked very steadily at her and asked frankly: “Please, Black Lace Lady, have you got any crackers or cookies? I’m hungry as two bears, and I’d a good deal rather ask right out for something to eat than hint for it.”
“Why, Ben Holt!” gasped Alice, whose cheeksturned a very deep pink in a moment. She came and laid her chubby hand on Ruth Warren’s arm: “Excuse him, please, Miss Ruth. He knows better.” Alice felt dreadfully ashamed of Ben.
Ruth Warren stroked Alice’s hand affectionately: “Never mind, dear. I ought to know better than to keep a hungry boy waiting for something to eat. Sarah has made some plum buns for you.”
“The same as we had for our first meeting!” cried Betty, tossing her hair out of her eyes.
“Yes, because Peggy brought some to me,” Ben said. “Here they are now,” he exclaimed, looking up engagingly into Sarah Judd’s face as she came through the library doorway, in her stiffest starched white apron, carrying a very large plate piled high with crisp plum buns.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Ben said with a polite bow. Stepping forward, he took the plate from Sarah, and passed it first to Miss Ruth, then to the girls.
Sarah stood still, watching anxiously. “They are pretty crumby,” she said, looking from the plate to the floor, “and—” but as she caught Miss Ruth’s eye, she stopped; then, drawing a long breath like a sigh, she said heroically: “Nevermind the crumbs, little folks; I’m a-goin’ to sweep to-morrow.”
“I think you are very, very good to the Club, Sarah,” said Betty.
“Thank you, oh, thank you,” cried Elsa, with thoughtful courtesy, while little Alice smiled and looked more than ever like a dimple-faced doll.
Sarah’s curls were bobbing excitedly as she went out of the room, saying under her breath: “The cunnin’ little dears!”
“Please,please, the story now,” entreated Betty.
“Guess I won’t paint to-day,” Ben announced. “May I lie down by the fire again?”
“Yes,—take a cushion and take some buns, Ben,” Ruth Warren answered, moving her chair aside.
“Let me do that,” said Ben, springing instantly to help.
“Thank you,” returned Miss Ruth. Then, seating herself, she said: “Now I will go on with the story.”
By nine o’clock the next morning, I was teasing my grandmother to let me start for Miss Dean’s. But it was almost eleven before Jenny, the cook,had the broth and little cakes and jelly in a basket for me to carry to Miss Dean. I remember hurrying so fast over the uneven, snowy street that I spilled some of the broth.
Miss Dean saw me coming and opened the front door the moment I set foot on the top step. She was dressed in a soft gray cloth gown and she looked ever so much better than she had the day before, in fact her cheeks were quite pink and her eyes sparkled as she said: “I thought that as I had been ill and you were coming again to see me, we would have a party; and I have invited Susie to the party.”
The bedroom—or the sitting-room as it really was except in winter—looked very cozy. Miss Dean had spread a bright-coloured silk patchwork quilt over the bed, and there in the little rocking-chair, near by, sat Susie in a white muslin dress looped up with tiny pink rosebuds over a blue satin skirt.
“That is Susie’s ball costume,” Miss Dean said; “I didn’t show it to you yesterday because I felt it might be wrong to let you know that I approved of balls and dancing; but I decided to-day that it wouldn’t do any harm. My mother didn’t like to have me learn to dance, but I don’t see anythingwrong in Susie’s going to parties and balls, just to look on, anyway.”
My eyes had travelled from Susie to the black-and-gold lacquered box, which now stood upon the low table by the side of Susie’s chair. I think Miss Dean must have seen me looking at it, for in a moment she said:
“I felt so bad to think I forgot to give you that box yesterday. That is one reason I am having the party to-day. Take it now, to please a little old lady.” As she handed it to me, I remember she said, “My, how your eyes dance, child!”
I opened the box, and found inside two smaller black-and-gold lacquered boxes that just fitted the space. The first one I opened had in it a beautiful coral necklace—
“The one you have on now?” cried Betty, dropping her paint-brush and coming to Miss Ruth’s side.
“Yes, the very one,” Miss Ruth answered. “You have quick eyes, Betty.”
Elsa and the twins crowded around to look at the exquisitely cut, pinkish-red coral necklace.
“What was in the other box?” Betty asked. “It seems to me I can’t wait to hear!”
“The other box proved to be a dainty work-box with an ivory thimble, ivory-handled scissors and an ivory-covered needle-book. As I told you, Miss Dean’s father had been a sea-captain, and he had brought these things from a foreign country.”
“Have you kept the boxes, Miss Ruth?” Elsa asked shyly.
“Yes,” replied Miss Ruth: “I have the large box and the two smaller boxes.”
“O, do show them to us, please,” Betty entreated. The others waited with greatest interest.
“I thought you might like to see them, so I brought them down.” Ruth Warren rose and took from a drawer of her writing-desk a richly lacquered box; and the girls, with Ben, spent the next few moments in examining and admiring the big box, the smaller boxes, and the dainty ivory articles.
“I brought down something else to show you,” Miss Ruth said. “Can you guess what?”
“A stuffed Arctic owl,” suggested Ben, taking a fresh supply of plum buns while he was up.
“O, Ben! Can’t you think of anything but birds and horses and hens’ eggs!” cried Betty.
“Yes,—I think of the poor little Convalescings,” said Ben self-defensively.
“I know, I know!” exclaimed Elsa, almost breathlessly. “It is Susie!”
“Elsa has guessed right. It is Susie,—the little old lady’s doll,” said Miss Ruth, going to the tall mahogany bookcase which wholly filled one side of the room. The children followed her and watched with closest attention while she took from a lower shelf a large white box. Unrolling the stout white-paper covering, she opened the box-cover, took out the old-fashioned doll, and held her up before the children’s eyes.
Betty was the first to speak. “What a queer old thing,” she said.
“O, she has on the ball dress,” cried Alice, timidly touching one of the tiny pink rosebuds which looped up the muslin dress over the blue silk petticoat.
“You dear doll!” said Elsa softly.
“Sheiskind of quaint and pretty,” Betty said, after a good second look.
Ben gave a low whistle, but said nothing. He thought the doll was a beauty. The tiny pink rosebuds had won his heart.
Susie was a china-headed doll, with stiff, unjointed arms. Her black hair, parted and drawn down over her ears, her very black eyes, bright redcheeks and rounded mouth gave her an old-time appearance both quaint and attractive.
“How well you have kept her,” exclaimed Betty. Her own dolls had all suffered some misfortune, such as broken arms or hairless heads.
“I did not have Susie until I was sixteen years old,” Miss Ruth said, “and then I was too old to play with her.”
“Do girls have to stop playing with dolls when they are sixteen years old?” Elsa inquired anxiously.
“O no,” Miss Ruth replied; “but girls of sixteen are usually too busy with study and other things to have time for dolls.”
“How did you happen to get the old doll?” Ben asked. He did not mean to be disrespectful; it was only a boy’s way of speaking.
“That comes at the end of the story,” Miss Ruth answered. “Are you ready for me to go on?”
Everybody said, “Yes,” and Elsa added: “I will put Susie in a rocking-chair and we can look at her and that will make the story seem more real than ever.”
“That is just the way Miss Dean used to have her,” said Miss Ruth, as Elsa placed the doll in asmall rocking-chair upon a cushion and drew the chair toward the table.
“I remember,” Elsa answered.
Once more the girls took up their paint-brushes and went to work, while Ben stretched himself again upon the hearth-rug in his favourite position; and then the story-teller began again:
Miss Dean had been making ready for our party all the morning, I think, because we had so many things to eat. She seemed not to want to use anything which grandmother had sent. First, we had hot biscuit and little meat-balls; then we had chocolate frosted cake, currant-jelly tarts and plum preserves, with hot chocolate to drink.
“May we have Susie at the table with us?” I asked just as we were sitting down; so Miss Dean sat Susie on the dictionary in the tallest chair, and she put food on a plate for Susie, just as she did for me. When I wasn’t looking, Miss Dean slipped the food off to a plate on a side table, and then put more food in front of the doll, urging her in such a pretty way to eat more. I never shall forget how young and happy Miss Dean looked that day at the table, with such a kind, motherly expression in her large brown eyes.
We were just eating some preserved ginger and drinking the last of our chocolate, and Miss Dean was saying: “I am sure Susie would enjoy company very much indeed if she had more of it,” when there came a knock at the front door and my grandmother walked into the room. She and Miss Dean were such near neighbours and good friends that when either one called upon the other, she did not wait at the door, but walked in.
Miss Dean rose, greeted my grandmother, and then looked at me in such a timid, appealing manner that I knew she was thinking of Susie and wondering what my grandmother would think of the doll being there.
Grandmother sat down very straight in her chair, I remember, and looked around in her pleasant way. Her eyesight wasn’t very good. Probably, too, she didn’t remember how my own dolls looked. For very soon she said: “I see that Ruth brought her doll to have luncheon with you, Phœbe,”—grandmother always called Miss Dean by her first name.
I held my breath till Miss Dean answered: “That isn’t Ruth’s doll—yet; but it is one I am going to give her.”
If grandmother had been looking in my direction,I am sure she would have seen me jump at the thought that Susie was to be mine.
“How kind of you, Phœbe,” grandmother said. “I hope Ruth has thanked you properly.”
Miss Dean turned toward me with a helpless expression, just as grandmother added: “Isn’t it strange how children always like to make company of their dolls and make believe they can eat?”
“I wanted to have Susie at the table,” I said eagerly, half ready to cry, because I felt so sorry for Miss Dean.
“So you have named the doll Susie,” grandmother said.
Miss Dean turned to me again with that distressed look in her brown eyes.
“No,” I said, “that was Miss Dean’s name for her, but I like it.” And after that, grandmother began talking about something else. Her visit was short. When she went, she said: “Come home soon, Ruth, or you will be tiring Miss Phœbe, and don’t forget to thank her prettily for the doll.”
After closing the door behind grandmother, Miss Dean all of a sudden dropped into a chair. “I was going to give the doll to you, anyway, Ruth,” she said, hardly above a whisper. The pink colour had all gone out of her face.
“O no!” I said,—the way children do when they want a thing very much and know they ought not to take it.
“But I have told your grandmother that I was going to give the doll to you.” Miss Dean’s voice trembled now, and the next moment I saw her brown eyes fill with tears.
“I have ever so many dolls,” I cried, naming over six or seven, “and really, Miss Dean, I would rather have Susie here, because it will be all the nicer when I come to see you.” I remember thinking so just then, because Miss Dean was unhappy about it.
“What will your grandmother think of me? what will she think of me?” Miss Dean spoke with a real sob in her voice.
Then I knew more surely than before that I must not take Susie away. I petted Miss Dean and talked and talked until she dried her eyes and asked me if I didn’t want to try Susie’s dresses on again, so that I would be used to her ways, as long as she was truly going to be mine some day.
I remember that about as fast as Miss Dean began to feel better I began to feel worse. While she put away the food and the dishes in that clean, dainty kitchen, I played with the doll, dressing andundressing her; and when I finally pinned the little red shawl over the white nightgown, I am sure two or three of my tears fell upon Susie. Then I knew it was time for me to be going home.
“Are you perfectly sure you don’t want to take Susie?” Miss Dean asked me at the door.
“I want you to have her more!” I called back. I could not say another word, so I started and ran for home, hugging the black-and-gold lacquered box under my arm: I had entirely forgotten to show that to grandmother while she was there.
Grandmother was so interested in the box that she seemed to forget all about the doll. But I went to see Miss Dean and Susie almost every day. I had a queer feeling about that doll,—she was mine and yet she wasn’t. Perhaps I actually enjoyed her more that way. Once in awhile I found Miss Dean making new dresses for Susie; and then she always said: “I want your doll to have a lot of pretty clothes to wear.”
It happened that my father and mother came home from California unexpectedly and sent for me to join them, and I was hurried off without time even to say good-bye to Miss Dean and Susie. It must have been two months after that when I received a letter from Miss Dean. She wrote abouther spring chickens and her garden, chiefly, but at the end of the letter she said, “Susie misses you very much. She grows prettier every day.”
When I read this letter to my mother, she asked: “Who is Susie? Some little girl who lives with Miss Dean?”
“O no,” I said, “Susie is a doll, and she is going to be mine some day.”
Mother didn’t ask any more questions. She only said “Oh!” in a funny way.
After that, little by little, I forgot about the doll. Grandmother came to live with us, so I didn’t visit her again. But when I was sixteen years old, and had given up playing with dolls, a big bundle came to me by express one day, and in it was Susie dressed in a brown travelling suit. All her other clothes were in the bundle. Miss Dean had died, and had left directions to have the bundle sent to me. With it was a note which Miss Dean had written.
“Have you kept the note?” Betty asked curiously. The three girls had finished all the painting and had quietly drawn around the fire, during the last few moments.
“Yes; here it is.” From a yellowed envelope onher desk, Ruth Warren drew forth a small sheet of paper and read:
“Dear Little Ruth:—“When this reaches you, Susie will go with it. She has really been yours ever since that day of our party, and I thank you gratefully for letting me keep her. I have loved her dearly. Some of us poor lonely old folks are not much more than grown-up children. I know you will have a happy time playing with her, and when you are ready to give her away, I hope it will be to some little girl who will love her as fondly as you and I love her.“Your affectionate friend,“Phœbe Dean.”
“Dear Little Ruth:—
“When this reaches you, Susie will go with it. She has really been yours ever since that day of our party, and I thank you gratefully for letting me keep her. I have loved her dearly. Some of us poor lonely old folks are not much more than grown-up children. I know you will have a happy time playing with her, and when you are ready to give her away, I hope it will be to some little girl who will love her as fondly as you and I love her.
“Your affectionate friend,“Phœbe Dean.”
“What a dear story!” sighed Elsa. “And how much the poor little old lady must have cared for Susie.”
“You have kept all her dresses?” inquired Betty, eying the doll with new interest.
“Yes. When the doll first came, I dressed her in the ball gown, because that was what she had on when Miss Dean really gave her to me. Since then I have thought very little about her. Perhaps I shall keep her and have her for company when Igrow old, just as Miss Dean had her. Or perhaps we might dress her in a newer fashion and give her to one of the Convalescent children.”
“O no! no!” objected the girls as with one voice. “She is different:—they will like other dolls just as much,” little Alice added.
“She is best in her own old-fashioned dresses,” Elsa said thoughtfully, “because she has such a dear old-fashioned face.”
“And then Miss Dean wanted you to give her to the little girl who would love her the most,” Betty remarked.
“I wonder who that would be?” Elsa said wistfully, as if she were thinking out loud.
“I’m not the one,” exclaimed Ben, jingling his silver quarter-dollars.
“Of course you are not,” cried Betty. “You are only the boy in the Club.”
Betty and Ben were so constantly on the border of friendly warfare that Ruth Warren thought it better to change the subject. “Children,” she said quickly, beginning to gather the envelopes of paper dolls into a pile, “we have just time enough left to name these dolls. There are twelve of them, and each of you may choose three names. I will write the names on the envelopes. We will letBen choose his names first. Will you begin, Ben?”
Ben looked very hard into the fire for a moment.
“Hurry up, Ben,” Alice said, giving him a sisterly poke with her foot.
“All right, Peggy,” he said, holding the toe of her shoe affectionately. “I’m ready. Katrina for the princess in the Gray Owl story, Alice for my mother and for Peggy, and Ruth for you;” he turned toward Miss Ruth with one of his comical little bows.
The girls clapped their hands and Ruth Warren bowed in return to Ben as she said: “Now, Alice next. We will go from the youngest on.”
“I will name my three Love and Hope and Thankful.” Alice spoke in a low tone and moved a little nearer to Ben.
But the Club was listening so closely that every one heard. “What funny names!” was Betty’s comment, as Miss Ruth wrote them down.
“Mamma has told me stories about old, old ladies she knew of with those names,” Alice explained.
“Are they all right names?” she asked anxiously, turning her large blue eyes upon Ruth Warren.
“Yes, dear, they are good, old-fashioned names, and they go well with the old lady and the old doll we have just been talking about. What are your names, Betty?”
“Rose and Rosamond and Julia,” Betty answered quickly, her mind being all made up.
“Good.” Ruth Warren had these down in a half-moment. “And now Elsa?”
Elsa named her list with a little pause between each name: “Phœbe,—for Miss Dean. Agnes,—for the Agnes in ‘David Copperfield’”—Elsa’s first grown-up book had made a great impression upon her: “Ruth,—for you.” The child looked very lovingly from under her long dark lashes at Miss Ruth.
“But we have one Ruth. Ben chose that,” objected Betty half jealously.
“Never mind. We can have two of the same name,” insisted Elsa spiritedly, although her face coloured sensitively from having all eyes turned upon her.
“None of the Convalescent children will have two paper dolls,” said peaceable Alice.
“I’d like to have all the dolls named Ruth,” Ben said gallantly.
As Ben did not mind Elsa’s having chosen thesame name that he had, Betty did not make any further objection.
“Please, Miss Ruth, ma’am, Mrs. Danforth to see you,” Sarah Judd announced at the library door. “She said she wanted to come right in here.”
The children, not quite realizing, in the half dusk of the afternoon light, that Mrs. Danforth was close behind Sarah, did not rise until Miss Ruth stepped back from the doorway with her visitor. Accordingly, Mrs. Danforth had a momentary glimpse of them on the hearth-rug,—Betty curled up on a cushion, Elsa leaning in her old position against the brass fire-stand, Alice and Ben seated side by side upon a large, low, old-fashioned ottoman in the centre of the rug. The ruddy flames lighted up their faces vividly.
A moment later, the children were standing,—all except little Alice, one of whose feet had gone to sleep so that she had to kneel upon the ottoman.
Sarah Judd, unnoticed, looked on from the shadow of the doorway at the tall, stately woman in rich sable furs and heavy silk cloak.
“I took the liberty of asking your maid to allow me to come where the children were,” Mrs. Danforthsaid in a beautiful but cold voice. “I wanted to see the Club that Elsa talks about so much.”
“Pray be seated, Mrs. Danforth; we are delighted to see you,” said Ruth Warren, turning to stir the fire into a yet brighter glow. “We like firelight better than any other light,” she added. “Sit down, children.”
Mrs. Danforth had seated herself very quickly, as her eyes fell upon Alice and Ben.
Betty curled up again on the cushion. Elsa drew a little way back from the fireside into the shadow and sat upright upon a chair. Alice, as if spellbound by something in Mrs. Danforth’s face, remained kneeling upon the ottoman, and Ben stood by his sister’s side with his left hand upon her shoulder.
The twins made a striking picture there on the hearth-rug in the full light of the blazing fire,—Alice, fair-haired, delicate-featured, with great soft blue eyes and broad white forehead; Ben with the same colouring of hair and complexion, with boyish, earnest face, frank, handsome blue eyes, slender figure and well-shaped shoulders.
“So, Elsa, these are your friends, Alice and Ben?” Mrs. Danforth asked in a slightly unsteady voice now, loosening her furs as she spoke. Shelooked very white; and Ruth Warren remembered that Mrs. Danforth had been ill in her room a few days before.
“THE TWINS MADE A STRIKING PICTURE.”
“THE TWINS MADE A STRIKING PICTURE.”
“Yes, grandmother,” Elsa’s voice answered out of the half-shadow where she was sitting.
The twins nodded their heads. Alice shyly, and Ben quite gravely. “Are you Elsa’s grandmother?” he inquired, fixing his blue eyes upon Mrs. Danforth.
She merely bowed her head, and asked in the same rather unsteady voice: “Your last name is what?”
“Holt, ma’am,—Alice and Benjamin Franklin Holt,” the boy answered in his clear, musical voice.
Ruth Warren, seated somewhat back from the fireside and closely observing the picture-like group upon the rug, could not help thinking that it looked as if Alice were kneeling before Mrs. Danforth for forgiveness and Ben were standing by her side as her champion.
“How long have you lived here in Berkeley?” Mrs. Danforth’s eyes were fixed intently upon Ben. She could not bear to look at Alice because of the child’s resemblance to a long-ago little Alice.
“Since the first of last July, ma’am,” Ben replied,manfully meeting the almost stern look in the blue eyes bent upon him.
“And where did you live before you came here?” asked Mrs. Danforth sharply.
“Grandmother is almost rude to ask so many questions,” thought Elsa in her shadowy corner. Betty was listening with round, wide-open brown eyes. Ruth Warren watched Mrs. Danforth’s face now.
“We lived out in New York State. Father was teaching in a college there,” Ben explained pleasantly: “his health wasn’t very good, though, so he brought us here and stayed a little while, and then he had to go to Colorado, for the doctor said so. We raise lettuce and things to sell, so that father can stay away till he gets better.”
“What does your mother do?” Mrs. Danforth asked in a strangely trembling voice.
“Mother? My mother? Oh, she helps with the garden when she is well enough, and she makes some of my clothes and Alice’s dresses and keeps ’count of all the eggs I sell and—” he stopped short.
Mrs. Danforth had risen suddenly. Looking toward Elsa, she said: “I want you to come home with me now, Elsa. It is five o’clock and the seamstresshas some new frocks to try on to you before she goes.”
Sarah Judd vanished from the hall.
As if she were weak, Mrs. Danforth steadied herself by the back of the chair, and then turned for another look at the blue-eyed boy before the fire.
With a very genuine desire to be a little gentleman,—as his mother always told him to be,—Ben did the very best thing in the world which he could have done. Stepping forward, though still with his hand upon his sister’s shoulder, he looked up into Mrs. Danforth’s face and said most respectfully: “I think you are a very nice grandmother. I wish Alice and I had a grandmother.”
“Then you have no grandmother?” she asked slowly, with that strange tremble in her voice again, and clasping her hands tight together behind the long sable boa.
“We had one, my father’s mother,” Ben answered soberly, still with his eyes fixed upon her face, “but that grandmother has gone away to heaven. We don’t know about our other grandmother. Mother says she will tell us about her sometime.”
Mrs. Danforth made a motion almost as if shewould take the little fellow into her arms. Then she turned abruptly, not trusting herself to stay another moment.
Suddenly, as she turned, it no longer seemed hard for her to begin to carry out the purpose which had brought her to Berkeley, for Ben had walked straight into her heart, and she knew that she could no longer shut love out from her life.
Elsa followed her grandmother out of the room without a word except to say good-bye to the Club.
Ruth Warren found the children in silence when she came back from seeing her guest to the door. She felt that they were wondering, just as she was, whether Mrs. Danforth intended to take Elsa away from the Club, and whether it was because the twins’ mother worked sometimes in the market-garden.
It was just the right opportunity for Ruth Warren to put to the children a question which she had in her mind. She began by telling them about Elsa’s loss of her doll, but without speaking of Elsa’s night visit.
“Poor Elsa,” exclaimed Betty, whose generous heart was quickly touched.
“Her dearest doll,” sighed Alice, pityingly.
Ben, seated on the ottoman again beside his sister, put his arm close around her.
“If Susie were to be given to any one of you three girls, which would you rather should have her?” Miss Ruth asked.
Betty and Alice looked at one another.
Ben gave Alice a hug and said: “I vote for Elsa’s having the doll,—though you didn’t ask me!” he added, hanging his head.
From looking at one another, Betty and Alice had turned to look at Susie, who sat on the cushion in the chair by the table, just where Elsa had placed her.
Betty was the first to speak: “If Elsa had Susie, I know she would let us play with her.”
Then Alice, generously swallowing her own disappointment, said: “Betty has Max and Janet, and I have Ben, so I—I think Elsa better have Susie.”
“Because she has only her grandmother to live with,” put in Betty.
“We all agree then,” said Miss Ruth, “that Elsa shall be the one to have the little old lady’s doll. We will keep it a secret,” she added, looking from one to another of the now bright faces. “We will give the doll to her at Christmas, with a note saying it is from all of us.”
“Because she has only a grandmother,” insisted Betty, forgetting Elsa’s Uncle Ned.
Just then they heard the door-bell ring, and a moment later, to their great surprise, Elsa came running into the library, her gray eyes sparkling with delight, her hair in a golden confusion over her shoulders.
“The seamstress wasn’t quite ready and grandmother said I might come back, and she wants me to invite you all to a Christmas-tree at our house on Christmas afternoon, and she wants Alice and Ben’s mother to come—and Betty’s mother—and she says if you will all come—it will be the best Christmas in her whole life!” Elsa stopped breathlessly, her slender figure quivering with excitement and joy.
“A Christmas-tree! What fun, what fun!” cried Betty, jumping up and beginning to dance around the room.
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Ben, giving Alice an extra hug.
“May we help get it ready, Elsa?” Betty asked eagerly. In her own home preparing the Christmas-tree was one of the great events of the year.
“Yes, yes, I am sure so!” cried Elsa, who inher transport of happiness was ready to promise anything.
Then they all laughed heartily when little Alice said slowly, as if the fact had just dawned over her mind: “The Club is going to have a Christmas-tree at Elsa’s grandmother’s!”
“Bless the blue-eyed baby,” said Betty; and Ruth Warren, stooping to kiss the child’s serious upturned face, wondered if Christmas day would bring some great change into the lives of Alice and Ben.
“Do you think your mother will come to the Christmas-tree, Alice?” Elsa asked. “Grandmother said particularly that I was to tell you she wants your mother to come.”
Ben answered for his sister: “She will come, I think, if Peggy and I ask her to. What a splendid grandmother you have, Elsa!” he cried, starting into a sort of war-dance around the room. “I’m going to make a Christmas present for her.”
“What is it?” asked Betty, curious instantly.
But Ben was heedless of the question. “Is she very rich?” he inquired, looking at Elsa.
“Yes, I think so,” replied Elsa.
“Then I’ll do it,” he exclaimed, ending his dance with a somersault upon the hearth-rug.
“What is it?” again asked Betty.
“That’s telling,” Ben answered.
“It will be something nice,” said Alice, out of her perfect faith in her brother.
Betty, not at all disturbed by Ben’s refusal to tell, went on blissfully: “Then our next meeting of the Club will be the Christmas-tree at Elsa’s, and we are all going out to the Convalescent Home with the presents Christmas morning! Don’t you think we could have just a little meeting here next Thursday afternoon, Miss Ruth, to talk things over?”
Ruth Warren yielded to the entreaty in four pairs of eyes: “Yes, you may come at three o’clock for an hour’s meeting, if you like, and we will have all the things ready to take to the Convalescent Home the next morning.”
“I will bring Jerry, Christmas morning, Jerry and the double-seated sleigh, to carry you and the presents out there,” offered Ben.
“If any of you have any presents that you want to hang on the Christmas-tree for any of the rest of you,” said Elsa, diffidently, yet feeling that it was something which ought to be said, “you could bring them to my house and I am sure grandmother would take care of them for you.” Elsa’sfew moment’s talk with her grandmother had made her feel that she could promise anything in her grandmother’s name for Christmas day.
Ruth Warren seated herself in front of the fire for a moment’s thought, after this lively meeting of the Club. She was greatly puzzled by Mrs. Danforth’s excited manner and her unexpected invitation for Christmas afternoon; and she was deeply interested to see how a little happiness had changed Elsa almost instantly into a light-hearted child like Betty and Alice. She had decided not to tell Elsa, beforehand, that Bettina March was coming to be with her Aunt Virginia, as the day of the nurse’s arrival was uncertain, although it would probably be Christmas day.
Her thinking was interrupted by the appearance of Sarah Judd, who came to take away the plate, which had been entirely emptied of plum buns.
“I don’t wonder you’re all tuckered out,” said Sarah severely, finding her young mistress sitting quietly in front of the fire; “such lively children, chatterin’ like magpies,—cunnin’ little things, though, they be,” she added with one of her sudden changes of tone.
Sarah brushed the crumbs from the table intothe plate. Then, because she was so interested in the subject that she could not keep silent about it another moment, she said: “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Ruth, but did you notice how like Mrs. Danforth’s that little twin girl’s eyes and forehead are,—a sight more than her own grandchild’s?”
“Sarah, you are just imagining that,” replied Ruth Warren. “You could only have seen them together for a moment.”
“That was long enough,” said Sarah, who did not think it necessary to explain that she had stood in the hall for several moments. “Folks can’t very often fool me on looks.” Sarah nodded her head and set the curls to bobbing as she repeated, “Folks can’t very often fool me on looks. The little girl is a sight like the old lady Danforth, but the boy is the very living image of her!”