"Don't youloveyour friends?" asked Rosanna wistfully. This strange green-eyed girl, so cold and so reserved, made her feel sad.
"I have no friends," replied Claire indifferently.
"Well, you will make a lot of friends here in Louisville," Rosanna assured her, smiling.
"No," said Claire. The car stopped before Rosanna's house.
"Oh, yes!" insisted Rosanna as she stood at the curb. "You see you will want friends when you grow up. Every girl does."
"Not I," said Claire, shaking her head. "I shall need no friends. Indeed I shallwantno friends at the place I am going to when I grow up."
She dropped back against the cushions as though she was suddenly very tired and Rosanna, forgetting to move, watched the luxurious car bear its beautiful young owner away.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Rosanna finally, and with dragging feet went into the house to find Cita. But she was out, and Rosanna, puzzled and distressed, went to her own pleasant room, and curling up on a big divan tried to solve the new Scout's mysterious words. She forgot all about Miss Brewster, who at that moment, also curled up on a divan in her new apartment, had just happened to think that she was growing hungry and would have to get her own supper. She hurried out to the ice-chest and found it empty with the exception of three large, violent looking green pickles on a plate. Mabel bit one. It was very, very sour. Grabbing her pocketbook, she hurried down to the nearest grocery and bought a loaf of bread, a pound of butter, some cold boiled ham, a glass of orange marmalade and a package of shredded wheat. With these packages in hand, she retraced her steps, the almost empty pocketbook swinging from her hand.
Supper was queer and not very cheerful, but Mabel knew that she would find it strange at first and the thought that part of her work lay before her that very night kept her spirits up. She had her telephoning to do.
She did not wash the cup and plate, but left them on the table to do in the morning. She was on her way to the telephone when the ringing of the bell made her jump. She seized the receiver. Mrs. Horton, the Scout Captain, was speaking.
"I have just heard the news, Mabel," she said pleasantly. "Isn't it wonderful? And you are really going to try out my experiment? It is wonderful to be able to live for yourself alone, isn't it? Nearly always we have duties that hold us back, and I know you are too good a Scout to disregard any of yours, but of course your mother has Frank, and he issodevoted to her that it really leaves you free. She says he always helps her as though he was a girl. I called you up to suggest that as long as you are making such a real test that it would be well to postpone the report you were going to bring to the meeting."
"I think so too," Mabel agreed hastily. "I know it will be a success, and if I can prove that girls are able to do for themselves, without having to do all sorts of other things like practicing and helping, at the same time, it will be a great thing for girls. Don't you think so?"
"I do indeed," Mrs. Horton assured her. "And justthinkwhat it will mean for mothers! They will be so free. As it is now, your mother, for instance, feels as though she ought to look after you and see that you have good clothes to wear to school and good food to eat, and she wants to fix a pretty room for you, and because you are studying and practicing she does a lot of darning for you and all that sort of thing, and probably she makes most of your dresses because they cost so much to buy these hard times.
"Why, by the time she has done all this, and has looked after you when you are ill, she has no time for herself. I called your mother up to get your address, and she seemed so pleased with everything. She said with Frank to help her, she was going to be able to do so much that she has been wanting to do ever since you were a baby. She and Frank are going to the theatre tonight, and tomorrow she is going to begin designing for that big firm on Fourth Street. I suppose she told you about it?" she added.
"No, she didn't," said Mabel, rather embarrassed to hear in this way of her own mother's plans.
"We were so busy today that we didn't get time to say much."
"Well, I am glad to be able to tell you good news," said the little Captain cheerily. "It will be so much off your mind to be able to go to sleep tonight and be sure that things are working out right. I think you are so brave, Mabel. I never would have the courage to do what you are doing, even though I am quite grown up. And you are really only a little girl in years."
"But I feel old in experience," sighed Mabel. She thought she heard a soft giggle at the other end of the wire, but at once Mrs. Horton coughed rather loudly and Mabel knew she was mistaken.
"That makes such a difference," said the Captain. "For my part, I am aperfect goose. I would be so lonesome and afraid there where you are, and I would rather do any amount of mending and dishes rather than go down and work in a stuffy newspaper office and beg a lot of women for items about their silly affairs. Yes, you are really very brave. You must call me once in awhile and let me know how you are progressing. And you need not come to the Scout meetings for awhile if you are busy. I will excuse you. I will explain to the girls just what you are doing to help them all. Good-night! Oh, your mother said for me to tell you good-night for her too as she was rushing off to the theatre, so there are two good-nights for you, Mabel dear. Good luck, and I hope you will find time to ask me over to tea with you some afternoon."
"Indeed I will!" said Mabel. "Good-night!"
She turned from the receiver. Suddenly she felt very small and young, and the pretty rooms were stiller than the rooms at home somehow.
The subject for a poem flashed into her mind. And quick as a wink she made up the first verse
"Alone, alone, the world before me.What is this I leave behind?Happiness and heat and mother;All to train my wondrous mind."
"Alone, alone, the world before me.What is this I leave behind?Happiness and heat and mother;All to train my wondrous mind."
Somehowheatdid not sound very poetical, but the apartment was certainly freezing cold.
While eating a not too satisfactory supper on the corner of the kitchen table, Mabel was blissfully unaware of the fact that her venture into the world was being discussed at two dinner tables at least.
Rosanna, filled with misgivings, had repeated all that Mabel had said and she was distressed to see that Uncle Bob regarded it as a good joke, while his wife, the little Scout Captain, was convinced that the outcome would be exactly what she desired. And when Rosanna asked what that was, she laughed and said, "Wait and see."
Claire Maslin, telling her father about it, was met with shouts of laughter.
"The girl is crazy!" he merely said. "That fat little Brewster girl that ate so much candy here the other day? She will be sick of her bargain soon."
"I would like it myself," said Claire sullenly. "She can do exactly as she pleases. I wishIcould."
"My poor little girl," said Colonel Maslin, "that is all in the world that ails you! I can run a regiment, but I don't seem able to run one girl. I wish you would try to see, my dear, that you are a lucky, very lucky young person, and act accordingly."
"Lucky?" said Claire bitterly. "You callmelucky? Oh, it is not your fault, daddy! I am as sorry for you as I am for myself, but it is so funny to hear you use that word."
"Well, I callmyselflucky," said Colonel Maslin, staring at the flowers that decorated the table.
"Do you? Why?" demanded Claire, her lip curling. She too stared at the flowers. She would not look at her father.
"I have your dear mother and I have you," he said after a long pause.
"Iama comfort to you, I am sure," she said in low, tense tone, "and mother must be a comfort too. You would be glad if we both—"
"Stop!" said Colonel Maslin sharply. "You remember you are never to speak unkindly of your poor mother. You are wrong, all wrong, and I would give my right hand if I could set you right, if I could make you understand what is honestly in my heart. When you are older you will perhaps understand."
"When I am older!" cried Claire. "When I am older—" She sat staring at her father, rigid and pale, then suddenly all her self-control deserted her. She leaned forward, burst into a storm of sobs, and pounded furiously on the table. Her voice tore out in a shrill scream. "When I am older—youknow what I will be then!" she panted, and her sobs rose higher.
With a muttered exclamation Colonel Maslin rose from the table, dashed to his daughter's side, lifted her in his arms, and as though she was still a little child he carried her to her room and laid her struggling and writhing, on her bed. Her maid entered hurriedly.
"Take care of her," he begged, and left the room.
An hour later he sat in little Mrs. Horton's own sitting-room and talked while she watched him with eyes made soft by unshed tears of sympathy.
"It is the first time I have asked for help," he said brokenly after awhile, and she sighed to see the gallant soldier bowed by grief. "But I have pinned my hope on the Girl Scouts, and now that I know you, on you. Save my little girl for me, dear lady, save her for her mother's sake! I need Claire so! And her coldness, her wild fits of temper, and her gloomy black moods are so unlike the sunny little tot she used to be that there are times when it seems as though I could never bear it. Is it always to be so, Mrs. Horton?"
"No!" cried the tiny Captain in quite a fierce voice. "No indeed!Something shall be done to help you. Claire has just made a wrong start, and her terrible sorrow, instead of making her more loving and more tender, has made her cold and hard. Don't worry, Colonel Maslin. Something shall be done."
Colonel Maslin shook his head. "I have about given up hope," he said sadly. "These fits of excitement are growing on her. At first I thought that they were plain temper, but it is not possible. Why, Claire is in her teens, and her whole life has been a lesson in self-control! Our Chinaman is a living sermon on it. And she has been guarded against anything nerve racking or exciting or disagreeable."
"Let me think it over for a little," said Mrs. Horton, wrinkling her smooth brow. "I will find some way of reaching the poor child, I am sure. It may take a little time. Urge her to come to the Girl Scout meetings and I will watch her."
"You are more than good," and the Colonel bowed over the tiny hand that had met his in a firm, comforting grip.
She shook her head and said, "The Scouts themselves, one of them or all, will do it, I feel positive. That is one thing the Order is for, you know; to help one another."
"I trust you," said Colonel Maslin.
"Treat her as though nothing has happened this evening," suggested Mrs. Horton.
"I shall not see her again tonight. By the time I reach home (I shall have to drive up to Camp from here) she will be asleep. In the morning nothing will be said. Claire will simply be a little more sullen and aloof."
"Be of good cheer," smiled the little Captain, and Colonel Maslin went on his lonely and sorrowful way wondering if the little lady could really find a way to help his poor child.
In her own soft, luxurious bed, Claire was lying spent and shaken by the storm she had just passed through. She tried to recall the talk at the dinner table, but in her dazed condition she could not remember anything that should have started such a dreadful scene. As she recalled her own actions, the cries and sobs, the tears and wild words, she shuddered. Each time she gave way like that seemed to be worse than the last. And Claire was proud. It shamed her to have her own father see her acting so, yet some dreadful Something within her seemed to make her explode in that way once in awhile. And the times were growing closer and closer. No matter what happened, even the greatest pleasures that her father planned for her filled her with a sort of hard anger. She hated everything and everybody. All she wanted was to be let alone, and then she read book after book until she was dull and dizzy. Then came long, sleepy rides in the limousine over smooth, uneventful roads.
When at length her maid brought her a glass of hot milk, she did not know that there was a sleeping powder in it, but sleep came quickly and mercifully and she did not waken until late the following morning.
A note was on the chair by her bedside, just the usual affectionate greeting from her father, a pretty little custom of his whenever he was obliged to leave before she was awake. No matter how hurried, he always took time to write a line or two before he left. Any other girl would have been so proud and pleased with his unfailing tenderness and attention, but Claire wrapped herself round with coldness and accepted all he did for her without even the thanks she would have offered to a stranger.
She even hesitated to read the short, loving note. It bored her, she told herself. But she opened it idly and skimmed the words that told her that she must spend an easy day because he had planned a little surprise for Rosanna and Mabel and herself. Claire lifted her eyebrows. She had forgotten to tell her father that Mabel bored her to death. Rosanna was not quite so bad; in fact, she really liked the pretty, dark-eyed girl who seemed so warm-hearted and so sincere. Then with scarcely a thought of curiosity as to the nature of the surprise, she touched the bell that summoned the maid with her breakfast, and idly picking up a copy of the Handbook for Girl Scouts, commenced to read.
"A Girl Scout is loyal," she read, "to the President, to her country, and to her officers; to her father, to her mother—"
Claire stopped there, at least something stopped her. She read the words repeatedly, "Loyal to her father." What was loyalty anyway? She read on: "She remains true to them through thick and thin. In the face of the greatest difficulties and calamities, her loyalty must remain untarnished."
Claire frowned.Shewas faced with terrific difficulties, while a frightful calamity, like a black cloud, darkened all her future. What did loyalty to her father mean in her case? She read on: "A Girl Scout is cheerful under all circumstances." Claire thought of her wild ravings the night before, and frowned. She skipped down the page to a short paragraph that her eyes seemed unable to avoid.
"Kipling inKimsays that there are two kinds of women,—one kind that builds men up, and the other that pulls men down; and there is no doubt as to where a Girl Scout should stand."
Now Claire in her most selfish moods could not blind herself to the fact that her violent scenes were always followed by days of deep mournfulness on the part of her father. Lines appeared in his handsome face and his hair seemed to grow grayer. Was she pulling her father down? She refused to answer the question, and flirted the pages over to escape that part. She scanned the qualifications for the three grades of Girl Scouts. She was only a Second-Class Scout, and she knew that she was a poor one at that. She had been too indolent to try for the First Class. She read the necessary qualifications over.
She could not set a table for any meal, and she could not sew. She had never tried to walk a mile in twenty minutes, and as for dressing or bathing a child, Claire wondered where she could borrow one to try on. She could not pass the First Aid or the International alphabet exam. She could not train a Tenderfoot; at least it was too much trouble, and while she could name ten trees, ten wild flowers, ten wild animals and ten wild birds, they were all Chinese. She could swim; oh,howshe could swim! A thrill of joy shook her as she thought of past hours spent in soft tropic waters. As for fifty cents in bank earned by herself, that was so funny that Claire laughed aloud. She could not imagine earningfivecents, let alone fifty.
That brought her thoughts around to Mabel Brewster, and Claire saw her in a new light.
There was a lucky girl even if shewassilly and conceited. She believed in herself and had gone off alone to fight the world, with all her banners flying. Yet there was that loyalty law cropping up again. What if Mabelcouldwrite as splendidly as she said, wasn't her place really at home with her mother and brother? Claire was sure the Brewsters were not rich, and in that case Mrs. Brewster certainly needed help. Loyalty; always loyalty! A new and disturbing thought flashed over Claire. Perhaps she owed her own mother some loyalty too, even though she was away in a sanitarium. Wasn't it loyalty to her to keep her troubled, lonely and unhappy father "built up" so far as it lay in her power?
Claire closed the little offending blue book and flung it across the room and when her maid entered she was lying petulantly with her head on her arm, her glorious red hair streaming over her like a glittering veil.
The little book, so helpful and so uplifting, had not helped Claire at all. But that was because in her heart she did not want to be helped. She had lived for herself so long in her queer, cold, brooding fashion that the thought of anything different actually hurt her just as it hurts to stand on one's foot when it is asleep. Claire had held one position of thought for so long that it made her hurt and sting and prickle even to think of moving. So she buried her face in her arm and hid under her shining red hair and studied her queer jade ring and tried to forget the feeling that she might be in the wrong.
Mabel Brewster's awakening was even more disagreeable, although she really deserved it less. She was not accustomed to pickles and cold ham and cheese for supper, as Mrs. Brewster was a careful mother. Also Mabel, to celebrate her great step, had found a light novel, and snapping on a perfectly fascinating reading light at the head of her bed, had proceeded to read until after one o'clock. Then she dreamed! She dreamed that she tried to get out of bed and couldn't because there was a sour green pickle as large as a street car right in the way, and the City Editor sat on top and looked at her from under his green shade and told her that the only way that she could get out was by eating her way through the pickle. So she commenced, while all the society ladies in Louisville looked on and said, "Dear me, isn't it wonderful what a girl can accomplish if she will only leave home, andlive for herself?" And the pickle was so sour that it made Mabel shudder with cold and she shuddered herself awake, to find all the bed-clothes on the floor. She got up and made the bed over, and found it was only three o'clock, although she had been hours and hours trying to eat that frightful pickle. The bed was too soft or too hard or something, and she could not get to sleep again for a long while. She was glad to waken again and find that it was morning. Unfortunately, after all the adventures of the night Mabel had over-slept and was obliged to start off to school without breakfast and with her hair ribbon badly tied. Also there was no time to put the apartment in order, and Mabel was rather shocked to find how badly one person could tumble things up.
She half hoped her mother would run around during the morning and put things in shape, but when she unlocked her door at one o'clock, when school was over for the day, she found her bed still unmade, her clothes tumbling out of the suitcase, and the soiled dishes on the kitchen table.
She had cold boiled ham for luncheon, and but little of that because just as she commenced to eat, a telephone call interrupted her. It was Miss Gere asking how soon she would be down with her items and to take up some other work. The items were not written up, and Mabel had to give up her luncheon time to writing them. There was no time to tidy up, and Mabel hurried down town hoping now with all her heart and soul that her mother would not get time to use the duplicate key that Mabel had insisted on her taking. She felt her cheeks burn as she thought of her mother seeing the mess and cleaning it up in her kind way.
Mabel had no cause to worry. When her mother dropped in about four o'clock she merely looked the place over, then sat down and laughed in the strangest manner. Then she carefully went out without disturbing anything, and took a covered basket into the apartment below where she talked for awhile with Mabel's grandmother, who laughed too; laughed hard and long, and who then said mysteriously, "Well, thank you for the rolls, my dear! I think they will do me more good than they would Mabel. And I think I shall not be 'at home' for the next week or so."
Mabel did not get home until six o'clock. She had forgotten to stop at the market, so she had only shredded wheat and milk and pickle for supper. She ate shredded wheat and milk. It was a modern apartment with thin walls. Somebody was having chops and baked apples for supper, and a few minutes later there was a smell of fried chicken. Mabel helped herself to another shredded wheat biscuit.
A week passed. In one corner of theTimes-Leaderoffice there was an old-fashioned letter-press. You put the letters between two iron plates and slowly turned a bar that pressed a lever that squeezed the plates together tighter and tighter. A grimy office boy was forever grinding, and as Mabel had many a long wait for her chief, Miss Gere, she commenced to be fascinated by the operation. Her vivid imagination commenced to trouble her. She saw her hand, her arm, her whole self being pressed flat by that dreadful boy. The boy, by the way, being about Mabel's age and totally unconscious of his grubby appearance, noticed Mabel's fascinated stare and accepted it as a personal compliment. He turned the press with a grand flourish and squeezed it close with a darkly frowning brow as though to call attention to his strength.
Life, after being so eagerly called, was beginning to squeeze Mabel a little. Saturday noon found her half ill for food, as she had spent her small allowance almost at once and had had to live on the faithful box of shredded wheat biscuit and the milk for which she did not have to pay the milkman until the first of the month.
After luncheon, consisting of a nut sundae which took all her remaining change, she spent a few moments peering in at the vegetables and chickens displayed in a grocer's window. She did not see Miss Gere pass. When Mabel returned to the office, Miss Gere sent her up Fourth Street to study the delicatessens and bread shops. It was agony. Mabel had never seen such delicious articles of food, had never dreamed of such penetrating and tantalizing odors. Mabel wondered if she could ever stand it until six o'clock when she would be paid. She jotted down her notes and, wending her way back to the office, settled down in a corner to put her material in shape. It did not take long, and while she waited for Miss Gere who was almost always out, she reviewed the experiences that had beset her during the past few days. Of them all this day had been the worst. And Mabel, who had fondly expected to have most of her Saturdays to herself, reflected that after six o'clock she would have to take her hungry and weary self back to the apartment and attempt to clean things up.
The dainty rooms looked as though a whirlwind had struck them. Poor Mabel was not wholly to blame. She was carrying too great a load. She had school to think of, and as soon as she was released at noon she was obliged to rush off to the dusty office for her orders for the rest of the day. She never reached home again until six and later, and on several occasions she had been obliged to accompany Miss Gere on long tiresome night trips by automobile or trolley into the surrounding country. Of her mother she had seen but little. Twice her mother had called while she was out with Miss Gere, and Mabel, not knowing that this had been by arrangement between Mrs. Brewster and Miss Gere, was honestly disappointed. Several times she had met her mother down town, and once they had had luncheon together at a cafeteria.
On these occasions Mabel was forced to notice that her mother, whom she had rather looked down on as a common or garden variety of parent, was really a most attractive and charming woman. She treated Mabel not at all like a little girl, spoke only of the surface things that interested Mrs. Brewster herself and lightly passed over all Mabel's wistful references to home and Frank. Mrs. Brewster did say that they missed Mabel and added with a rather sad smile that she had never thought to lose her little daughter and so on. Mabel felt herself saddened by these meetings. She found that she was thinking of her mother all the time, and sometimes she almost wished that she was just an ordinary girl and not a genius, so she could stay at home and be taken care of. When the second Sunday came Mabel permitted herself the luxury of a good cry. She was too stubborn to confess that she was desperately sick of her foolishness and wholly and utterly homesick, but angrily dried her tears and started to dress.
The telephone rang. It was Mrs. Brewster. She sent a cheery good-morning over the wire and asked if Mabel had had breakfast. Mabel hopefully said no, that she was just commencing to dress.
"Why, we are all through!" laughed Mrs. Brewster. "We are getting an early start, because the Morrissons have asked us to drive to Lexington with them. They wanted to ask you too, but I told them that you were always too taken up with your other affairs and your writing to accept any invitations and they were so disappointed."
"Who is going?" asked Mabel.
"Just the two Morrisson boys and Frank and myself."
The two Morrisson boys were quite the most popular young fellows in Louisville and Mabel saw, with a sense of defeat, that her biggest social chance had slipped from her grasp.
Her mother went cheerily on: "So Frank and I got up early and fixed our share of the luncheon, and prepared and ate our own breakfast, and now we are all ready."
Mabel was furious. It was on her tongue's end to tell her mother that of course she would be glad to go, but her stubbornness held her back, so she said a brief and snippy good-bye and hung up the receiver. But she did not leave the phone. A moment later she gave central Mrs. Morrisson's number, and flushed rather foolishly as she heard Mrs. Morrisson call hello.
"I want to thank you for having thought to ask me on your ride today Mrs. Morrisson," she said smoothly, in her best manner. "I was just talking to mother, and she told me about it." Mabel stopped here and listened eagerly for Mrs. Morrisson to renew the coveted invitation. But alas, poor Mabel!
"We were all sorry that you could not go," said Mrs. Morrisson in a sweet voice that you would never think could deal a blow to a girl's hopes. "And it is almost going to spoil the day for your mother, I know. She is always so happy when you are with her, my dear."
"It is dear of you all to want me," said Mabel, "and perhaps I can arrange things so I can go after all."
"Oh, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Morrisson in a most distressed voice, "that is too awful! You see we never thought you would think of it, so I asked another girl, a new girl the boys have met in dancing school. She is a Girl Scout and your mother thought it was just the thing to do."
Mabel swallowed hard.
"Well, I am sure she will have a good time," she replied in a thin voice. "Is she a girl I know?"
"Her name is Claire Maslin," said Mrs. Morrisson, "and I think she is really charming."
"I know her," said Mabel briefly and with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.
She was glad when the conversation came to an end, and rushing back to her tumbled bed, she threw herself down and wept loudly and long. When finally she found that she could cry no more she dragged on her dress anyhow and went out to look in the tiny ice-chest. She knew what it contained. There was the usual ready-to-eat cereal and milk for her breakfast, and two discouraged looking pieces of cold boiled ham, her unfailing standby, on a saucer; but she had neglected to do any shopping the day before in the rush of necessary tasks, and there was nothing else to eat. For all day! Sunday! And mother and Frank were off on a glorious picnic! Once more Mabel wept. She set the cereal back and went wearily into the living-room. The bell rang, but Mabel did not care who it was; she did not want to see anyone. She heard a rush of feet on the stairs, and the door knob was shaken violently as her brother Frank called through the crack:
"Hey, Mabe, let me in a second! Hurry up! Here's something for you!"
Mabel rushed to the door and let him in. He had a large box in his hand.
"Hello, sis!" he roared cheerfully. "Here's a box mother sent you. She is down in the car, but I told her not to come upstairs. I don't want her to get tired. She sent you some dinner. It's good, I can tell you! Helped to fix it myself. She thought it would be a change from the swell eats you must be buying yourself. Just notice the chicken salad. And she said for you to—but there is a note inside. Sorry you can't come! Strange girl going, and I don't like 'em. Nuisance to get acquainted. Why, what's wrong, Mabe?" he asked as he looked at her for the first time and noticed her tear stained face. "Gosh, what's wrong? Are you sick? Shall I call mother?" He put an awkward but loving arm around his sister, but she shoved him violently away.
"Nothing's wrong!" she jerked out, her lips trembling in spite of her. "Go along, and don't mind me!" She fairly pushed him toward the door and Frank, dazed and astonished, allowed himself to be hurried into the small hallway.
There he faced her. "Why don't you get some common sense into your head?" he asked savagely. "I think it's a crime your coming here and trying to live by yourself! I am ashamed to have the fellows know about it. They think it is awfully queer. Fellows like to look after their sisters. It isn't right! I don't care if youarea smart kid! You can be just as smart over home as you can here. You don't seem to think of mother at all. You don't care howshefeels. She would skin me if she knew I was saying this to you, but I'll say you are the most selfish girl I ever knew and that's the truth! Well, go ahead! We don't care; we can rustle along without you!" He started for the stairs and flung this over his shoulder: "But I bet you will be sorry some day!"
He hurried out of sight as a shrill whistle sounded from the street where the Morrisson boys fretted in the waiting car.
Mabel picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen. Then for the third time that day she rushed into her bed-room, fell on the long-suffering bed and cried; cried tears of mingled rage and disappointment. She could not understand why Frank's ravings, as she called his outburst, should make her feel so strangely mean and small and in the wrong when she positivelyknewthat she was on the right track. But you cannot live principally on cold boiled ham, olives and shredded wheat day in and out, you cannot leave a comfy, homey sort of home even for the luxury of a modern apartment without a pang of homesickness hitting you sooner or later, and Mabel was pierced with it. And you can't have good reason for tears three times in one morning without losing a little of your courage, at least for the time being. Mabel thought of the jolly party motoring along the level roads, all laughing over the sallies of the older Morrisson boy. She could almost see Claire Maslin in her lovely green motor coat and close hat set tight over the shining red hair.
Mabel burrowed her wet face deeper in the moist pillow. Her sobs rose.
"Oh, oh, I wish I was home!" she whispered finally, and then, like the martyr that she felt herself, she sat up, wiped her eyes, and wondered what was in the box her mother had sent over. Things to eat, Mabel reflected, as she opened parcel after parcel and found that a whole Sunday dinner was hers. She put it in the ice-box and wearily started to clear up the dusty and untidy rooms. The sink was full of dishes, and as soon as the water was hot in the boiler, she attacked the piles of plates and cereal dishes. By the time they were washed and dried and put away and the rooms swept and dusted, Mabel was too tired to think of getting herself any dinner, even though it was waiting for her in the box her mother had sent over. So she curled up in a corner of the divan and tried to read. She could not interest herself in her novel, and at last she sat staring moodily at the room, studying its complicated and fussy furnishings and comparing them with the simple, quiet arrangement of her mother's house. Mabel had had occasion to see a number of homes during the time she had worked with Miss Gere and it was dawning on Miss Mabel that there was a certain charm and beauty about her mother's simple and unpretentious arrangements that were sadly lacking in many of the most luxurious places. She had never thought of this until a woman who stood very high in the social world of Louisville had asked her if she was related to the Mrs. Brewster who was doing interior decorating. Mabel flushed with embarrassment and said in a small voice that Mrs. Brewster was her mother.
"How fortunate you are!" said the great lady. "Your mother is the most artistic person I have ever known. She is perfectly wonderful and will certainly make a fortune. I am trying to get her to go to New York where she can have a studio and command top prices. I don't see why she did not go into this years and years ago."
Mabel, almost too surprised to reply, managed to mumble that she supposed her mother had been pretty busy bringing up her brother Frank and herself.
"Well, I suppose she feels that she is really free now," said the lady with a smile, "since you are starting out for yourself. Although," she added, "I think your mother is very brave to let you start out of the nest so soon. You seem such a young girl to be off by yourself. Of course it is not at all my affair, but I should think that you would hate to be away from such a talented mother as yours."
As Mabel recalled this conversation, she saw her mother in a new light and somehow the new light blazed almost too strongly on Mabel herself. She felt strangely small. She had this disagreeable dwindling sensation more and more as she compared her mother with other women in professional and business and social circles, the three great groups that made their influence strongly felt throughout the city.
Mabel found too that her Great Experiment, instead of bringing her the envy and admiration of her mates, seemed in some strange way to make her the object of a kind of scorn that was very hard to bear. The very girls who had applauded her most loudly at first showed her in unmistakable small ways that she was doing something foolish instead of something brave and grand. But Mabel would not give in. She was not brave enough.
It was an endless Sunday. She did not go to church, no one came to see her, and she would not go for her usual afternoon walk. Several times she started for the phone, intending to call Rosanna or Helen, then decided against it. Finally she took up the long neglected Girl Scout Manual and read steadily as far as the page that had caught Claire's attention.
"Loyalty." The word stood out black and threatening on the page. "Loyalty to father and mother." Was she loyal to her talented mother, the mother who had laid aside all her gifts in order to give all her time and strength to her two children? Wasn't it her place now to lighten some of her mother's household cares and make it possible for her to gain the reward she deserved?
Mabel, like Claire, threw the book angrily away from her. But unlike Claire, she could not throw her thoughts away. She was very unhappy.
The following morning, however, Mabel was once more filled with her usual self-esteem. Before going to sleep she had written a poem which would have sounded more original if it had not been so very like several well-known bits of verse she had often read. But to Mabel it seemed to spring from her soul, and after reading it with tears of appreciation in her eyes, she decided to let theTimes-Leaderhave the privilege of printing it.
That was to be a strange, terrible and eventful Monday. The Day of Overheard Conversations Mabel might have named it.
There was nothing to warn her of the day's disagreeable outcome. It was one of Louisville's loveliest mornings, and there was enough left from her Sunday dinner to give her a good breakfast. She was up early enough to go over her lessons, and the apartment as she left it after Sunday's violent cleaning had a look of righteous order and dustlessness. Also, having read the poem a number of times, Mabel saw herself as the coming poetess and preened herself accordingly.
One of the nicest girls in high school overtook Mabel and they walked to school together. It was in the cloak-room that Mabel received her first stab. The other stepped around the end of a cloak rack where she was met by a third girl whom Mabel knew but slightly.
"Hello, Grace," she heard her say. "I stopped at your house but you had gone."
"Yes, I walked to school with Mabel Brewster," replied Grace.
"Well, how you can stand herIdon't know," said the other girl with a sniff. "Of all the stupid prigs she is the worst!"
"Oh, I wouldn't saythat," said Grace gently.
"Well,Iwould!" declared the other girl stubbornly. "She thinks she is a wonder and knows everything, when in fact she is stupid and conceited, andnoone likes her."
Grace was a Girl Scout and this talk shocked her. She shook her head. "I don't think you are really right, Mary, and besides I don't think you ought to speak so."
"It is true, just the same," said the girl stubbornly. "You know yourself what her marks are—just as low as she can stand and pass. And that way she has of smiling in such a superior way when anyone else misses. And whenshemisses she always has such a good excuse! I do wonder why the teachers stand for it!"
A group of laughing and chattering girls came into the cloak-room and Mabel seized the opportunity to slip into the hall and into the class-room. Her face burned. Of course she told herself that the girl was jealous, but Mabel was one of those persons who require the approval and admiration of those about her in order to be happy.
She did such poor work that morning that she was obliged to stay after school, although she knew that she ought to be at the office. She took her books to a desk in the reference library where she was soon lost in her work.
Presently she heard the low voices of a couple of teachers. They came and seated themselves on the other side of a big blackboard just behind Mabel.
"Oh, dear," sighed one of them, "this weather makes me long for vacation."
"The last weeks of school are always a drag," answered the other. "And I think the children feel it as much as we teachers. Even my brightest pupils are letting down, and the marks have all fallen off."
"Even Mabel Brewster's marks?" queried Miss Jones with a sniff.
"What a goose that girl is!" said Miss Hannibal. "I don't know what does ail her."
"An inflated ego," said Miss Jones.
"Novels and the New Woman Movement, I think," said Miss Hannibal. "It is a perfect shame. I feelsosorry for her mother. Here this girl, as soon as she gets where she would naturally be of some service and comfort to her mother, steps gaily out of all her responsibilities and home duties and sets up a home of her own and goes around talking about a career.Career, indeed! Why, the child has nothing to careeron! She did not inherit her mother's cleverness. If she wasmychild, I would send her to her room and keep her there on bread and water until she came to her senses."
"So would I," said Miss Jones, "but it is really none of our business, of course."
"Well, in a way it is," answered Miss Hannibal testily. "You see she is doing very poor school work, and the Principal told me yesterday that he would probably have to drop her from her class at the end of the school year. And shewon'twork, because she is so crazy over that silly newspaper job that she simply neglects everything else. I justdon'tsee what ails her mother!"
"Does her mother know what poor work she is doing in school?" asked Miss Jones.
"I don't know," said Miss Hannibal. "And I don't know what good it would do if she did. A girl who thinks as little of her mother as Mabel does would not care what she thought and would not listen to her advice. You may be sure that she has cost her mother many bitter tears already.Ishan't worry about her. She spoils my thoughts. I have wanted to ask you how the Morrisson boys are doing."
Miss Jones proceeded to enthuse over the Morrissons, but for once their achievements did not interest Mabel at all. She was stunned and angry. Yet as she sat huddled motionless in her corner, waiting for the teachers to go, she soon recovered her balance, and reflected that they too were probably jealous. She thought fondly of her position on the newspaper and proudly dreamed her dream of the day when she would drift into the magic circle of the Chief Editor's desk as his best reporter.
When Miss Hannibal and Miss Jones sauntered away, Mabel lost no time in making good her own escape. She crossed over to Third Street where the beautiful houses with their look of reserve and wealth always catered to her love of luxury. Ahead were three girls in Girl Scout uniforms. She recognized them at once: Rosanna Horton with her black docked hair, Claire Maslin's long swinging red braid and Elise Hargrave's bobbing curls. At first Mabel decided to walk slowly and avoid them but she changed her mind and caught up with them.
"Do you still like the work you are doing?" asked Claire in her soft drawl.
"I suppose so," said Mabel, and then as though forced into honesty, she added, "The trouble is, I miss mother and Frank so that I don't seem to do all the work I planned after all. It doesn't seem to be working out right. Of course I shall go on with it, because I really owe it to myself, but it isn't half the fun I thought it was going to be."
"I knew it," said Elise Hargrave gently. "It is a most dreadful thing to betornfrom the home nest, and when one hops out by one's self and waves that not so strong wing one must of a necessity wish to be back."
"Why don't you give up and go home?" said Rosanna. "You would be doing the wise thing."
"No, I can't," said Mabel. "I suppose some day when I am famous, I will perhaps take mother and Frank to live with me." She laughed and nodded as she left the girls and hurried on to theTimes-Leaderoffice.
"She means it; she actuallymeansit!" said Rosanna in a hushed voice.
"Of course she means it!" laughed Claire. "Isn't she funny? I never saw a girl so conceited in my life. And really sheisn'tbright at all. She is just an ordinary girl with ordinary gifts. I think she is usually quite stupid when she talks, but perhaps that is because she is so awfully conceited that it bores you."
"I hate to hear you say such things about her," said the tender-hearted Rosanna.
When Mabel reached the office she went directly to the big shabby dictionary open on its stand, and looked up two words,Inflated, andego. The result was not pleasing! She sat before the book, glooming over the unflattering result of her quest. So she had an "inflated ego," had she? As she sat there, the office boy, seeing her close to his letter-press and feeling himself capable of starting an acquaintance with any girl his own size, pulled his purple and gold necktie into place, seized a few sheets of paper, and sauntered up. Mabel continued to stare at the open page of the dictionary.
"Kiddin' me," thought the boy to himself. He put the papers in place, and commenced to whistle, one careful eye on Mabel. He whistled so far off the key that she looked up. Instantly he grinned.
"Great job, this!" he said cheerfully, twisting the lever with a vast show of effort. "I bet I work harder than any fellow in this office. I bet I work harder than the Chief himself." Mabel continued to look at him, but did not speak, and he continued, "Your name is Brewster; Mabel Brewster, isn't it? I saw it on some of the papers Miss Gere and the Chief threw in the waste basket. Say, what do you write such gobs of stuff for? They don't use it. Aren't you on to that yet? My name's Jesse Hart. Ain't that a peach of a name to give a fellow? Sounds like a sure-nuff girl's name—Jesse. And Hart means a deer. Fellows used to call me Jessie dear when I was a kid, but I knocked a couple of 'em out and they quit it." He grinned at Mabel more cheerfully than before. "Say, you don't wear yourself out talkin', do you, sis?"
Mabel flushed with anger. A couple of the reporters saw the two and smiled playfully. "Jessie dear" winked back and Mabel flushed.
"I don't want to talk to you," she said distinctly. "I wish you would go away."
"Suits me!" said Jesse. "Suits me all right, Miss High-Mighty." He gave a short laugh with a close imitation of the manner of Dalton Duplex, his movie star villain, and strutted off. Mabel noted that the rims of his ears were very red. She dismissed him angrily from her thoughts and went over to Miss Gere's desk.
The thin man pounded furiously on the next typewriter as usual, but he looked up as she passed him. "A new crush, Miss Mabel?" he asked mischievously.
Mabel was too angry to answer; she rudely flounced into the chair and turned her burning face away.
Surely, she thought, thereneverwas another girl who had so many things to annoy her. That silly boy! As though she would bother to look at him. The two immaculate Morrissons flashed through her mind. Such boys and their friends were well worth while. Then her mind turned to the remark about the waste basket. She wondered if her work was being thrown away. She knew that it was always rewritten, but she thought that was the rule of the office. Mabel had a lot to think of.
The next morning Jesse proceeded to prove that he was a youth of grit and determination. He wore another necktie, and when he saw Mabel sitting at Miss Gere's desk he went over and grinned a cheerful good-morning. Mabel returned it glumly with a stony stare that would have quelled a less determined boy.
"Say, how about a picnic Sunday afternoon?" he asked without noting the drop in temperature. "I thought we could ask your mother to chaperone us, and get your brother Frank, and a couple of other fellows and have supper at Jacobs' park. The chaps have a car and they know two dandy girls."
"No," said Mabel decidedly. "It isn't possible for me to go. I am sure mother wouldn't go, nor Frank." She spoke so sneeringly that Jesse flushed.
"That's where you guess again, Miss Highty-Mighty!" he said. "I saw Frank last night and he asked his mother, and she saidsure, so I guess I just get another girl for little me, and you needn't think I don't know where to get off. I won't trouble you again, so don't you worry." He stalked off, leaving Mabel furious to think that Frank and her mother were going to go with that dreadful boy and his dreadful friends. She could justseethe sort they must be: the girls like a lot of the girls she knew in high school, giggly, silly, gum-chewing girls, with untidy ruffed-up hair pulled over their ears, and boys like Jesse. She sent a cautious glance after Jesse. After all there was nothing really the matter with him, except she just didn't like his neckties, and oh well, he wasn't a bit like the Morrissons, for instance, who always looked as though they had come out of a bandbox, and were so polite, andsuchfun.
That night going home. Mabel met Frank. He seemed to be always hanging around the corner nearest theTimes-Leaderoffice when she came out at night and always walked home with her.
"Jesse says you won't go on our picnic," Frank commenced at once.
"Why, of course not!" said Mabel. "I am perfectly surprised to think that you and mother would mix with such people!"
"Such people?" repeated Frank. "Whatpeople?"
"Why, the sort that Jesse boy must go around with. Of course I know how mother is. She would chaperone anyone who wanted her, but I should thinkyouwould know enough to keep her out of it."
"Well, I don't see how you figure it," said Frank sulkily. "I am going to take Helen Culver. She is all right, isn't she? And Jesse was going to take you, and I bet you thinkyouare all right, and Rosanna Horton and that Maslin girl are going with Jesse's cousins. Pretty good crowd, I take it."
"Who are his cousins, for mercy sake?" demanded Mabel.
"Don't you know?" asked Frank. "The Morrissons, of course! You know their father owns theTimes-Leader."
Leaving Mabel to recover as best she could from Frank's astounding announcement, we will look in on Rosanna listening, round eyed and breathless, to her Uncle Bob talking rapidly to his mother, his wife, and his little niece.
"Oh, do youreallymean it?" Rosanna exclaimed at last.
"Cross my heart, sweetness!" Uncle Bob assured her. "Cross my heart and black my eye,hopeto live andhafto die!"
Rosanna leaned back with a sigh of absolute delight. "I never dreamed anything so perfectly splendiferous," she murmured. "Wait until I tell the girls about it!"
"That is the only disagreeable part, dear," said her uncle. "What I have told you is a great secret. In fact, no one but just our four selves must know a single thing about our plans until a week before we sail. I am sorry, because I know what fun it would be to talk over a trip around the world, but there are very important business reasons why it must be kept absolutely quiet."
"All right, uncle, but that means we will have to talk it over twice as much ourselves. So tell it all over, please!"
"Well," said Uncle Bob, not at all unwilling to talk, "John Culver's invention makes it possible to arrange our machinery in such a way that it is possible to use it under almost any and all conditions. It is changing the whole course of big institutions and vast enterprises will be affected by it. It is such a big thing that it must be laid before the heads of governments, and it has fallen to my lot to attend to this part of the business. So for the first trip I am going to start across the Atlantic, cut nearly straight across the continent, come home by Japan and Honolulu,andyou are all going with me!"
"But how about school?" wailed Rosanna.
"Oh, bother school!" said Uncle Bob, with an uncomfortable glance at Rosanna's grandmother. "What's school to us? We are going a-jaunting whether school keeps or not!" He laughed. "We will be off and away as soon as ever we can."
"Hurray!" cried Rosanna, hopping up and down. "Oh, grandmother, will you really let us?"
Her grandmother looked at her son, then at his wife. They both sparkled.
"I think I shall have to," she said. "But, Rosanna, I don't know what is going to become of your education if these people keep on taking us with them wherever they go."
"Oh, but grandmother dear, think of all the wonderful things I will see, and the languages I will hear, and the people, the queer dear people!"
"I should say so!" said Mrs. Horton dryly. "And thealgebrayou will miss! How wonderful it will be!"
The next few days were so exciting that Rosanna could scarcely bear it. She was glad when Claire Maslin telephoned over to see if she would come and spend the week-end with her in the house her father had just taken. Both Mrs. Horton and Cita were glad to have Rosanna go, for she was so excited over the coming journey that she went wandering about the house like a restless spirit and could neither read, practice nor study.
Claire was drifting into one of her black moods. The Colonel had learned that his wife had taken a turn for the worse, and had felt that he must tell Claire. She had heard it in stony silence, with dry eyes and compressed lips, her only comment being, "It is coming soon, isn't it, dad?"
Then after a sleepless night and a bad day she asked Rosanna to come and stay with her, hoping that she could forget her horrors for awhile. But after a few hours spent with the gentle loving little Scout, she was conscious of quite a new sensation. For the first time in her life she wanted to confide all her troubles to someone; someone who would sympathize with her. She thought almost tenderly of her new friend. Rosanna's low and pleasant voice, soft friendly eyes, so deep and loving, her air of truth, all made poor Claire who had been so friendless and so cold feel that here at last was one whom she could trust; one to whom she could tell all her worries and troubles. But the caution which usually held her steady kept her from saying anything to Rosanna, even when a telegram was handed to her father at the dinner table; a telegram that deepened the lines in his face and caused him to glance apprehensively at Claire with a slight shake of the head.
Claire felt the black cloud of horror closing down on her. She managed to finish the meal, letting her father and Rosanna do most of the talking. Then she excused herself and went to her room.
She expected that her father would follow her and give her the news. Claire felt that it was something bad: but Rosanna came bounding up, calling cheerily as she came, "Hurry up, Claire! Get into your uniform; it is Scout night!"
"I don't believe I will go to the meeting tonight," said Claire, but Rosanna exclaimed, "Oh, Claire dear, we don't want to miss it, do we? Besides, your father said specially that you were to go, and we are going to be late if we don't hurry, so he is going to drive us over in the car. Won't it be fun to go back to my own home from somewhere else to attend a meeting?" She slipped out of her little net dinner dress as she talked and into her crisp, clean uniform, and Claire found herself following Rosanna's example. When she stepped into the waiting car, her father murmured in her ear, "No change!" and she sighed with relief.
It was a specially good meeting. Only one girl was absent, Mabel Brewster, and the Captain was careful to explain that that was athersuggestion. After the business meeting and the usual reports and the giving of several badges of merit, the Captain said with a smile:
"I have been in Washington nearly all the week, girls, as some of you know, and while there I had a very interesting Scout experience. I wanted to consult with one of the most prominent Scout Captains there, a lady named Mrs. Pain, the wife of a Washington artist. Well, I made arrangements to call at her house and as luck would have it, it was the night of a Scout meeting. Of course I was very glad to see how they conducted their meetings and all that. I found Mrs. Pain most charming, and her apartment quite delightful.
"A blond angel of a baby about three years old was skipping around here and there. She was dressed in a complete Scout uniform and, girls, she lookedexactlylike a big doll! I thought of course she was Mrs. Pain's child, and she is, but with a very interesting history. When I spoke to Mrs. Pain about the pretty little thing, Mrs. Pain smiled and gave me this paper. It is a copy of the WashingtonTimes, and this is what it says:
"MABEL, FIRST CIRCULATING BABY IN WORLD, IS ONLY THREE, BUT SHE'S SOME GIRL.""This little story will introduce Miss Mabel Pain, three years old, the youngest and tiniest Girl Scout in the world. Mabel lives right here in Washington, at the Graystone Apartments, and she is the mascot of Girl Scout Troop No. 3, composed of Graystone girls."Although only three years of age, Mabel has had a varied and romantic career, and if the remainder of her life holds for her as much excitement as she has experienced during her baby years, she will be quite a wonder long before she grows gray-headed. Indeed, Mabel already is a little wonder, for she can swim, hike three miles without getting tired, say grace as solemnly as a bishop, recite her A B C's backward, repeat the Girl Scout oath of allegiance to the flag, say all of the ten Girl Scout laws, salute with the snap of a West Point cadet, and do many other things the average child of six or seven would have great difficulty in doing."And all this is the more interesting because Mabel was once a little waif, without parents and without a home. Her origin remains a mystery, and little Mabel herself has no recollection of her mamma and papa. Mabel was discovered when the girls of Troop 3 decided that they wanted to adopt a baby, a reallivebaby that would coo and cry and kick and laugh, and all that. It was a big job for a group of girls to adopt a baby as a substitute for their dollies—and their troop leader probably would have vetoed the whole fine plan had the little girls not pleaded with their mothers and fathers and persuaded them to approve the project."So a search was made for a baby to adopt, and little Mabel eventually was found. All the little girls clapped their hands, and danced in glee. They had a baby, and they were so pleased. But the question arose: Now that the girls had the baby, what in the world were they going to do with it? And thus it was that Mabel became the world's first 'circulating baby,' for the girls decided that they would keep the baby successively for a couple of weeks at a time at their various homes, the mothers first giving their approval, of course."So Mabel lived one week with Harriet's parents, another week at Pauline's home, and still another week at Mary's residence. She shifted from home to home just like a book in a circulating library."Everywhere she went she was looked upon as a sort of toy or pet, to be played with and humored, and then passed on to someone else."So it went until Mabel landed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Pain of the Graystone Apartments. Mrs. Pain is Captain of Troop 3 and from the start she had taken a keen interest in the baby. Mr. Pain also fell in love with Mabel, and thus it came about that Mabel ceased to be a 'circulating baby,' for the Pains decided that they would like to keep her for good and all, and little Mabel was formally adopted."The Pains are English people of culture and refinement, and as a result the little waif now has a wonderful home. Mr. Pain is an artist, and Mrs. Pain is a trained instructor of children and between the two, fate has made it possible for Mabel to develop into a very fine girl."A girl cannot become a full-fledged member of the Scouts until she is ten years old and the girls under ten are formed into an organization known as the Brownies. But it wouldn't be safe for anyone to accuse Mabel of being a Brownie, for in her grown-up way she would immediately announce: 'I am not a Brownie atall! I am a regular Girl Scout!'"Mabel would be quite right in saying so. For although technically she is not a Scout, she attends all of the Scout meetings, goes on all the Scout hikes and doeswhateverthe rest of the Scouts do. She gets around the ten year age limit because of the fact that she is the mascot of the Troop. Mascots, you know, are always admitted, for most of them are cats and dogs and rabbits and birds—and they aren't supposed to know what's going on. But Mabel, you may be sure, knows everything that is taking place."
"MABEL, FIRST CIRCULATING BABY IN WORLD, IS ONLY THREE, BUT SHE'S SOME GIRL."
"This little story will introduce Miss Mabel Pain, three years old, the youngest and tiniest Girl Scout in the world. Mabel lives right here in Washington, at the Graystone Apartments, and she is the mascot of Girl Scout Troop No. 3, composed of Graystone girls.
"Although only three years of age, Mabel has had a varied and romantic career, and if the remainder of her life holds for her as much excitement as she has experienced during her baby years, she will be quite a wonder long before she grows gray-headed. Indeed, Mabel already is a little wonder, for she can swim, hike three miles without getting tired, say grace as solemnly as a bishop, recite her A B C's backward, repeat the Girl Scout oath of allegiance to the flag, say all of the ten Girl Scout laws, salute with the snap of a West Point cadet, and do many other things the average child of six or seven would have great difficulty in doing.
"And all this is the more interesting because Mabel was once a little waif, without parents and without a home. Her origin remains a mystery, and little Mabel herself has no recollection of her mamma and papa. Mabel was discovered when the girls of Troop 3 decided that they wanted to adopt a baby, a reallivebaby that would coo and cry and kick and laugh, and all that. It was a big job for a group of girls to adopt a baby as a substitute for their dollies—and their troop leader probably would have vetoed the whole fine plan had the little girls not pleaded with their mothers and fathers and persuaded them to approve the project.
"So a search was made for a baby to adopt, and little Mabel eventually was found. All the little girls clapped their hands, and danced in glee. They had a baby, and they were so pleased. But the question arose: Now that the girls had the baby, what in the world were they going to do with it? And thus it was that Mabel became the world's first 'circulating baby,' for the girls decided that they would keep the baby successively for a couple of weeks at a time at their various homes, the mothers first giving their approval, of course.
"So Mabel lived one week with Harriet's parents, another week at Pauline's home, and still another week at Mary's residence. She shifted from home to home just like a book in a circulating library.
"Everywhere she went she was looked upon as a sort of toy or pet, to be played with and humored, and then passed on to someone else.
"So it went until Mabel landed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Pain of the Graystone Apartments. Mrs. Pain is Captain of Troop 3 and from the start she had taken a keen interest in the baby. Mr. Pain also fell in love with Mabel, and thus it came about that Mabel ceased to be a 'circulating baby,' for the Pains decided that they would like to keep her for good and all, and little Mabel was formally adopted.
"The Pains are English people of culture and refinement, and as a result the little waif now has a wonderful home. Mr. Pain is an artist, and Mrs. Pain is a trained instructor of children and between the two, fate has made it possible for Mabel to develop into a very fine girl.
"A girl cannot become a full-fledged member of the Scouts until she is ten years old and the girls under ten are formed into an organization known as the Brownies. But it wouldn't be safe for anyone to accuse Mabel of being a Brownie, for in her grown-up way she would immediately announce: 'I am not a Brownie atall! I am a regular Girl Scout!'
"Mabel would be quite right in saying so. For although technically she is not a Scout, she attends all of the Scout meetings, goes on all the Scout hikes and doeswhateverthe rest of the Scouts do. She gets around the ten year age limit because of the fact that she is the mascot of the Troop. Mascots, you know, are always admitted, for most of them are cats and dogs and rabbits and birds—and they aren't supposed to know what's going on. But Mabel, you may be sure, knows everything that is taking place."
As Captain Horton finished, the girls all laughed and clapped their hands.
"Is it really true?" "Did you see her?" "Was she cunning?" "Tell us more about it!" were some of the clamored questions.
"Yes, it is quite true, although it does sound like a fairy story. And I not only saw but heard her. Girls, I wish you could have heard that darling baby voice reciting our promise! She was so sweetly solemn about it. 'On my honor I willtwy,' she said, and all the rest of it. Mrs. Pain says she does everything as nearly right as she can, because she is so proud of being a Girl Scout. And cunning? Indeed she was! Just imagine a funny, dimply, blonde Kewpie dressed in Scout uniform, and there you will have little Mabel Pain. I wish some of you could have seen her salute; it would have been a lesson to you.
"I can't help thinking, girls, that the case of little Mabel is just an instance of the far-reaching effects of a kindly act. I don't know which girl first thought of that circulating baby, but that doesn't matter. Little Mabel, just one of dozens of tiny tots in the asylum, was destined to grow up merely one of many in the cold white dormitories, tended by faithful attendants and nurses too busy and full of care to love or mother their charges. Now, through the action of the Scouts, she has a tender mother and a proud and loving father, and will no doubt grow up to be a fine woman.
"I wish we could all do something as fine to help carry on. I want you to be on the look-out every day of your lives for a chance. And when an opportunity presents itself to you, seize it as a positive gift from heaven. A gift not to the person whom you are about to benefit, but a gift toyou."
"Well, shall we have a circulating baby?" asked Jane.
"Not necessarily," laughed the Captain. "There are countless ways in which you can help the old world on."
"But a baby must be such fun!"
There was a groan from two or three girls as they heard Jane speak, and one black-eyed gypsy remarked bitterly thatshehad a baby sister that they could circulate at any time, as far as she cared. Jane laughed.
"That is the way she talks, Captain," she said, "but when that baby was sick last winter Letty nearly went crazy."
Letty blushed. "Thatis different!" she said.
"Of course!" answered the Captain. "Well, it is time for each of you to think up some plan of kindness for vacation time."
"What would you advise?" asked Estella, wriggling.
"I do not advise at all," said the Captain. "I want you to do your own planning because I want the credit to be all yours. I am sure everyone of you knows some invalid, some poor child, some old person, or some very poor sad or troubled neighbor who needs you. Keep your eyes open, my dears, and listen carefully. There will be a hand beckoning or a voice calling sooner or later. And if you should miss the summons, you would always be sorry."
"When is Mabel Brewster going to bring you her report?" asked Jane.
"She is simply seeing how selfish she can be, isn't she, Captain?" asked Estella.
"Not quite that," said the Captain, a sober look stealing over her pretty face. "Mabel was dissatisfied with her life and had ambitions that did not seem to be just what a girl should strive for, so her mother and I thought it would be a good thing for Mabel, as well as for all of us, to allow her to try her theories out and tell us the result."
"Well,Ithink she isperfectly miserable," announced Jane bluntly. "I don't think she likes it abit! How she stands it at all I don't see. And do you know, Captain, my brother says Frank sleeps every night on that little hard settee outside her door because he is afraid someone might try to get in; and as soon as school is out, he hangs around theTimes-Leaderoffice to walk home with her. She doesn't know it, of course, and I suppose if she did she would be mad, but if I thoughtmybrother was a perfect angel like that I would feel so proud!"
"Why, what a dear he is!" said the Captain, the tears starting to her eyes.
"Shedoesn't deserve him!" said Jane.