XSADIE PAGE
But the finding of a satisfactory home for the boy proved to be no easy task. At the end of the two weeks Laura was still carrying on the quest. When she told Jim that he was to stay with her another week the look in his eyes brought the tears into hers. For the first time she dared to put her arms about him and hold him close, and Jim stayed there, his head on her shoulder, trying his best to swallow the lump in his throat. When he lifted his head he said in a shaky voice, “G—gee! But I’m glad!”
“Not a bit gladder than I am, Jim,” Laura said, “and now we must have a bit of a celebration to-night. Father is dining out, so we’ll have supper up in the nursery and we’ll invite somebody. Who shall it be?”
She thought he would say Jo Barton, but instead he said, “Olga.”
“Olga?” she repeated doubtfully. “I’m not at all sure that she will come, but I’ll ask her. I’ll write a note now and send it to the place where she works.”
Jim gave a little happy skip. He ignored his lameness so absolutely that often Laura too almost forgot it. “I guess she’ll come,” he said in the singing voice he used when he was especially pleased.
Olga was just starting for home when the note reached her. She scowled as she read.
“Dear Olga: Jim wants you to come to supper with us—just with him and me—to-night at 6:30. I shall be very glad if you will, for, aside from the pleasure of having you with us, I want to talk over with you something that concerns Elizabeth. Please don’t fail us.“Yours faithfully,”Laura E. Haven.“
“Dear Olga: Jim wants you to come to supper with us—just with him and me—to-night at 6:30. I shall be very glad if you will, for, aside from the pleasure of having you with us, I want to talk over with you something that concerns Elizabeth. Please don’t fail us.
“Yours faithfully,
”Laura E. Haven.“
Olga read the note twice, her eyes lingering on the words “something that concerns Elizabeth.” But for those words she would have refused the invitation, but she had not seen Elizabeth for some time, and did not know whether she was sick or well. She did not want to go to supper with Miss Laura and Jim. Jim was well enough—her face softened a little as she thought of him, but she did not want to see him to-night. If there was something to be done for Elizabeth, however——Reluctantly she turned towards Wyoming Avenue.
Jim was watching for her at the window and ran to open the door before the servant could get there.
“I knew you’d come!” he crowed, flashing a smile up into her sombre face. “I told Miss Laura you would.”
“What made you so sure, Jim?” she asked curiously.
“O ’cause. I knew you would. I wanted youhard, and when you want things hard they come—sometimes,” Jim said, the triumph dropping out of his voice with the last word.
Jim did most of the talking during supper, Laura throwing in a word now and then, and leaving Olga to speak or be silent, as she chose. She wondered what itwas in Olga that attracted the boy, for he seemed quite at ease with her, taking it for granted that she liked to be there and was interested in what interested him; and although Olga was so silent and grave, there was a friendly light in her eyes when she looked at Jim, and she did not push him away when he leaned on her knee and once even against her shoulder, as the three of them gathered about the fire after supper. But when he had gone to bed, Olga began at once.
“Miss Laura, what about Elizabeth?”
“You told me,” Miss Laura returned, “that you thought Sadie had something to do with her absence from the Council meetings.”
Olga’s face hardened. “I’m sure of it. She’s a hateful little cat—that Sadie. I’m sure she is determined that Elizabeth shall not come here unless she comes too.”
“I wonder why the child is so eager to come,” Miss Laura said thoughtfully.
“Oh!” Olga flung out impatiently. “She’s bewitched over the Camp Fire dresses, and headbands, and all the other toggery, and she likes to be with older girls. She’s just set her heart on being a Camp Fire Girl and she’s determined that if she can’t be, Elizabeth shan’t be either—that’s all there is about it.”
“Then perhaps we’d better admit her.”
Olga stared in amazement and wrath. “IntoourCamp Fire?”
Miss Laura nodded.
“But we don’t want her, a hateful little snake in the grass like that!” the girl flung out angrily. “If you knew the way she treats Elizabeth—like the dirt under her feet!”
“I know. Her face shows what she is,” Laura admitted.
“Well—do you want a girl like that in your Camp Fire?”
“Yes,” Laura’s voice was very low and gentle, “yes, I want any kind of girl—that the Camp Fire can help.”
“The other girls won’t want her,” Olga declared.
“They want Elizabeth, and you think they cannot have her without having Sadie.”
Olga sat staring into the fire, her black brows meeting in a moody scowl.
“Olga, what is the Camp Fire for?” Laura asked presently.
“For? Why——” Olga paused, a new thought dawning in her dark eyes.
Laura answered as if she had spoken it. “Yes, the Camp Fire is to help any girl in any way possible. Not only to help weak girls to grow strong, and timid girls to grow brave, and helpless girls to become useful, and lonely girls to find friends and social opportunities—it is for all these things, but for more—much more besides. It is to show selfish, narrow-minded girls—like that poor little Sadie—the beauty of unselfishness and generosity and thoughtful kindness to others. Don’t you see that we have no right to refuse to give Sadie her chance just because she doesn’t know any better than to be disagreeable?”
Again Olga was silent, and the clock had ticked away full ten minutes before Laura spoke again. “You want Elizabeth to come to our meetings?”
“It’s the only pleasure she has in the world—coming to them,” Olga returned.
“I know, and I want her to come just as much asyou do,” Miss Laura said, “but I think you are the only one who can bring it about.”
“How can I?”
“There is a way—I think—but it will be a very unpleasant one for you. It will call for a large patience, and perseverance, and determination.”
Olga, searching Miss Laura’s face, cried out, “You mean—Sadie!”
“Yes, I mean Sadie. Olga, do you care enough for Elizabeth to do this very hard thing for her? You did so much for her at the Camp! It was you who put hope and courage and will-power into her and helped her to find health. But she still needs you, and she needs what the Camp Fire can give her. She cannot have either, it seems, unless we take Sadie too, and Sadie needs what the Camp Fire can give quite as much—in a different way—as Elizabeth did or does. Olga, are you willing for Elizabeth’s sake to do your utmost for Sadie—so that the other girls will take her in? They wouldn’t do it as she is now, you know.”
Olga pondered over that and Laura left her to her own thoughts. This thing meant much to the lives of three girls—this one of the three must not be hurried. But she studied the dark face, reading there some of the conflicting thoughts passing through the girl’s mind. After a long time Olga threw back her head and spoke.
“I shallhateit, but I’ll do it.”
Laura shook her head doubtfully. “Sadie is keen—sharp. If you hate her she will know it, and you’ll make no headway with her.”
“I know.” Olga gave a rueful little laugh. “She’s sharp as needles—that’s the one good thing about her.I shall have to start with that and not pretend—anything. It wouldn’t be any use. I shall tell her plainly that I’ll help her get into our Camp Fire on condition that she treats Elizabeth as she ought and gets her out to our meetings. I’ll make a square bargain with her. Maybe she won’t agree, but I think she will, and if she agrees, I think she’ll do her part.”
Laura drew a long breath of relief. “I am so glad, Olga—glad for Elizabeth and for Sadie both,” and in her heart she added, “and for you too, Olga—O, for you too!”
So the very next evening Olga stood again at the door which Sadie had slammed in her face, and as before it was Sadie who answered her ring.
“You can’t see Elizabeth,” she began with a flirt, but Olga said quietly,
“I came to see you this time.”
“I don’t believe it,” Sadie flung back at her.
“I want to talk with you,” Olga persisted. “Can you walk a little way with me?”
Sadie’s small black eyes seemed to bore like gimlets into the eyes of the other girl, but curiosity got the better of suspicion after a minute and saying, “Well, wait till I get my things, then,” she left Olga on the steps till she returned with her coat and hat on.
“Now, what is it?” she demanded as the two walked down the street.
“Do you want to be a Camp Fire Girl?” Olga began.
“What if I do?” Sadie returned suspiciously.
“You can be if you like.”
“In your Camp Fire—the Busy Corner one?”
“Yes.”
“How can I? You said I couldn’t before.”
“There wasn’t any vacancy then, but one of our girls has gone to Baltimore, so there is a chance for some one in her place.”
Sadie’s breath came quickly, and the suspicion and sharpness had dropped out of her voice as she asked eagerly, “Will Miss Laura let me join—truly?”
“Yes——”
“Yes—what?” Sadie demanded, the sharpness again in evidence.
Olga faced her steadily. “Sadie, I’m going to put it to you straight, for if you join, you’ve got to understand exactly how it is.”
“I know,” Sadie broke out angrily, “you’re just letting me in so’s to get ’Lizabeth. You can’t fool me, Olga Priest.”
“I know it, and I’m not trying to,” Olga answered quietly. “Now listen to me, Sadie.Iwouldn’t have let you join only, as you say, to get Elizabeth. But Miss Laura wants you for yourself too.”
“’D she say so?” Sadie demanded eagerly.
“Yes, she said so.” Again Olga looked straight into the sharp little suspicious face of the younger girl. “Sadie, you’re no fool. I wonder if you’ve grit enough to listen to some very plain facts—things that you won’t like to hear. Because you’ve got to understand and do your part, or else you’ll get no pleasure of our Camp Fire if you do join. Are you game, Sadie Page?”
The eyes of the two met in a long look and neither wavered. Finally Sadie said sulkily, “Yes, I’m game. Of course, it’s something hateful, but—go ahead. I’m listening.”
“No, it isn’t hateful—at least, I don’t mean it so,” and actually Olga was astonished to find now that she no longer hated this girl. “I’m just trying to do the best I can for you. Of course, if you come in, Elizabeth, too, must come to all the meetings; but I’ll help you, Sadie, just as I helped her, to win honours, and I’ll teach you to do the craft work, and to meet the Fire Maker’s tests later. I’ll do everything I can for you, Sadie.”
“Will you show me how to make the Camp Fire dress and the bead headbands and all that?” Sadie demanded breathlessly.
“Yes—all that.”
“O, goody!” Sadie gave a little gleeful skip. “I know I can learn—IknowI can—better’n ’Lizabeth.”
Then, seeing Olga’s frown, Sadie added hastily, “But ’Lizabeth can learn to do some of them, I guess, too.”
“Elizabeth can learn if she has half a chance,” Olga said. “She works so hard at home that she is too tired to learn other things quickly.”
Sadie shot an angry glance at the other girl’s face, but she managed with an effort to hold back the sharp words she plainly longed to fling out. She was silent a moment, then she asked, “You said ‘things that I wouldn’t like.’ What are they?”
“Sadie—did you know that you can be extremely disagreeable without half trying?” Olga asked very quietly.
“I d’know what you mean.” Sadie’s face darkened, and her voice was sulky and defiant.
“I wonder if you really don’t,” Olga said, looking at her thoughtfully. “But it’s true, Sadie. You havehateful little ways of speaking and doing things. They’re only habits—you can break yourself of them, and quick and bright as you are, you’ll find that the girls—our Camp Fire Girls—will like you and take you right in as soon as you do drop those ugly nagging ways. You know, Sadie, you can’t ever be really happy yourself until you try to make other people happy——”
Suddenly realising what she was saying, Olga stopped short. Sadie’s eyes saw the change in her face, and Sadie’s sharp voice demanded instantly, “What’s the matter?”
Olga answered with a frankness that surprised herself, no less than the younger girl, “Sadie, it just came to me that you and I are in the same box. I’ve not been trying to make others happy any more than you have——”
“No,” Sadie broke in, “I was going to tell you that soon as I got a chance.”
Olga’s lips twisted in a wry smile as she went on, “—so you see you and I both have something to do in ourselves. Maybe we can help each other? What do you say? Shall we watch and help each other? I’ll remind you when you snap and snarl, and you——”
“I’ll remind you when you sulk and glower,” Sadie retorted in impish glee. “Maybe wecanwork it that way.”
“All right, it’s a bargain then?” Olga held out her hand and Sadie’s thin nervous fingers clasped it promptly. The child’s cheeks were flushed and her small black eyes were shining.
“I can learn fast if I want to,” she boasted. “I’m going to make me a silver bracelet like Miss Laura’sand a pin; and I’ll have lovely embroidery on my Camp Fire dress. Ilovepretty things like those—don’t you?”
Olga shook her head. “No, I don’t care for them,” she returned; but as she spoke there flashed into her mind some words Mrs. Royall had spoken at one of the Council meetings—“Seek beauty in everything—appreciate it, create it, for yourself and for others.” Sadie was seeking beauty, even though for her it meant as yet merely personal adornment, and she—Olga—deep down in her heart had been cherishing a scorn for all such beauty. She put the thought aside for future consideration as she said, “Then, Sadie, you and Elizabeth will be at Miss Laura’s next Saturday?”
“I rather guess wewill!” Sadie answered emphatically.
“You don’t have to ask your mother about it?”
Sadie gave a scornful little flirt. “Mother! She always does what I want. We’ll be there.” And then, with a burst of generosity, she added, “You can see Elizabeth, for a minute, if you want to—now.”
But again Olga shook her head. “Tell her I’ll stop for her and you Saturday,” she said. “Good-bye, Sadie.”
“Good-bye,” Sadie echoed, turning towards her own door; but the next minute she was clutching eagerly at Olga’s sleeve. “Say—tell Miss Laura to be sure and have my silver ring ready for me as soon’s I join,” she cried. “You won’t forget, Olga?”
“I won’t forget,” Olga assured her.
XIBOYS AND OLD LADIES
The change into a home atmosphere and the loving care with which he was surrounded, worked wonders in Jim, and when the judge decided that he should remain where he was, and not be sent to any other home, the boy grew stronger by the hour. Then Laura had her hands full to keep him happily occupied; for after a while, in spite of auto rides and visits to the Zoo—in spite of books and games and picture puzzles—sometimes she thought he seemed not quite happy, and she puzzled over the problem, wondering what she had left undone. When one day she found him watching some boys playing in a vacant lot, the wistful longing in his eyes was a revelation to her.
“Of course, it is boys he is longing for—boys and out-of-door fun. I ought to have known,” she said to herself, and at once she called Elsie Harding on the telephone.
“Will you ask your brother Jack if he will come here Saturday morning and see Jim? Tell him it is a chance for his ‘one kindness,’ a kindness that will mean a great deal to my boy.”
“I’ll tell him,” Elsie promised. “I know he’ll be glad to go if he can.”
Laura said nothing to Jim, but when Jack Harding appeared, she took him upstairs at once. Jim wasstanding at the window, watching two boys and a puppy in a neighbouring yard. He glanced listlessly over his shoulder as the door opened, but at sight of a boy in Scout uniform, he hurried across to him, crying out,
“My! But it’s good to see a boy!” Then he glanced at Laura, the colour flaming in his face. Would she mind? But she was smiling at him, and looking almost as happy as he felt.
“This is Jack Harding, Elsie’s brother,” she said, “and, Jack, this is my boy Jim. I hope he can persuade you to stay to lunch with him.” Then she shut the door and left the two together.
When she went back at noon, she found the boys deep in the mysteries of knots. Jim looked up, his homely little face full of pride.
“Jack is learning me to tie all the different knots,” he cried, “and he’s going to learn me [‘teach,’ corrected Jack softly]—yes, teach me everything I’ll have to know before I can be a Scout. Jack’s a second class Scout—see his badge? We’ve had a bully time, haven’t we, Jack?”
Suddenly his head went down and his heels flew into the air as he turned a somersault. Coming right end upwards again, he looked at Laura with a doubtful grin. “I—I didn’t mean to do that,” he stammered. “It—just did itself—like——”
Jack’s quick laugh rang out then. “I know. You had to get it out of your system, didn’t you?” he said with full understanding.
That was a red-letter day to Jim. He kept his visitor until the last possible moment, and stood at the window looking after him till the straight little figurein khaki swung around a corner and was gone. Then with a long happy breath he turned to Laura and said, half apologetically, half appealingly, “You see a fellow gets kind o’ hungry for boys, sometimes. You don’t mind, do you, Miss Laura?”
“No, indeed, Jim. I get hungry for girls the same way—it’s all right,” she assured him. But she made up her mind that Jim should not getsohungry for boys again—she would see to that.
After a moment he asked thoughtfully, “Why can’t boys be Scouts till they’re twelve, Miss Laura?”
“I think because younger boys could not go on the long tramps.”
“Oh!” Jim thought that over and finally admitted, “Yes, I guess that’s it.” A little later he asked anxiously, “Do you s’pose they’d let a fellow join when he’s twelve even if he is just alittlelame?”
“O, I hope so, Jim,” Laura answered quickly.
“But you ain’t sure. Jack wasn’t sure, but he guessed they would.” Jim pondered a while in silence, then he broke out again, “Seems to me the only way is for me to get this leg cured. I can’t be shut out of things always just ’cause of that, can I now, Miss Laura?”
“Nothing can shut you out of the best things, Jim.”
The boy looked up at her, tipping his round head till he reminded her of an uncommonly wise sparrow. “I don’tquiteknow what you mean,” he said in a doubtful tone.
“You like stories of men who have done splendid brave things, don’t you?” Laura asked.
Jim nodded, his eyes searching her face.
“But some of the bravest men have never been able to fight or do the things you love to hear about.”
“How did they be brave then?” Jim demanded.
“They were brave because they endured very, very hard things and never whimpered.”
“What’s whimpered?”
“To whimper is to cry or complain—or be sorry for yourself.”
Jim studied over that; then coming close to Laura, he looked straight into her eyes. “You mean that I mustn’t talk about that?” He touched his lame leg.
“It would be better not, if you can help it,” she said very gently.
“I got to help it then, ’cause, of course, I’ve got to be brave. And mebbe if I get strong as—as anything, they’ll let me join the Scouts when I’m twelve even—even if I ain’t quite such a good walker as the rest of ’em. Don’t you think theymight, Miss Laura?”
“Yes, Jim, I think they might,” she agreed hastily. Who could say “No” to such pleading eyes?
Jim had been teasing to go to school, and when at the next Camp Fire meeting, Lena Barton told him that Jo had been sent to an outdoor school, Jim wanted to go there too.
“Take him to the doctor and see what he thinks about it,” the judge advised, and to Jim’s delight the doctor said that it was just the place for him.
“Let him sleep out of doors too for a year,” the doctor added. “It will do him a world of good.”
So the next day Miss Laura went with him to the school, Jim limping gaily along at her side, and chuckling to himself as he thought how “s’prised” Jo would be to see him there.
Jo undoubtedly was surprised. He was a thin little chap, freckled and red-haired like his sister, and he welcomed his old comrade with a wide friendly grin.
Jim thought it a very queer-looking school, with teacher and pupils all wearing warm coats, mittens, and hoods or caps, and all with their feet hidden in big woolen bags. There was no fire, of course, and all the windows were wide open.
“But what a happy-looking crowd it is!” Laura said, and the teacher answered,
“They are the happiest children I ever taught, and they learn so easily! They get on much faster than most of the children in other schools of the same grade. We give them luncheon here—plain nourishing things which the doctor orders—and,” she lowered her voice, “that means a deal to some who come from poor homes where there is not too much to eat.”
“We shall gladly pay for Jim,” Laura said quickly, “enough for him and some of the others too.”
So Jim’s outdoor life began. There was a covered porch adjoining the old nursery, and the judge had the end boarded up to protect the boy’s cot from snow or rain; and there, in a warm sleeping-bag, with a wool cap over his ears, and a little fox terrier cuddled down beside him for company, Jim slept through all the winter weather.
He and the judge were great chums now. It would be hard to say which most enjoyed the half-hour they spent together before Laura carried the boy off to bed. And as for Laura—she often wondered how she had ever gotten on without Jim. He filled the big house with life, and she didn’t at all mind the noise and disorder that he brought into it. He whistled now frommorning till night, and his pockets were perfect catch-alls. Sometimes they were stuck together with chewing-gum or molasses candy, and sometimes they were soaked with wet sponges, and his hands—she counted one Saturday, thirteen times that she sent him to wash them between getting up and bedtime.
The girls always wanted Jim at their Camp Fire meetings, for a part of the time at least. As “Miss Laura’s boy” they felt that in a way he belonged to them too, and Jim was very proud and happy to make one of the company.
“I’m going to be a Camp Fire boy until I’m big enough to be a Scout, if you’ll all let me,” he told the girls one night, and they all gave him the most cordial of welcomes.
He was sitting between Olga and Elizabeth, when the girls were talking about some of the babies they had found.
“We never find one that is just right,” Rose Parsons complained. “Or if the baby is what we would like, there is always some one that wants to keep it.”
“I’m glad of it,” Lena Barton flung out. “It was silly of us to think of taking a baby, anyhow. We better just help out somewhere—maybe with some older kid.” Her red-brown eyes flashed a glance at Jim.
It was then that Frances Chapin broke in earnestly, “O girls, I do so wish you’d take one of the old ladies at the Home! They need our help quite as much as the babies—more, I sometimes think, for they are so old and tired, and they’ve such a little time to—to have things done for them. The babies havechances, but the chances of these old ladies are almost over. There’s one—Mrs. Barlow—I’m sure you couldn’t help loving her—she is so gentle and patient and uncomplaining, although she cannot see to sew or read, and cannot go out alone. She has her board and room at the Home of course, but clothes are not provided, and she hasn’t any money at all. Just think of never having a dollar to buy anything with! And the money we could give would buy so many of the things she needs, and it would make her so happy to have us run in and see her now and then. There are so many of us that no one would have to go often, and she loves girls. She had two of her own once, but they both died in one year, and her husband was killed in an accident. She did fine sewing and embroidery as long as she could see; then an old friend got her into the Home. I took this picture of her to show you.”
She handed the picture to Laura, who passed it on with the comment, “It is a sweet face.”
The girls all agreed that it was a sweet face, and Mary Hastings, stirred by Frances’ earnest pleading, moved that what money they could spare should be given to Frances for Mrs. Barlow, but Frances interposed quickly, “She needs the money, but she needs people almost more. She is so happy when Elsie or I go in to see her even just for a minute! I shall be delighted if we take her for our Camp Fire ‘service,’ but please, girls,ifwe do, give her a little of yourselves—not just your money alone,” she pleaded.
“How would I know what to say to an old woman?” Lena Barton grumbled. “I shouldn’t have an idea how to talk to her.”
“You wouldn’t need to have—she has ideas of her own a-plenty. Girls, if you’ll only once go and see her, you won’t need to be coaxed to go again, I’m sure,” Frances urged.
“I’m in favour of having Frances’ old lady for our ‘Camp Fire baby,’” laughed Louise Johnson. “I second Mary’s motion.”
But Lena Barton’s high-pitched voice cut in, “Before we vote on that I’d like to say a word. I’ve no doubt that Mrs. Barlow is an angel minus the wings, but before we decide to adopt her I’d like to see some of the other old ladies. I’ve wanted for a long time to get into one of those Homes with a big H. How about it, Frances—would they let me in or are working girls ruled out?”
“O no, any one can go there,” Frances replied, but her face and her voice betrayed her disappointment. When Louise spoke, Frances had thought her cause was won.
“All right—I’ll go then to-morrow, and maybe I’ll find some old lady I’ll like better than your white-haired angel,” Lena flung out, her red-brown eyes gleaming with sly malice and mischief.
Quite unconsciously, and certainly without intention, the three High School girls held themselves a little apart from Lena and her “crowd,” and Lena was quite sharp enough to detect and resent this. She chuckled as she watched Frances’ clouded face.
“O never mind, Frances,” Elsie Harding whispered under cover of a brisk discussion on old ladies, that Lena’s words had started, “Lena’s just talking for effect. She won’t take the trouble to go to the Home.”
XIINANCY REXTREW
But that was where Elsie was mistaken. Lena did go the very next afternoon, and dragged the reluctant Eva with her. The girls, proposing to join the Sunday promenade on the Avenue later, were in their Sunday best when they presented themselves at the big, old-fashioned frame house on Capitol Hill.
“Who you goin’ to ask for?” Eva questioned as Lena, lifting the old brass knocker, dropped it sharply.
“The Barlow angel, I s’pose. We don’t know the name of anybody else here,” Lena returned with a grin.
The maid who answered their summons told them to go right upstairs. They would find Mrs. Barlow in Room 10 on the second floor. So they went up, Lena’s eyes, as always, keen and alert, Eva scowling, and wishing herself “out of it.”
“Here’s No. 6—it must be that second door beyond,” Lena said in a low tone; but low as it was, somebody heard, for the next door—No. 8—flew open instantly, and a woman stepped briskly out and faced the girls.
“Come right in—come right in,” she said with an imperative gesture. “My! But I’m glad to see ye!”
So compelling was her action that, with a laugh,Lena yielded and Eva followed her as a matter of course.
The woman closed the door quickly, and pulled forward three chairs, planting herself in the third.
“My land, but it’s good to see ye sittin’ there,” she began. “What’s yer names? Mine’s Nancy Rextrew.”
Lena gave their names, and the woman repeated them lingeringly, as if the syllables were sweet on her tongue. Then she tipped her head, pursed her lips, and gave a little cackling laugh.
“I s’pose ye was bound fer her room—Mis’ Barlow’s, eh?” she questioned.
“Yes,” Lena admitted, “but——”
“I don’t care nothin’ about it if you was!” Nancy Rextrew broke in hastily, her little black eyes snapping and her wrinkled face all alive with eager excitement. “I don’t care a mite if you was. Mis’ Barlow has somebody a-comin’ to see her nigh about every day, an’ I’ve stood it jest as long as I can. Yesterday when the Chapin girl an’ the Harding girl stayed along of her half the afternoon I made up my mind that the next girl that came through this corridor was a-comin’ in here—be she who she might. I was right sure some girl or other’d come on a pretty Sunday like this, to read the Bible or suthin’ to her, an’ I says to myself, ‘I’ll kidnap the next one—I don’t care if it’s the daughter of the president in the White House.’ An’ I’ve done it, an’ I’mglad!” she added triumphantly, her eyes meeting Lena’s with a flash that drew an answering flash from the girl’s.
“Well, now that you’ve kidnapped us, what next?” Lena demanded with a laugh.
“I do’ know an’ I don’t care what next,” the woman flung out with a gleeful reckless gesture. “Of course I can’t keep ye if yewantto go in there,” with a nod towards No. 10, “but you don’t somehow look like the pious sort. Be ye?”
Lena shook her head. “I guess I’m your sort,” she said. She had never before met an old woman at all like this one, and her heart went out to her. In spite of wrinkles and gray hairs, the spirit of youth nodded to her from Nancy Rextrew’s little black eyes, and something in Lena answered as if in spite of herself.
Nancy hitched her chair closer, and with her elbows on her knees, rested her shrivelled chin on her old hands, wrinkled and swollen at the joints. “Now tell me,” she commanded, “all about yourself. You ain’t no High School girl, I’m thinkin’.”
“You’re right—I never got above the seventh grade—I had to go to work when I was thirteen. Eva and I both work in Wood and Lanson’s.”
“What d’ye do there?” Nancy snapped out the question, fairly hugging herself in her delight.
“I’m a wrapper in the hosiery department. Eva’s in the hardware.”
“I know—I know,” Nancy breathed fast as one who must accomplish much in little time, “I’ve been all over that store. My! But I’d like to see ye both there—’speciallyyou!” Her crooked finger pointed at Lena. “I bet you’re a good one. You could make a cow buy stockings if you took a notion to.”
Lena broke into a shout of laughter at the vision of a cow coming in to be fitted with stockings. “I’m afraid,” she gurgled, “that we’d have to make ’em toorder—for a cow!” and all three joined in the laughter.
But Nancy could not spare time for much merriment. She poured out eager questions and listened to the answers of the girls with an interest that drew forth ever more details. At last, with a furtive sidelong glance at the clock, she said, “I s’pose now if I should go there to the store you’d be too busy to speak to me—or mebbe you wouldn’t want to be seen talkin’ to an old thing like me, an’ I wouldn’t blame ye, neither.”
“Stuff!” retorted Lena promptly. “You come to my place next time you’re down town and I’ll show you. We wouldn’t be shoddy enough to turn down a friend, would we, Eva?”
“I guess no,” Eva agreed, but without enthusiasm.
“A friend!” As Nancy repeated the word a curious quiver swept over her old lined face. “You don’t have to call me a friend,” she said. “Old women like me don’t expect to be calledfriend—didn’t ye know that?”
“I said friend, and I meant what I said,” repeated Lena stoutly, and the old woman swallowed once or twice before she spoke again.
“You’ve told me about your work, now tell me the rest of it—the fun part,” she begged.
“O that!” said Lena. “The fun is moving pictures and roller skating and dances and the Avenue parade—with the boys along sometimes.”
“I bet ye there’s boys along where you be!” Nancy flashed an admiring glance at the girl. “I always did admire bright hair like yours, an’ a pinch o’ freckles is more takin’ than a dimple—if you ask me.”
Had Nancy been the shrewdest of mortals she could have said nothing that would have pleased Lena more. She had been called “Carrots” and “Redhead” all her life, and from the bottom of her soul she loathed her fiery locks and her freckles, though never yet had she acknowledged this to any living creature—and here was one wholikedfreckles and red hair! Lena could have hugged the little old woman beaming at her with such honest admiration. A wave of hot colour swept up to her forehead. But Nancy’s thoughts had taken another turn.
“Movin’ pictures. That’s the new kind of show, ain’t it? I’ve heard about ’em, but I’ve never seen any.”
“You can go for a nickel,” said Eva.
“A nickel?” echoed Nancy, flashing a swift glance at her. “But nickels don’t grow on gooseberry bushes, an’ if they did, there ain’t any gooseberry bushes around here,” she retorted.
“Say——” Lena was leaning forward, her eyes full of interest, “we’ll take you to see the movies any time you’ll go, won’t we, Eva?”
“Er—yes, I guess so,” Eva conceded reluctantly; but Nancy paid no attention now to Eva. Her eyes, widened with incredulous joy, were fixed on Lena’s vivid face.
“Do you mean it? You ain’t foolin’?” she faltered.
“Fooling? Well, I guess you don’t know me. When I invite a friend anywhere I mean it. When can you go?”
“When? Now—this minute!” Nancy cried, starting eagerly to her feet. Then recollecting herself, shesat down again with a shamefaced little laugh. “For the land’s sake, if I wasn’t forgettin’ all about it’s bein’ Sunday!” she cried under her breath.
“I guess you wouldn’t want to go Sunday,” Lena said. “But how about to-morrow evening?”
Old Nancy drew a long breath. “I s’pose mebbe Icanlive through the time till then,” she returned. Then with a quick, questioning glance—“But s’posing some of your friends should be there? I guess mebbe—you wouldn’t care for ’em to see you with an old woman like me in such a place.”
“Don’t you fret yourself about that,” Lena replied. “You just meet us at the corner of Tenth and the Avenue. I’ll be there at half-past seven, if I can. Anyhow, you wait there till I come.”
When the girls went away Nancy Rextrew walked with them down to the front door and stood there watching as long as she could see them, her sharp old face full of pride and joy and hope that had long been strangers there.
“O my Lord!” she said under her breath as she went back to her room—and again “O my Lord!”
“That old woman’s going to have the time of her life to-morrow night,” Lena said, as the two girls walked towards the Avenue.
“I don’t suppose she’s got a decent thing to wear,” Eva grumbled.
Lena turned on her like a flash. “I don’t care if she’s got nothing but anightgownto wear, she shall have a good time for once if I can make her!” she stormed. “Talk about your Mrs. Barlow!” And Eva subsided into cowed silence.
At quarter of eight the next evening, the two girls saw Nancy Rextrew standing on the corner of Tenth Street and the Avenue, peering anxiously first one way and then the other.
“Oh!” groaned Eva. “Lena Barton, look at the shawl she’s got on. I bet it’s a hundred years old—and that bonnet!”
“If it’s a hundred years old it’s an antique and worth good money!” retorted Lena. “Hurry up!”
But Eva hung back. “I’d be ashamed forever if any of the boys should see me with her,” she half whimpered.
Lena stopped short and stamped her foot, heedless of interested passers-by. “Then go back!” she cried. “And you needn’t hang around me any more. Goback, I say!” Without another glance at Eva she hurried on, and Eva sulkily followed.
Rapturous relief swept the anxiety from old Nancy’s little triangle of a face as she caught sight of the two girls.
“’Fraid you’ve been waitin’ an age,” Lena greeted her breezily. “I couldn’t get off as early as I meant to. Come on now—we won’t lose any more time,” and slipping her arm under Nancy’s, she swept her, breathless and beaming, towards the brilliantly-lighted show-place.
“Two,” she slapped a dime down before the ticket-taker, quite ignoring Eva, who silently laid a nickel beside the dime.
The place was one of the best of its kind, well ventilated and spaced and, though the lights were turned down, it was by no means dark within. Lena guided the old woman into a seat and sat down beside her, andEva, after a quick searching glance that revealed none of her acquaintances present, took the next seat.
For the hour that followed Nancy Rextrew was in Fairyland. With breathless interest, her eyes glued to the pictures, her mouth half open, she followed the quick-moving figures through scenes pathetic or ludicrous with an absorbed attention that would not miss the smallest detail. When that popular idol—the Imp—was performing her antics, the old woman’s quick cackling laugh made Eva drop her head that her big hat might hide her face. When the “Drunkard’s Family” were passing through their harrowing experiences, tears rolled unheeded down old Nancy’s wrinkled cheeks as she sat with her knobby fingers tight clasped.
When, at last, Lena whispered in her ear, “I guess we’ll go now,” Nancy exclaimed,
“Oh! Is it over? I thought it had just begun. But it was beautiful—beautiful! I’ll never——”
A loud sharp explosion cut through her sentence and instantly the whole place was in an uproar. Suffocating fumes filled the room with smoke as the lights went out. Then somebody screamed, “Fire!Fire!” and pandemonium reigned. Women shrieked, children wailed, and men and boys fought savagely to get to the doors. Lena was swept on by the first mad rush of the crowd, crazy with fear, but catching at a seat, she tried to slip into it and climb back to Nancy and Eva. Before she could reach them, she saw Eva thrown down in the aisle by a big woman frantic with terror, who tried to walk over her prostrate body, but a pair of bony hands grabbed the woman’s hair and yanked her back, holding her, it seemed, by sheer forceof will, for the few precious seconds that gave Lena a chance to pull Eva up and out of the aisle.
“You fools!” The old woman’s voice, shrill and cracked, but steady and unafraid, cut through the babel of shrieks and cries, “You fools, there ain’t no fire! If you’ll stop yellin’ an’ pushin’ and go quiet you’ll all get out in a minute. It’s jest a step to the doors.”
She was only a little old woman—a figure of fun, if they could have seen her clearly, with her old bonnet tilted rakishly over one ear and her shawl trailing behind her—but through the smoke, in that tumult of fear and dread, the dauntless spirit of her loomed large, and dominated the lesser souls craven with terror.
A draught of air thinned the smoke for a moment, and as those in front rushed out, the pressure in the main aisle lessened. Climbing over the back of a seat, Lena caught the old woman’s arm.
“Come,” she shouted in her ear, “we can get through to the side aisle now—that’s almost clear. Come, Eva, buck up—buck up, I say, or we’ll never get out of this!” for Eva, terrified, bruised, and half fainting, was now hanging limp and nerveless to Lena’s arm.
“Don’t you worry ’bout me. Go ahead an’ I’ll follow,” Nancy Rextrew said, and grabbing Eva’s other arm, the two half pushed and half carried her between them. Once outside, her blind terror suddenly left her, and she declared herself all right.
“Well, then, let’s get out of this,” and Lena’s sharp elbows forced a passage through the crowd that wasincreasing every minute, as the rumour of fire spread. She turned to old Nancy. “We’ll get you on a car—My goodness, Eva, catch hold of herquick! We must get her into the drug store there on the corner,” she ended as she saw the old woman’s face.
They got her into the drug store somehow, and then for the first time in her life Nancy Rextrew fainted; and great was her mortification when she came to herself and realised what had happened.
“My soul and body!” she muttered. “I always did despise women that didn’t know no better than to faint, an’ now I’m one of ’em. Gi’ me my Injy shawl an’ let me get away. Yes, I be well enough to go home, too!” She struggled to her feet, and snatching her bonnet from Eva, crammed it on her head anyhow, fumbling with the strings while she swayed dizzily.
“Here, let me tie them,” Eva said gently. “You sit down so I can reach.” She tied the strings very slowly, pulled the old bonnet straight and drew the India shawl over the thin shoulders, taking as much time as she could, to give the old woman a chance to pull herself together.
“I’ll take her home,” Lena said.
“No, you won’t—that’s my job!” Eva spoke with unusual decision, and Lena promptly yielded.
“Well—I guess you’re right. I guess if it hadn’t been for her——”
“Yes,” said Eva, and her look made further words unnecessary.
The three walked out to the car a few minutes later. The fire in the picture theatre had been quickly put out, and already the crowd in the street was melting away.Nancy looked up and down the wide avenue brilliant with its many electric lights; then as she saw the car coming she turned to Lena, her pale face crinkling into sudden laughter.
“I don’t care—it was worth it!” she declared. “I’ve lived more to-night than I have in twenty years before. I loved every minute of it—the pictures an’ the fire an’ everything. But see here—” she leaned down and whispered in the girl’s ear,—“don’t you let any feller put his arm round you like the man did round that girl that set in front of us—don’t you do it!”
“I guessnot!” retorted the girl sharply. “I ain’t that kind.”
“That’s right, that’s right! An’—an’ do come an’ see me again some time—do, dearie!” the old woman added over her shoulder as the conductor pulled her up the high step of the car.
Eva followed her. “I’m going to see she gets home all right,” she said, and Lena waved her hand as the car passed on.
“An’ to think her sharp old eyes saw that!” Lena thought with a chuckle as she turned away. “An’ me all the time thinkin’ she didn’t see anything but the pictures. Well, you never can tell. But she’s a duck, an’ it’s her gets my nickels—angel or no angel. And to think how she kidnapped us—the old dear,” and Lena went on laughing to herself.
At the next Camp Fire meeting, Lena, with a mischievous spark in her eyes, called out to Frances Chapin, “Say, Frances, Eva and I took one of your old ladies to the picture show the other night.”
Frances looked distinctly disapproving. “I thinkyou might have made a better use of your money,” she returned.
“I don’t, then!” retorted Lena, and thereupon she told the story of Nancy’s Sunday kidnapping, and of what had happened at the picture show. Her graphic wording held the girls breathless with interest.
“Well!” commented Louise Johnson, “I’d like to see that old lady of yours, Lena.”
“She’s worth seeing.” This from Eva.
A week later Louise announced that she had seen Lena’s old lady. “Saw her at the Home yesterday. I like her. She sure is a peach.”
“Isn’t she just?” Lena responded, her face lighting up. “And did you see Frances’ angel-all-but-the-wings old lady too?”
“Yes, and she’s a peach also, but a different variety,” Louise answered with a laugh. “I gave your Miss Rextrew some mint gum and she popped it into her mouth as handily as if she’d chewed gum all her life.”
Lena nodded. “She wanted to try it. She wants to try everything that is going. She’s a live wire, that’s what she is—good old Nancy!”
“We went the rounds—Annie Pearson and I,” Louise continued. “Saw all the old ladies except one that doesn’t want any visitors. Most of ’em do, though; and say, girlies—” Louise’s sweeping glance included all in the room—“I reckon it won’t hurt any of us to run up there once a month or so when it means such a lot to those old shut-ins to have us.”
There was a swift exchange of amazed glances at this,from Louise Johnson, and then a murmur of assent from several voices, before Mary Hastings in herbusiness-like way suggested, “Why not each of us set a date for going? Then we won’t forget—or maybe all go on the same day.”
“All right, Molly—you make out the list an’ we’ll all sign it,” Lena said, “and, say—make it a nickel fine for any girl that forgets her date or fails to keep it. Does that go, girls?”
“Unless for some good and sufficient reason that she will give at our next meeting,” Laura amended.
Then began a new era for the old ladies at the Home. Always on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and often on other evenings, light footsteps and young voices were heard in the corridors and rooms of the old mansion. Not only gentle Mrs. Barlow and eager old Nancy Rextrew, but all the women who had drifted into this backwater of life found their dull days wonderfully brightened by contact with these young lives. Nancy Rextrew looked years younger than on that Sunday when she had turned kidnapper. Naturally she was still the prime favourite with Lena and Eva, and gloried in that fact. But there were girls “enough to go around” in more senses than one, and most of them were faithful to their agreement, and seldom allowed anything to keep them from the Home on the date assigned to them.