148“‘Who best can drink His cup of woe,Triumphant over pain,Who patient bears His cross below,He follows in His train.’”
148“‘Who best can drink His cup of woe,Triumphant over pain,Who patient bears His cross below,He follows in His train.’”
Frieda and Hannah were still as she finished speaking, and all three sat looking at the fire for a few moments in silence. Presently Hannah said softly:
“Andtheyhave‘Laetus sorte mea’for a motto? I can see how you could take it, Aunt Clara, for of course you have everything anybody could want. You are well and beautiful and good, and have money and talent and friends.”
Miss Lyndesay was silent and Hannah, who had been studying the flames reflectively, looked up presently to see why she made no reply. There was a grave expression on her face, and Hannah’s grew startled.
Miss Lyndesay, seeing the look of alarm in the child’s eyes, smiled and took her hand.
“Would you give up your father and mother for any or all of those things, Hannah dear?” she said.
“O!”cried Hannah in a hurt frightened tone, and Frieda suddenly choked back a sob.
Miss Lyndesay lifted her head quickly.
“Girls, do you realize the absurdity of us? Here we started out discussing: ‘Happy in my lot’ and in a few minutes we have grown sad with the149burden of sorrow of half the world and our own individual troubles besides! That is anything but wise, isn’t it? I didn’t intend to preach to you when I invited you to Brookmeadow. But since we are on the subject, let’s say a little more and then drop it. I do want you to remember that while the people who seem fortunate often have something to bear that offsets most of the pleasant circumstances of their lives, at the same time, many people who seem to have nothing to be glad about are persistently and genuinely joyful. The sad folk meet sadness everywhere, and the glad folk find gladness. Let me read you something, written by Sister Grace, who founded the order of Brave Poor Things about the time you girls were born, and then I refuse to say or hear another solemn word this evening!”
She took up a little pamphlet and read aloud:
“To bear pain cheerfully, to take defeat nobly, to be constant and loyal, to be brave and happy with the odds dead against us, to be full of sympathy and tenderness–these are gifts which mark out the truly great.”
“Now let’s put Millicent’s doll to bed,” suggested Frieda, who disliked solemnity and saw that Hannah was still staring into the fire. Miss Lyndesay seconded the motion, and, taking candles, the three mounted into the garret, sought out the old trunk and brought the beautiful doll down stairs.150There, by the fire, they laid her gently down on a soft blanket in the pretty bed which was exactly the right size.
Then Evangeline appeared with a corn-popper and a sack of corn, and the half-hour before bedtime passed quickly and merrily away.
When Aunt Clara had tucked her guests into the big four-poster, they cuddled close to each other, forgetting the friction of the last few days in present comfort, sleepily grateful for the glimpse they had had that day of difficulties and griefs much greater than any of their own, and each resolving to be happy in her lot.
Mr. and Mrs. Eldred turned away from the station, from which the through Chicago train had just pulled out, carrying with it two passengers for Winsted, Wisconsin.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” said Mrs. Eldred aloud. “I always feel sorry for Hannah when she has to say good-by. She does suffer so over it, but she recovers quickly.”
“She seems to be acquiring a comfortable philosophy,” remarked Mr. Eldred, as he looked at his watch and then up the street where his car was not in sight. “She told me that the world was fixed wrong, because it ought to be possible to be with all of one’s beloveds at the same time. ‘But,’ she added sagely, ‘that’s probably Heaven.’”
“‘Earth being so good, would Heaven seem best?’” quoted Hannah’s mother, smiling. “We have all had to stay our hearts with that thought, I suppose. I am much more content about both girls, since Karl and Miss Lyndesay took them in hand. For a few days I really feared that the152adjustment might be too much for them. But Karl worked some magic spell over Frieda, and Miss Lyndesay charmed Hannah. I must go over to Brookmeadow this very week, and pay my respects to that remarkable woman.”
“Some mothers would be jealous of such an outside influence,” suggested Mr. Eldred, glancing fondly at his pretty little wife.
“Then they are very unwise,” declared that lady decisively. “I remember my own girlhood well enough to know that there were certain crises through which my mother could not help me as well as an outsider, simply because she was my mother. I’m not in the least afraid that any one could be dearer to Hannah than I am, and she is such a bundle of contradictions, of sweet impulses and rebelliousness, that I’m heartily glad of all the help I can get in bringing her up. There’s my car. Do try to come home to luncheon. I’ll be missing my lively children and their German-English patois!”
The two girls on the train had settled themselves cosily with the aid of a porter rendered over-zealous by Mr. Eldred’s generosity, and were watching the flying scenery and the other passengers with interest. Frieda was not eager to arrive at her journey’s end. She already missed Karl and the friendly Eldreds, who had seemed nearer her own parents than any one else in this strange country could.153The prospect before her was not wholly pleasant. Hannah had spent so much energy in singing the praises of Dexter College, Alice Prescott and Catherine Smith, that Frieda’s desire to see them was distinctly modified by a jealous feeling that such perfections must be somewhat tiresome. She was much more interested in watching a bride and groom across the aisle, and in making comments on American trains, some of which, according to her compact with Karl, she kept to herself, meaning to unburden her mind in the first letter she should write him. Others of a favorable sort she made aloud to Hannah, who received them graciously, on behalf of the nation. The day wore away not unpleasantly, but when the gas was lighted and the bride frankly rested her head upon the bridegroom’s shoulder, a mighty homesickness swept over Frieda. She could barely choke down her food in the dining-car, and hated a waiter for watching her with a white-toothed smile. The porter was making up berths when they returned and the proceeding scandalized her, accustomed as she was to the decency of compartment trains.
Forgetting her promise, she spoke her disgust:
“Ladies and gentlemen like pots of marmalade on shelves in a cupboard!”
Hannah only laughed and scrambled up to the top shelf with the agility of a squirrel, leaving Frieda to solitude and unsuspected misery.
154The porter and the grinning waiter would not be forgotten. Their blackness combined with the close warm atmosphere to alarm her. She dared not undress, and when she tried to lie down, she felt as though she should choke. The darkness seemed to her sleepy but resisting mind to be taking on human shape. With her eyes closed she saw it develop pink fingernails and gleaming teeth and eyeballs. Her real distrust of anything foreign was made keener by her homesickness. At last she fell into an uneasy sleep, clutching her purse and her gold beads tightly. At each station she woke with a jerk and a horrible conviction that the train had been wrecked and she was the sole survivor. Sometimes she put her hand up and felt of the wooden wall over her head for assurance that the upper berth to which Hannah had blithely committed herself had not treacherously closed. There were subdued rustlings in the aisle now and then, and quick brushings past her curtains which made her sit up, gasping, her eyes staring into the dark and her heart thumping. Frieda Lange crawled out of her tumbled berth next morning, certain that life could have in store for her nothing more hideous than her first night in an American sleeping-car.
Hannah, on the other hand, having “slept like a top, the way you ought to in an upper berth,” as she said with a gleeful laugh, and having made her toilet with the lucky ease which seemed one of155her characteristics, was full of good spirits, and joyous anticipations. Winsted seemed very near, and her bubbling joy over the prospect of seeing Catherine added to Frieda’s gloom. They went into the dining-car to breakfast, where Frieda was so unfortunate as to be shot from her seat as the train dashed around a curve, a glass of milk following her, anointing her hair and face in a manner calculated to ruffle the serenest temper. Hannah and the too friendly waiter helped her up with an effort at self-control, but Frieda had mislaid her sense of humor.
The change of cars in Chicago was accomplished simply, Hannah thoroughly enjoying leading the way and Frieda sulkily following. It would have taken more than a fit of sulks on Frieda’s part to have quenched Hannah’s joy in life that day, however, and she rattled on of the pleasures coming, scarcely noticing Frieda’s failure to respond.
“Winsted!”
Hannah was out of the car almost before it stopped. Frieda, delayed by other passengers who pushed in ahead of her, saw the rapturous meeting between her own Hannah and a tall sweet-faced girl with red-gold hair, whose beauty she was obliged to admit, though she did so gloomily. “I hoped she would be homely,” she growled to herself as she stepped down to the platform, and suffered Catherine to kiss her cheek.
156“Let’s walk,” suggested Catherine. “It’s much too beautiful a day to be cooped in a bus. I’ll have your bags sent up. O, Hannah, my darling, I’ve been waiting ages for you! And for you, too, Frieda,” she added shyly.
But Frieda was regarding the wrinkled pleats in her dress, and was conscious that her hair was still wet with milk; therefore she only mumbled something and stalked along beside the others who, in their delight at seeing each other, quickly forgot her, and chattered away in English, with many little bursts of laughter.
Dr. Helen was out when they reached the pretty house on the hillside. Catherine led Frieda to the big rose guest-chamber, and then carried Hannah off across the wide hall to her own room and the little dressing-room opening from it, which Hannah had occupied on her first visit a year and a half before. The trunks arrived at once, and Hannah immediately began to unpack, Catherine sitting on the edge of the bed and exclaiming over every new frock as it came out. Frieda, left alone, because she had only partly understood the invitation the others gave her to join them, and had wilfully refused the part she had understood, was wretched indeed. She sat stiffly on a straight mahogany chair, and wished with all her might that she had never been born, or at least, if that mistake had been inevitable, that she had never left her native land.
157Suddenly there came a quick tap at the door and Hannah, not waiting for a “Come,” ran in and tossed a parcel into her lap.
“What? Aren’t you dressed yet? Do hurry. Karl asked me to give you this as soon as we got here. Did Catherine show you your bath-room? You have one all to yourself; isn’t that lovely? It’s the most beautiful house, anyway. O, what dear roses on the dressing-table! Wasn’t it just like Catherine to put them there? Hurry up. Dr. Helen will be here pretty soon, and Polly Osgood and Dot Winthrop are coming over to see us. I’d put on that white poplin skirt and the waist with the blue butterfly bow at your throat. You look awfully fetching in that. Yes, Catherine, I’m coming,” and she flew out, tossing a kiss to Frieda.
In her excitement she had spoken in English, and the compliment was quite lost on Frieda who had not yet learned the meaning of “fetching.” That young person’s sulks were not dissipated by the call, accordingly, and there is no telling what depths of obstinate misery she might have reached, had not Karl’s parcel fallen to the floor and called attention to itself. With a manner which suggested to her mirror that life was distinctly not worth while, Frieda lifted the object and drearily removed the wrappings.
From a small carved frame Karl’s clear honest158face looked out at her, and a card in the corner read–in German–“Remember the compact, Comrade!”
Like a flash brightness came back to Frieda’s face. Good cheer was much more natural to her than moroseness. From the face in the picture she turned her gaze to the tousled reflection in the mirror. “The Fatherland is not much honored by such a representative!” she said, and began taking down her hair with a fine energy.
In the living-room downstairs teacups were clinking, and girls’ voices, subdued and sweet, mingled with laughter. Hannah, her back to the door, was talking merrily to Dot, to whom she had taken an instantaneous liking; Catherine bent anxiously over the tea-tray on the wicker table in the window when Polly, from the comfortable depths of a low chair, looked up and saw on the landing of the stairs a picture that made her catch her breath.
Frieda, in a pale pink mull gown, with roses in her long soft sash, her yellow braids wound into a garland around her head, her cheeks burning with shyness, and her big eyes looking wistful and sweet, stood waiting. Polly sprang up with a soft little “O!” Catherine, looking up, smiled a welcome, but Polly went forward and taking Frieda’s hands in both of hers, said eagerly: “We’ve been waiting and waiting for you, Frieda.”
159Dot was introduced, but her usual self-possession promptly deserted her. “I always feel as though I ought to shout to a foreigner,” she had confessed to Hannah, “and in order not to do that, I just have to keep still.” Catherine, who had felt a little rebuffed by Frieda’s chilly manner at the station, and Hannah, not quite sure what the present mood might indicate, were both willing to leave to Polly the rôle she had undertaken. Frieda sat quite near her, and watched her pretty bright movements with gentle interest, maintaining a silence meanwhile only surpassed in completeness by Dot’s. Hannah rattled on, but there was a hollowness in the rattle that made Catherine’s hostess heart falter. She was never fluent, herself. Her gentle art consisted in making her guests entertain themselves and each other.
Then Dr. Helen came in, big, strong and competent, socially and in every other way.
Her welcome to Frieda would have warmed an iceberg’s heart. She hugged Hannah, and gave her right hand to Polly and the left to Dot. “Give me a taste of your tea, Daughter,” she said, as she took off her gloves and her hat and seated herself. “It will take something as strong as tea to heal my weary spirit this afternoon. I’ve just had an emergency call.”
Dr. Helen’s eyes smiled reminiscently, and Dot awoke.
160“Do tell us, do, do, Dr. Helen,” she pleaded. “I know it’s something funny, by the twinkle in your eye. And we’ll never, never tell.”
Dr. Helen tasted her tea leisurely, and added a slice of lemon.
“I don’t tell tales about my patients, but there is no sense in a rule that isn’t transgressed once in a while. You wouldn’t know it was a rule! And I do believe you girls will enjoy this and never tell.”
“You ‘give us credit for more discretion than you have, yourself?’” quoted Catherine.
“If you like to put it that way! I was overtaken on my way home to greet these visitors by a messenger from Mrs. Swinburne, saying that Elsmere was very ill. It is a wonder that he has lived as long as he has, with his reckless tendencies and such erratic care. So I hastened over to the house. Mrs. Swinburne was in a mild state of hysterics, and it was some time before I could quiet her enough to learn the difficulty. Then my alarm vanished, changed to wrath, would perhaps be more accurate. Elsmere had eaten all her pills! They were pills that would not have hurt a cat. Mrs. Swinburne’s ailments are of a nature to require very weak remedies.”
“Bread and butter?” asked Dot, with a twinkle as merry as the doctor’s own.
“Something of that sort! But Elsmere did not161know that. They might have been morphia or arsenic for all he knew. The principle in his case was the same. His mother said ‘no symptoms had set in as yet,’ but she wanted me to administer an antidote at once. I couldn’t refuse her!”
“Mother! What did you do?”
“First I caused the patient to be removed to his own room and the doors to be closed. Then I gave him a sound scolding and a good smart spanking.”
“O dear Doctor Helen!” sighed Polly softly, while Dot clapped her hands with glee, and even Catherine showed signs of satisfaction.
“Did his mother hear you?”
“If she had, I was prepared to tell her it was necessary to restore the circulation. I was afraid the child might howl, but it was a new experience to him and he took it so very pleasantly that I am now worried for fear he liked it!” Dr Helen set down her teacup and turned to Frieda. “You will think me a barbarous physician, Frieda, but really this boy has needed discipline for a long time, and there is no one to give it to him. His pranks are often dangerous.”
“Like the building of a fire under the barn to keep his cat warm.”
“Yes, and making a ladder of kindling wood and climbing up to the second story on it.”
“He is a pretty naughty boy,” finished Dr.162Helen, “and a very sweet attractive one withal. I hope I made it clear to-day, that he is not to go about eating medicine. Now I must hear how Mrs. Eldred is, and what sort of a journey you had. Did Catherine make you properly comfortable?”
Hannah drew close to Dr. Helen and cuddled her hand as she answered. Then she suddenly said: “O, you know, Frieda and I saw Miss Lyndesay just before we came away. Do tell about it, Frieda.”
Frieda’s face lighted at the name. “She is very wonderful,” she said shyly. “She said: ‘Let me greet myself to them.’ She finds herself well, and her house is beautiful.”
“I am so glad. Thank you very much for bringing us direct word from her. See! this is the portrait she painted of Catherine some time ago.” And Dr. Helen took Frieda a little apart to get a good light on the painting of Catherine and Hotspur, almost the only picture the big room with its walls of books contained. It developed that Frieda was very fond of dogs and her rapture over the picture made it necessary to call in the original, who instantly recognized in her a discriminating soul. Frieda dropped down on the leather window-seat and fondled his tawny sides with the deepest feeling of rest she had had in two days. “He understands me,” she thought, with almost passionate gratitude.
163Polly and Dot bade her good-by in a few minutes. “I’m going to ask you to go out on the river with me and talk German to me all alone. I’ve studied it in college,” said Polly, “and I do want to see whether I can understand a real German. We won’t let Catherine or Hannah go. I should be afraid to try before them, but I don’t believe I should be at all afraid of you.”
Frieda caught Polly’s hand in hers, and suddenly carried it to her lips and kissed it. Polly reddened a little, while Dot turned abruptly away and made her adieux to Catherine and Hannah.
“Isn’t she a dear?” sighed Polly, as she and Dot went down the walk. “I do think she’s as charming as a picture in a sweet old-fashioned book, and I want to learn to read the printing that describes the picture.”
“Well, you may for all of me,” replied Dot. “But I don’t believe I’d ever feel safe with her. I felt all hands and feet, and if she should ever kiss my hand!”
“She won’t!” laughed Polly. “You needn’t fear! I wonder how the boys will like her. She is unusually good-looking, and her clothes are delightful. And I like her eyes. There is fun in her somewhere. You mark my words, Dot Winthrop. Once she learns English, there’ll be something doing. There’s nothing colorless or monotonous about Frieda Lange.”
The three girls, “just the right number, one for each gable,” as Dr. Harlow said, had been very busy that morning. Their beds made, Catherine had gone down to market, while Frieda dusted the living-room, and Hannah swept the porches.
“I like doing things like this,” said Frieda suddenly, as she came to the doorway, and shook her duster energetically. “Do you remember the time we got our own supper in Berlin, Hannah?”
“Indeed I do,” said Hannah heartily, leaning on her broom. “You look awfully pretty this morning, Frieda, in that plaid gingham. Are you going off with Polly, as usual? I don’t see you at all, it seems to me.”
“You have Catherine,” answered Frieda. “Polly is learning German.”
“And you are learning English. I can see that you have improved a lot this week. But you are getting pretty slangy. It would be better for you to learn from Catherine than from Polly.”
Frieda shook her head firmly. “I am in awe165of Catherine,” she announced, “and with you I feel weary talking English, for I know you can talk German. But Polly cannot do any other, and I must talk with her. She is delightsome.”
“So is Catherine,” said Hannah, looking at Frieda wistfully. It was a worry to her that these two who were to be together all the next year should be so slow in getting acquainted. “One is obstinate and the other is shy, and I don’t know when they will get over it,” she sighed to herself, as Frieda, seeing Catherine come up the walk, disappeared into the house.
Catherine was breathless with her quick climb and her many parcels. She dropped into a chair on the porch, and took off her hat to fan herself.
“There is the funniest woman on the street,” she said. “I know she is an agent, and I suppose she’ll be here soon; but I’ve got to shell these peas and I want to do it out here, so I shan’t run from her. Won’t you bring out some pans for the peas when you take your broom in, Hannah? I’m too weary to move.”
Hannah, on her way after pans, persuaded Frieda to come out and help shell peas, and all three were soon busily at work.
Suddenly Catherine snapped a pea at Hannah to attract her attention.
“My agent!” she whispered, as a woman in a loose flowing gown marched toward them.
166She mounted the steps and, stooping over Catherine, snapped something around her neck.
“There!” she said, straightening herself. “That will never come off.”
All three girls gasped. Catherine clutched at the offending article and the peas rolled in all directions.
“It’s a collar,” said the woman triumphantly. “You can wear it forever. Just put a fresh ribbon over it now and then, and you’re always dressed. Only fifteen cents. I’ll try one on you, Miss–” and before Hannah could utter a protest she was caught in the celluloid trap as Catherine had been. Speechless they faced each other. With a little gasp Frieda slipped over the porch railing and disappeared around the corner of the house. Hotspur came bounding after her and she patted him, and hugged him and laughed and laughed.
“A collar just like yours, Hotspur dear,” she told him in German. “And it will never come off! Catherine, the Saint, the Perfect, the Inviolate, sitting there looking like a–in English, like an idiom! O, Hotspur, dear, it has done me good. I have wished I could want to laugh at her. Now I shan’t be so afraid of her ever again. Come! we must go. It’s time for our row.” And Frieda danced off across a little wood path which was a short-cut to the boat-house.
Polly was waiting, and in a very few minutes167the “Minnehaha” was launched. It was a beautiful day, the river rippling with waves and twinkling with reflections of trees, but the ardent oarswomen saw neither the beauty surrounding them nor the black clouds threatening. They were practising for a race. Neither spoke. They pulled with long steady strokes in perfect time. Suddenly Frieda’s oar flopped and “caught a crab.” The bow at the same moment struck the bank, and a great scrambling tearing sound followed. In a fright the girls huddled together in the bottom of the boat, not daring to look up.
“O, pshaw! It’s only a cow, more afraid than we were. She made all that noise just tearing up the bank.”
“I thought it was an earthshake,” sighed Frieda, leaning back and resting. “That was one hundred strokes without missing. I didn’t know the bank was so near.”
“Neither did I. That’s the trouble with us, Frieda. We get so interested in rowing that we forget to steer.”
“We steered into a steer that time.”
“O, Frieda! You ought not to be allowed to make jokes in English, you make such bad ones.”
Frieda smiled cheerfully. “Ten days ago I thought I should never make a joke in any language, or laugh at one again. I was very sorrowful when I came here, Polly.”
168“I didn’t dream it,” answered Polly. “You looked very sweet when I first saw you, and I thought you kept still because you didn’t care to talk! But we have had a lot of fun these days, haven’t we? I feel as though I had known you a long time. Wish you were going to Wellesley.”
“So do I. It would be delightful, with you there and Karl and Hannah so near. But my parents decided for me. Karl will go to see you, though.”
“That’s nice. Really, Frieda, you will find it’s lots easier at a small college than a large one at first. And you can come on East afterward. Dexter is fine, and you’ll have such a start, going in as Catherine’s friend.”
Frieda grimaced.
“If every one there is as beautiful and–apartas Catherine is, I shan’t get on very well. Catherine is like a saint. She could never understand wickedness as you and Hannah do.”
“Thanks very much!” Polly answered dryly. “But you take my word for it, Catherine isn’t just a saint. There is fun in her, too, though not on the surface. You may always feel as though she were a beautiful picture or poem but you won’t like her the less for that. She’s not stand-offish. She’s just different. My dear, I felt a drop.”
“So did I. And there’s another.” Straightway169the heavens opened and a deluge descended, most of it, it seemed, aiming for the small rowboat at the pasture’s edge.
The thin roof of boughs which had hidden from their view the swiftly gathering clouds was wholly inadequate to the task of sheltering them from the contents of the clouds. Great cracks of lightning showed in the dark sky, and thunder rattled and roared and rumbled and burst.
Polly looked grave.
“We’ll drown if we stay here, and we could never row home. Look at the waves! And if we stay here, we’re also liable to be struck by lightning. Let’s leave the boat and make for that farmhouse across the pasture.”
“I’m afraider of the cow,” said Frieda. “But I’ll go. We can hide the oars and oar-locks in the bushes.”
Progress across the pasture was difficult, but when the road beyond was reached, both looked aghast at the muddy stream of it.
Frieda rolled under the fence and stepped boldly in. Polly, gasping with laughter, started to climb over.
“You might as well roll,” advised Frieda. “You can’t wetten yourself more than you are already, and it is pleasant to roll.”
“That’s a matter of taste!” panted Polly, balancing herself on the top of the fence.
170Suddenly Frieda gave a little shriek. Polly instantly fell forward into the mud, her skirt catching on all the barbs in the fence and rending itself horribly. Frieda, full of wild exclamations of pity and remorse, helped her up and wiped the thickest of the mud from her once piquant face.
“It was the cow,” she confessed. “I saw him coming from afar and I squealed. I did not know it would make you tumble, but I had to squeal. I fear cows. I have great alarm before them.”
“I forgive you,” Polly was weak with mirth. “But we’ve got to get into that house and telephone for some one to come out from town and take us home. We could never walk in these roads, and I should tie myself all up in knots if I walked in this shredded skirt. One more little spurt, Frieda, and we’re at the kitchen door!”
It looked for a minute as though they would never get beyond the door. The respectable lady who met them there was scarcely to blame if she judged a little by outward appearance. Polly’s efforts to be suave were discounted by the muddy look of her eye, and the fact that water was dripping from her hair into her face.
“Won’t you please let us come in and telephone for a carriage, and then wait for it?” she pleaded. “I will gladly pay for the use of the ’phone.” Then it came over her sickeningly that she had no money with her.
171“I’m Polly Osgood,” she said. “My father is the Osgood of Osgood and Brown, Lawyers.”
“You don’t say! Come right in. I’m Amanda B. Mills, and Lawyer Osgood has been my counsel for twenty-one years and more. I’d never a-kept you waitin’ out there a minute, if I’d known ’twas you. Is this your sister? Don’t wipe your shoes. Come right in. There’s other folks been caught in this rain, too.”
She stepped back, still speaking, and invited them into the kitchen. Polly and Frieda, stumbling a little, blinded as they were by the water dripping from their hair, followed her. As they entered the room, there was a moment’s silence, then a burst of laughter and exclamations.
“For the love of Mike!”
“Where did you rain down from?”
“O dear, O dear! You ridiculous boys!”
“What a guy you do look, Polly!”
And slowly out of the babel of voices came a deep solemn: “Donnerwetter!” It was not a lady-like expression for a nice little German girl to use, but she knew that to American ears it sounded more harmless than her usual expletives, and, besides, she felt that if ever an occasion had warranted emphasis this was it. She and Polly, dripping, draggled, ragged, confronted with Algernon, Max, Bert and Archie, almost as wet, grouped about Amanda B. Mills’ kitchen stove!
172Mrs. Mills’ astonishment at the boisterous greeting given her latest guests by the earlier ones was so manifest that Polly hastened to make all clear with introductions.
“How do you happen to be here?” she asked, as she finished, and Archie had made a Chesterfieldian bow, though the blue from his Andover cap had run into his fair hair.
“Fishing,” answered Bert. “We drove out from town with our old nag, hitched her to a tree and fished. Thunder and lightning always rile the beast, and she just broke her tie-strap and oozed off home, and left us in her wake. We got this far, walking, but the road was such a juicy mess we decided to stop and telephone for some one to come out after us.”
“That’s what I am going to do. Where is the telephone, Mrs. Mills?”
“O, do allow us to have the pleasure,” begged Max. “They said they’d send out the ‘light bearers’ wagon,’ and it’s warranted to hold six. Besides it will be here in twenty minutes, and a private equipage would take longer.”
“Well–it’s awfully kind of you, I’m sure! Aren’t you afraid we’ll make you wetter, though, if we ride in the same carriage? I am flooding the floor at this moment. It’s terrible, Mrs. Mills. Isn’t there a shed we could go into, and not make such a lot of work for you?”
173“Deary me, Miss Osgood, it’s a pleasure to me to have you here. But I wisht you’d come into the parlor, all of you, you and your friends. I’ll lay papers down on the carpet, and you can just walk in.”
They all protested, but as it soon became clear that it was as much a desire to display the beauties of her room as hospitality that prompted the invitation, they yielded and filed damply along the newspaper path into the gaudy parlor. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had come up, and the sun was shining through the flowers in the lace curtains at the windows, and striking the bright pink morning-glory of the graphophone, which was the most conspicuous object in the room. Mrs. Mills, preceding her wet guests, turned the track a little past the telephone, resplendent in oak and nickel, so that the whole procession could be inside the room at once. Then she called their respectful attention to her framed marriage certificate, and a similar document declaring the late Jacob Quincy Mills a Grand Something or Other in some lodge. Beneath these, on a shelf, were two tall lava jars filled with pampas grass, a pink china vase and a wreath of Easter lilies made of spangled paper.
“I’d like to show you the pictures in the family album,” said Mrs. Mills hospitably, resting her hand upon the fat plush volume on the center table, “but I don’t see how more’n two or three of you174can look at it at a time.” She frowned a moment, puzzled. Then her face lighted. “I’ll just set the graphophone goin’ for the rest of you to entertain yourselves with,” she said eagerly, and in a moment the room was filled with the wheezing and strident strains of “You Look Good to Father,” against which Mrs. Mills raised her own voice in explanatory remarks to Archie and Frieda, who happened to be within the album’s range:
“This is Mr. Mills’ sister’s first husband. That was their baby that died. This here is Miss Evelyn Mills of Chicago. She’s a singer there at the Orpheum. She was my husband’s own cousin, once removed. This was my father’s aunt,–” and so on.
“Look at Algernon,” whispered Max to Polly. “He’s as contented as a lamb. He’s learning all there is to know about poultry, and doesn’t even know that infernal machine is going or that Mr. Mills had any relatives.” And sure enough Algernon, standing beside the bookcase, on a portion of the newspaper track, was reading, even devouring, the pages of a scientific farming journal, with an expression of perfect satisfaction on his face.
The long half hour came at last to an end. Mrs. Mills conducted the procession back to the kitchen, helped tuck the girls into the robes, and disclaiming all right to their earnest thanks, watched the wagon out of sight.
175“Which is worse, a soaking or a fourth-class phonograph?” queried Archie from his corner.
Bert, humming “Waltz me Around Again, Willie,” paused to remark:
“Why, I rather liked that. Didn’t the rest of you?”
Polly shivered, not with cold alone.
“There is one song we all like, Bert,” she suggested. “Let’s sing it now to keep our lungs from freezing. There’s water enough all about to make it appropriate!”
And in a minute four big male voices were shouting out the Boat Club song, Polly’s soprano sweet and clear over the rest, while Frieda smiled encouragement over the edge of the robe in which she was wrapped to her chin.
“We are the Winsted Boat Club,Dip the oar, dip the oar!We are the Winsted Boat Club,Push out from shore!“We are the Winsted Boat Club,Paddle light, paddle light!A-drifting, a-drifting beneathThe sunset bright!”
“We are the Winsted Boat Club,Dip the oar, dip the oar!We are the Winsted Boat Club,Push out from shore!“We are the Winsted Boat Club,Paddle light, paddle light!A-drifting, a-drifting beneathThe sunset bright!”
Algernon suffered more serious consequences from his wetting than the others did from theirs. His cold the next day prevented him from even attempting to go to the library. He wrote a note to Bertha, asking her to take his place, and then, groaning over his inability to get to the telephone, coaxed Elsmere to his side and sewed the note and the key to his blouse.
“You cross your heart and hope to die you’ll go straight to Bertha’s and give her the key?”
“Cross my heart. Hope die. And you’ll give me six candies and a rocking-horse, and a ’lectric light and a house for my pigeons, and–”
“I’ll give you something nice when you’ve done the errand, not before. Now hurry. The library can’t open till you get there. Think of it! All those people who want books waiting for you!” Coughing, Algernon fell back upon his hated pillows, and watched his messenger set out, more in hope than in confidence.
It was Fate that prevented Elsmere’s fulfilling177the trust, or rather, realizing the hope, for though he did go straight to Bertha’s house, he did not find her there. The maid who opened the door proved uncommunicative on the subject of Bertha’s whereabouts, and Elsmere sauntered away, undecided what to do next. Ten feet from the gate, he stumbled upon a cat. At once a beautiful thought came to him. His own cat-pussy had gone away, tired of abuse and starvation irregularly combined with affection in the form of embraces and sugar, and Elsmere’s heart had grieved for her. Here was another, and he could find out by actual experiment whether the velvet birds in the library would deceive her. Clutching the spitting, clawing creature to his bosom, he trotted off to the library.
The door, of course, was locked. At first this fact discouraged Elsmere. Then he suddenly remembered that he alone possessed means of entrance. Putting the cat down on the pavement and stepping firmly on her tail to retain her, he fitted the key and triumphantly turned it in the lock.
Once inside, he carried kitty to the closet where the birds at present hung, but his experiment was unsatisfactory, for she dug into his cheek with a fury which rendered it necessary to abandon the attempt. When the outraged animal had fled down the street, Elsmere looked about for fresh interests. He was in a mood to recognize opportunities, and the unprotected condition of Algernon’s178desk was suggestive. Never was a librarian more hostile to little prying fingers than A. Swinburne of the Winsted City Library. Elsmere felt a certain constraint, even alone with opportunity.
The door opened and a very small person came in and walked over to the desk.
“What you want?” asked Elsmere gravely.
“Want a book.”
“All right.” Elsmere walked to the shelves, took down a large volume of Sheridan’s Memoirs, and handed it to the child. Plainly much impressed by the size of her booty, she wrapped her arms about it and walked out, with admiring glances at Elsmere over her shoulder. Elsmere was pleased. That was easy. He climbed into Algernon’s chair. There were plenty of things to amuse one. Rubber stamps hold infinite possibilities of entertainment. So do colored cards arranged in trays. Elsmere shifted them all about, and stamped the date on everything in sight.
Then came more Public, Mrs. Kittredge’s maid this time, returning a book and not wishing more. In fact, she laid down the book and departed with such would-be inconspicuous swiftness that if Elsmere had been more experienced, he would have known at once that the book was overdue.
Then there was a lull. Even forbidden pleasure palls in time, if no one comes to remonstrate, and Elsmere was beginning to consider going home,179when three boys, strolling that way, pressed their noses against the window-pane. Then they wandered in.
“What’s the kid doin’ in the liberrian’s chair?” asked one. Elsmere maintained a dignified silence, stamping the date rapidly and inkily on a pile of fresh catalog cards.
“Say, kid, where’s the liberrian?”
“I’m liberrian.”
“O, come off. Where’s the real one? The feller that knows it all, and walks like a seesaw.”
“That’s Algy,” said Elsmere, with fraternal recognition. “Algy’s sick. I’m liberrian.”
His questioner looked at him keenly.
“I say, kids, let’s us be liberrians. You put the little feller out.”
The obedient henchmen put the howling Elsmere down from his seat, and exalted their chief.
“I’m it,” said that worthy. “You pick out books you want, and I’ll fix ’em up.”
The others, nothing loath, picked out certain extra-illustrated volumes which Algernon did not allow to circulate, and presented them at the desk, where they helped the presiding official to “fix ’em up” according to methods suggested by intuition combined with a little observation.
“Say, now it’s my turn,” said one of the subordinates. “You git down and let me. Does that chair screw ’round?”
180It did, and in the ensuing scuffle, it not only screwed around but the top fell off, carrying three boys and an assortment of inks with it.
At the same moment, Max and Archie entered to while away an idle half-hour with the daily paper.
The big boys were prompt, but the little boys were prompter. The back door swung on its hinges and Max and Archie, puffing, ejaculating and wrathful, gave over attempts at capture for efforts at repair, Max going off to hunt up Algernon, while Archie gathered up scattered cards and mopped up the ink with dust-cloths.
Seeking Algernon, Max ran across Mrs. Osgood making calls. Hearing his tale, she went back with him to the scene of disaster, and her capable fingers soon brought about some appearance of order, though the intricacies of card systems were beyond her.
“I’d like to know who the rascals are that did it,” she said with emphasis; “and I can’t see how they got in. Where do you suppose Algernon is?”
“He caught cold yesterday,” Archie told her, “but it doesn’t seem possible that he would send down anybody who would go off and leave the place open. I saw the little Weed boy, but I didn’t know the other two. They lit out like lightning, and I didn’t care to chase them all up Main Street. I was going to the Smiths’ to have a cup of tea!”181Archie looked ruefully at his soiled garments and dark blue hands. “I wonder if we couldn’t get Bertha to come in here. She knows the ins and outs of all these fancy arrangements.”
“Berfa isn’t to home,” remarked a clear sweet voice from the closet. “Fat’s why I had to be liberrian!”
Max threw open the door. Elsmere, on the wood-box, was contentedly jiggling the velvet birds, which had been the first cause of all the excitement.
At the sight of Max’s angry face, he jumped up. “I got to go,” he said hastily. “I’m awful busy. Must find my cat-pussy. I losted her when she scratched me.”
“Sensible cat,” growled Archie, taking Elsmere by the collar. “I wish she had losted you. Here, Mrs. Osgood, this seems to be the key to the mystery. At least it’s the key to something.” He lifted the key dangling from Elsmere’s blouse.
“Algy sewed it on me,” explained the child.
Mrs. Osgood sighed. “So Algernon is sick, and he sent you after Bertha, and she wasn’t at home. I see. Max, you and Archie needn’t wait. I’ll take the responsibility of closing the library for to-day, and I’d like a private talk with this young gentleman, if you are willing.”
Elsmere’s eyes brightened.
“Will you pank me?” he asked hopefully. “Dr.182Helen pank me when I eat pills.So!” In his effort to illustrate, he bent so nearly double that he fell over on his nose, and set it bleeding. Max and Archie caught up their hats and fled, leaving Mrs. Osgood to act upon inspiration.
Half an hour later, having by strenuous effort regained something of their former freshness of appearance, the two boys dropped in upon the group on the Three Gables lawn. They stopped a minute to take in the details of the pretty picture. Under a great apple tree, Catherine had set her tea-table with its pretty accessories. In comfortable chairs about it, sat the Boat Club girls, embroidering soft colored things or simply “visiting.” Frieda was telling a story, and the others were listening attentively as she stumbled a little now and then in her desire to express herself rapidly.
“And he was there in the water, all the above part of him, and I held his waist. I pulled greatly and in he came lickety split, and what do you think he said? ‘I big fish, Frieda. Pull me in and fy me.’”
“That was Elsmere, I’ll wager,” cried Max, approaching with Archie and giving Catherine his hand. “I’m glad you were talking about him, Miss Frieda, for we’re full of the subject. He never said the expected thing in his life. Drowning and spanking are what he needs; the only trouble is that he likes nothing better. But he’s beaten his record183to-day,” and while Archie dropped upon a rug near Hotspur, and incidentally near Bess, who was prettier than ever, and working on an Andover pillow, Max received a cup of tea from Catherine’s hands and told his story of the afternoon’s episode to a deeply interested audience.
“Poor Algernon!” sighed Polly. “That will make him so much extra work, and he must have his patience tried by that dreadful baby all the time.”
“Does no one punish Elsmere except the neighbors?” asked Frieda, whose opinion of the lawlessness of American children was being strengthened daily by Elsmere’s performances. Winifred answered, laughing.
“His mother made up her mind to, once. She told me about it. She told him she would not be his mother that day for he had been so bad she was ashamed to own him. Some one had told her that was a sure way to crush a child. But Elsmere was only interested. He called her ‘Mamma’ and ‘Mummy dear’ to catch her napping, but she wouldn’t answer. By and by a caller came in, and Elsmere walked up to her and pointed at his mother and said: ‘This isn’t my mother. She is just Mrs. Swinburne, but I love her!’ And Mrs. Swinburne picked him up and kissed him and cried, and I don’t believe she ever tried again to make him mind.”
184“I’m glad Perdita and Peter are such a biddable sort,” said Polly. “I don’t know what we’d do with two little imps around. They are quite good, almost always. Perdita is mischievous, but Peter keeps her straight. He seems to feel the whole burden of her. If she starts to do anything naughty, he says: ‘Perdita, you mustn’t,’ and Perdita doesn’t.”
“It’s lucky Perdita hasn’t Elsmere for a brother,” suggested Dot. “There’d be no living in Winsted if she had, for even Peter can’t keep a wicked look out of her eye at times.”
“Room for a tired man in your party, children?” Dr. Harlow joined the group. Max vacated the long chair he was occupying, and every one welcomed the doctor with a word or smile. They all loved him, and nothing pleased them better than to have him spend an hour with them. To-day, he was plainly tired, and while Catherine prepared tea for him, Frieda whispered to Hannah.
“I wonder if he would,” said Hannah. “Winifred, will you sing, if I bring out my fiddle?”