“My Dear Roommate:“I’m waiting for a youth to whom I am to69give a toot lesson. He is very stupid. I have him in Greek and English literature. In Greek he translates the word for Lord, ‘Cyrus.’ We have been reading the New Testament, and you can think how very oddly that would come in, in some passages! And in an English test he assured me that Milton wrotePilgrim’s Progress, and the author of Bacon’sEssayswas Charles Lamb. He makes me wonder whether I shall have courage enough to tackle teaching as a profession, if tutoring is so difficult. But I like his money very well, and Mother is going away for a real vacation and will take Cora, and that couldn’t happen if I hadn’t found work this summer.“I have a Sunday-school class, too, and that is entertaining, at least. It is at a mission, and such queer dirty little chaps as are in it!“I started in to teach them an alphabet of Christian graces, or desirable qualities. The first week we had A for Attention, and the second, B for Bravery, and the third week I thought they all had the idea, and asked them to guess what C would be. They thought very hard, and then one piped out: ‘Cabbages!’ The same little boy told me that the priests burnedinsectsin the temple!“My whole letter seems to be nothing but my pupils’ absurdities. But really I have very little else to write about that would interest any one. I’m busy all day, and too tired at night to read or70write. I take more pleasure getting acquainted with my darling little brother Jack again, than in anything else I do. He has been Ariel now for a week, and it’s very convenient, for there are many errands to be done. He sleeps at night in a cow-slip bell, very romantically, but I have no hope the spell will last. He will be a robber chief or a street-car conductor next week. The poetry in his system is in streaks, not continuous. O! that reminds me–and it’s the last ‘bright saying’ I shall quote in this letter, I promise you! He asked me rather shyly the other day what poetry was, and after I had attempted to explain, he said: ‘It’s queer, Allie. I thought it was chickens!’“Here comes my pupil, looking very sad. I wish he didn’t regard me as an old, old woman. I suppose I seem so to him, but I do hate to feel for two hours a day that I have lost all my youth.“When does Hannah come? And Frieda? I am all eagerness to see her. Did you carry my embroidered waist home with you by any chance? I can’t find it, and I really need it.“My love to your mother, always.“Faithfully yours,“Alice Barbara.”
“My Dear Roommate:
“I’m waiting for a youth to whom I am to69give a toot lesson. He is very stupid. I have him in Greek and English literature. In Greek he translates the word for Lord, ‘Cyrus.’ We have been reading the New Testament, and you can think how very oddly that would come in, in some passages! And in an English test he assured me that Milton wrotePilgrim’s Progress, and the author of Bacon’sEssayswas Charles Lamb. He makes me wonder whether I shall have courage enough to tackle teaching as a profession, if tutoring is so difficult. But I like his money very well, and Mother is going away for a real vacation and will take Cora, and that couldn’t happen if I hadn’t found work this summer.
“I have a Sunday-school class, too, and that is entertaining, at least. It is at a mission, and such queer dirty little chaps as are in it!
“I started in to teach them an alphabet of Christian graces, or desirable qualities. The first week we had A for Attention, and the second, B for Bravery, and the third week I thought they all had the idea, and asked them to guess what C would be. They thought very hard, and then one piped out: ‘Cabbages!’ The same little boy told me that the priests burnedinsectsin the temple!
“My whole letter seems to be nothing but my pupils’ absurdities. But really I have very little else to write about that would interest any one. I’m busy all day, and too tired at night to read or70write. I take more pleasure getting acquainted with my darling little brother Jack again, than in anything else I do. He has been Ariel now for a week, and it’s very convenient, for there are many errands to be done. He sleeps at night in a cow-slip bell, very romantically, but I have no hope the spell will last. He will be a robber chief or a street-car conductor next week. The poetry in his system is in streaks, not continuous. O! that reminds me–and it’s the last ‘bright saying’ I shall quote in this letter, I promise you! He asked me rather shyly the other day what poetry was, and after I had attempted to explain, he said: ‘It’s queer, Allie. I thought it was chickens!’
“Here comes my pupil, looking very sad. I wish he didn’t regard me as an old, old woman. I suppose I seem so to him, but I do hate to feel for two hours a day that I have lost all my youth.
“When does Hannah come? And Frieda? I am all eagerness to see her. Did you carry my embroidered waist home with you by any chance? I can’t find it, and I really need it.
“My love to your mother, always.
“Faithfully yours,
“Alice Barbara.”
The opening of the library had been vigorously advertised. Bert and Dot had wheeled the country roads over within a radius of three miles from town, posting bills of announcement. The ministers urged it upon their congregations as a civic duty to attend. At social gatherings the week before nothing else was talked of. And everybody was going to bring books.
“Such a lot of trash as we’ll get!” groaned Dorcas.
“I know it,” assented Polly, “but they will all take an interest, and that is what we are after now. Once properly established, we can buy good books, and these old ones will just stand idle or wear out or get lost or something.”
“I don’t think it’s very appropriate to serve refreshments,” objected Dorcas once more. “And Algernon doesn’t think it is a dignified way to do.”
“O, well,” put in Catherine, appeasingly. “Mrs. Graham says, you know, that we’ll ‘have to get people pretty well educated readin’ our72encyclopedias and dictionaries before they’ll think anything’s worth goin’ to that there ain’t somethin’ to eat at!’ And Mrs. Graham is going to take charge of all that part, anyhow, so I don’t feel like finding fault. There won’t be any expense, with everything contributed.”
“They might have given the money instead of ice-cream and cakes.”
“O, Dorcas, Dorcas, you would expect people to be all made over. Did you ever read Stevenson’s fable of the reformer who thought the first step in reforming the world was to abolish mankind? Let’s not worry about it. I know it’s going to be a success. Isn’t this room the cleanest spot you ever saw?” And Catherine threw back her arms with a gesture to rest her tired shoulders, and looked about her with affection and pride. Bare white walls, with one good engraving, loaned by Judge Arthur, for ornament; plain shelves with rows of neat books, their orderly labels smiling like sets of teeth; the reading-table in the exact center of the room, with three chairs in military array on each side of it, and a few contributed magazines in mathematical piles between two student lamps; and last, Algernon’s small charging desk, with its mysterious cards and rubber stamps under one of the bracket lamps, shining from the polishing Agnes had just given it.
“Isn’t it spick and span?” repeated Catherine,73sitting down with precision in the arm-chair, discovered in somebody’s attic.
“Ye-es,” answered Dot slowly, dropping upon one of the arms. “But for all its cleanness it’s about as bare and as inviting as the contagious ward of a hospital, or the dining-room of a state’s prison.”
“Don’t say discouraging things like that, Dot dear,” pleaded Agnes, taking the other arm and snuggling her head against Catherine’s cheek. “A library isn’t supposed to be a parlor, and that engraving is really valuable.”
“I’d rather have a chromo that comes with soap, myself,” said Bert. “Its cold steely look only adds to that hygienic and sanitary aspect Dot detected. It makes me homesick for sunflowers and red flannel.”
“I have an idea,” and Dorcas rose and departed with her usual abruptness.
As she went out of the door, Bess came in.
“O dear!” she said. “Are you all here? I hoped nobody would be.”
“Shall we withdraw?” asked Bert. “We were just commenting on the barrenness of this place, but your presence causes it to blossom as the rainbow. We bask in the refulgence.”
Bess laughed. “That’s really what I came for, to prettify it a little. It seemed such a pity not to have anything bright and attractive on the walls,74so I made this at odd minutes. Do you all like it? I was going to put it up and surprise you.”
She unrolled a big parcel she carried and the others, crowding around to see, looked upon a beautifully illuminated motto:
“God be thanked for books.”
“Bess, you are an inspired angel,” cried Polly, while Catherine gave her a squeeze which was meant to express pleasure and also compunction for more than one reflection that Bess was not doing her share for the library.
“And here comes another,” exclaimed Agnes, running to open the door for Dorcas, staggering under the weight of a great armful of golden glow.
“Dorcas, you must have taken every stalk you had!”
“Well, and whose business is it, I’d like to know?” asked Dorcas briskly and justly. Polly shrugged her shoulders, but helped Bertha to find receptacles for the bright flowers, continuing to exclaim over their beauty, in spite of Dorcas’ apparent indifference. It had not been Algernon alone who had been misunderstood at the beginning of the library campaign in Winsted. The flowers arranged effectively, and the motto given a place where it could be read from all parts of the room, the workers trudged off to their respective homes to make elaborate toilets before the “party” should begin.
Seven o’clock found the lamps lighted inside75the little building, and Japanese lanterns making the freshly-mown weed patch a festive place, with little tables set for the ice-cream and cake which were to be served from the shed, leaving the library proper, clean and crumbless. Bess and Winifred, with their attendant squires, were to act as Mrs. Graham’s lieutenants outside, and the other members of the club were variously on duty within. Dr. Helen assisted Algernon and the school superintendent in receiving–an unsectarian combination warranted to disturb no prejudice. Bertha, with a book and pen, was ready at the reading-table to receive and register gifts. Catherine sat at Algernon’s desk to issue cards, and take in the annual fee of fifty cents. The other girls and boys were “floating,” ready to entertain the guests, to explain the whole scheme, and see to it that every one was invited to the lawn for “light refreshments and ice-cream” as theCourierhad announced.
The fathers and mothers of the Boat Club were early arrivals, looking with proud amused eyes upon their spotless sons and daughters in their disinterested public zeal. First of all came Mrs. Swinburne in a long black net gown elaborately spangled, her hair coquettishly arranged in a Janice Meredith curl, several years out of date, a slender ivory-sticked fan, somewhat broken, swaying from her belt by a long ribbon. She plainly felt that her entrance should excite attention76and was by no means disappointed. Dot and Polly took her in charge and stood by with grave courteous faces while she gave Bertha her contribution, wrapped up in tissue paper and white ribbon.
“It’s a copy ofThe Ring and The BookI got for Elsmere’s Christmas last year. I wanted so to read it. I am devoted to Byron. But Algernon gave me theComplete Works, so that I felt I could give this away to advantage. It is a little damaged. The dear child uses his books to build stables with, but I knew that the public would not mind.”
She arched her eyebrows in surprise when Catherine asked fifty cents for the card she made out for her. “As Algernon’s mother, really, Miss Catherine, I did not expect–” and Catherine, catching Algernon’s imploring glance from his position between the doctor and the superintendent, murmured an apology and gave the card.
Then Mrs. Swinburne sank delicately into the arm-chair, and rested her eyes upon the scene before her.
It was soon sufficiently animated. A whole family arrived at once, climbing out of a big farm wagon. Dot beckoned to Bert.
“It’s that man we talked to out on the Ridge Road.”
“‘How much for your tickets?’”–Page77.
“‘How much for your tickets?’”–Page77.
77“Is this your liberry?” asked a mighty voice from the doorway. “Where’s the young fellow that invited us to come in this evening? O, it’s you, is it? I didn’t recognize you with those clothes on. Men folks didn’t wear white pants in my day. Well, Mother, come along in. I guess they won’t nobody bite you.”
With this encouragement, a little washed-out looking woman slipped uncomfortably in, six children of various degrees of awkwardness stumbling after her, studiously avoiding the outstretched hands of the receiving committee. Dr. Helen stepped forward and took the woman’s hand. The wan face under the dusty black straw hat lighted with the smile that Catherine loved to see her mother call forth.
“Clary,” said the little woman proudly, “here’s the doctor. Let her see how fat and well you be. Not much like she was that winter!”
Clary’s father, meanwhile, was walking about the room with a tread that rattled the lamp-shades. He looked the books over with an air of wisdom, listened to Bert’s talk in silence, and presently drew up at the desk where Catherine sat waiting for customers.
“How much for your tickets?”
“Fifty cents.”
“Family rates?”
Catherine met the unforeseen question promptly.
“Where there are more than three in a family, the tickets are only thirty-five cents apiece.”
78“So. Well, give me one,” and he drew a handful of small change from his pocket. “Holcomb’s the name. Chester G. Holcomb.”
Catherine inscribed the name in her pretty even hand upon a blue card, numbered it 2, and handed it to her patron. He laid down thirty-five cents and turned away.
“O,” said Catherine, flushing softly. “You didn’t understand. It is only when you get three cards that they are cheap like that.”
Chester Holcomb, known as the biggest miser in the county, grunted.
“You said if they was more than three in the family, and they’s six children besides ma and me. I knowed there was some skin game about this thing, somewheres. Here’s your ticket and you give me back my money.”
Catherine, almost as near tears as she had ever been in her singularly well-controlled existence, obeyed him.
“Good evening, Chester.” Dr. Harlow had been standing near, and now decided to take a hand. “Let me introduce my daughter. Catherine, this is Mr. Holcomb, of whom you’ve heard us speak.”
“The father of the dear twin babies?” asked Catherine, with a grateful throb for her father’s help.
“That’s them yonder,” answered Chester Holcomb, swelling proudly. “Mate, bring the twins79here, so’t the doctor’s gal can see ’em. Weighed five pounds when they was born, and look at ’em now! Best fatted live stock on the farm, I say, Doctor.” And Mr. Holcomb’s great laugh at his own witticism filled the room. Catherine, meanwhile, with the sincerity of a girl who really loves all babies, admired the plump twins to such a degree that their father felt himself melting with benevolence.
“Mate,” he said suddenly, “think you’d like to read any of these here books? Doc, make you acquainted with my daughter Sadie. Graduated from the district school this spring and goin’ to town High School this fall. Guess the’ ain’t any of the readin’-matter here that’s beyond Sadie! Here, Miss, give us three of them tickets,–that one I had and two more. Mrs. Chester Holcomb and Miss Sadie Ditto. There! Keep the change,” and gathering up the three cards, he threw a silver dollar heavily upon the table and turned away. Catherine and her father looked at each other and laughed outright.
“No man has ever got the best of Chester in a bargain,” said Dr. Harlow, “and I judge no woman ever will! Allow me to make up the deficit. It has been worth more than that as entertainment!”
By this time the room was full. It was a motley crowd, as all classes of Winsted were represented. The would-be Smart Set in rather elaborate hats80and gowns, mingled with the quieter Three R’s, and their own maid servants and the “gentlemen friends” of the latter. All the standbys, who are always on hand at church doings and the County Fair, were out in force. There was the oldest inhabitant, bestowing his presence with the “nunc dimittis” air which had characterized him since old age had given him the distinction vainly sought in other fields. There was old Mis’ Tuttle in her best black and orange bonnet, and Emeline Winslow with her wig over one ear and a bouquet of artificial flowers under glass as her contribution. With her came Grandma Hopkins, whose name was the only nimble thing about her;–ponderous and elephantine, she had once, in calling upon a fragile little old lady, stumbled in the doorway and fallen upon her hostess, whose brittle bones had snapped under the strain. Polly and Dorcas constituted themselves a committee to look out for the elderly ones, taking great pains to keep Grandma Hopkins in open spaces where a fall would do little damage. There was a very bony woman with a smile which was surprising, it was so soft and radiant. She brought a fat story of the Bible for the children, and offered Algernon flowers from her garden for all summer. “Flowers are good for the soul and the mind as well as books,” she explained, “and if so be some one comes in and can’t find the book they want, ’twon’t hurt ’em to see a posy.”
81There was the Sloan family, decked out in the leavings of a milliner’s shop and bringing as offering a worn copy of one of Mary J. Holmes’ novels. There was a good-hearted lady, so disastrously given to expressing enthusiasm by embracing anyone within her reach that the heroes and heroines of the evening fought shy of her, and Tom made her well-known tendency an excuse for withdrawing altogether and going out to the fence behind the building where he could overlook the festive scene and smoke a cigar surreptitiously. Not least “among those present” was the ubiquitous reporter for theCourier, biting his pencil and using abbreviations in his notes with such freedom that the list of gifts, when finally published, contained such startling entries as:Eliza and her Germ Garden, andThe Victorious Anthropology.
“I felt as though I were in a dream half the time,” sighed Polly, when the crowd had dwindled to “the immediate mourners” as Max put it, and these were sitting wearily at the messy little tables, dipping idle spoons into the melted cream that had been with difficulty saved for them. “I kept on smiling and explaining and telling people to go to Catherine for cards and to Bertha to leave their gifts, and half the time I didn’t know what I was saying or who was talking to me. Bert came up once and asked me to tell him which door he came in at, and I tried to find out for him, before I82tumbled–before I saw the point, I mean. I never was so exhausted in all my life.”
“Poor Algernon,” said Tom. “You’re just beginning your work. Every one of those hundred and sixty-seven cards will be in to-morrow to draw out a book. You ought to keep open for a week every day.”
“Three times a week, with evenings, will be enough,” replied A. Swinburne, librarian. “There’s a big job on those books that came in to-night. How many were there finally, Bertha?”
“Ninety-six. About twenty are worth putting labels on,” answered Bertha cheerfully. “I’m a little inclined to think that that part of our plan was a mistake.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Dot. “There was one old duck who brought a German primer, and he strutted around as though he owned the place. I’m sure he’ll use it constantly.”
“He seemed to think he ought to have a card free, because he gave it,” put in Catherine. “I remember him! He wasn’t the only one, though. They all–or a lot of them–seemed to think they ought to be able to draw any number of books on one card, and they don’t like the idea of fines at all. I don’t envy you, Algernon!”
“We ought to have called ourselves the Looking For Trouble Club,” groaned Archie. “We haven’t had a decent Boat Club picnic since we got into83this mess. And look at all this place to clean up to-morrow! I’m about dead with work, already. I don’t know about the rest of you.”
The rest had strength enough for a chorus of hoots and jeers at “His Laziness,” who had adorned the scene of their labor for a few minutes now and then, but for the most part had stayed strictly away.
“I’ve saved your lives, anyway,” declared Archie cheerfully, when their derision had spent itself. “And I’m going to again. I hired a lovely scrub-lady to come to-morrow and make this spot look shipshape–”
“O, Archie!” cried the girls, “you beautiful boy!”
“Don’t interrupt,” said the beautiful boy sternly. “I am going to vindicate myself. Polly Osgood, didn’t that tennis game Friday morning save you from collapse? How about that little canoe jaunt on the quiet yesterday, Catherine? Bess needed a drive Thursday, and Winifred did more good to the public by singing to me all that hot evening than the rest of you did slaving away over some gooey job or other. Dorcas let me reward her Sunday-school kids by a hay-rack ride, and she went along to take care of us. Agnes and Bertha got interrupted on their way down here one morning, and let themselves be persuaded to take a country walk instead, to show me birds’ nests for a course I’m not ever going to take next year. And as for84Dot,–O, Dot was shamelessly ready to go off any old time with any old body. But you all would have been nervous wrecks by now without me. And you call me names, like an ungrateful populace!”
It was a mirth-provoking series of revelations. “Archie has shown himself a most artistic sly-boots,” said Catherine. “I never had more delicious conscience pangs than I did on that canoe-ride.”
“So it was with me,” declared Polly. “And I never dared say anything sarcastic about the other girls not turning up every time, because I felt so guilty myself.”
“So did I!” cried Bertha and Agnes together.
“Well, so didn’t I!” exclaimed Dot. “I was perfectly free to say all the time that I didn’t intend to spend my whole summer or even ten days of it working harder than I do winters. I move that Archie be given a vote of thanks for introducing the Rest Cure into the Boat Club, and also a vote of admiration for the beauty of his dissimulation.”
“I second the motion,” said Archie himself, “and amend it to include going home. Want any help in locking up, Al?”
“No, thanks,” said Algernon, hearing for the first time a nickname that any fellow might have had applied to himself. “Good night, all of you. I’ll take good care of things, you can count on that.”
As the rest drifted in pairs and threes toward85their homes, a well-content young man set the reading-chairs in their places, put out the low-burning lamps, turned the key in the lock, and walked briskly away, happier than he had ever been.
Even so early, Catherine’s inspiration had shown itself a true one.
“Where you goin’, Algy?”
Algernon, half-way down the walk, turned at these words, high and clear, floating down from upper regions.
In the balcony on the second floor Elsmere, clad airily in white night-drawers, leaned pensively over the railing.
“To the party, you know. Go back to bed, Sonny.”
“But the party is to Peter and Perdita’s, over there,–” with a gesture across the street. “Why do you be goin’ that way?” The fat little arm waved in an opposite direction.
“I’m going to get Catherine. Do go in, now, Elsmere. I’ll tell you all about the party in the morning,” and Algernon hastened down the street, bouncing more than usual in his effort to get out of reach of that penetrating little voice.
“Why,” it called after him, “why? Doesn’t Caffrine know the way to Peter and Perdita’s house? What you goin’ to get herfor?”
87The neighbors on their porches smiled, and Algernon reddened as he rushed along.
Elsmere, abandoned, still draped himself over the railing and watched his brother’s rapid walk.
“Springs!” he murmured at last, as though he had solved a knotty problem. “Algy walks like a spring seat!”
Then with a lighted candle Elsmere proceeded to make some preparations for an evening of festivity. The party at the Osgoods’ was so near that Peter had assured him the music for the porch dancing would reach him even more clearly in his balcony chamber than if he were a really invited guest and on the spot. Peter had further coached him in the method of preparing porches for dancing, and Elsmere had secreted a candle and matches early in the evening, waiting only till Algernon was safely away to apply them. His floor nicely waxed, he curled down in a corner of the balcony to watch the arriving guests, and unexpectedly fell asleep.
“Walk on your heels, why don’t you?”
Algernon, escorting Catherine, made this suggestion as she picked her way across a narrow muddy crossing, her white party skirts gathered in one hand. Catherine, poising with difficulty on the toe of one foot, turned and looked at him.
“It just muddies my heels, and then my heels muddy my skirts. Of course, you boys with88trousers–” then, toppling, she righted herself and leaped across the last puddle.
“Trousers,” said Algernon, getting to her side again, “were worn in Abyssinia as early as–”
Catherine heaved a mighty sigh.
“It’s like going out for a stroll with theCentury Book of Factsto walk with you, Algernon Swinburne,” she declared suddenly. “Do you think in statistics party-nights, even? Haven’t you any uninstructive thoughts for warm evenings?”
Algernon regarded her silently.
“Am I such a bore?” he asked quietly.
Catherine caught her breath. She recalled swiftly her father’s having said: “If Algernon should once find out that he was a bore, it would probably cure him. He has a lot of sense.” And here he was finding it out, on her hands, just because she had, for once, made her groaning comment on his conversation audibly instead of to herself!
It was a serious moment.
“Listen, Algernon,” she said, feeling for words. “I wasn’t very polite to say what I did, but I’m not going to take it back now. It’s really wonderful how you know so much, and people who use the library are appreciating it. But you see, you’ve lived by yourself all these years, accumulating information, and when you get among people you do have a little way of handing it out to them whether they want it or not. It’s as though Mr.89Graham should take potatoes and onions to church and pass them around to the congregation! They might be very nice potatoes and onions! I know how it is, because until Hannah Eldred came and woke me up, I used to do nothing but read poetry and cook, and I know I quoted Shakespeare to the girls when they came to see me, and it made them nervous, so they didn’t come often. Have you ever noticed how Polly does? She’s always interested in what every one says, and she always ‘catches on.’ She doesn’t try to run the conversation, while Dorcas–”
“Dorcas hits you over the head with a club, and then when you’re stunned she sits down on you and talks to the others! Am I like her?”
Catherine laughed outright.
“That’s very ‘wink-ed’ of you, Algernon, as Elsmere would say, but it truly does just about describe it. You never do that way yourself, but you do open up and read aloud, so to speak, in company sometimes, in a way that is disconcerting. Now, what could one say to a statement about Abyssinian trousers, for instance, when one is just peacefully walking along, going to a party?”
Algernon straightened his shoulders.
“Much obliged,” he said briefly. “I’ve been doing a little observing on my own account lately, since I’ve been around with the rest of you so much, and what you tell me fits, all right. I guess I can90cut out the information! I say, doesn’t the Osgood place look fine?”
The great porch at the Osgoods’ “palatial residence,” as the WinstedCourieralways faithfully referred to the house, was alight with square pink lanterns. A long strip of carpet ran out to the sidewalk, and as she stepped upon it, Catherine put her hair back with a quick gesture and smiled up at her tall companion.
“I tell you, I’m proud to make my entrance by the side of the real Librarian of the Winsted City Library.”
“Leave your scarf here, Catriona darling,” said Polly, greeting her guests in the doorway. “You don’t need to prink. Mother, Father, here are Catherine and Algernon.”
Mrs. Osgood came forward and took Catherine’s hand with ceremony. Then she turned to Algernon.
“This is really an occasion. I am delighted, in my new capacity as Trustee, to salute the Founder and the Mainstay of our Library.”
“O!” protested Catherine. “But isn’t it perfectly lovely the way the council did take up with the idea? Was there any hitch at all about it?”
“Not the least,” said Mr. Osgood. “You never saw anything smoother. You young folks certainly struck this town with this library scheme of yours at the psychological moment. The council was all for it. The tax was voted, and directors91appointed as though it had been talked up for years.”
“And Bertha is a trustee,” cried Catherine, seeing Bertha in the group beyond. “O, Bertha dear, do use your influence to keep Algernon in office!”
Everybody laughed at that, and Mrs. Osgood threw up her hands.
“We can’t help ourselves! No one can ever underbid him, except by paying for the privilege. Algernon won’t take a salary.”
Algernon flushed uneasily. “I haven’t earned one yet,” he muttered. “And besides, salaries for public positions–”
Some choice fact was refused utterance there, for Algernon, seeing Catherine’s eye upon him, swallowed his harmless ‘statistic’ and lapsed into silence.
“Where are Bess and Archie?” fussed Polly. “Every one else is here, and we do want to begin dancing. I wonder what can have kept them.”
“Here they are,” called some one. “Hurry up, you two. You’re the latest.”
“We’ve brought our excuse with us,” and Archie set down before Mrs. Osgood a bulky newspaper parcel. Bess, smiling mysteriously, refused to answer inquiries, and when the greetings were over Archie produced a knife and started to cut the string.
“Tell them the story first, Archie,” suggested Bess.
“You think it would be more dramatic? Well,92maybe so, maybe so. Ladies and Gentlemen: I have here a gift for the Winsted Public Library. It comes most appropriately on this evening, when the original supporters of that institution are celebrating their release from its responsibility! Miss Symonds,” indicating Bess with a graceful curve of his thumb, “and myself were proceeding hither to join you. Our way led us past the spacious edifice dedicated now to the Cause of Learning and Recreation, having once been given over to hats, and later still, as many now present remember, to rats! The library is, as some of you are aware, not open on Wednesday evenings. Therefore we were surprised to see standing before the door in an attitude of patient expectancy, a rustic gentleman, bearing in his arm this identical parcel. We hesitated and then remarked courteously to the gentleman that there was small hope of his obtaining satisfaction at that particular portal before to-morrow afternoon. His face fell. Seeing which phenomenon, Miss Symonds,” again the thumb curve, “being of a kindly nature, offered sympathy to the disappointed reader. He opened his heart to us–and also his bundle. It seems he was not there to borrow books, but to bestow blessings. The article herein contained was destined by his wife, its maker, to adorn the library’s walls.”
“He said,” interrupted Bess, “that he was sure we didn’t have anything like it, because his wife93invented it, and he didn’t know as there was another in the world, even. He seemed to think the library was a kind of museum and every one was sending things, and he and ‘wife’ wanted to, too. He was a dear old man. So clean, and he wore a red shawl around his neck this hot night–” Bess tossed her own bare head at the thought, and fanned her pretty white shoulders. “Do show it to them, Archie, and don’t make fun. He really thought we would think it was lovely, and it certainly is unusual.”
“Open it, open it!”
Archie dropped to one knee, cut the string, and, removing one paper after another, lifted slowly a hoop bound in red wool, from which depended twenty fat little birds made of scraps of velvet.
Silence and bewilderment. Then, “What’s it for?” faltered some one.
“We must explain it,” said Bess laughing. “They don’t understand. Neither did we, at first. It’s not for anything. It’s just an ornament, a beautiful parlor ornament. And you hang it from the chandelier and set it swinging. So!” She illustrated and the gay little birds bobbed merrily up and down.
“They are hung on spiral wires of different lengths, you see, to make them more lifelike and natural.”
Every one was full of delight and amusement now, and one hand after another poked the poor94little birds till they bobbed to a degree dangerous to their shoe-button eyes.
“It’s a variation of the Japanese wind-bell motif,” said Mrs. Osgood. “But I shall wish I were not a trustee, if I must act on such problems as that.”
Algernon took the hoop and put it back into its wrappings.
“I’ll write and thank him,” he said, “and I don’t see any objection to it. The children will love it. I know Elsmere would.”
“We can keep it up for a while and not hurt his feelings,” said Bertha, and as Polly at the piano began to play a waltz, the boys chose partners and the porch filled with dancing couples.
It proved, however, rather warm for dancing. Polly and Winifred took turns at the piano, but before long every one was willing to sit and rest.
“Play that pretty last one again, Polly, and let us listen,” begged Bess. “It’s too warm to stir, but you play that so beautifully.”
Polly obligingly seated herself at the piano once more in the broad open window. The light tripping music, unmarred by the sound of sliding feet, floated over the lawn and across the street and up into the Swinburne balcony. Suddenly the lazy group on the Osgood veranda caught sight of a flickering flame high in the neighboring house. Algernon started up, but Bertha restrained him.
95“Watch!” she said. “It’s Elsmere. I saw him.”
The candle was stuck upon the railing of the balcony. Then capering about, in little white night-drawers, to the sound of the music, Elsmere danced, bare-toed, upon his well-waxed floor, the unconscious observed of all observers. Applause long and hearty rewarded his efforts, and also brought Maggie to the rescue. As she pounced upon him and knocked the sputtering candle to the ground, Peter and Perdita, splendid in starched white linen, appeared in the doorway behind “the party” and invited every one to come and draw bows and arrows.
Peter held a quiver of arrows, tied with bright ribbons “for the ladies.” His sister at his side offered “the gentlemen” a fine assortment of bows, with varicolored bow-strings. Bows and arrows mated, the hunters marched in pairs to the screened-in breakfast room, looking out over the river.
At each end of the table was a chafing-dish, and in the center was a huge cabbage surmounted by two natural-looking bunnies.
Each marksman tried his luck, and the cabbage was soon riddled, but it was reserved for Bert, with Dorcas’ arrow, to knock one rabbit over backward. Thereupon Bert and Dorcas were immediately swathed in great aprons and installed behind the chafing-dishes to show their skill as cooks. Fortunately both were competent, and though96much hampered by advice and witticisms, by the time Peter and Perdita had passed the rabbit salad, radishes and olives interspersed with artichokes and little china bunnies, the critical moment had passed, and creamy messes were ready to be ladled forth upon wafers, and consumed in eloquent silence.
When, at last, there was nothing left but a few leathery strings, and even Archie declared his spirit alone was willing, Polly rapped on the table with the handle of a big spoon and called the meeting to order.
“Miss Smith has an announcement to make.”
Everybody looked at Catherine. Her eyes were shining and her face was all aglow with pleasure.
“I’m going to have company and I want you all to know it, and come and get acquainted.”
“Who is it?” asked some one.
“The rest of the Wide Awake girls.”
“What?” “All of them?” “All of you together?” “Not the German one?” “Is Hannah Eldred coming?”
The girls all talked together, and the boys looked mystified.
“I wish some one would enlighten me,” said Max helplessly. “Who are the Wide Awake girls?”
“Why, Max! Didn’t you ever takeWide-Awake?”
“The magazine? Sure thing. What of it? Does97Catherine want us to subscribe? After an ivory manicure set or a lawn-mower premium?”
“No, no. Listen, Max, and any of the rest of you who are so ignorant as not to know about the Wide Awake girls. Hannah Eldred advertised for friends once, and Catherine and a little girl in Germany and one out West answered. And the German one proved to be the daughter of a long-lost friend of Hannah’s mother, and the one out West turned up at Dexter, rooming next door, when she went there, and now she rooms with Catherine. Did you ever hear such a tale in your life? If you were to read such a string of facts in a book, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“No more you would,” commented Max. “I’m not at all sure I believe it, as it is. Are they all coming at once, Catherine?”
“Not quite. Hannah and Frieda will be here in a week or two, and Alice as soon after as she can. They are all of them thedearestgirls!”
“Pretty?” asked Archie.
“Wait and see,” laughed Catherine. “They’ll make their own impression, but I want you all to be friends as we are.”
“We’ll do our best to entertain them,” said Bert. “Distinguished foreigners don’t come our way every day. I move you, Madam President, that we make these Wide Awake young ladies honorary members of the Club.”
98The motion was put and carried with a round of applause, and a few minutes later the Boat Club meeting was informally adjourned.
Algernon, reaching home at midnight, stole into his brother’s room and hung the bird-hoop near his bedside. With characteristic perverseness Elsmere, a sound sleeper by day, was easily wakened at night, and, as Algernon slipped out of the room, he sat up and watched the birds bobbing in the moonlight. Presently he dropped back on his pillow, sleepily content.
“Springs!” he said, “like Algy walks.”
PART TWO
THE COMING OF FRIEDA
On the day of Polly’s party, far away in the village of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, some one was thinking of the young people of Winsted and their library undertaking.
A tall woman walked swiftly along the road toward Freshwater, enjoying its charming variety, the sudden glimpses of sea beyond the chalk cliffs, the quaint cottages and lanes, and at a certain bend the trees she loved better than all the rest, with ivy running over the ground and up the mighty trunks. There was a radiance about Clara Lyndesay which seemed to make whatever she looked upon more beautiful than it had been before. No one had ever been able to analyze it, to decide how much was due to the sunny hair, how much to the blue eyes, and the smile that suggested sweet wistful things that never could be told, and how much to her own deep inner peace. “The beauty of you certainly helps the goodness make its impression,” Dr. Helen said to her once, “and yet I am half inclined to believe that it is the goodness that makes the beauty!”
102Just now there was no analyst at hand, no one, in fact, but a stout small boy, driving a butcher’s cart. He felt the force of the charm, however uncritically, and grabbed his cap from his head as he drew up beside the lady.
“The landlady down there asked me to give you these here, thank you!” He handed out two letters, and then clucked to his horse in an embarrassed fashion as Miss Lyndesay thanked him.
“They came after you left, and she said you’d be wanting them, thank you!” And he drove on, leaving the source of his emotion quite unconscious of him or it, intent upon opening the first of the letters.
“They are too long to read as I walk,” she said, and chose a comfortable secluded spot to sit. “Let me think. It was a year ago in March that I saw Hannah first, there at Three Gables, when she had just come back from Germany, and was homesick and missed her mother so. She did Catherine as much good as Catherine did her. They are a pair of charming children, as different as April and October. I think I will save Hannah’s letter for the last. It’s sure to be exciting, and Catherine’s should be read in a calm spirit.” Accordingly she opened Catherine’s and glancing with a smile over the tabulated statement of the health of the various members of the family, regularly included since her complaint that no such information103was ever granted her, began to read the letter proper:
“Dearest Aunt Clara:“Algernon is away at a district meeting. I believe that is what he calls it. He is quite elated over the opportunity and Polly and I are taking charge of the library while he is gone. I hardly see Algernon any more. He is so busy all the time, and he is simply sought after. People seem to think he is an infallible authority, now that he is librarian, and he does seem to know everything. He reads everything and has an intelligent way of telling what you want to know. I’m quite impressed by him, myself. Of course, he talks technicalities a lot, and he acts grieved sometimes because the rest of us don’t take the library quite so seriously as he does. The others are rather tired of it by now, except Polly and Bertha and Agnes. I really enjoy it, and I come in often nowadays, because I know when Hannah and Frieda get here, I won’t have so much time for it. The children are fond of Algernon and he remembers the funny things they say and tells them–(it’s the first time he ever had anything amusing to say on any subject!)–Peter Osgood wantedThe Wail of the Sandal Swag, and a little girl asked forTimothy Squst. (If that’s how you spell it. It rhymed with ‘crust.’) The children aren’t the only funny104ones. A man came in this afternoon and asked forEdith Breed, and it proved he wantedHe That Eateth Bread With Me, and one forlorn-looking creature handed me a slip of paper withDoan the Darkwritten on it, and she meantJoan of Arc!“Later.I had to stop there to wait on a whole group. I don’t understand why they always come in hordes. They don’t seem to be connected at all, but there are always times when there is no one here and then suddenly an influx.“Just now the room is empty again. I wish you could see it. It is a dear little room and now that it is being really used, doesn’t have that bare look it had at first. We fixed up a darling Children’s Corner, with some child pictures cut from a magazine and framed, and a little round table Polly used to have, and my own little rocker. The window is a sunny one, and the little curtains look so fresh and dainty. Almost always there is some child or other sitting there looking at pictures or reading.“Later again.Dearest, dearest Aunt Clara! My eyes are all full of happy tears. I can’t write clearly. I came home from the library a little tired and quite willing to let Polly take it for the evening. And here on the porch was the box, the blessed box, addressed to me. Of course, I wasn’t too tired to open it! O, you dear darling! We have needed color in that bare little place so much, and here is this beautiful glowing picture just full of story105suggestions. There never was a child born who could look at that, and not go dreaming off into all sorts of fairy tales. It makes me so happy to think you care enough about our little library to give your own beautiful work. I wanted to go right down and hang it, but I called Polly up on the ’phone and she came over, and said I should keep it this evening to look at, and we’d hang it when Algernon comes back to-morrow. She is delighted, too, and Algernon will be, and he will send you a formal letter of thanks, but nobody can be so pleased as I am, because you are my almost-truly aunt, you know.“I do hope you can feel the thanks I’m sending you across all that big salt water!”
“Dearest Aunt Clara:
“Algernon is away at a district meeting. I believe that is what he calls it. He is quite elated over the opportunity and Polly and I are taking charge of the library while he is gone. I hardly see Algernon any more. He is so busy all the time, and he is simply sought after. People seem to think he is an infallible authority, now that he is librarian, and he does seem to know everything. He reads everything and has an intelligent way of telling what you want to know. I’m quite impressed by him, myself. Of course, he talks technicalities a lot, and he acts grieved sometimes because the rest of us don’t take the library quite so seriously as he does. The others are rather tired of it by now, except Polly and Bertha and Agnes. I really enjoy it, and I come in often nowadays, because I know when Hannah and Frieda get here, I won’t have so much time for it. The children are fond of Algernon and he remembers the funny things they say and tells them–(it’s the first time he ever had anything amusing to say on any subject!)–Peter Osgood wantedThe Wail of the Sandal Swag, and a little girl asked forTimothy Squst. (If that’s how you spell it. It rhymed with ‘crust.’) The children aren’t the only funny104ones. A man came in this afternoon and asked forEdith Breed, and it proved he wantedHe That Eateth Bread With Me, and one forlorn-looking creature handed me a slip of paper withDoan the Darkwritten on it, and she meantJoan of Arc!
“Later.I had to stop there to wait on a whole group. I don’t understand why they always come in hordes. They don’t seem to be connected at all, but there are always times when there is no one here and then suddenly an influx.
“Just now the room is empty again. I wish you could see it. It is a dear little room and now that it is being really used, doesn’t have that bare look it had at first. We fixed up a darling Children’s Corner, with some child pictures cut from a magazine and framed, and a little round table Polly used to have, and my own little rocker. The window is a sunny one, and the little curtains look so fresh and dainty. Almost always there is some child or other sitting there looking at pictures or reading.
“Later again.Dearest, dearest Aunt Clara! My eyes are all full of happy tears. I can’t write clearly. I came home from the library a little tired and quite willing to let Polly take it for the evening. And here on the porch was the box, the blessed box, addressed to me. Of course, I wasn’t too tired to open it! O, you dear darling! We have needed color in that bare little place so much, and here is this beautiful glowing picture just full of story105suggestions. There never was a child born who could look at that, and not go dreaming off into all sorts of fairy tales. It makes me so happy to think you care enough about our little library to give your own beautiful work. I wanted to go right down and hang it, but I called Polly up on the ’phone and she came over, and said I should keep it this evening to look at, and we’d hang it when Algernon comes back to-morrow. She is delighted, too, and Algernon will be, and he will send you a formal letter of thanks, but nobody can be so pleased as I am, because you are my almost-truly aunt, you know.
“I do hope you can feel the thanks I’m sending you across all that big salt water!”
Clara Lyndesay’s own eyes misted a little.
“That little study isn’t deserving of such glowing words,” she said to herself. “Now I must see what my other childie has to say. Their letters are growing more similar. Catherine’s association with other girls is giving her a more open manner, and Hannah is growing a bit more mature. Still,–” her eyes fell upon the wild slant of the writing before her, “I suspect she never will be quite grown up, and this particular time she doesn’t show the maturity alarmingly! This letter looks as excited as the one she wrote from Dexter when she was upset about sororities last year.”