Edith K. Dunton

“ For Jim had written her that he only hoped he could preserve “the faded shadow of a suspicion of a snuffle” until Eleanor’s arrival. “After that,” he concluded, “I count on my new bull pup, suitors galore, and the diversions of little old New York to blow away any remaining relics of melancholy. When the poor little chap is well enough dad and I will see him through the best trade-school we can find and give him every chance that’s coming to him. Adoring some girls is a thing no fellow can or ought to help.” ”

“ Betty Wales, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her trim little figure enveloped in one of her famous kitchen aprons, stood on a chair in the china closet of Morton Hall, covering the top shelves neatly with sheets of white paper. One of the three richest men in New York, very damp and red in the face from his exertions, was screwing in hooks for pots and pans in the pantry next door. A rising young architect was helping the pretty wife of a distinguished psychology professor wash dishes, ready to put on Betty’s carefully spread papers. ”

“ How shall I make my stepmother love me?”
Betty smiled into Frisky’s melting brown eyes that were fixed upon her so earnestly. “Didn’t Miss Dwight advise you to puzzle that out for yourself, if you wanted to learn how to win over crowds of people later? But I know how I should begin. Call her mother. It almost makes you love a person to call her that. ”

“ Rafael’s brown eyes met hers, clouded with supreme indifference, and his expressive shoulders shrugged coldly.
“Oh, maybe,” he admitted.
“Then what will you do for me? You can’t expect me to amuse you big boys the whole evening, while you do nothing to amuse me in return. This is a club, you know. In a club everybody does something for everybody else.”
“What you like?” demanded Rafael, with suppressed eagerness.
“Yes, what you like?” echoed Pietro, the quarrel between them quite forgotten.
“I’m very fond of pictures,” announced Eleanor gravely. ”

“ Morton laughed gleefully. “You like my surprises, do you? Independently of their being surprises, I mean. When young people build a house they never think of the most important things. For instance, there’s no reason, just because you’re going to have a new house, why you shouldn’t keep to some of the good old ways. Most new houses are no earthly good for little tomboys to play in. Do you hear that, Watson? Too bad I got this place started before I met you. You’d have learned a lot of things about your business if you’d built this house for me.”
“I don’t doubt that, sir,” said Jim dutifully. ”

“ It was a flat-car picnic, in memory of old days. There were ginger-cookies for Roberta, who ate an unbelievable number of them, and chocolate éclairs for everybody, because on the sorrowful senior picnic there had been almost nothing else. This time there was bacon, sliced very thin, to toast on pointed sticks, rolls, some of Bridget’s delicious coffee keeping hot in thermos bottles, a huge chocolate cake, and dozens of little raisin pies—the Tally-ho’s very latest specialty.
“Where is Madeline?” asked Betty, helping to start the fire. ”

“ Betty told her. “The fierce giant eats reckless little ritherums for his breakfast—that’s Mr. Morton. The wise giant laughs at them when they try to show him how to make the house that Jack built—that’s the New York architect. The head of all the giants—that’s Prexy—shakes the paw of the poor little Ritherum kindly, and asks it not to be so silly again as to try to play with giants, and it gets smaller and smaller and smaller——”
“Just exactly like Alice in Wonderland,” put in the Smallest Sister excitedly. ”

“ Mother attracts fascinating, out-of-the-way people, and we’ve always lived among them in an atmosphere of unusual, fascinating happenings. How in the world that little country girl gets hold of it is a mystery to me. She’s never seen such people, or been to their dinners or behind the scenes at their plays. I’ve never even told her much.”
“That’s the mystery of genius,” said Betty, who had thought a great deal about Esther Bond. “You never can explain it.”
“And if you haven’t got it,” said Helena hopelessly, “you can’t get it. I’m not unusual. ”

“ Madeline told him. “Eleanor was always expatiating on the charms of her brother Jim.”
Jim blushed. “That’s all right, but I have a feeling that she’s keener about some other fellow’s charms by this time. Plenty of fellows are certainly keen about hers. But lately she doesn’t pay any attention to them—just goes in for slumming and improving her mind, and now her voice. So give her a good time, and get her excited about your mysterious club, and when she begins on the earnestness of life and the self-improvement business, ring in all Miss Betty’s philanthropies. ”

“ Being, as she picturesquely put it, a Morton Hall girl born too soon, Emily could speak from experience, and she suggested all sorts of things that Betty would never have thought of.
“But that’s all I can do,” she told Betty, when that modest little person declared that Emily, and not she, was surely the ideal secretary. “I can explain what ought to be done, but I couldn’t do it. It takes a person with bushels of tact to manage those girls. Maybe you aren’t as good at planning as Rachel or I. That’s nothing. ”

“ Giuseppi had traveled with his father one summer in a troupe of street musicians; it was his fingers that picked a bit uncertainly at the guitar’s strings, and little Nicolo’s wonderful voice, rising sweet and true above the [Pg 223] others, that led the chorus. But Rafael stood in the centre of the half circle, his angelic face touched with light from a down-stairs window, and the sob and the thrill in the music, that brought a lump to Eleanor’s throat and a mist over her eyes, was all in Rafael’s voice, singing out his love and longing to the cruel lady who would not “haf” him “to mary.” ”

“ Cousin Joe put on slow speed, and leaned forward to stare at Betty in the moonlight. “You’ve pulled off a start that any man might envy you, little girl, and you’re just as pretty and young and jolly as if you’d never touched money except to spend it for clothes [Pg 15] and candy. And you still love fun and look out for fairies, and some day a nice young man—I say, Betty, here’s a long straight stretch. Change seats and see how fast you can tool her up to the Pine Grove Country Club for a cool little supper all around.” ”

“ Betty will hear us all in there together, and know we’ve given her up and come out. Let’s all shout together ‘We give up’!”
So the big house echoed to their chanted “We give up,” and then they repaired to the yellow drawing-room, where Babe sat on a carved oak throne and poured tea, from a wonderful silver pot wreathed with dragons, into cups so fragile that you could have crushed them as you would a flower. There were muffins and crackers and sweet sandwiches and nuts and ginger, all of which tasted very good to the hungry “hiders.” ”

“ Meanwhile our only hope is that she’ll get sick of her play and come to our rescue, and do you know, Betty Wales, I shall be most desperately disappointed if she does.”
Betty laughed. “I suppose she oughtn’t to waste her time on fussy little things like gift-shop specialties if she can really do big things like plays for Agatha Dwight. But she is so splendid at everything.”
“And the moral of that is,” said Mary, “be splendid at everything and you’ll be wanted, no matter how provoking you are at times. ”

“ Betty told him laughingly.
Mr. Morton snorted his indignation. “That responsibility may worry you, but it doesn’t me—not one particle. Now, by the way, don’t be upset by any idiotic remarks of the young architect chap that has this job in charge. Whatever a person wants, he says you can’t have it—that seems to be his idea of doing business. Then after you’ve shown him that your idea of doing business is to do it or know the reason why, he sits down and figures the thing out in great shape. He’s a very smart young fellow, but he hates to give in. ”

“ Betty sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Not every girl is capable of getting much out of college. Well, anyway, there’s always the Thorn to congratulate ourselves on. She’s really turning out to be a very pleasant, helpful person to have in the house.”
Mrs. Post nodded. “She’s your triumph, and Esther Bond is mine. She says she’s been happier down in this room talking to me about my three girls and the weather and the price of eggs and the way the laundry tears our linen than she’s been before in her whole life. ”

“ I want to be myself—to have the use of my own ideas and abilities. I’m tired of selling my brains and my self-respect for a college education that other girls earn easily with their hands. It wasn’t a fair bargain. Of course I shall pay back the money as soon as I can. But [Pg 308] whether I go or stay, I shall be free from now on to be myself—not a nonentity sucked dry to help a rich girl get into Dramatic Club and Philosophical and the Cercle Français, and to make a reputation for the brains her mother admires. Now you understand me, Miss Wales. Tell me what to do.”
Betty hesitated. ”

“ I’ll only say that I’m not delaying in hopes of having an idea for Betty, because I’ve already got one. I think she ought to advertise.”
“How?”
“Why?”
“Sounds as if she was a breakfast food or a patent medicine.”
“She’s an employment bureau at present,” explained Mary serenely, “and when Morton Hall is ready to open she’ll be a house agent. She’s got to let people know that the bulletin-board in the gym basement is a back member, because she has it beaten cold. She impersonates the great and only link between the talented poor and the idle rich in this community.” ”

“ Madeline defied her smilingly. “Before the winter is over you’ll be sitting in a box at my Broadway opening—that is, if I’m magnanimous enough to ask you, after all the beautiful encouragement you’re giving me.”
“But, Madeline”—Mary was nothing if not persistent—“what makes you think you can write a play, when all your stories have come back, except a few of those college ones? A play is any amount harder to write than a short story.” ”

“ Madeline patted Betty’s shoulder encouragingly. “Accept the goods the B. C. A.’s provide. Instead of not earning your salary, my child, you’re going to give the Student’s Aid the biggest kind of a bargain. Besides one small secretary (with curls and a dimple) they’re getting the invaluable assistance of at least six prominent graduates, and any number of influential college girls. If that’s not a run for their money, I should like to know what they want.” ”

“ A little sister to hug one and a big brother to bestow foolishly unqualified admiration are just the very nicest things that a reckless ritherum can have. And who hasn’t felt like a reckless ritherum some time or other?
Mr. Morton was pacing the station platform agitatedly when Betty’s train pulled in.
“Twenty-three minutes late, Miss B. A.,” he panted, rushing up to her. He had always called her that. It stood for Benevolent Adventurer, and some other things. Grasping her bag and her arm, he pulled her down the stairs to his big red touring car. ”

“ But I don’t intend to be just dad’s good-for-nothing son all my life, so I’m bound to keep at it. I hate a quitter just as much as dad does. I can tell you, though, it helps to have a good friend around to talk things over with.”
Betty’s brown eyes grew big and soft, and her voice vibrated with sympathy. “Don’t I know that, Jim? Last year when Madeline and Babbie were both away at once it seemed as if things always went wrong at the Tally-ho, and I used to nearly die, worrying. ”

“ It would be like stealing to take their money for just that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” advised Madeline lazily. “If they want to make it a snap course, isn’t that entirely their affair?”
“Why, Madeline Ayres,” objected Helen Adams solemnly, “it’s a charitable enterprise. I don’t suppose snap courses are exactly wrong, though they never amount to much, and so they waste the time of the ones that take them. But it would be positively wrong for the Student’s Aid to waste its money, when so many more poor girls want educations than can have them.” ”

“ How can mothers ever care more about having dinner parties and dances and going to the opera, Miss Wales, than about playing with their babies and seeing that they’re all right? My mother is like Peter Pan, I think. She will never grow up. And she never liked dolls when she was little, [Pg 64] so naturally she didn’t care to play with us.” Eugenia flushed, suddenly realizing that she was indulging in rather strange confidences. “My mother is a great beauty, Miss Wales, and awfully bright and entertaining. ”

“ Time in Harding is too precious to be wasted.”
Miss Dwight could stay away from New York only two days—“two sweet, stolen days,” she called them. Then she hurried back to the rehearsals, leaving Madeline in Betty’s charge.
“She’s done all that she can for her play now,” she explained, “and she’d far better stay here. She might make us nervous, and she’d certainly make herself miserable. Rehearsals are such contrary things. They’ve gone so abominably up to now that I’m absolutely sure the play will be a hit.” ”

“ We call her Tattle-tale Shirley. How did you ever guess that, Betty? And we don’t associate with her at all. And she cries [Pg 107] into her pillow at night, because she hears us whispering secrets and we leave her out. But, Betty, she ought to have to feel bad. It’s just mean to tell on another girl. Poor Frisky has to walk up and down the tennis-courts alone for her exercise hour, with Kitty Carson watching out of her window to see that she does it. ”

“ Georgia explained, “and the first day we come we’d just be extras, watching to see what our duties would be.”
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Cannon,” urged Fluffy, who was never in the least daunted by opposition. “We’ll accomplish more in an hour than these poor dragged-out girls ever do—even if we don’t understand the difficult art of clerking,” she added maliciously. “And they’ll do more in their afternoons, after they’ve had a chance to rest. What you want is your money’s worth, isn’t it? The best service for the smallest wages. ”

“ Rule Two—Boarding-schools need not apply for assistance.
Rule Three—Matrons shall arrive on time and never be ill.
Rule Four—In short, bothers, fusses, complications, mysteries, worries, and everything else that makes life——”
Betty paused for an adjective, finally decided upon “interesting,” and threw down her pen with a little laugh. “That’s exactly it,” she thought. “Work and bothering and planning are what make life worth living and bring the big things around your way. Some day Morton Hall will run itself, as the Tally-ho does. ”

“ Betty Wales was going home for Christmas—a “ploshkin” income puts life on such a comfortable financial basis! And between Christmas and New Year’s Babe was going to be married. That meant coming half-way back to Harding for the wedding; and it made easier Betty’s sad decision that since the stocking factory was willing to postpone its Christmas party till New Year’s, and since most of the Morton Hall girls would spend their vacations in town, and certainly be very forlorn indeed unless somebody looked after them, it was the duty of Miss B. Wales, Secretary, to come back early and lend a hand. ”