Katherine Keene Galt

“ That night he came up to show Rosanna how to put her puppy to bed for the night, and when the little fellow at last snuggled down in his basket, and went to sleep, Uncle Robert settled down in his favorite chair and lighted a cigarette and wanted to hear all the news.
“What shall I start with?” asked Rosanna, listening to the soft breathing of the little collie.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Uncle Robert. “Begin with Miss—er Gwenny.”
“Why, you needn’t call her Miss,” said Rosanna. “You never used to! I thought first you were going to say begin with Miss Hooker.” ”

“ She has everything.”
“Why has she?” asked Elise. “She has nothing that you have not. She has your most dear papa; so have you. You both have a most lovely home, everything beautiful, friends, comfort. You are safe in a great land, where no enemy may come and keel all you love. You have both the same things. You share them.” She sat thinking. “Yes, she is the one to be sorry for, because she is so disappoint. When she go to marry your père, she have something promised that she never gets and so she is full of mournsomeness.”
“She has everything papa can get for her,” said Lucy bitterly. ”

“ And she is not trained, you know, to do special work like typewriting, or anything that is well paid, so she has to be a practical nurse and things like that.”
“Aren’t all nurses practical?” asked Rosanna, a frown of perplexity on her brow.
“Trained nurses are not,” replied Helen. “Trained nurses get thirty and forty dollars a week and a practical nurse gets seven or eight, and works harder. But you see she never had a chance to get trained. It takes a long time, like going to school and graduating, only you go to the hospital instead.” ”

“ I am so sick of everything the way it is.”
“Of course you are!” said Elise. “One is always seek of wrong. It makes a blackness over everything.”
“What will I do? How will I begin?”
“I cannot tell you,” said Elise. “You will know what to do. Something will tell you. Something always tells. I think it is le bon Dieu. Just trust and you will know what to do and to say. Come, let us go. I hear the meeting talking itself down the stairs. Is your car waiting?”
“Yes,” said Lucy dully as she allowed Elise to lead her through the store. “Oh, Elise, I don’t love her, and I don’t know what to do!” ”

“ Mrs. Horton gave a sigh of relief. “I can’t thank you enough, my dearest girl,” she said. “No one wants to make your life as happy as I do, and if there is anything I can ever do for you, you have only to tell me. Now we must have everything new in the rooms you want, so we will go down and tell Robert and Rosanna. How glad that child will be!”
Rosanna was tired and very nervous, and when Mrs. Horton and Miss Hooker came down with their great plan, Rosanna once more, to her own horror, commenced to cry. ”

“ As soon as everything was arranged quite to their satisfaction, they were going to be married, and Minnie vowed that she could never get married unless she could have a real wedding with bridesmaids and all, and she had a scheme! By the way she rolled her eyes and her young man chuckled, it seemed as though it must be a very wonderful scheme indeed, but although all three girls hung around her neck and teased, not another word would she say. Minnie had two little sisters who were about the ages of Rosanna and Elise and Helen, but they did not know what the scheme was either. ”

“ A row of Girl Scouts in crisp, natty looking uniforms, marching according to size, so that the large girls were in the center of the stage, came 64 out before the curtain and sang one of their best Girl Scout songs. Their voices were so sweet and they sang so well that they had to return and give an encore. Mr. Harriman pounded with his cane.
Then the Webster girls, dressed as fairies, came out and danced what the program called the Moonbeam Dance, and behold, Uncle Robert had fixed a spot light so they looked pink and white and purple and blue by turns and it was like a real theatre. ”

“ Horton with surpassing 166 wisdom had not asked them to go right to bed. She too was awake, dreaming long dreams.
Presently Elise spoke. “So much of happiness makes me sad,” she said.
“Well, it is all over,” sighed Rosanna.
“Not at all!” cried Elise. “What could be over? Not Meeses Horton, who is just beginning. Not us, who have so many, many works to do. Not Gwenny who steps into a new life. Just see all those stars. They shine and sparkle always, no matter what goes on down here.”
“You sound like a little sermon, Elise dear,” said Helen, smiling. ”

“ Miss Hooker lived blocks away from Helen, in the opposite direction, but as the older people said nothing, Rosanna kept silence. At all events the benefit was over, and her Uncle Robert would no longer feel obliged to spend all his time with a mere girl, because no matter how lovely, Rosanna knew that he didn’t care for girls.
A number of girls ranging in age from twelve to sixteen were busy repeating in a number of homes that night just how they had felt at different times during the evening, and explaining to less fortunate brothers and sisters how good everything had tasted afterwards. ”

“ Auntie said, ‘Well, Lucy, what do you think of the news?’ I said, ‘It is nothing to us; we can keep in our rooms most of the time.’
“‘I can’t,’ said Aunt Mabel, ‘because I shall leave when she comes. Not that I have the slightest objection, but all the same off I go. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but Henry waited so long that I hoped he was going to let well enough alone. But men are all alike!’ And she did go, Elise, the very day before papa brought the lady home. ”

“ What a dreadful disappointment it would be for Gwenny and indeed all the family down to Baby Christopher!
The two young men heard her out. Then Uncle Robert said:
“I don’t know the exact reason, but it seems that you cannot work with these Girl Scouts if you are a parent. Are you a parent, Rick?”
“Please don’t tease, Uncle Bobby,” said Rosanna pleadingly. “It is only that we Scout girls are supposed to try to do things ourselves without expecting all sorts of help from our mothers and fathers—and grandmothers and uncles,” she added rather pitifully. ”

“ Harriman again. “So you want me to come to your show, do you? Haven’t been to a show for forty years! No good! Silly!”
“Ours isn’t,” declared Helen, suddenly finding her voice. “Our entertainment is perfectly splendid!”
“Perfectly splendid!” mimicked Mr. Harriman. “Sounds just like a woman! All alike, regardless of age. Grrrrrr!”
“You will come, won’t you?” asked Rosanna. “Please do! You see it is only a nickel if you do not think it is worth more.”
“A great many persons are going to pay a quarter,” hinted Helen. ”

“ Elise sighed. “It is so sad,” she declared. “Do the robber taxes attack her also?”
“No; she has nothing to attack,” laughed Helen.
“Is Mees Gwenny a Girl Scout?” asked Elise.
“No, but her sister Mary is. She went in about the time Rosanna joined, but she does not belong to our group. They live in another part of the city.”
“Will my allowance help?” asked Elise. “I will give it so gladly. Ma maman is so good, so generous! I never can spend the half. I save it to help a little French child, but surely if Mees Gwenny is your dear friend and she suffers——”
“She suffers all right,” declared Helen. ”

“ After the usual formalities of a meeting, Captain Hooker desired the girls’ full attention. She held a formidable sheaf of notes in her hand, and it looked to the Scouts as though there was going to be a good deal of work parcelled out to them.
“In the first place,” said their Captain, “I have asked the approval of the National Headquarters, and you are at liberty to send a Thanks badge to Doctor Branshaw. Now you have not yet sent him any formal thanks for what he did for Gwenny and I wonder if any of you have an idea of some attractive way of expressing your gratitude.” ”

“ You know.
“Oh, Lucee, dear, dear Lucee, there is one thing you must give to her, right now today quick.”
108
“What is that?” said Lucy, startled by Elise’s vehemence.
“LOVE!” cried Elise, her sweet voice thrilling. “Love! So easy, so sweet! Please, my Lucee, do not turn away. I know I am right on account of the oldness in my heart. That tells me. Think how most glad your own mother is to have the pretty one taking such good care of your papa and of you. Does she select your clothes?”
“Yes,” said Lucy.
“They are always the prettiest,” said Elise. ”

“ You can’t see to think through them the way they are,” and as Helen looked on, expecting to see Rosanna snapped in two any second, she held out her hand for the glasses, shaking out a clean pocket handkerchief as she did so. No one was more surprised than Mr. Harriman himself when he took off the smeary spectacles and handed them to Rosanna, who silently polished them and handed them back. They were better; Mr. Harriman acknowledged it with a grunt.
“Girls are real handy,” said Rosanna with her sweet smile. ”

“ And she is such a good Captain. Every girl in the patrol loves her and will do anything in the world for her.”
Seeing that Uncle Robert appeared to be listening, Rosanna went on warming to her subject.
“At the Rally, I heard one of the ladies say that our Captain was considered the best one in all the 75 city. And she looks so young; just like one of the girls when she gets into her Scout uniform. When we are on hikes, she runs around and plays with us and joins all our games. Oh, yes, Uncle Robert, I do love her dearly!” ”

“ The various uncles who did like girls she noticed had a way of marrying one of them and leaving home for good. That was a poor plan, thought Rosanna, as she felt the silence in the big old house. No number of girls could make the whistly noises Uncle Robert could when he ran upstairs three steps at a time or dashed down again. No one but Uncle Robert could tootle so entrancingly on the flute, or pick out such funny records for the Victrola. No one in the world would think to bring one a box of candy and leave it hidden in his hat, or just outside the 118 door for one to find after dinner. ”

“ Perhaps if these good, kind young ladies succeed in fixing a wedding day, say before Christmas, I won’t have to buy you any Christmas present.”
“I don’t want to be married before Christmas,” wailed Cita, looking appealingly at the girls.
Rosanna nodded her head understandingly, and the three girls left the room.
“When will we set it?” asked Helen. “Do they really mean that we are to do so?”
“Tell him we have decided on the fifteenth of February,” said Rosanna. “That is the date she has fixed, but he is such a tease that she has been teasing him in return. ”

“ Mother says it is a great and beautiful thing to be a poet, but that you must look out for your digestion.”
“My digestion is all right so far,” said Rosanna. “I am glad to know that, though, because if your mother says so, it must be so.”
“Of course!” said Helen proudly. “When will you begin your play, Rosanna?”
“Right away after dinner,” said Rosanna. “That is, if Uncle Robert goes out. If he stays at home I will have to play cribbage with him. If I go off to my own room, he comes right up. He says he is afraid that I will get to nursing a secret sorrow.” ”

“ Rosanna, driven by a real loneliness to confide in someone, spent much time with Miss Hooker and while Rosanna honestly thought she was attending strictly to Scout business, the conversation was sure to slip around to Uncle Robert. Miss Hooker never appeared to join Rosanna in her talk, but it was surprising what a good listener she proved to be. The only time she said anything was when Rosanna would enlarge on the way Uncle Robert felt about girls. Then Miss Hooker would always assert that she thought he was perfectly right, because she herself thought very little of men. ”

“ People went down the aisles in gaily clad groups, the delicate perfumes of the flowers worn by beautiful women wafting to the girls as they passed. Mrs. Breen’s two brothers and the brothers of the two Girl Scouts who had helped at the benefit were all acting as ushers and they were certainly busy. ”

“ The girls present were widely different in looks, and Elise with her delicate perceptions saw plainly that they belonged in widely differing classes, so called. A few of the girls, Rosanna among them, had the carefully cared for and delicately nurtured look of the very rich. More were like Helen, clean, carefully groomed and almost precise in her dress and accessories. ”

“ People sing and play and recite poetry, and it is lovely. And I thought up something better still.
“What if you and I, Helen, could make up a sort of play all about the Girl Scouts and give it?”
“Write it out of our heads?” said Helen, quite aghast.
“Yes,” said Rosanna. “It is easy. Before grandmother used to let me have little girls to play with, I used to make up plays, oh lots of times!” ”

“ The stockings were filled with popcorn and candy, and a big golden orange gladdened each little heart.
Rosanna worked harder than anyone. School went right on as it always does whether or not Girl Scouts are busy at other things, and every spare moment was spent with the dear little puppy that her uncle had brought her. Mr. Horton still complained to Rosanna about his heart, but was unable to go east as he had planned. He often asked Rosanna if Miss Hooker had returned, although Rosanna had told him a good many times that she did not expect to come back before spring. ”