Maida Vale

“ Often after dinner, the W.M.N.T.’s would call in a body on Maida. Then would follow long hours of such fun that Maida hated to hear the clock strike nine. Always there would be molasses-candy making by the capable Rosie at the kitchen stove and corn-popping by the vigorous Arthur on the living-room hearth. After the candy had cooled and the pop corn had been flooded in melted butter, they would gather about the hearth to roast apples and chestnuts and to listen to the fairy-tales that Maida would read. ”

“ Maida assured him. “The Lang Fairy Books and Grimm and Andersen, George McDonald and Louisa M. Alcott and Howard Pyle and Stevenson and Kipling, and all the nicest books that father and Billy Potter and Dr. Pierce and I could think of. And lots more that they selected that I had never heard of.”
From the library, they went out doors through the little vine-covered vestibule.
From upstairs came the voice of Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore putting the younger children to bed.
“We three girls,” Maida explained, “have rooms at the front of the house on the second floor. ”

“ Silva Burle ... this morning ... she was on her bicycle ... man just learning to run an automobile ... knocked her off ... picked up senseless.... It happened in front of Fosdick house ... took her in ... there now....”
“How is the poor choild?” Maida heard Granny ask compassionately.
“Nothing broken,” Laura answered eagerly, “but it was a long time before she came to.”
“She’s not unconscious any longer,” Rosie concluded the story. “She’s asleep, but she moans and mutters all the time.”
Maida listened, horrified. She felt that she ought to go downstairs and talk with the girls. ”

“ Good-bye, Maida, for this time.”
He went away to the train, and later, came Keefe and Genevieve Lane.
“Oh,” the girl cried, “I’m so glad to be back here again, Maida. My, but you’re prettier than ever! If you’d only touch up those pale cheeks—just a little bit—here, let me——”
She opened her ever-ready vanity box, and was about to apply a touch of rouge, but Maida sprang away from her.
[251]
“No, no, Genevieve, I never use it.”
“Silly girl! You don’t deserve the beauty nature gave you, if you’re not willing to help it along a little yourself! How do you do, Mrs. Wheeler and Mr. Wheeler?” ”

“ But she wrapped Maida up, as Maida herself said: “As if I was one of papa’s carved crystals come all the way from China.”
First Granny put on a sweater, then a coat, then over all a raincoat. She put a hood on her head and a veil over that. She made her wear rubber boots and take an umbrella. Maida got into a gale of laughter during the dressing.
“I ought to be wrapped in excelsior now,” she said. “If I fall down in the puddle in the court, Granny,” she threatened merrily, “I never can pick myself up. ”

“ For one astounded instant nobody could speak.
“Oh Maida!” at last Rosie breathed. The two girls threw themselves upon her; Arthur rose and then suddenly sat down again but Dicky kept quite still his eyes full of stars. “I knew you’d have some plan, Maida,” he said. Harold, unexpectedly, turned a somersault.
“I know I’m dreaming,” Laura almost whispered.
The horn stopped. A great gray car turned into Primrose Court. A man, middle-aged, tall, massive and with a pronounced stoop to his shoulders, stepped out. He turned a head, big and shaggy as a buffalo, in the direction of Maida’s Little Shop. ”

“ Maida has your own unbreakable will.”
“So be it, then. The child must choose for herself. But it doesn’t alter the stand Dan and I have taken.”
“Nothing can alter that?”
“Nothing, Samuel Appleby.”
“That remains to be seen. Have I your permission to talk to Maida, alone?”
“Certainly. Why not? If you can persuade her to marry Jeff, I’ll be only too glad. If you find her determined to stand by her father, then the case remains as it is at present.”
[60]
And so, as Maida returned from her walk with Keefe, she was asked to go for another stroll with Samuel Appleby. ”

“ All the trouble began because Maida was such a little girl. She was just big enough to know how little she was, and she didn’t like being a little girl at all. She wanted to be grown up. She told me so herself. She had reasons, too, oh so many. To3 begin with, there was ICE-CREAM. Maida loved ICE-CREAM. She could never get enough. ”

“ A poor girl has got to do the best she can for herself in this cold world. Well, I’m going to corral one of the three: old man Appleby, young man Appleby, or Curt Keefe.”
“Which one, for choice?” Maida still spoke lightly.
“You don’t think I’m in earnest, but I am. Well, I’d rather have young Sam. Next, I’d choose his father; and, lastly, I’m pretty sure I could nail Curtie Keefe.”
Maida couldn’t help her disapproval showing in her face, but she said: “It isn’t just the way I’d go about selecting a husband, but if it’s your way, all right. Can I help you?” ”

“ Perhaps no girl as lovely as Maida ever thought less of her own charm. She believed that the one interest which had held her to the world and given her strength to resist the Head Sister's persuasions was a false star. It came into her mind that the best way to forget would be to promise, as her friend the grey lady had begged her to do, that she would become a life member of the Sisterhood. ”

“ Dicky admitted it. “But the swimming and the canoeing and the tennis, too,” he added as though a little jealous for these new sports of his. “But of course the white peacocks most— Well, if Arthur thinks the deer are like adventure stories I think the peacocks are like all the fairy stories in the world come true. What do you enjoy most, Maida?”
[Pg 253]
Maida thought carefully. “Everything! Having all of you here.”
“Oh but what special thing, Maida?” Rosie pleaded. “There’s always one thing you like better than others.”
“Betsy’s badness, then,” Maida admitted. ”

“ Maida said joyously. “I hope she’ll do something naughty every day.”
“Queer how you love a naughty child,” Dick said musingly. “They’re an awful lot of trouble but you can’t help liking them. Has Tim Doyle fallen into the puddle yet?”
“Yes, just a little while ago.”
“He’s always falling in mud puddles. I guess if Molly fishes him out once after a rain, she does a half a dozen times.”
“Do come and see me, Dicky, won’t you?” [Pg 81] Maida asked when they got to the shop door. “You know I shall be lonely when all the children are in school and—then besides—you’re the first friend I’ve made.” ”

“ Dicky breathed.
“Are we going to live there?” Rosie asked in an awed tone.
“Oh mercy no!” Maida answered. “That’s father’s house—the Big House. Our house is ever so much nicer.”
“I hope it isn’t any bigger,” Laura said, her voice a little awed too.
Maida laughed a little. “No it’s not quite as big as that,” she admitted.
“Shall I go on, Miss Maida?” Botkins asked.
“Yes, please Botkins,” Maida answered. And they continued to go on through more winding, geometrically perfect, beautifully-kept, gray roads; past armies and armies of trees: high, plumy-tipped, feathery-trunked aristocratic elms ”

“ Red was her color. Maida sat by the window in her old cheviot skirt and blue waist darning a st—. Oh, doing fancy work.
“Why, goodness me! ain’t you dressed yet?” shrilled the red one. “How does it fit in the back? Don’t you think these velvet tabs look awful swell? Why ain’t you dressed, Maida?”
“My dress didn’t get finished in time,” said Maida. “I’m not going to the dinner.”
“That’s too bad. Why, I’m awfully sorry, Maida. Why don’t you put on anything and come along—it’s just the store folks, you know, and they won’t mind.”
“I was set on my purple,” said Maida. ”

“ I think I’d rather tend shop than do anything else in the world.”
Billy Potter smiled all over his pink face. He followed Mr. Westabrook and Dr. Pierce into the drawing-room.
Maida went upstairs with Granny Flynn.
Granny Flynn had come straight to the Westabrook house from the boat that brought her from Ireland years ago. She [Pg 25] had come to America in search of a runaway daughter but she had never found her. She had helped to nurse Maida’s mother in the illness of which she died and she had always taken such care of Maida herself that Maida loved her dearly. ”

“ As for Maida, her confidence in the veiled woman at the head of the Sisterhood was apparently unbroken. Judging from the little I could find out, she was irritatingly happy in her work among rescued women and children, at the lonely old house on Long Island. No doubt there were genuine cases cared for, which made it hard to prove anything crooked, especially to a girl so high-minded. ”

“ Late in the afternoon, they sprinkled the flower beds and hosed the lawn for Mrs. Lathrop. Then as this made further sitting on the grass impossible, they retired to the tiny Dore yard with its amusing little flower bed and its one patch of grass. There was just about room for their group there. They sat down. Again they asked Maida about her travels. But now Maida was distinctly absent-minded. Suddenly in the midst of a description of Pompeii, there sounded a long, faint far-away call of an automobile horn. It broke, like a fire-rocket, into a flurry of star notes ”

“ Strange it was and yet it had a familiar ring; the strangeness was its weakness and its breathlessness.
“I am Maida Westabrook.”
“Listen! I must talk quick. They will be [Pg 225] back and stop me. I am Silva Burle. They think I am asleep. I have tried to tell them. They won’t listen. They think I am raving. I’m not. I’ve got my senses. My baby sister, Nesta, is in a cave on the other side of the lake. Tyma is away. There’s nobody to feed her. She’ll starve—”
“I found her this afternoon, Silva,” Maida interrupted. “She’s upstairs in the Little House now—fast asleep.” ”

“ But you must peep in if you would understand the history that will follow.
Look; there is Maida, beaming her loveliest. Her eyes are radiant with joy, as she listens to a gentleman who is talking to her: what he says you cannot tell; there are those who know; let them tell who have learnt how to overcome artlessness with art.
Look again.
As a dissolving view the scene has changed, but the figures are the same. Maida is weeping. Her face depicts great mental agony—his face just such anxiety as a person would feel on seeing a long-sought treasure within hand-grasp. ”

“ As Rosie disappeared with her sleeping burden, Laura appeared at the stairs carrying a tray.
“Hop back into bed, Maida Westabrook,” she said serenely. “You’re going to have your breakfast in bed this morning—like a princess.” ”

“ I wondered whether I should wake Maida, and get her to go with me, but somehow I wasn't in the mood for Maida. I was afraid that, being in a monastery, she would be thinking of her precious Sisterhood and wanting to hurry back as fast as she could. She does mean to join when her year is up, I know, which is so silly of her, when the world's such a nice place ”

“ After a while, Rosie taught Maida to jump in the big rope with a half a dozen children at once. Maida never tired of this. When [Pg 205] she heard the rope swishing through the air, a kind of excitement came over her. She was proud to think that she had caught the trick—that something inside would warn her when to jump—that she could be sure that this warning would not come an instant too soon or too late. The consciousness of a new strength and a new power made a different child of her. It made her eyes sparkle like gray diamonds. It made her cheeks glow like pink peonies. ”

“ Maida protested, “tramps didn’t do it. There are never any tramps in Satuit.”
The children started their search. They [Pg 151] looked behind trees and under bushes; but they showed a tendency to keep together. They talked the matter over, but instinctively their voices lowered. They kept glancing over their shoulders. They found nothing.
“It’s like Magic,” Maida commented in a still voice. “You were saying, Rosie, that you wished you could see some fairies or goblins. It looks to me as though the goblins had stolen our lunch.”
Arthur alone did not leave the clearing. ”

“ Rosie’s tone was still scornful. “I don’t believe, even if you did go to school, that you’d ever do anything bad. You’d never be anything but a fraid-cat and teacher’s pet.”
“I guess I’d be so glad to be there, I’d do anything the teacher asked,” Maida said dejectedly. “I do a lot of things that bother Granny but I guess I never have been a very naughty girl. You can’t be very naughty with your leg all crooked under you.” Maida’s voice had grown bitter. ”

“ What a queer little chap that boy of Stone’s is!”
“Fibsy?” and Maida smiled. “Yes, he’s a case! And he’s my devoted slave.”
“As who isn’t?” exclaimed Appleby. “Oh, Maida, do give me a little encouragement. After this awful business is all over, mayn’t I come back with a hope that you’ll smile on me?”
“Don’t talk that way, Sam. You know I’m engaged to Jeffrey.”
“Oh, no, you’re not. I mean, it can be possible for you to change your mind. Girls are often engaged to several men before they marry.”
“I’m not that sort,” and Maida smiled a little sadly. ”

“ Dicky was fast changing to the color of a coffee bean and Arthur threatened to become pitch-black. As for the Little Six, Maida said they were “just colonies of freckles”; and colonies in which layer had grown on layer.
“I can’t believe you are the same children I saw in the city a little over two weeks ago,” Buffalo Westabrook remarked on his second visit. “First I was afraid you were working too hard. When Maida sent me the program of your work, it looked to me as if you were undertaking altogether too much, but you certainly thrive on it.”
“Well we play more than we work,” Rosie explained. ”