INTRODUCING NERO
It did not seem possible that Manny's school had been successfully
opened two weeks ago! That the girls in her class, at first numbering
eight now counted fourteen, each paying five dollars for the month's
training in domestic science, with lessons three mornings a week.
Fourteen pupils at five dollars each and every single one paid in
advance, while Nancy was acting as class president and Ruth as class
secretary; these were, indeed, auspicious arrangements.
And besides the seventy dollars paid Miss Manners for tuition, the class
members brought their own supplies and were privileged to take them home
with them, in the form of various tempting dishes, "the like of which"
as Nancy expressed it, "never had been seen in Long Leigh before nor
since."
"Maybe you don't know you're a wonder," Ruth remarked very casually to
Nancy, while she, as secretary, was consulting with Nancy as president.
"I can cook better _now_ than I ever expected to in my whole life. And
as for Isabel! She's so enthusiastic, her mother says she has to
restrain her from going into the boarding house business. You should
just taste Belle's 'Cherry Moss.' Um-m-m! It was de-lic-ious!" and Ruth
smacked her lips to the echo. "Her brother Tom wanted to know why we
didn't make up a class for boys. He was in the army, you know, and so
thinks himself very efficiently trained."
"Isn't it great?" Nancy remarked, referring, of course, to the success
of the class. "And for a laggard, an idler and one who positively hated
the very letters that spelled cooking, I think I'm doing pretty well
myself. I made a fudge cake yesterday and mother carried it out to set
before the library ladies, can you imagine that? A cake that _I_ made!
After my heartbreaking experience with the ungreased pans!"
It was very early in the afternoon and Ruth, with Nancy, was putting the
class room in order. She had remained over to lunch as she often did,
and the two chums found pleasure in arranging the white covered tables,
the shining pans, the numbered spoons and other utensils. It was all so
much pleasanter than doing anything in an ordinary kitchen.
The gas range, that was sent in to Miss Manners as a demonstrator's
sample, was majestically white and really quite attractive, if such an
article can be called attractive, and just how Nancy hovered rather
lovingly over it, polishing with the very softest, whitest cloth the
impeccable, enameled surface.
Ruth had been finishing a little memorandum in her oilcloth covered
book. She laid the book down now and strolled over to Nancy. In their
white aprons and white caps, Nancy and Ruth looked too picturesque to be
passed by without compliment.
Ruth wound her arm around Nancy's shoulder. "I wonder," she said, "why
we sometimes think that all play is more fun?"
"I never did," replied Nancy, innocently. "My trouble always has been in
finding enough different things to do." She looked rather pathetically
into the soft gray eyes that were caressing her own darker orbs. There
was no impulsive hugging, nor other ordinary demonstrations of
affections dear to the average emotional girls, for Nancy was not given
to extremes, nor was Ruth addicted to such flagrant sentiment.
The two girls were especially happy just now. Nancy was accomplishing
more, much more, than she had ever hoped to do, with her little shop
that first brought real financial help to her mother, and was now doing
as much for Miss Manners. Besides all this, it was giving the girls
themselves a very useful, as well as enjoyable, summer diversion. Ruth,
although a new friend of Nancy's, had become a very fond friend indeed,
for the frank, original and genuine qualities of Nancy were unmistakable
in their sincerity, and it was easy enough for any girl to love her--if
she could but get near enough to her to know her.
"And you don't think it shows a weakness to be so changeable?" Nancy
asked Ruth. "I just can't seem to be happy unless I'm planning something
new."
"Why, that's--that's a sign of originality," replied Ruth, smoothing
Nancy's cap on her dark hair. "Some day you'll do something wonderful--"
"About the girls," Nancy interrupted. "Don't you think we were fortunate
to get the Riker girls to join the class? They seem to represent the
smart set at Upper Crust Hill, and they brought at least five others
along."
"Nancy, our school is the talk of Long Leigh. Lots of mothers think
their girls should do something useful during the month of August, and
I'd just like to see any mother find a study more useful than
cooking--according to her ideas," said Ruth.
"And Vera is going to take an extra hour for desserts," Nancy went on.
"I can see Vera the pride of her family some day. Such home talent may
be inherited. We haven't any of it in our family, I'm afraid," said
Nancy, regretfully.
"But you've got something more precious," Ruth assured her. "I never saw
three folks so like one person as you three are, and yet you are all
individually different; if you know what I mean."
"I do," said Nancy. "And you're a dear, Ruth. What would I have done out
here without you?"
"Taken the stylish Vivian Riker to your heart," teased Ruth. "She's a
beauty."
There was a stir outside.
"Look who's here!" interrupted Nancy, jumping up and hurrying toward the
door. "Ted! And he's got the threatened new dog with him. Come and see!"
The threatened new dog was indeed being coaxed along by Ted, but he
didn't look exactly new. In fact, his coat was matted and shaggy, his
tail hung down without a bit of "pep" in it, and even his long,
long-haired ears seemed too discouraged to pick up the kindest words Ted
was trying to pour into them.
"Nero!" announced Ted simply, as Nancy opened the door and Ted tried to
push the melancholy Nero in.
"What ails him?" Nancy asked, looking the strange animal over,
critically.
"Just nothin' but lonesome," replied the small boy cryptically.
"He looks pretty--blue," Ruth commented, giving the dog a friendly but
unappreciated pat on his shaggy head.
"Guess you'd be blue too, if you lived where he did," Ted told Ruth.
"That poor dog hadn't a friend in the world until I found him. Here,
Nero, come along and eat," ordered Ted, while Nero followed him toward
the back door through the erstwhile Whatnot Shop and present-time
classroom. "He's a fine dog," the little fellow continued to praise,
"and when I get him all fixed up he'll be a beauty too," he insisted
stoutly.
"Maybe," Nancy almost giggled as she looked after Ted and his dog. "But
when you take him to the beauty shop, Ted, you better get him a real
Russian bob, his hair is long enough to braid," she commented gaily.
"You can laugh," Ted retorted, "but he's a thoroughbred--a one-man dog.
He won't notice you girls. Come on Nero, attaboy," chanted Ted,
importantly.
But being cooks, Nancy and Ruth could do no less than offer to provide
Nero's meal. Each thought he would like something else best, and each
tried the other dish, pushing it under his indifferent nose and coaxing
him with:
"Here Nero! Good! Eat! Eat-er-up!" etc.
But Nero merely sniffed disdainfully, snuggled his nose deeper into his
flattened paws, and turned two big, brown adoring eyes up at his young
master.
"Pity about him!" quoth Nancy. "Maybe he wants some of Isabel's Cherry
Moss. Just stew or beefsteak or even fried potatoes are not, it seems,
on his diet bill."
They were all out on the back porch, Ted squatted squarely beside the
new dog, while the girls floated around Nero, like little tugs
surrounding a big steamer.
"He doesn't _have_ to eat," Ted remarked indifferently, "he had a free
lunch on the way over."
"He did!" screeched Nancy. "And you let us go to all this trouble!" She
kicked the tin pan of water over in sheer disgust.
"Well, I thought he might like something else," murmured the small boy,
provokingly. "He only had a big soup bone and loaf of bread."
Taking off their cooking-school caps and unbuttoning their aprons as
they went, the girls wended their way back to the deserted class room.
"Can anyone beat that?" remarked Nancy, inelegantly. "Ted and his dog
and the big--soup--bone! I could put a tune to that; a sad mournful
dirgy tune."
"Wherever do you suppose he picked up the brute?" Ruth asked. "I don't
remember having seen him around town."
"Oh, trust Ted," replied Nancy. "When we first came here, mother
answered him once, in a most casual, unthinking way: 'Yes.' It seemed
his question was could he have a dog, and mother hadn't been paying
strict attention. Since then he's been on a hunt for a dog. He brought
home a poor half-dead little tatters one day, but some boy followed him
up and claimed the beauty. I wonder if this one will be left to him? He
seems pretty particular about his food, doesn't he?"
"Yes," replied Ruth, who was just glancing out the door. Suddenly she
exclaimed:
"Here's a taxi coming, and it's the one mother always uses. I guess
she's sending for me, I'll go out and see."
Nancy looked out and saw Ruth talking earnestly to the driver. She
seemed to be disagreeing with the message he was giving her, and she
turned abruptly to come back to Nancy.
"Imagine that!" she panted, "Mother wants me to meet a train and take an
old lady to see the Hilton house. As if I could show a house to one of
father's customers!" Ruth's voice betrayed actual antipathy to the very
idea.
"But why not?" queried Nancy. "If she is just an old lady--"
"A rich old lady who has come a distance without notifying father's
office, and there isn't a man within call to take her out," Ruth sighed
miserably. The thought of showing a house seemed absolutely beyond her.
"I'll go with you," Nancy offered. "Why couldn't we show a house? We
know how to call out rooms, don't we?"
Ruth jerked back her pretty head and stared at Nancy.
"All right," she exclaimed, brightening perceptibly. "I'll go if you
promise to do the talking. I'm sure you can call off rooms and do more
than that in the business line, Nancy. Let's hurry. The train is almost
due."
So the two young "real estate ladies" were presently seated most
circumspectly in the taxi, on the way to "meet a wealthy lady who wanted
to look at the Hilton house."
And Nancy was fairly aglow with the prospect of a new and interesting
business adventure.