WINNIE'S VOLUNTEERS
For the first few days after Miss Wright's arrival it seemed that
the proverb, "Many hands make light work" was to be the household
motto. Winnie was fairly swamped with offers of help and "Miss
Trudy" as she had asked Winnie to call her, and the three girls vied
with each other as to which should be the most industrious.
"For I want to be useful, Winnie," said Aunt Trudy, a winning
sincerity in her kind voice. "Only tell me what to do, because I
don't want to interfere with your daily schedule."
"And Sarah and I will make the beds and dust," promised Rosemary,
looking up from copying music.
"I'll run all your errands," chirped Shirley and was promptly
rewarded with a hug.
Winnie was a shrewd and practical general, as her answers proved. A
less experienced person would have made a vague reply, put off the
offers with a promise to "let you know when I need you" or politely
told them "not to bother." Not so Winnie.
"Well, I'll tell you, Miss Trudy," she said capably, "I don't mind
saying if you'll plan the meals, you'll be taking a load off my
shoulders. I can cook and I can serve and I can keep things hot when
the doctor is late as he'll be many a time; but unless I can have
the three meals a day printed right out and hung on my kitchen door,
I'm lost-like. It drives me wild to have to figure out what we
should eat, when it's nothing at all, to my way of thinking, to
cook it."
"I'll be glad to plan the menus," Aunt Trudy assured her. "Home I
write out the meals for the whole week every Saturday morning; I'll
do that for you without fail, Winnie."
"Thank you ma'am," Winnie replied. "Now Rosemary, if you want to
help, you answer the telephone. I can't abide to be called away from
my baking and sweeping to tell folks where the doctor is, or why he
isn't here. I don't always get messages straight, so you take 'em
and when you're not home, let Sarah do it."
"I like to answer the telephone," beamed Rosemary.
Winnie, orderly soul, proceeded to clinch the remaining two offers
of assistance.
"Sarah, there's no one can beat you making beds, when you put your
mind to it," she announced diplomatically. "You make the beds
mornings, when Rosemary is doing her practising and I won't ask you
to do another thing."
"But me?" urged Shirley. "What can I do, Winnie?"
"Bless your little heart, you run to the store for Winnie, and help
her make cookies," cried Winnie, "that's enough for one little girl,
dearie."
"I don't think any of us has much to do," observed Rosemary. "I can
do lots more to help, Winnie. And so can Sarah."
"If you'll do just one thing and do it every day, I won't be
complaining," Winnie returned. "You'll find it's easy to get tired
and it's then you'll want to skip a day."
The girls were sure that nothing would induce them to "skip" a day,
and Winnie went back to her kitchen well-pleased with her bestowal
of commissions.
The house seemed strangely empty without the gentle little mother
and at first time hung heavy on the three pairs of young hands.
Doctor Hugh was very busy adjusting his work to run smoothly and
his hours were irregular so that he did not see much of his sisters.
Then, as the mother's absence became an established fact, gradually
old interests and friends absorbed their attention and normal life
was resumed with the difference that a great gap was always present
and unfilled. Aunt Trudy was kindness itself and overflowing with
affection for her nieces, but her attitude toward them was that of a
placid outsider, gently watching them from a little distance. Aunt
Trudy did their mending exquisitely, because she liked to sew, but
she would not leave the mending and come down stairs to meet Nina
Edmonds, a new-comer to the neighborhood, though Rosemary was
anxious to have every social courtesy shown the rather critical
young person who seemed older than her thirteen years.
"I don't want to drop my work now, dearie," said Aunt Trudy in
response to her niece's appeal. "I always lose my needle when I get
up; I'll meet your little friend some other time. Ask her to dinner
to-night if you wish--Winnie is going to have veal loaf and egg
salad."
Rosemary acted on this suggestion, and Doctor Hugh, coming in late,
was surprised to find a fourth girl at the table, a freckle-faced
little girl with light bobbed hair and incredibly thin arms and
hands. Nina Edmonds talked incessantly and, after a few ineffectual
attempts to carry on a conversation with his aunt, the young doctor
devoted himself to his dinner, keeping, however, an observant eye on
the guest and on Rosemary who listened in evident fascination to the
steady stream of words. He had a call to make, immediately after
dinner and was surprised and distinctly annoyed when he returned at
half-past ten to find Nina and Rosemary still talking animatedly,
their arms around each other, in the window seat. Aunt Trudy was
placidly reading, and the younger girls had gone to bed.
"Is it late?" Rosemary started up as her brother came in.
"Half-past ten," he answered briefly. "I'll take you home, Miss
Edmonds, if you'll tell me where you live. I'm afraid your mother
will be worried about you."
"Oh, my mother never worries--she knows I'll come home all right,"
said Nina. "I didn't wear a coat, it was so warm--will I be cold in
the car?"
"The car is in the garage," said the doctor grimly, holding open the
door for her. "We'll have to walk. Go to bed, Rosemary please," he
flung over his shoulder. "Don't wait up for me."
There was a soft rush and a quick sigh, and Rosemary's arms went
about his neck.
"Kiss me good night, Hugh," she whispered, "I'm sorry."
He held her close for a moment, then the screen door shut with a
click, and they were gone.
"I hope Hugh didn't hurt Nina's feelings," worried Rosemary as she
and Aunt Trudy went upstairs. "She doesn't have to go to bed at nine
o'clock and she thinks it is queer that I do. I'm afraid she will
call Hugh cross."
"Oh, I don't believe she will," said Aunt Trudy comfortably. "She
seemed to me a nice little girl and you need plenty of young
friends, darling."
Her new friend had made a great impression on Rosemary and Sarah was
forced to listen the next day to glowing accounts that rather bored
her. Sarah's present interests were confined to one sick rabbit and
one well rabbit who lived in a hutch in the roomy side yard.
"I'm sick of hearing about Nina Edmonds," declared Sarah as they sat
down to dinner the following evening. "I don't call her anything
wonderful."
Doctor Hugh had not come in, and Rosemary had volunteered to serve
in his place. Aunt Trudy frankly disliked either carving or serving.
"I think she is lovely," maintained Rosemary, "and I'm going to have
my hair bobbed like hers."
It was a warm night and under the glow of the electrolier Rosemary's
magnificent hair curled and shone like polished bronze. Even Aunt
Trudy stared at her, surprised, and the practical Sarah was moved
to protest.
"I think your hair is nice the way it is," she said. "I'd leave it
alone if I were you."
Winnie paused, on her way to the kitchen.
"Don't let Doctor Hugh hear you say any such nonsense," she scolded.
"The idea! Bobbing a head of hair like that--it's going directly
against the generosity of the Lord!"
"What is?" demanded a pleasant voice, and Doctor Hugh came into the
room.
He had changed to a fresh linen suit at the Jordan office, as the
town had designated it to distinguish it from his home office, and
he looked so wholesome and clean and strong and smiling that the
four faces brightened at once.
"You have to bring 'em up when I'm not around, don't you, Winnie?"
he said humorously, slipping into the chair vacated by Rosemary.
"What mischief are they into now?"
Winnie vanished into the kitchen, murmuring something about a salad,
and Rosemary answered for her. Rosemary's blue eyes were unclouded.
"Winnie is mad because I am going to have my hair bobbed like Nina
Edmonds'," she informed her brother. "I think bobbed hair is as
pretty as it can be, don't you, Hugh?"
"It seems a pity when she has such nice hair," murmured Aunt Trudy
weakly.
"Bob your hair!" thundered Doctor Hugh. "Of all the foolish notions,
that is the worst. This comes from talking foolish clatter with that
empty-headed silly little chit last night. The babbling brook must
have been named for her."
"Yes, isn't she silly?" said Sarah scornfully. "Shirley doesn't like
her, either."
"Nina Edmonds is my friend," began Rosemary, scarlet-cheeked.
"You--"
"I beg your pardon, Rosemary," said the doctor instantly. "I
honestly do. I had no right to speak like that. But you mustn't
think of bobbing your curly mop, dear."
"Sarah's hair is bobbed," Rosemary pointed out.
"It was cut to make it grow," answered the doctor. "Mother told me.
You certainly don't need to treat your hair to make it grow,
Rosemary."
"Write and ask Mother," suggested Sarah.
"No, Mother isn't to be asked a single question for a year," Doctor
Hugh announced firmly. "We'll settle our problems without bothering
her. Rosemary is not to meddle with her hair--that's flat."
"Oh, Hugh, I want to bob it!" insisted Rosemary. "Ever so many of
the girls do--not just Nina Edmonds, but half the girls in school. I
don't see why you are so cross about it. Can't I get it cut
to-morrow? Please?"
Doctor Hugh's dark eyes behind their glasses rested on the pretty,
willful face.
"I said NO!" he repeated. "Once and for all, Rosemary, I positively
forbid you to have your hair cut. Do you understand me?"