THE BOARD ELECTS NEW MEMBERS
As Mary Louise seated herself in Dr. Weston's shabby office Josie
entered and was introduced.
"Miss O'Gorman is an especial friend of mine, Dr. Weston, and I have
asked her to come here because she also is interested in your home."
"Fine! There can't be too many interested in my home," exclaimed the
old man, a light coming in his eyes. "I say _my_ home just because I am
so interested in it, but it is in reality under the control of the
board. You say you want to help some?" he asked with eagerness.
"Yes, sir! I have been thinking over the matter and have decided that
this undertaking of all others appeals to me most and I should like to
give my old home. You know the old Hathaway house, do you not?"
"Yes, yes!" There was excitement in Dr. Weston's tone.
"It is too big for me to live in and I think my grandfather would be
glad to know that many little children are finding a temporary home
there," said Mary Louise. "There is a great deal of furniture there,
too, much of which would be suitable, and a lovely great yard and
pretty garden where the kiddies can play."
"Oh, my dear, you make an old man very happy!"
"I want to make an endowment, too," Mary Louise continued, "enough with
the subscriptions you already control to take care of the children as
they should be taken care of."
The tears were rolling down Dr. Weston's cheeks, then he laughed. "What
a bomb I can throw in the camp when the board meets this morning! I
dreaded their coming but now--now--"
"Who is on your board?" asked Josie practically.
Dr. Weston began naming them over.
"Humph!" was all Josie said, but that "humph" was eloquent.
Many of the names were known to the girls. It was a varied list
composed of good, bad and indifferent personalities, from the viewpoint
of the social worker.
"Mrs. Opie is a fine open-hearted woman," said Josie, "and Mrs. McGraw
is good nature itself and most generous. Mrs. Wright is a great worker
and manager--" Josie shrugged her shoulders without finishing her
sentence.
"Yes!" breathed Dr. Weston with an eloquent sigh. "A good woman, a good
woman, but something of a--a--boss!"
"You mean Elizabeth's mother?" asked Mary Louise. "Grandpa Jim used to
call her Kaiser Wright, but that was before we went into the war. He
said she could be the head of an absolute monarchy and run all the
affairs of state and see to it that the kitchen maids washed out the
tea towels after every meal. She is on every charitable and club board
in town and at the same time is a most strenuous housekeeper and has a
hand in the making of the clothes of her entire family."
"A wonderful woman! A wonderful woman!" exclaimed Dr. Weston, but there
was that in his tone that gave Mary Louise and Josie to understand that
he was glad there were not many "wonderful women" on the board of the
Children's Home Society.
"The board meets in a few minutes," continued the old man. "It is now
beginning to assemble in the parlor. I hope you young ladies can remain
until I can inform the ladies of the generous gift in store for our
home. I am the sole and unworthy representative of my sex on the
board."
"Of course we can wait," declared Josie. "Who is the president of your
organization?"
"Mrs. Trescott is chairman but--"
"She doesn't stay in it?" laughed Josie.
"I won't say that," smiled the doctor. "Never tell tales out of the
board. Ill return in a few moments. I can't tell you the happiness I
feel in being able to inform these ladies of our good fortune."
The board was trying to get in session. The girls, waiting in the
office, could hear a steady hum of conversation with an occasional
sharp rap of the gavel when the president evidently had something to
say herself.
"Sounds more like an afternoon tea than the deliberations of an august
body," said Josie.
But at last the meeting was called to order, the minutes were read, the
treasurer's report made and the various committees called on for a
reckoning. All this was accomplished with much talk and many
interruptions. The treasurer's report brought forth a groan. There was
little money left in the treasury and much was needed in the way of
equipment.
"I see nothing for it but to give up," said one lugubrious member.
"Dorfield doesn't take enough interest to support the home and so
there's an end of it."
"That would come under new business," suggested the president. "We must
get through with what is on the carpet first," consulting a small book
on parliamentary law.
"Well, there is no use in staying here if we are going to have to give
up," spake the lugubrious one. "All of this talk is foolish if we are
going to disband."
"Disband, nothing!" broke in Mrs. Wright, whose hands were busily
employed knitting a sweater for one of her girls while her eyes were
glancing from person to person. Her foot tapped constantly while her
knitting needles flew. One felt that she was doing some kind of work
with that tapping foot.
"Disband, indeed!" she whispered sibilantly. "We'll have a tag day and
a rummage sale and I'll get up a dicker party and some theatricals.
Disband, indeed!"
At last Dr. Weston was allowed to speak.
"Ladies," he said, "I mean Madame President, I have to report to the
board--"
"Not another case of measles, I trust!" interrupted one.
"No, not a case of measles, but a case that I hope is going to prove
quite as contagious--"
"Mumps, I'll be bound!"
"No, madame! We have had a gift for the home--"
"More old faded carpets and carved walnut furniture, I wager!"
Finally Dr. Weston was able to divulge to the board of managers that
Mary Louise Burrows, Jim Hathaway's granddaughter, now Mrs. Danny
Dexter, intended to hand over to them her grandfather's old home.
Mary Louise and Josie in the next room with the door closed were able
to tell exactly the moment when the news was broken. Such a hubbub
ensued that the doctor's voice was quite drowned out.
"And now, ladies," continued Dr. Weston, "since we have several
vacancies on our board, I think we could not do better than to ask Mrs.
Dexter to fill one of those vacancies and her friend Miss Josie
O'Gorman one of the others."
There was much hemming and hawing at this proposition.
"Too young!" was the general verdict, but Dr. Weston declared that Mary
Louise was not too young to give her property to the home, and then he
hinted wisely of other things she might give. The astute old man was a
good judge of human nature, especially human nature as exemplified by a
board of women managers. He had held back the fact that Mary Louise
also intended to endow the home. He was determined to have her put on
the board first, and also her clever little friend, who had such a
quiet way of hitting the nail on the head.
With the air of conferring on Mary Louise and Josie a tremendous favor
they were finally elected to the board.
"But who is this Josie O'Gorman?" asked a smartly dressed woman, "and
why? Isn't she a kind of a washerwoman?"
"Hush!" admonished another. "Don't you know she is in the
Higgledy-Piggledy Shop with Elizabeth Wright?"
The secretary was requested to inform the two young women of the honor
conferred upon them.
"They are in my office," said Dr. Weston, "and I might just step in and
tell them myself."
"Oh, horrors!" cried one of the women. "Do you suppose they heard what
we said?"
"I never said anything but that they were too young. Nobody could
object to that."
"And I said board work might prove too arduous for them."
"And I said our board was too big as it was."
"I was for them all the time."
"And I!"
"And I!"