URSULA TELLS HER STORY
“Why didn’t you tell us how beautiful she was?” Josie asked Irene after
the partners had looked Ursula Ellett over, approved of her and engaged
her on the spot.
“I did not like to because I did not know whether you would think her
as beautiful as I do.”
“Thought you had a corner on taste, eh?” laughed Josie.
“Not that. But you know tastes differ so. Uncle doesn’t think she is
beautiful, merely sweet looking and Aunt Hannah says if it wasn’t for
her eyes she would call her positively homely. They say she has no
figure.”
“No figure! With that willowy slenderness!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “Why
she looks like a wood nymph!”
Ursula Ellett was not as old as Irene had thought, in fact she had
just reached her majority. But the cares that had fallen on her young
shoulders had added to her years and the troubles and anxieties had
given a gravity to her countenance that was pitiable to behold. Her
eyes were violet with dark pansy markings, her lashes long and thick
with brows delicately bowed, her nose of patrician perfection. Her
mouth needed only smiles to make it beautiful, but it was too sad at
the present, with the corners drooping and making lines of discontent
that were fast becoming permanent. Her hair was dark, almost black, but
with a coppery hue.
It meant much to Ursula to be taken in by the Higgledy Piggledies, and
it meant much to the partners to have a capable person to take hold of
their tea room and run it with the order necessary for its success.
“Where did you learn to do things so well?” Josie asked their new
manager, as she moved quickly around the tea room getting everything to
rights in preparation for the afternoon. It was the custom for many of
the young people of Dorfield to drop in at the Higgledy Piggledy, which
had established a reputation for cinnamon toast and waffles baked on an
electric iron.
“Training servants,” answered Ursula. “I have had dozens to break in
at my home in Louisville. My stepfather was very difficult to please
and my endeavor was to give him no just cause of complaint. I had to
learn to do all kinds of things about the house well so that I could
teach others. Mr. Cheatham was constantly dismissing the servants and
then my work was all to be done over. I like this kind of work very
much and do hope I can give satisfaction.” Ursula’s lip trembled as she
spoke.
“Give satisfaction! Why, my dear girl, we think we have found a
treasure in you. We only hope we can be the ones to give satisfaction.
Please feel that we are your friends. In the first place, in our shop
what Irene says goes. She doesn’t often make suggestions, being one of
the most modest of human beings, but when she does we all of us agree
with her. I have never known Irene to make a mistake in people. She has
put me right on several persons.”
Josie then recounted to Ursula the tale of the Markles, a perfidious
couple who had almost gotten away with all of Mary Louise’s wedding
presents, and she gave Irene the credit for being the first one of all
of the friends of the little bride to realize there was something
shady about Felix and Hortense Markle.
“She always knows when people are the right sort, too,” added Josie,
“and she gave you a mighty good name.”
“I am very happy at that,” said Ursula, a smile flashing for a moment
over her sad countenance. “My little brothers are quite in love with
Miss MacFarlane.”
“Oh, none of that, please!” interrupted Josie. “Don’t ‘Miss’ any of us.
We are Irene and Elizabeth and Josie and you are Ursula.”
“All right!” blushed Ursula, “but I did not want to be too familiar.
Anyhow the boys are very fond of Irene. Mrs. Conant is kind to them too
and has asked them to make themselves at home in her yard. Now that
school is over it is quite a problem to keep the little fellows happy.”
“How old are they?”
“Ben is ten and Philip, six.”
“Why, they are old enough to help around the shop. Let them come here
and they can be our delivery boys. We are always needing a boy to run
errands.”
“That would be wonderful, but they are such little fellows that I am
afraid they would be in the way.”
“Children are never in my way, and you know how Irene feels about them.
Elizabeth is fine to boys. She doesn’t take much stock in girls, having
been brought up in a house full of them. Let me talk it over with my
partners first, though.”
The partners were more than willing and the next day when Ursula came
to work she came hand in hand with her two brothers. Ben and Philip
were delighted with the idea of holding jobs, but more than anything
were they pleased at the thought of being near “The Lady in the Chair,”
which was the name they had given Irene.
“I’m the chief office boy an’ Phil is my clerk,” announced Ben. “I’m
gonter do all the work an’ he’s gonter trot along an’ watch me. He’s
just six an’ I’m in my ’leventh year. I’m gonter grow up an’ take care
of Sister an’ buy her a ring an’ some beads an’ a Stutz racer. I’m
gonter send Phil to college too, an’ buy him some long pants.”
“An’ I’m gonter save up my money that I make watchin’ you work an’ buy
The Lady in the Chair a all-day sucker,” announced Philip.
There could be no two opinions concerning those Ellett boys. They were
beautiful children--their loveliness almost unearthly. Ben was fair and
sturdy, large for his years, with the wide blue eyes and yellow hair
of a Viking child. Philip was more like his sister Ursula, slender and
patrician, with dusky hair and eyes like dark pools in a forest where
the blue sky is reflected unexpectedly. The boys adored first their
sister, whom they considered the most wonderful person in the world,
and then each other, Ben ever protecting his little brother and Philip
ever looking up to Ben as a superior being.
They were natural, normal boys and for that reason not at all saintly.
Ursula felt she could trust them as far as honesty was concerned but
was always very anxious about them when she had to be away from them
in the pursuit of a livelihood. This arrangement with the Higgledy
Piggledies was an ideal one. There she could have an eye ever on her
charges and she was sure the boys would be as good as boys could be,
which of course is not perfect.
Faithfully they delivered parcels for the Higgledy Piggledy shop,
Viking Ben carrying the burdens and Phil walking just two steps behind
his brother, admiring his prowess with loving eyes. Faithfully they
brought back money from the customers carefully pinned in Ben’s pocket
and painfully counted out by that future business man.
Josie got a knapsack in which small parcels could be securely strapped,
as often the articles to be delivered were quite valuable such as old
lace mended by Irene or rare linen laundered by Josie or manuscript
corrected or copied by Elizabeth. The boys were instructed to return
immediately and report at the shop after making a delivery. This they
did with a promptness surprising in such youngsters.
“It isn’t when they are busy that I feel anxious about them,” sighed
Ursula, “but when they are idle. Please hunt up more duties for them.”
“Poor dears! Don’t they eat up all the cold waffles? What more could we
demand?” laughed Josie. “Don’t you remember how sorry we always felt
about the cold waffles, girls?”
“Yes indeed, the Higgledy Piggledy garbage pail always mortified me,”
said Elizabeth. “No matter how carefully one plans there are always
cold waffles to be disposed of. Even my mother, who is an excellent
manager, I can tell you, has never mastered the cold waffle problem.”
“Well, it is no problem here,” smiled Ursula. “In fact there is nothing
left over since you dear girls insisted upon my giving my boys their
supper here. I wish I could tell you what it means to me, having this
place and being able to see Ben and Philip all the time.”
“Well I wish you knew what it means to us to have our tea room run like
a smart New York shop, with never a hitch and more and more persons
praising it and bringing their friends here to treat them--to say
nothing of the empty garbage pail. If things don’t stop prospering so
we are going to have to get new quarters, girls. Do you realize that?”
queried Josie.
“Oh, but please don’t let’s leave the dear old shop,” begged Elizabeth.
“These have been the happiest months of my whole life, I truly believe.
If we have to expand, let’s expand upward or downward. Why not see
about the rooms above or the rickety old store below?”
“Turn out the cleaners and dyers below, who certainly smell most
vilely and increase our insurance rates one hundred per cent and make
a kind of lunch club down there! Great scheme!” exclaimed Josie. “What
does our sage Irene think?”
“I think it is a fine idea but it would need a good deal of capital to
start such an undertaking,” said Irene thoughtfully. “Let’s go slowly
until we find someone with capital to invest.”
“I wish I could command my own little fortune,” blushed Ursula. “I
haven’t much--at least I don’t think I have, but what I own I have no
more power over than if it wasn’t mine. My stepfather, Mr. Cheatham,
has entire control of everything connected with my father’s estate.”
“Can’t you go to law about it?” asked Elizabeth.
“I--I--am helpless with him. He holds it over me that if I make any
trouble he will claim my boys. He says he has the right to keep them
from me. There is some quirk in the law that he quotes. I am sure I
don’t understand it but I am afraid to test it. I’d give up all the
money in the world rather than have my Ben and Philip under the
influence of such a man.”
“Haven’t you any relations?” asked Josie.
“Only Uncle Ben Benson, my mother’s brother, and I don’t know where
he is. He was very much put out with my poor little mother when she
married Mr. Cheatham. He left Louisville and we have never heard
anything from him. I loved Uncle Ben and he loved me. I felt he was
hard on Mother and told him so, although Heaven knows it almost killed
me for her to marry such a man. But she was young when my father died,
young and so beautiful. Mr. Cheatham evidently had some influence over
her that we could not understand.”
“What is his standing in the community?” asked Josie.
“He is not trusted or respected but he is so plausible that he has
a certain following. He makes an excellent impression on strangers
and Louisville is growing so, with such a large number of new people
settling there every year, that it is quite a simple matter for Mr.
Cheatham to worm himself into the good graces of the new and wealthy
people. He is clever and has an engaging manner until you know him.
Then you hate his manner as you hate him.”
“Does he know where you are?”
“I think not, but I am not sure. He always finds out everything he
wants to know. He doesn’t care where I am, just so I let him alone. The
thing that determined my leaving home was not only his threatening to
bring this woman, this Miss Fitchet, to the house, but an awful scene
we had with him when he tried to whip my Ben. It was because of some
trifling bit of naughtiness. Ben turned on the hydrant to which the
hose was attached and could not get it turned off.”
“All boys like to play in water,” laughed Josie. “I like it myself.”
“He began to beat him unmercifully and little Philip rushed in and bit
him on the leg and I--I’m not ashamed to tell you that I took a hand in
the fight myself, although it was in the front yard of our home on one
of the principal old residential streets of Louisville. I turned the
hose on the wretch and he got it full in the face. I am sure we looked
like a movie comedy; but he left off beating Ben.”
“Good for you!” laughed Josie.
“We left then and I have never seen him again. I took the boys to a
hotel and got a lawyer to go see him and try and get an allowance
from him but he refused any financial help. He said we would be taken
care of as long as we would stay under his roof and no longer. I could
not stand the thought of ever having to see him again and so I left
Louisville. He thought we would live with some old friends who are at
Peewee Valley, near Louisville, but I came to Dorfield, and oh, how
glad I am I chose this peaceful spot!”
Ursula beamed happily on her employers. Already the girl had a
different expression. The corners of her mouth were lifting and the
pained look in her pansy eyes had given place to one of peace and trust.
“How about Uncle Ben Benson? Don’t you fancy he’ll come rolling in one
day with his coat lined with thousand dollar bills and a potato sack
full of gold nuggets?” asked Elizabeth. “Uncles in the manuscripts I
correct always come home rich and generous.”
“I wouldn’t care much about the nuggets and coat lining, if he would
only come home or write to me and let me know he is alive and well and
no longer bears a grudge against me for standing up for my poor little
mother. I tried to let him know when she died but my letter came back
to me after having followed him around to all kinds of out-of-the-way
places. Sometimes I am afraid he is dead.”
“I’ll be bound he is not. Probably he is working away at some sort of
business that is going to bring in oodles of money,” insisted Elizabeth.
“Perhaps,” mused Ursula, “but in the meantime I had better get the
waffle batter mixed and the cinnamon toast under way, because the
hungry patrons will be pouring in soon.”