"LONESOME LIZ"
"Oh, galloping grasshoppers!" gasped Bobby Hargrew, clinging tight to
Laura and Nellie Agnew in the dressing-room. "Do you hear what she
says?"
"What language, Bob!" said Nellie, in horror. "How _can_ you?"
"Of whom are you speaking?" asked Laura, with an admonishing look.
"That Lil Pendleton. The gall of her!"
"Stop, Bob!" commanded Laura. "You talk like a street urchin."
"I don't care if I talk like a sea urchin," complained the smaller
girl. "She says she's going with us."
"Where?" asked Nell.
"Camping."
"Who?" exclaimed Laura, promptly.
"That Pendleton girl. Says her mother just told her. _Your_ mother
said so, Laura Belding. So there!"
"Why--why----"
"I don't want to complain of your mother, Laura," said the grocer's
daughter, "but it seems too bad we can't pick and choose whom we'll
have go camping in our crowd."
"Mother doesn't understand! I am sure she never meant to _make_ us
take Lil if we didn't want her."
"And surely we _don't_," declared the doctor's daughter, with more
emphasis than she usually used in commenting upon any subject.
"Let's put the rollers under her and let her zip," exclaimed the
slangy Bobby.
"If Gee Gee should hear you," laughed Laura, referring to one of the
very strict lady teachers of Central High, Miss Grace Gee Carrington.
"She's too busy with Margit Salgo--Beg pardon!" exclaimed Bobby.
"Margaret Carrington, as she will in future be known. Gee Gee has
scarcely called me down this week."
"Now, if it was Margit who wanted to go," sighed Nell Agnew, speaking
of the half-Gypsy girl who had just come under the care of Miss
Carrington.
"Or Eve Sitz," added Bobby. "But Eve says she gets out-of-door work
enough on the farm in the summer. Camping out is no fun for her."
"I don't know what to say about Lily," began Laura. "I cannot
understand mother promising such a thing. If anybody should decide, it
should be Jess' mother. _She_ is going with us."
"Oh! there's another thing," interrupted the fly-away Bobby. "If Lil
goes, she's going to take along a lady's maid."
"_What_?" gasped the other girls.
"Mrs. Pendleton is going to pay the wages of a girl to go with us and
do the camp work," announced Bobby, and now she spoke with some
enthusiasm.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Laura.
"Not so bad," sighed Nellie, who really did _not_ like hard work and
had dreaded that division of labor which she knew must fall to her if
they went camping without "help."
"Having a girl along to cook and do up the beds and wash dishes and
the like wouldn't be so bad," announced Bobby, growing braver as Nell
seemed to encourage the idea.
"Well! Miss Hargrew!" accused Laura. "I believe you have gone over to
the enemy. _You_ really want Lil to go with us to Acorn Island."
"No. But I'd be glad to have her mother pay the wages of somebody to
do most of the hard work," grinned Bobby.
There was a regular "buzz society," as Bobby called it, after the
girls were dressed. The original six who had planned to go camping on
Acorn Island _did_ hum like a colony of bees when they all learned
that Lily Pendleton was likely to be foisted upon them.
"It's a shame!" exclaimed Jess, angrily. "She knows well enough we
don't want her."
"Well," murmured one of the Lockwood twins. "She asked us and we said
the invitation would have to come through Laura."
"Cowards!" exclaimed Mother Wit, dramatically. "That's why she got her
mother to go to _mine_. And I am real angry with mother----"
"Oh, Laura! we wouldn't offend your mother for anything," said Nell,
hastily.
"Or put her in an uncomfortable position," Bobby added. "She's been
too nice to us all."
"And, of course, we have to stand Lil in the school and gymnasium. She
won't kill us; she's only silly," went on Nell.
"I believe you're all more or less willing to have Lil go," declared
Laura, in wonder.
"We-ell," drawled Bobby. "There's the chance of having somebody to do
the camp work for us----"
"Not Lil!" shrieked Jess. "She never lifts her hand at home."
"No," said Nell. "But Mrs. Pendleton will pay a maid's wages."
"Ah--ha!" ejaculated Jess Morse. "I smell a mice, as the Dutchman
says. We are to be bribed."
And bribed they were. At least, none of them wished to put Laura's
mother to any trouble. So they agreed to let Lily Pendleton go camping
with them. Mrs. Pendleton left it to the girls to find anyone they
wanted to help about the camp, and promised to pay good wages.
"I know just whom we can get," Bobby said, eagerly, that evening when
the girls--and some of the boys--were assembled as usual on the
Belding front porch.
"Who's that?"
"That Bean girl," said the groceryman's daughter.
"Who's she? Miss Boston Bean?" chuckled Chet.
"Lizzie Bean! I know who she is," exclaimed Laura.
"She's the girl who's been helping the Longs since Alice came back to
school. Now Alice will keep house for her father and the other
children again, and Lizzie will be out of a job," explained Bobby.
"Whew! 'Lonesome Liz?'" ejaculated Lance Darby. "Short and Long calls
her that. Says she's about half cracked----"
"I guess she isn't cracked enough to hurt," said Dora Lockwood,
quickly. "Is she, Dorothy?"
"Of course not," agreed her twin. "And she keeps the house beautifully
clean, and looks after Tommy fine."
"Let me tell you Master Tommy Long is some kid to look after,"
chuckled Chet.
"And that's no dream," agreed his chum, Lance.
Bobby began to laugh, too. "Did you hear his latest?" she demanded of
the crowd.
"Who's latest," asked Jess.
"Tommy Long--the infant terrible?"
"Let's hear it, Bobs," said Jess. "If he can say anything worse than
_you_ can----"
"But this break on Master Tommy's part was entirely unintentional.
Alice was telling me about it. She sends him to Sunday School and he
has to memorize the Golden Text and repeat it to her when he comes
home.
"The other Sunday he had been skylarking in Sunday School, it was
evident, for when she asked him to tell her the text, he shot this one
at her: 'Don't worry. You'll get the blanket.'"
"_What_?" gasped Laura.
"That's a teaser," said Lance. "What did the kid mean?"
"That's what troubled Alice," chuckled Bobby. "She couldn't get it at
all; but Tommy stuck to it that he had given her the text straight. So
she looked it up herself and what do you suppose Tommy had twisted
into 'Don't worry. You'll get the blanket?'"
"Give it up," said Jess. "Let's have it."
"Why, the text was," said Bobby, more seriously, "'Fear not; the
Comforter shall come unto you.'"
"That kid is a terror," said Chet, when the laugh had subsided. "And
so's Short and Long. I believe he agreed to let Pretty Sweet go along
with us to Lake Dunkirk just because he likes to play jokes on Purt."
"Dear me!" sighed Bobby, with unction. "With Pretty in your camp and
Lil in ours, the sun of no day should go down upon us without, seeing
_some_ fun."
"And if you have 'Lonesome Liz' along," chuckled Lance, "you girls
certainly won't forget how to laugh."
It was agreed that Laura and Jess should see Lizzie Bean the next
morning and engage her for the position--if she would accept. They
started early, for although they were only juniors and would have
another year to attend Central High before graduation, this last day
of school would be a busy one for them as well as for the graduating
class.
Billy and Alice Long, who were their schoolmates, lived in a much
poorer quarter of the town; it was down toward the wharves, and not
far from the Central High's boathouses.
The street was a typical water-side street, with small, gaily painted
cottages, or cottages without any paint at all save that put on
lavishly by the ancient decorating firm of Wind & Weather. Each
dwelling had its own tiny fenced yard, with a garden behind. The
Longs' was neatly kept both front and rear, and the house itself
showed no neglect by the tenants.
Mr. Long was a hard working man, and although the children were
motherless, Alice, the oldest, kept the home neat and cheerful for her
brothers and sisters. All the children were old enough to go to school
save Tommy; and he had been to kindergarten occasionally this last
term and would go to school regularly in the fall.
Laura and Jess, hurrying on their errand, came in sight of the Long
cottage abruptly, and of a wobegone little figure on the front step.
"Why, it's Tommy!" exclaimed Laura Belding. "Whatever is the the
matter, Tommy?" for the little fellow was crying softly.
He was a most cherubic looking child, with a pink and white face,
yellow curls that swept the clean collar of his shirt-waist, and a
plump, "hug-able" little body.
"Yes, what _is_ the matter, dear?" begged Jess Morse.
"H-he's gone an' cut off th-the tails of the pu-puppies," sobbed
Master Tommy, his breast heaving.
"Who has?" demanded Laura.
"He. That man what co-comed here," choked the little fellow.
"What a pity! I'm awfully sorry," Laura pursued, soothingly. "The poor
little puppies."
"Ye-yes. Pa s-said _I_ should chop 'em off myself!" concluded Master
Tommy in a burst of anger.
"My goodness me!" gasped Jess, horror-stricken. "Will you hear that
boy talk? He's a perfect little savage."
"No, he isn't," said Mother Wit, shaking her head. "He's only a
boy--that's all. You never had a brother, Jess."
"I know well enough Chet was never like _that_," declared Josephine,
confidently.
They went in by the front gate and walked around the house, leaving
the disappointed youngster wiping his eyes. They expected to find
Lizzie Bean at the back.
In that they were not mistaken. At the well-curb was a lank, bony
girl, who might have been Laura's age, or perhaps a couple of years
older. She was dreadfully thin. As she hauled on the chain which
brought the brimming bucket to the top of the well, she betrayed more
red elbow and more white stockinged ankle-bone than any _one_ person
should display.
"My goodness, she's thin!" whispered Jess.
"We are not looking for a Hebe to help us at the camp," Laura returned
in the same low tone.
Lizzie Bean turned to see who was approaching. Her face was as thin as
the rest of her figure. Prominent cheek bones, a sharp, long nose, and
a pointed chin do not make a beautiful countenance, to say the least.
Besides, the expression of her face was lachrymose in the extreme. It
did seem, as Jess afterward said, that Lizzie must have lost all her
relatives and friends very recently, and was mourning for them all!
"Goodness me!" she whispered to Laura. "No wonder they call her
'Lonesome Liz.' She's so sad looking she's positively funny."