ROUND ROBIN
OTHER VOLUMES IN THE
“LITTLE
SCHOOLMATES” SERIES
_Edited by_
_FLORENCE CONVERSE_
IN SUNNY SPAIN _Katharine Lee Bates_
UNDER GREEK SKIES _Julia D. Dragoumis_
A BOY IN EIRINN _Padraic Colum_
THE LAIRD OF GLENTYRE _Emma M. Green_
ELSBETH _Margarethe Müller_
GENEVIÈVE _Laura Spencer Portor_
KATRINKA: The Story of a Russian Child _Helen E. Haskell_
TREASURE FLOWER: A Child of Japan _Ruth Gaines_
THE VILLAGE SHIELD: A Story of Mexico
_Ruth Gaines_ and _Georgia Willis Read_
A BOY OF BRUGES: A Story of Belgian Child Life
_Emile_ and _Tita Cammaerts_
THE CART OF MANY COLORS: A Story of Italy
_Nannine La Villa Meiklejohn_
ARCHAG THE LITTLE ARMENIAN Translated from the French of
_Charles H. Schnapps_
[Illustration: it seemed empty]
ROUND ROBIN
BY
ABBIE FARWELL BROWN
[Illustration]
_America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!_
--KATHARINE LEE BATES
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1921
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
_Printed in the United States of America_
TO
Katharine Lee Bates
SEER OF TRUTH, SAYER OF BEAUTY,
SOWER OF WISDOM
_God hath made of one blood all nations
of men to dwell on the face of the earth._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
A LETTER TO THE ONE WHO READS THIS BOOK xi
I. THE GOLDEN GIRL 1
II. THE ROUND ROBIN CLUB 12
III. FAIRY RING 21
IV. DICK’S CLAMBAKE 39
V. MIDSUMMER EVE 65
VI. THE PATCHWORK QUILT 81
VII. SAL SEGUIN 100
VIII. IDLEWILD 115
IX. NELLY SACKETT’S HOME 124
X. A REAL HERO 135
XI. THE EAGLE’S NEST 146
XII. LOST 162
XIII. ANOTHER SIDE 176
XIV. COSTUMES 184
XV. TANTE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY 199
XVI. NEIGHBORS 218
XVII. MYSTERY 228
XVIII. FIRE 243
XIX. NEWS 254
XX. LAW AND LIBERTY 269
XXI. COUSINS 279
XXII. A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK 292
XXIII. A BEGINNING 306
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
It seemed empty _Frontispiece
Facing page_
“Look!” whispered Cicely 59
But nothing answered 71
Nancy clung close to the trunk 159
A fairy creature--a gnome--a gypsy queen 207
“Why it’s sage” 263
A LETTER TO THE ONE WHO READS THIS BOOK
DEAR SCHOOLMATE:
This is a stay-at-home story, the only one in our series. We have
been to Greece and Spain, to Russia, Germany, and France, to Belgium,
to Japan, to Ireland and Mexico, to Armenia and Scotland and Italy.
We played with the royal children in the palace of the Tsar, before
their great tragedy touched them; we went to school in Paris with
Geneviève, and in Aintab with Archag, and out to domestic service
with Mattina in Athens; we sang Spanish riddles with Pilarica, and
listened to Scottish hero-tales with the young Laird; we lived in a
Mexican cave and sailed in a Japanese boat; we spent Christmas in
Germany, before the War; we tramped the roads of Ireland with gay
Finn, before the revolution; we followed Pieter when he fought for
his Belgium; and we came home from the Italian victory in a little
Sicilian cart of many colors. And now we are going to stay at home
and live as Americans live, and get acquainted with ourselves and
each other.
America is a palace of a thousand windows, some of them opening
on the past and some of them looking toward the future; and in my
letters to you I have tried to open a few of the windows that look
back into our pasts; magic casements they are, for we have as many
pasts as we have races in America. And two things I have tried to
tell you about those races:
Why they came to America
and
What they brought to America.
Turn over the pages of the letters, if you have kept them, and
you will find that they are really chapters in a short history of
America’s colonists and immigrants. All the chapters are not written
yet, all the windows are not opened; some day perhaps there will be
a Scandinavian chapter to tell us why the hardy, industrious Norse
and Swedes are here, farming our northwestern prairies, and what
gifts they brought to make America more beautiful; and some day we
may open a Dutch window, looking across the perilous sea from old New
York to Holland.
But this time, my letter is not a little chapter of past history,
for most of the young people in this story are descendants of the
Puritans who settled New England and the Cavaliers who settled
Virginia; and we already know by heart those two chapters of our
past. Don’t we? Plymouth Rock, Paul Revere, Pocahontas:
“_A cargo of tea
Thrown into the sea,
In seventeen-hundred
And sixty-three._”
Those are the keys which unlock that magic casement. You can open it
for yourself, anytime. The “Round Robin” window which I am opening in
this letter, looks not into the past nor yet into the future, but
into the present. It looks right into the hearts of American boys and
girls of to-day.
From the East and the West and the North and the South of our United
States they come. Two or three, in the story, have fathers who were
foreign born, but most of them are of “American Stock,” as we say
when we mean that our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers
were the children of English colonists. We say it proudly, we whose
ancestors fought the American Revolution, whose grandfathers saw the
passing of slavery, whose brothers did their bit in the Great War.
Proudly, because we believe that whatsoever of freedom, of democracy,
of holiness there is in America to-day, was first planted and rooted
here by our ancestors, those first English settlers.
Narrow-minded and narrow-hearted people who look with near-sighted
spirits through the windows of the past and the windows of the
future, bewail the fact that one hundred years from now, “American
Stock” will no longer mean to American Schoolchildren, English
inheritance. Because, dear Schoolmate, your children and your
grandchildren will have married and intermarried with Americans of
Latin and Teutonic and Slavic and other blood--with the American
grandchildren of Italians, and French, and Germans, and Swedes, and
Russians, and Syrians--and who knows how many other races? But these
narrow-minded, narrow-hearted, unvisionary people forget that if our
America is a free, a democratic, a holy place, one hundred years from
now, the American Stock will still be rooted true in the old ideals.
And it is by ideals that countries live and are judged.
To Americanize a person means to find out how much, or how little, he
knows and cares about freedom and democracy and holiness, and then
to help that much or little grow. And all this is done by making
friends with the foreigners who come to us from other lands. Making
friends with people, as you know very well, means understanding them,
loving them, making allowance for them and remembering that they have
to make allowance for us also. It means studying their ways, and
especially their ways of achieving freedom, their ways of achieving
democracy, their ways of achieving holiness--as well as expecting
them to study and approve of our ways. Perhaps some of their ways are
better than some of ours. If they are, then we shall certainly want
to adopt those ways; if they are not, then we must do our American
best to convince these immigrant friends that our ways are better. We
mustn’t think that a way is bad just because it isn’t our way, and we
mustn’t think a way is good just because it is our way.
So you see that Americanizing people means much more than teaching
them English, and telling them about George Washington and Abraham
Lincoln, and showing them how to use bathtubs and ballot boxes.
It means making sure that they know what freedom means, and what
democracy means (Do you know, dear Schoolmate?) and what holiness
means; and that their hearts and souls are set toward making America
a free, a democratic, a holy nation.
Look into the hearts of the children in this Round Robin, and you
will find growing there the old ideals whose names I am repeating
so often in this letter, freedom, democracy, holiness; you will
find them in the hearts of the young Americans whose fathers were
foreign born (I’ll wait and let Miss Abbie Farwell Brown tell you
which those are), as well as in Beverly’s courteous little Southern
heart, and Nancy’s staunch little New England heart, and Dick’s jolly
little wholesome heart of the West. The children in the story would
be astonished if they knew that I was saying these things about
them. They are just “a bunch” of honest, happy boys and girls, off
on a typical American holiday in a summer camp, learning to “get
together.” But getting together is the A B C of freedom and democracy
and holiness.
It is the A B C of holiness because holiness is “getting together”
with God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” And getting together with
God means finding out God’s will and then doing it; working with
Him; building up the nation with Him. And the way to get together
with God is by prayer; and by looking back through the ages and
following the working of His will in His world, as we see it in the
Bible, and in all secular science, art, history, and literature; and
then by more prayer. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, _on earth_,
as it is in heaven.” That is the prayer of the nation builder, who
has “got together” with God. And every American is a nation builder.
It is the A B C of democracy because democracy is “getting together”
with your fellow-men: “And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Fellowship, brotherhood, equal opportunity, all these come from
loving thy neighbor as thyself. Government of the people, by the
people, for the people, must fail just so long as we fail to love
our neighbor as ourself. Democracy means loving all the people all
the time; not just one kind of people, the rich, or the poor, or the
bankers, or the bakers, or the people who live in our street, but
_all_ the people, _all_ the time. In a Democracy, every man is our
neighbor.
It is the A B C of freedom, because freedom is “getting together”
with the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would that they should
do unto you.” You can’t be free by yourself; not in America; not in
the world. Even if you were a self-supporting hermit, or a Robinson
Crusoe, you wouldn’t be free. Solitude isn’t freedom. You wouldn’t
be free to marry, alone on a desert island. A man is free when he is
at peace with himself. But no man is really at peace with himself
so long as some other man is not at peace. God made us so. Even if
we are self-righteous and think that we are not to blame for our
neighbor’s unhappiness, we can’t be at peace while he is miserable
before our eyes and in our ears; but to have to run away from misery
isn’t freedom. What does this mean, dear Schoolmate? Why! it means
that you and I can never be free until everyone is free. It means
that freedom is a spiritual goal; but you don’t have to beat the
other fellow to it; the game is to have everybody come up to time.
And to have everybody come up to time, we must all play the game
according to the rule; be good sports!
And now, you will tell me that these ideals are not merely American,
they are the ideals for which every Christian nation ought to strive.
That may be; but America has a special claim to them, for it was
our English colonial ancestors who put them into political form for
us, and breathed their spirit into this government of ours which we
called a Republic. We think that freedom, democracy, and holiness
have a better chance to grow in our Republic than in the earlier
forms of government, such as monarchy. Republics, such as ours,
may not be the last word in political freedom, and democracy, and
holiness; there may be newer forms of government in which people
may have a better chance to be holy, democratic, and free than they
have in ours; all history shows how men and governments have grown
and changed, down the ages; to grow is to change. But so long as we
do think that our ideals have a better chance in a Republic than in
anything else, we can keep our government a Republic; for it is we
who choose what America shall be; it is we who cast the votes. That
is what it means to be an American.
And because freedom and holiness and democracy are the ideals for
which every Christian nation ought to strive--and this the nations
know, in their secret hearts, as well as you and I know it, dear
Schoolmate--because their ideals and ours are really the same, we
have, in those ideals, the basis and groundwork, and starting point
for an international brotherhood of nations; the one sure way of
getting together.
Affectionately yours,
FLORENCE CONVERSE.
ROUND ROBIN
ROUND ROBIN
CHAPTER I
THE GOLDEN GIRL
Six girls and a terrier puppy were waiting on the wharf at Old Harbor
for the boat to come in. Of course there were many other persons
gathered besides these; for the arrival of the daily mail boat was
the great event of the little Maine seaport. But the six girls in
their brown middies, flitting about like gay thrushes, seemed to
take up most of the room on the little pier; to say nothing of the
omnipresent pup.
Although they were dressed almost exactly alike, and were of nearly
the same age, they were as different as six girls could well be.
One was tall and quiet, with a straight thick mane of fair hair. One
was short, dark and round, and spoke with a quaint accent. One had a
rich olive skin, great serious brown eyes, and a black braid thick as
your arm. One was freckled like a meadow lily, with a snub nose and
sandy curls. The fifth was a slender, dainty brunette with tiny hands
and feet and a delightful Southern drawl. The last of the six had
features like the tall, quiet girl. But she was sturdier and quicker.
There was a ripple in her chestnut hair and a twinkle in her blue
eyes that marked this Yankee from her English cousin.
These two, arm in arm, were leaning over the railing of the pier,
exchanging jokes with a big red-haired boy in a dory below, who was
doing mysterious things with a landing net.
“Ho! There, you’ve lost another one, Dick!” cried the lively girl of
the watching pair. “A great cowboy you are, and can’t catch a crab!”
“I’ll bet I could do it with a lasso, Nancy,” grinned the boy
good-naturedly, “though the critters do have nex’ to no necks.”
Dick Reed was always making atrocious puns like this one, which the
girls pretended not to notice. “I figured I’d get a nice mess for all
our suppers. But”--he glanced ruefully at the two small red objects
sidling about the bottom of the dory, “I reckon I’ll have to make it
a private donation to the newest comer; a sort of peace-offering.
Say, do you suppose she will like ’em?”
“Why shouldn’t she like them?” asked Cicely Vane, the English girl,
in her clear soft tones.
“Yes? Why shouldn’t she like them?” Nancy Batchelder repeated her
cousin’s question in her more animated and penetrating voice. “I
suppose she eats like the rest of us.”
“Well, we’ll soon see,” said Dick, landing another crab dexterously.
“There you are, old Sidestepper! And proud you ought to be to make a
lunch for the Golden Girl.”
“Hush, Dick!” cautioned Nancy, “Don’t let any stranger hear you call
her that. It sounds so--so vulgar. You’ll forget sometime, and she
will hear you.”
“She’s got good ears if she can hear me now,” muttered Dick.
“We used to call her that last summer,” Nancy whispered to her chum.
“You know, she has lived here longer than any of us, really. But I
don’t believe she knows the nice, dear corners of Old Harbor, or
the nice, dear comfortable people as well as we do. She never went
anywhere off her father’s place, they say, except to ride or drive or
sail in his yacht. Though when she was a tiny little girl she used to
run down to Cap’n Sackett’s often. That was before Nelly went there
to live.”
“Didn’t she come to see you at the camp?” queried Cicely, wondering
at the inconsistent ways of these Americans, in a land where everyone
was supposed to be “equal.” “I should have thought she would be
lonesome in that big house.”
“Dear me, no!” laughed Nancy. “She never even looked at us in those
days. You ought to have seen her nose go up in the air when she
passed us in the motor. She had girls and boys on house parties to
visit her sometimes. But they came from far away, and flocked by
themselves. Mrs. Poole, her stepmother, is a dressy, snobby kind of
woman. I’m glad my mother isn’t like that! The people here scarcely
know her by sight. Nobody likes Mr. Poole, either. He is what they
call a ‘hard man,’ whatever that may mean.”
“In England it has something to do with money and not being kind,”
said Cicely vaguely. “I don’t think I shall like this rich girl of
yours, Nancy.”
“Don’t call her _mine_!” Nancy hastened to disclaim, with a little
shake to her cousin’s shoulders. “I didn’t want her to come. Nobody
did. But as Mother said, what could you do, when Mr. Poole wrote so
strangely, to say that he and Mrs. Poole were going suddenly away
with the baby, and that there would be no other place for them to
leave Anne? Just imagine! He said Anne had always spent her summers
at Old Harbor; and now mightn’t she stay at Mother’s camp with us
girls, to learn the simple life, which would be good for her!”
“My word!” commented Cicely. “How odd! Was that all her father said?”
“I think so. Anyway, you know Mother. After she had read that letter
backward and forward--and upside down, for all I know--she sighed and
said--‘Poor little Golden Girl! I don’t understand her father. But I
guess we ought to have her here and be nice to her.’”
“Dear Tante!” exclaimed Cicely. “She couldn’t help but be nice to
anyone. But why did she call this Anne a ‘poor’ little girl?”
“I don’t know,” said Nancy. “I wonder.”
Their wonderings were cut short by a cry from the other side of the
pier. “Boat ahoy! Hi, Nancy!”
It was a tall young man in a flannel shirt and knickerbockers who
called out to his sister over the heads of the crowd.
“Come on, girls!” summoned Nancy, who seemed to be their leader. And
the little brown flock fluttered forward to the edge of the pier.
“Now, when I say ‘One--two--_three_!’ be ready with the yell. We’ll
start her right with a rousing welcome, anyway.”
The little steamer was just rounding the point of the nearest island.
Evidently there were not many persons on board. It was still early in
the season and many of the summer cottages were as yet unopened. On
the upper deck was standing just one person. As the boat drew near
one could see that this was a girl in a fur stole, who seemed to be
looking earnestly at the group on the wharf.
“That must be Anne Poole,” said Nancy to her Club. And she whispered
in Cicely’s ear--“I’m nervous! I don’t know why. She seems to me like
a foreigner, though she’s not. But you didn’t, and you are!”
The sentence sounded mixed. But Cicely seemed to understand and
squeezed her cousin’s arm. These two were old friends as well as
relatives. For though this was Cicely Vane’s first visit to America,
Nancy Batchelder had several times been to Cicely’s home in England,
the country of Nancy’s own long-ago ancestors.
“_Qu’elle est chic!_” murmured Gilda Bétemps.
“But how pale!” added Norma, the dark girl.
“I wish Mother would let me bob my hair,” thought Nancy, looking
enviously at the newcomer’s boyish head.
“What lovely clothes!” sighed the pretty Southerner, noting every
detail of hat and coat and dainty shoes. “I can’t imagine her in this
rig!”
“She looks stiff and unhappy,” thought the English girl. What Nelly
Sackett thought she did not say. Her lips were pursed together and
she eyed the Golden Girl with keen blue eyes.
“Now, come on, girls! Go to it, Doughboy!” Nancy admonished the
puppy. “One two--_three_!” Six girlish voices, aided by a deeper
masculine trio, burst into a wild yell. “Heia, hoia! Together! Get
together!”
“_Bow--wow--wow!_” barked Doughboy, quivering with enthusiasm.
The girl on the steamer looked first surprised then interested, as
she saw six handkerchiefs waved in her direction, while a little dog
bounded frantically up and down like a rubber ball. She had not
expected a welcome like this. Though indeed she had not known what
to expect, it was all so strange. A little color crept into her pale
cheeks and she bowed her head slightly.
“Some airs!” sniffed Dick Reed. Then he disappeared into the
background, where Hugh and Victor were getting the motor boat ready
for passengers.
The little steamer picked her way gingerly to the pier. The gang
plank was let down, and presently the Golden Girl was tripping ashore
on high-heeled shoes. Nancy stepped forward with a well-meaning
smile. “You are Miss Anne Poole?” she said, “And I am Nancy
Batchelder from Round Robin. I’m glad to welcome you. My mother was
sorry not to be here, too. But she is busy getting luncheon ready.”
Anne Poole stared. Her hostess was busy, getting her own luncheon!
What a funny place! Then she glanced around with a start; for already
the gang plank was hauled in and the steamer was about to move away.
“Oh, my bags!” she cried. “Didn’t anyone bring them ashore?”
“Three trunks have come off,” volunteered Nancy, as who should
say,--“Isn’t that enough for anybody?”
“No, bags; two handbags besides. One has my jewelry in it. I left
them on the seat. I thought someone would bring them.” Anne Poole
stood helpless.
The steamer’s bell rang. “Oh, Captain! Wait a minute! She’s left her
bags!” Nancy called. Like a flash she jumped onto the steamer, over
the railing, ran to the upper deck and soon reappeared with a big and
a little bag, which the other girls helped her to hand ashore. Then
once more she stood on the pier beside the astonished Anne, before
either she or the Captain had recovered breath, or the steamer had
got under way.
“We have to help ourselves and move quickly, or we get left, you
see,” said Nancy, laughing at the girl’s amazed expression.
“I supposed there would be porters,” Anne repeated stiffly. “I never
lift bags. But then, I never came to Old Harbor on the steamer
before. Father always brought us down on the yacht.”
“It’s quite different when you come by steamer. You’ll find a lot of
things different I guess,” grinned Nancy rather wickedly.
“I suppose so,” remarked Anne, lifting her eyebrows with a bored
expression.