When Mabel Brewster left the Horton residence, she found her brother
Frank waiting for her. He was bursting with curiosity.
"Say, Mabe," he exclaimed, "who is the nifty red-head with the Chinese
footman? Some style, I say. Who is she?"
"A new Girl Scout," said Mabel absently. Even the mysterious stranger
was crowded out of her thoughts by the new orders she was about to
follow.
"Well, don't you know her name, or where she lives, or anything about
her?" demanded Frank.
"What ails you?" retorted Mabel testily. "I thought you had no use for
girls."
"Don't usually," said the lad, "but this one is different. Comes sailing
out with that Chink at her shoulder, and she was talking thirteen to the
dozen in Chinese or something."
"Talking?" interrupted Mabel. "You don't mean she spoke, do you?"
"Not exactly," grinned Frank. "She simply rattled it off by the yard,
and the Chinaman just went along nodding like one of those little china
figures with wiggly heads you see in the Japanese shops."
"Did she take the Chinaman along in the car?" asked Mabel curiously.
"Yep! It was a big limousine, and the Chinaman hopped up in front with
the driver. Miss Red-head sat alone like a queen. Say, she has wads of
that red hair, hasn't she?"
"I didn't notice," said Mabel. "What have you been doing? Playing
basketball?"
"Yes, we had a hot game, and I tore my suit all to pieces. I wish you
would mend it, please, before Monday night. We are going to have
practice games all next week."
"All right," said Mabel absently. Then as she remembered her task she
said firmly, "I forgot; I can't mend your suit. Mend it yourself."
"Why, what ails you anyhow?" asked Frank wonderingly. "I can't sew, and
I hate to ask mamma, she is always so busy. Why can't you mend it for
me, Mabe?"
"Something else I want to do," said Mabel coolly.
"Well, I say you are a selfish pig!" retorted Frank.
"Don't you let mamma hear you talk to me like that!" said Mabel. "You
know what you would get."
"It's what you are anyhow, and I will get even with you if you don't
come across."
Frank flung this threat at his sister as they entered their modest home.
Mabel, flushed and rather uncomfortable, went into the sitting-room
where her mother greeted her with a smile. She asked about the meeting,
but made no comment when she heard Mabel telling Frank that she did not
intend to go to church.
"What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Stay in bed and have your
breakfast brought up and loaf all day?"
"I may," replied Mabel boldly.
"If you do, you are a pill!" said Frank hotly.
"Mamma, don't you let him talk to me like that," appealed Mabel.
"Fight your own battles, my dear," said Mrs. Brewster. "If you are not
able to compel politeness from your brother and others I feel sure that
it is your own fault, and there is no use in someone else demanding it
for you. Besides," said Mrs. Brewster, yawning rather openly, "I am
tired fussing over you children. I have about decided to go into
business."
"Mummy!" cried Frank in a horrified tone.
"_Mam_-ma!" wailed Mabel.
"Exactly! I am thinking of going into interior decorating now that you
children are old enough to look out for yourselves. I have spent a good
share of my life looking after you, and now I think I will do something
that I have always wanted to do."
There was a long silence. Coming on the heels of her own plan, Mabel
listened in amazement. Frank, however, went to his mother and sat down
on the arm of her chair. There was a break in his boyish voice when he
spoke.
"Mummy, I don't like it," he said. "Are we out of money, or anything
like that?"
"Oh, no, not at all!" said Mrs. Brewster easily. "I just thought it
would be fun."
"I don't like it," repeated Frank in a hurt tone and, kissing his
mother, he left the room and went whistling upstairs. Mrs. Brewster
chuckled.
"Frank always whistles when he is cross," she said, looking at her
daughter as though she would appreciate the joke. But Mabel did not
smile.
"I don't blame him at all," she said stiffly.
"Dear me! What a tempest in a tea-pot!" said Mrs. Brewster. "Here are a
lot of stockings belonging to you that need mending. I am going upstairs
to read," and she too left the room, calling back, "Be sure to put out
the lights."
Mabel, quite stupefied with surprise, sat thinking awhile, then she
snapped off the lights, thinking as she did so that it was her mother's
usual custom to put the room in order before she left it for the night.
But Mabel did not intend to do it. So she left the chairs standing every
which way with papers and magazines scattered over the table and her
mother's sewing trailing on the floor.
Reaching her own pretty room, she put on a comfortable kimono, arranged
the light so she could read in bed, and from under a box divan dug out a
paper-covered novel. She read the title with satisfaction, _Lady
Ermintrude's Lover_, or _The Phantom of Marston's Marsh_. She curled up
against the pillows, laying a copy of _Longfellow's Complete Poems_
close beside her as a quick, safe substitute in case of interruption.
Then before opening her book, she gave herself up to her thoughts,
planning a luxurious and detailed campaign of self-indulgence. She
smiled as she thought of the little Captain. It was a good joke on her,
because Mabel was shrewd enough to realize that Mrs. Horton was trying
to show her that happiness, true happiness, lay in doing for others.
Mabel, with the Captain's authority behind her, prepared to fulfill all
her dreams. How this was going to strike her mother Mabel could not
guess, but her mother was showing a strange, new and unforeseen side.
She was glad, and hoped her mother would be so busy with her own plans
that she would fail to notice her daughter's actions. Presently Mabel
buried herself in the trashy novel and with many thrills over the
foolish and impossible adventures of the Lady Ermintrude forgot
everything but her book.
While she was thus employed, Mrs. Brewster, sitting on the foot of her
son's bed, her feet curled under her, was deep in a whispered
conversation which made both of them giggle like a pair of mischievous
children rather than mother and son.
"All right, mummy," agreed Frank finally. "I am game, but I know Mabe
will be awfully mad at me."
"Just go ahead and do as I tell you," said Mrs. Brewster, planting a
kiss on her son's rumpled hair. "It will all come out right and I will
help you when things get too deep."
She went off to bed, and Frank, grinning with pleased anticipation, was
almost asleep before the door closed.
In the morning force of habit woke Mabel, and remembering the breakfast
table to be set, she hopped out of bed and started for her morning bath.
Then she quickly hopped again, this time back into bed.
Presently her mother looked in.
"Time to get up, Mabel dear," she said cheerily. "You will be late."
"I don't believe I want to get up this morning," answered Mabel
uncertainly, and waited for her mother to retort, "Oh, yes, you do! Come
and help with the breakfast!" but instead she said:
"All right, my dear; suit yourself," and went off to call Frank.
Somehow Mabel did not care to sleep after that, and lay listening to the
sounds and smells from below. She did not guess that the lower doors had
been purposely left open in order to let the odors from her favorite
dishes ascend. But on the rare occasions when her mother had let her
sleep over, there had always been a dainty meal left in the warming
oven, so Mabel snuggled down and fixed her already strained and tired
eyes on the poor print in _Lady Ermintrude_.
Her mother and Frank went off to church without disturbing her, and as
the front door closed with the click that told her that the latch was
down, Mabel closed her book, hurried out of bed, and wrapping her kimono
around her, went downstairs to explore.
She found nothing!
The warming oven was empty; the tables in the kitchen and dining-room
were so empty that they looked lonesome. She looked in the ice-chest.
There was nothing cooked. In the sink there was a pan of potatoes peeled
and in cold water; on top of the warming oven a pan of bread pudding,
looking very queer and doughy, was ready for baking. There were some
chops. Nothing more.
Mabel commenced to feel abused. She went back to her room, and once more
followed along on the trail of Lady Ermintrude. After a long while the
telephone rang. Mabel went down and heard her mother's voice.
"We decided to have a little spree, dear," she said. "We are going to
take dinner down town at Sherr's. Hop on the car and join us; we will
wait for you."
"Where are you now?" asked Mabel joyfully. She loved an occasional meal
at the bright pleasant restaurant where everything was always so
deliciously cooked and carefully served.
"Here at Sherr's, and you must hurry; it is past one o'clock now."
"Why, I am not even dressed yet," wailed Mabel.
"Oh, I am sorry," said Mrs. Brewster. "I don't believe we had better
wait. You know it always takes you an hour to dress. Better luck next
time, dearie! There are chops in the ice-box, and the potatoes and
pudding are ready to cook, and there are some canned peas. You can fix a
good dinner, and we will be home before long. Perhaps if you have time
you had better pick up the sitting-room. I didn't feel in the mood for
it this morning. It is an awful mess. Don't bother if you don't want to,
however. Good-bye!"
Mabel hung up the receiver with an angry frown. Nothing was going right;
nothing was starting as she had intended it. She dressed slowly, and ate
bread and butter and sugar for dinner. The milkman had forgotten to
leave the milk. She drank water. And she did _not_ pick up the
sitting-room.
Later, her mother and brother failing to appear, she went out for a
walk. When she returned at half past five, she met her truant family
descending from a big touring car. Some friends had picked them up and
had taken them for a long ride.
Mrs. Brewster noted the bread crumbs on the kitchen table and the open
sugar bowl. She smiled. Later they all sat down to a delicious hot
supper, and Mabel cheered up enough to listen politely at least to the
accounts of their dinner and ride that had followed.
But when according to her orders, Mabel went to writing the account of
the day in her notebook, it did not sound interesting at all!
The next afternoon when Mabel came from school, having been detained
half an hour on account of inattention, she found Frank busy mending the
tears in his basketball suit by the simple method of drawing them up in
a tight pucker.
"Where is mother?" demanded Mabel.
"Dunno," said Frank, squinting at his work.
"Well, I wonder where she is," said Mabel. "Rosanna Horton asked me to
come over to supper tonight, and I want to wear that new dress mother is
making for me. She said she would have it done today." She went into her
mother's little sewing-room, and came back looking disappointed.
"It isn't finished at all!" she said. "I don't see where mother can be!"
"Fix it yourself," suggested Frank, stabbing his needle into the jersey.
"I can't," said Mabel. "Mother always does it. Besides," she added as an
afterthought, "I hate sewing."
As she spoke, her mother came in with a cheery greeting for her
children. Before Mabel had a chance to ask her mother about the dress,
Mrs. Brewster said,
"Mabel, I want you to get supper for Frank tonight, and be here when
the laundress comes for her pay. I have been asked to take dinner with a
woman from New York City who is an interior decorator of note."
"I can't, mamma, Rosanna Horton has asked me over there, and I told her
I would come," said Mabel peevishly.
"Well, tell her you won't be among those present," said Frank, chewing
off his thread.
"But I told her I would come, and I am going," said Mabel, stubbornly.
"I bet you won't if mamma says not," retorted Frank.
His mother caught his eye and shook her head.
"Someone will have to stay home and see the laundress, and Frank has his
basketball practice. It is a great chance for me, so I wish you would
stay, Mabel," she said.
"I don't see how I can!" objected Mabel. "I told Rosanna I would come
and I reckon I had better go. You can go some other time, can't you,
mamma?"
"I suppose I can," said Mrs. Brewster, and left the room.
Mabel glanced at her brother and noting his scowl, commenced to read a
magazine.
She was perfectly miserable. When it came time to dress, she donned her
old frock, wondering why her mother had laid the new one, still
unfinished, across her bed. Mabel loved to go to the Hortons. But for
once the dinner was not a success. All the conversation seemed to hinge
on anecdotes of unselfishness and generosity. Mabel thought of Frank
working on his gym suit because she wouldn't mend it for him, but she
thought most of her mother giving up her dinner to sit at home and wait
for the laundress. Her mother was too kind to make the poor colored
woman come again for her money. Mrs. Brewster knew that she needed it.
Mabel, sitting with unwonted primness and silence at the Horton table,
thought harder and harder and could not enjoy herself. And Mrs. Horton,
the little Scout Captain, saw and smiled to herself a sly, quiet smile
that scarcely disturbed her dimples. She wondered curiously what sort of
a report Mabel would bring her.