Paying the Rent
"This is a whopping big yard," said Mabel, looking disconsolately at two
dandelions and one burdock in the bottom of a bushel basket. "There
doesn't seem to be any place to begin."
"I'm going to weed out a place big enough to sit in," announced Bettie.
"Then I'll make it bigger and bigger all around me in every direction
until it joins the clearing next to mine."
"I'm a soldier," said Marjory, brandishing a trowel, "vanquishing my
enemies. You know in books the hero always battles single-handed with
about a million foes and always kills them all and everybody lives happy
ever after--zip! There goes one!"
"I'm a pioneer," said Jean, slashing away at a huge, tough burdock. "I'm
chopping down the forest primeval to make a potato patch. The dandelions
are skulking Indians, and I'm capturing them to put in my bushel-basket
prison."
"I'm just digging weeds," said prosaic Mabel, "and I don't like it."
"Neither does anybody else," said Marjory, "but I guess having the
cottage will be worth it. Just pretend it's something else and then you
won't mind it so much. Play you're digging for diamonds."
"I can't," returned Mabel, hopelessly. "I haven't any imagination. This
is just plain dirt and I can't make myself believe it's anything else."
By supper time the cottage yard presented a decidedly disreputable
appearance. Before the weeds had been disturbed they stood upright,
presenting an even surface of green with a light crest of dandelion
gold. But now it was different. Although the number of weeds was not
greatly decreased, the yard looked as if, indeed, a battle had been
fought there. Mr. Black, passing by on his way to town, began to wonder
if he had been quite wise in turning it over to the girls.
At four o'clock the following morning, sleepy Bettie tumbled out of bed
and into her clothes. Then she slipped quietly downstairs, out of doors,
through the convenient hole in the back fence, and into the cottage
yard. She had been digging for more than an hour when Jean, rubbing a
pair of sleepy eyes, put in her appearance.
"Oh!" cried Jean, disappointedly. "I meant to have a huge bare field to
show you when you came, and here you are ahead of me. What a lot you've
done!"
"Yes," assented Bettie, happily. "There's room for me and my basket,
too, in my patch. I'll have to go home after a while to help dress the
children."
Young though she was--she was only twelve--Bettie was a most helpful
young person. It is hard to imagine what Mrs. Tucker would have done
without her cheerful little daughter. Bettie always spoke of the boys as
"the children," and she helped her mother darn their stockings, sew on
their buttons, and sort out their collars. The care of the family baby,
too, fell to her lot.
The boys were good boys, but they were boys. They were willing to do
errands or pile wood or carry out ashes, but none of them ever thought
of doing one of these things without first being told--sometimes they
had to be told a great many times. It was different with Bettie. If Tom
ate crackers on the front porch, it was Bettie who ran for the broom to
brush up the crumbs. If the second-baby-but-one needed his face
washed--and it seemed to Bettie that there never was a time when he
_didn't_ need it washed--it was Bettie who attended to it. If the cat
looked hungry, it was Bettie who gave her a saucer of milk. Dick's
rabbits and Rob's porcupine would have starved if Bettie had not fed
them, and Donald's dog knew that if no one else remembered his bone kind
Bettie would bear it in mind.
The boys' legs were round and sturdy, but Bettie's were very much like
pipe stems.
"I don't have time to get fat," Bettie would say. "But you don't need to
worry about me. I think I'm the healthiest person in the house. At least
I'm the only one that hasn't had to have breakfast in bed this week."
Neither Marjory nor Mabel appeared during the morning to dig their share
of the weeds, but when school was out that afternoon they were all on
hand with their baskets.
"I had to stay," said Mabel, who was the last to arrive. "I missed two
words in spelling."
"What were they?" asked Marjory.
"'Parachute' and 'dandelion.' I hate dandelions, anyway. I don't know
what parachutes are, but if they're any sort of weeds I hate them, too."
The girls laughed. Mabel always looked on the gloomiest side of things
and always grumbled. She seemed to thrive on it, however, for she was
built very much like a barrel and her cheeks were like a pair of round
red apples. She was always honest, if a little too frank in expressing
her opinions, and the girls liked her in spite of her blunt ways. She
was the youngest of the quartet, being only eleven.
"There doesn't seem to be much grass left after the weeds are out," said
Bettie, surveying the bare, sandy patch she had made.
"This has _always_ been a weedy old place," replied Jean. "I think the
whole neighborhood will feel obliged to us if we ever get the lot
cleared. Perhaps our landlord will plant grass seed. It would be fine to
have a lawn."
"Perhaps," said Marjory, "he'll let us have some flower beds. Wouldn't
it be lovely to have nasturtiums running right up the sides of the
house?"
"They'd be lovely among the vines," agreed Bettie. "I've some poppy
seeds that we might plant in a long narrow bed by the fence."
"There are hundreds of little pansy plants coming up all over our yard,"
said Jean. "We might make a little round bed of them right here where
I'm sitting. What are you going to plant in _your_ bed, Mabel?"
"Butter-beans," said that practical young person, promptly.
"Well," said Bettie, with a long sigh, "we'll have to work faster than
this or summer will be over before we have a chance to plant _anything_.
This is the biggest _little_ yard I ever did see."
For a time there was silence. Marjory, the soldier, fell upon her foes
with renewed vigor, and soon had an entire regiment in durance vile.
Jean, the pioneer, fell upon the forest with so much energy that its
speedy extermination was threatened. Mabel seized upon the biggest and
toughest burdock she could find and pulled with both hands and all her
might, until, with a sharp crack, the root suddenly parted and Mabel,
very much to her own surprise, turned a back somersault and landed in
Bettie's basket.
"Hi there!" cried a voice from the road. "How are you youngsters getting
along?"
The girls jumped to their feet--all but Mabel, who was still wedged
tightly in Bettie's basket. There was Mr. Black, with his elbows on the
fence, and with him was the president of the Village Improvement
Society; both were smiling broadly.
"Sick of your bargain?" asked Mr. Black.
The four girls shook their heads emphatically.
"Hard work?"
Four heads bobbed up and down.
"Well," said Mr. Black, encouragingly, "you've made considerable headway
today."
"Where are you putting the weeds?" asked the president of the Village
Improvement Society.
"On the back porch in a piano box," said Bettie. "We had a big pile of
them last night, but they shrank like everything before morning. If they
do that _every_ time, it won't be necessary for Mabel to jump on them to
press them down."
"Let me know when you have a wagon load," said Mr. Black. "I'll have
them hauled away for you."
For the rest of the week the girls worked early and late. They began
almost at daylight, and the mosquitoes found them still digging at dusk.
By Thursday night, only scattered patches of weeds remained. The little
diggers could hardly tear themselves away when they could no longer find
the weeds because of the gathering darkness. Now that the task was so
nearly completed it seemed such a waste of time to eat and sleep.
Bettie was up earlier than ever the next morning, and with one of the
boys' spades had loosened the soil around some of the very worst patches
before any of the other girls appeared.
By five o'clock that night the last weed was dug. Conscientious Bettie
went around the yard a dozen times, but however hard she might search,
not a single remaining weed could she discover.
"Good work," said Jean, balancing her empty basket on her head.
"It seems too good to be true," said Bettie, "but think of it,
girls--the rent is paid! It's 'most time for Mr. Black to go by. Let's
watch for him from the doorstep--our own precious doorstep."
"It needs scrubbing," said Mabel. "Besides, it isn't ours, yet. Perhaps
Mr. Black has changed his mind. Some grown-up folks have awfully
changeable minds."
"Oh!" gasped Marjory. "Wouldn't it be perfectly dreadful if he had!"
It seemed to the little girls, torn between doubt and expectation, that
Mr. Black was strangely indifferent to the calls of hunger that night.
Was he never going home to dinner? Was he _never_ coming?
"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "he has gone out of town."
"Or forgotten us," said Marjory.
"Or died," said Mabel, dolefully.
"No--no," cried Bettie. "There he is; he's coming around the corner
now--I can see him. Let's run to meet him."
The girls scampered down the street. Bettie seized one hand, Mabel the
other, Marjory and Jean danced along ahead of him, and everybody talked
at once. Thus escorted, Mr. Black approached the cottage lot.
"Well, I declare," said Mr. Black. "You haven't left so much as a blade
of grass. Do you think you could sow some grass seed if I have the
ground made ready for it?"
The girls thought they could. Bettie timidly suggested nasturtiums.
"Flower beds too? Why, of course," said Mr. Black. "Vegetables as well
if you like. You can have a regular farm and grow fairy beanstalks and
Cinderella pumpkins if you want to. And now, since the rent seems to be
paid, I suppose there is nothing left for me to do but to hand over the
key. Here it is, Mistress Bettie, and I'm sure I couldn't have a nicer
lot of tenants."