Mabel Plans a Surprise
The girls were indignant later when they discovered Mabel's apparent
desertion. It was precisely like Mabel, they said, to shirk when there
was anything unpleasant to be done. For once, however, they were
wronging Mabel--poor, self-sacrificing Mabel, who with fifty-five cents
at her disposal was planning a beautiful surprise for her unappreciative
cottage-mates. The girls might have known that nothing short of an
ambitious project for saving the cottage from the Milligans would have
kept the child away when so much was going on. For Mabel was at that
very moment doing what was for her the hardest kind of work; all alone
in her own room at home she was laboriously composing a telegram.
She had never sent a telegram, nor had she even read one. She could not
consult her mother because Mrs. Bennett had inconsiderately gone down
town to do her marketing. Dr. Bennett, however, was a very busy man and
sometimes received a number of important messages in one day. Mabel felt
that the occasion justified her studying several late specimens which
she resurrected from the waste-paper basket under her father's desk.
These, however, proved rather unsatisfactory models since none of them
seemed to exactly fit the existing emergency. Most of them, indeed, were
in cipher.
"I suppose," said Mabel, nibbling her penholder thoughtfully, "they make
'em short so they'll fit these little sheets of yellow paper, but
there's lots more space they _might_ use if they didn't leave such wide
margins. I'll write small so I can say all I want to, but, dear me, I
can't think of a thing to say."
It took a long time, but the message was finished at last. With a deep
sigh of satisfaction, Mabel folded it neatly and put it into an envelope
which she carefully sealed. Then, putting on her hat, and taking the
telegram with her, she ran to Bettie's home and opened the door--none of
the four girls were required to ring each other's doorbells. There, sure
enough, was the letter waiting to be mailed to Mr. Black. Mabel, who had
thought to bring a pencil, copied the address in her big, vertical
handwriting, and without further ado ran with it to her friend, the
telegraph operator, whose office was just around the corner. All the
distances in the little town were short, and Mabel had frequently been
sent to the place with messages written by her father, so she did not
feel the need of asking permission.
The clerk opened the envelope--Mabel considered this decidedly rude of
him--and proceeded to read the message. It took him a long time. Then he
looked from Mabel's flushed cheeks and eager eyes to the little
collection of nickels and dimes she had placed on the counter. Mabel
wondered why the young man chewed the ends of his sandy mustache so
vigorously. Perhaps he was amused at something; she looked about the
little office to see what it could be that pleased him so greatly, but
there seemed to be nothing to excite mirth. She decided that he was
either a very cheerful young man naturally, or else he was feeling
joyful because the clock said that it was nearly time for luncheon.
"It'll be all right, Miss Mabel," said he at last. "It's a pretty good
fifty-five cents' worth; but I guess Mr. Black won't object to that. I
hope you'll always come to me when you have messages to send."
"I won't if you go and read them all," said Mabel, at which her friend
looked even more cheerful than he had before.
Ten minutes later Mabel, mumbling something about having had an errand
to attend to, presented herself at the cottage. Beyond a few meekly
received reproaches from Marjory, no one said anything about the
unexplained absence. Indeed, they were all too busy and too preoccupied
to care, the greater grief of losing the cottage having swallowed up all
lesser concerns.
At a less trying time the girls would have discovered within ten minutes
that Mabel was suffering from a suppressed secret; but everything was
changed now. Although Mabel fairly bristled with importance and gave out
sundry very broad hints, no one paid the slightest attention. Gradually,
in the stress of packing, the matter of the telegram faded from Mabel's
short memory, for preparing to move proved a most exciting operation,
and also a harrowing one. Every few moments somebody would say: "Our
last day," and then the other three would fall to weeping on anything
that happened to come handy. Of course the packing had stirred up
considerable dust; this, mingled with tears, added much to the
forlornness of the cottagers' appearance when they went home at noon
with their news.
The parents and Aunty Jane said it was a shame, but all agreed that
there was nothing to be done. All were sorry to have the girls deprived
of the cottage, for the mothers had certainly found it a relief to have
their little daughters' leisure hours so safely and happily occupied.
Mabel's mother was especially sorry.
Never was moving more melancholy nor house more forlorn when the moving,
done after dark with great caution, and mostly through the dining-room
window on the side of the house farthest from the Milligans, was finally
accomplished. The Tucker boys had been only too delighted to help. By
bedtime the cottage was empty of everything but the curtains on the
Milligan side of the house. An hour later the tired girls were asleep;
but under each pillow there was a handkerchief rolled in a tight, grimy
little ball and soaked with tears.
In the morning, the girls returned for a last look, and for the
remaining curtains. Dandelion Cottage, stripped of its furniture and
without its pictures, showed its age and all its infirmities. Great
patches of plaster and wall paper were missing, for the gay posters had
covered a multitude of defects. The indignant Tucker boys had disobeyed
Bettie and had removed not only the tin they had put on the leaking
roof, but the steps they had built at the back door, the drain they had
found it necessary to place under the kitchen sink, and the bricks with
which they had propped the tottering chimneys.
Before the day was over, the tenants whom the Milligans had found for
their own house were clamoring to move in, so the Milligans took
possession of the cottage late that afternoon, getting the key from Mr.
Downing, into whose keeping the girls had silently delivered it that
morning. To do Mr. Downing justice, nothing had ever hurt him quite as
much as did the dignified silence of the three pale girls who waited for
a moment in the doorway, while equally pallid Jean went quietly forward
to lay the key on his desk. He realized suddenly that not one of them
could have spoken a word without bursting into tears; and for the rest
of that day he hated himself most heartily.