FRISKY FENTON’S FOLLY
MR. THAYER’S May party was to be a Doll Festival. Georgia had thought
of it, and she and Fluffy Dutton had made sure that the college was
“properly excited” over its “features.”
“No use taking the darling dolls home,” Georgia declared. “The new
climate wouldn’t agree with them. No use packing them away in messy
boxes, with books and pillows and pictures. By next fall the doll fever
will be over.
“There can be doll dances in costume, and a doll play, if Madeline
isn’t too famous to write one. The May-pole dancers can be dressed like
dolls too.”
Fluffy sighed and interrupted: “Shan’t you mind at all parting with
Wooden?”
“Not a bit,” returned Georgia, the matter-of-fact. “Let’s get a paper
ready for the girls to sign, with the number of dolls they can furnish
opposite their names.”
Straight signed for one doll without a murmur of protest, but it was
not Rosa Marie that she put on the pile in Georgia’s borrowed express
cart on the day of the May party. Not even to her beloved Fluffy did
she confide her intention of never, never parting from her dear Rosa
Marie.
The party was on the factory lawn, and the college part of it
overflowed hungrily into the Tally-ho’s territory, or climbed up to
view the animated scene comfortably from the Peter Pan’s upper stories.
The doll dances and May dances came first, and then everybody gathered
around the pile of dolls that rose like a haystack on the slope of the
hill, while Babbie led the little girls one by one, beginning with
the smallest and most forlorn and ragged, up to the pile to choose a
doll. Georgia strutted like a peacock because Wooden was the very first
one selected, and Fluffy refused to be comforted when the fat little
Polander who had chosen her Esquimaux promptly sat down on it and
cracked its skull.
“Never mind, dearie,” Straight consoled her. “Having dolls to smash
is part of the fun of having them at all. Mr. Thayer will glue it
together, and that child will never think about the crack.”
“It’s queer,” gulped Fluffy, “how fond you get of everything you have
up here at college--your friends and your room, and even your footless
little toys.”
“Because they’re the very last toys we’ll ever, ever have,” said
Straight soberly. “Why didn’t you keep the Esquimaux, if you cared so
much?”
“Because I kept the Baby and its nurse,” explained Fluffy shamefacedly.
Whereupon Straight confessed to having bought a substitute for Rosa
Marie, and the twins departed to the Tally-ho to celebrate their
perfect harmony of spirit in cooling glasses of lemonade.
Betty was catering for the party, acting as special reception committee
for all the shy and friendless factory hands, and finding time between
to consult flitting members of the “Proper Excitement” and “Proper
Encouragement” committees. Money-making summers must be arranged for
some of the Morton Hall girls, and positions assured for many needy
seniors. Betty had started a Harding teacher’s agency, and already the
demands upon it were almost greater than the supply.
“But I don’t intend they shall teach unless they really want to,” Betty
decreed, “and not unless they’re at least a little fitted to. Teaching
isn’t the only way for earning money--look at the Tally-ho. Mr. Morton
wants a private secretary if I can honestly recommend one. He’s been
telling his friends about my ideas of fitting people to positions,
and I got the funniest letter from one of them--a very distinguished
author. She said the woman question would soon be settled if I kept
on insisting that a woman’s work should be her true vocation. Best of
all, she wants a manager for a lace shop she is interested in, and
a chaperon for her two daughters who are to study art in Paris next
winter. Those are two splendid openings.”
“There are a lot of dolls left,” Babbie announced, having finished
her distribution. “I think Bob would like them sent to New York for
her floating hospitals and playgrounds. Where shall we put them? I’m
afraid it’s going to rain.”
“In the Tally-ho workroom,” Betty decided rapidly. “It does look like
rain. Then we’d better have the ice-cream and cakes in the club-house.
Where’s Nora? Babbie, could you ask Mr. Thayer to tell them all to go
to the club-house? Why will it always pour on garden parties?”
She had just found Nora, sent her to give new orders to the men who
were carrying the ice-cream, made sure that Bridget had taken all
the cakes over, and started across the lawn herself, when the storm
broke--a pelting spring shower that sent her scurrying back to the
deserted Tally-ho in search of an umbrella and rubbers. Before she had
found them, a forlorn, dripping little figure fell upon her.
“Oh, Betty dear,” cried the Smallest Sister, “I went to the party to
find you--Mr. Thayer asked me to come, but I only went to find you.
And I didn’t like to climb the fence, as long as it was a party, so I
came all the way around, and I’m soaked. Betty, something awful has
happened. Frisky has run away.”
Betty stared in dismay. “Dorothy, I haven’t a minute to spare now. Take
Emily’s umbrella and hurry home and get off those wet things. I’ll come
to see you to-night, but I can’t possibly stop now--nothing will go
right if I’m not there.”
“About the ice-cream, you mean?” demanded Dorothy. “To-night will be
too late to do anything about Frisky.”
“But, dearie,” Betty told her, “I can’t do anything about Frisky. If
she’s run away from Miss Dick’s school, why, Miss Dick is the one to
attend to it.”
“Miss Dick doesn’t know.”
“Then why not tell her instead of me?”
“Because,” said Dorothy simply, “you always know what to do. Miss Dick
and Kittie Carson wouldn’t know. They’d never find her and never get
her to come back. Isn’t it very awful indeed to run away and be an
actress, Betty?”
Betty laid down her umbrella, wrapped her coat around Dorothy,
and with one anxious glance in the direction of the supper that
she was relentlessly abandoning bent her energies to settling her
responsibilities toward Frisky Fenton.
“Does any one else know where Frisky has gone?” she asked.
“I think maybe her roommates do. She came and told me this morning,
and gave me a blue ribbon for a keepsake. She said she couldn’t bear to
go without any good-byes to her chums. She said, ‘Don’t tell any one,’
but of course she didn’t mean you. She knows I tell you everything
since----”
“And where has she gone?”
“To the Junction, to join that company that was acting here all last
week. They’re going ’way out west after to-night. That’s why you must
hurry.”
“Why on earth did she do that, Dottie?”
“’Cause her stepmother was so unsympathetic,” explained Dorothy, “at
Easter vacation, you know, about a new hat, and a party, and going
to see Miss Dwight in Miss Madeline’s play. And yesterday Miss Dick
scolded her and kept her in to write French verbs. So she just decided
to go off and be an actress.”
“And why do you think I can get her to come back?”
“’Cause she said once she’d love to have a sympathetic sister like you.
You understand exactly how girls feel.”
Betty sighed.
“Besides,” Dorothy went on, “you know an actress. Frisky knows
three--Miss Dwight and the ones that are the hero and heroine in this
company. She went to a play they acted here one afternoon called ‘East
Lynne,’ and she waited outside by the back door and met them, and they
encouraged her.”
“But, Dorothy, I thought you weren’t intimate with Frisky any more
since you found out she was the ghost.”
“We never stopped being chums,” said Dorothy, bursting into a sudden
flood of tears. “I’m sure she’ll be sick of being by herself by
to-night, and scared, and I almost think she’d expect me to send you
after her.”
Betty looked at her watch. It was nearly six. The next train to the
Junction would be the theatre express. “All right, little sister, I’ll
go,” she said cheerfully. “Only I can’t take the whole responsibility.
You must let me send a note to Miss Dick.”
So Betty wrote Miss Dick that Francisca Fenton had gone to the Junction
alone on a foolish errand, that she was going after her on the theatre
train, and that if Miss Dick wished to come too they could go together.
“But I’m quite sure I can manage alone,” she added, “and perhaps she
would feel less humiliated at having me find her.”
And as Miss Dick didn’t appear at the train, it was to be presumed that
she shared the general faith in Betty Wales.
As she sped to the station Betty noted the name of the company--“Pratt
Players”--on a dilapidated bill-board, and on the train she planned out
her campaign. She would drive to the place where they were playing,
and if Frisky was there or they knew where she was, all would be plain
sailing. If not, the police and private detectives must be put to work,
under pledges of secrecy. She couldn’t see that Miss Dick would be
needed, no matter which way things went.
But she had no sooner arrived at the Junction than her plans were
suddenly thrown all awry. None of the station officials, none of the
cabmen at the corner, knew anything about the Pratt Players.
“‘The Pink Moon’ at the Lyric, Shakespeare at the Grand, and I’m not
sure about the Paxton,” the man at the information bureau told her
glibly.
[Illustration: “WE’LL FIND ’EM, MISS,” HE ASSURED HER]
A cabman remembered that the Paxton was closed. “But ‘The Pink Moon’
is a great show, ma’am,” he assured Betty. “Drive you there for fifty
cents.”
Betty sped back to the information bureau. “Pratt Players?” repeated
the man inside. “Pratt Players? Some ten-twenty-thirty outfit, I
s’pose, doing a week at some little nickel theatre or music hall.
City’s full of them, miss.--Next train to Boston leaves in twenty
minutes.--Lunch-room down-stairs, ma’am.--Where in South Dakota did you
say you want to go?”
Betty turned away sick at heart. She had a vision of herself being
driven aimlessly from one nickel theatre to another, in a vain search
for the Pratt Players, while Frisky----If only Miss Dick were here! She
might telegraph for her. But first she pocketed pride and discretion
and consulted the friendly cabman again. He had never heard of the
Pratt Players. “But we’ll find ’em, miss,” he assured her, “if it takes
all night. Got a friend in the company, miss?”
Betty turned away with much dignity toward the telegraph office. On the
way she tried to think what 19-- girls had lived at the Junction. If
only she could remember one she knew well enough to take with her on
her quixotic search! There was a sudden press of people coming in from
a newly arrived train. Betty stood aside forlornly to let them pass,
when she felt her hand caught in a strong clasp and looked up to find
Jim Watson towering over her.
“By all the luck!” he cried. “You here and alone! Come on to the
theatre with me, Betty. Faculty don’t have to be chaperoned, even if
accompanied by a dimple, do they? I was hoping to get up to Harding in
time to call on you--got to be in Albany to-morrow on business for the
firm. I say, Betty, how long is it since I’ve seen you?”
Betty didn’t wait to answer. “Come,” she ordered desperately, “and find
a cab and help me hunt for the Pratt Players. I’ll explain after we’re
started. I don’t know when I’ve been so glad to see somebody I know,
Jim.”
“Look sharp now,” Jim told the cabman. “Extra fare if you hit the right
place early in the game, understand.” Owing to which inducement cabby
wasted but two guesses and halted with a flourish in front of the
dingy theatre occupied by the Pratt Players before the first curtain
had risen on the faded splendors of “East Lynne.”
Jim ordered the cab to wait, tipped a ticket-seller and a messenger boy
to ascertain the name and whereabouts of the heroine, who presumably
had Frisky in charge, escorted Betty down a dark alley to the
stage-door, cautioned her to call if anything went wrong, and leaned
comfortably against a post to await her return from the inner regions.
They had agreed that it would be better for Betty to go in alone; but
she wished, as she opened the door and groped her way up a steep,
narrow flight of stairs, that she had still the protection of Jim’s
unruffled, confident presence. She met two men on the stairs. One
took no notice of her, the other tossed a “Late again, eh? You’ll be
docked,” over his shoulder, and hurried on. At the top of the flight
Betty halted aimlessly. Stage hands were busy moving battered scenery.
A woman’s querulous voice clamored impatiently for “Daisy!” Then above
everything rose a man’s angry remonstrance.
“Promised you nothing! You said you could dance, and you can’t. If you
could, you’re good for a front row job, with that face. Oh, well,” in
answer to a low-voiced reminder, “I never thought you meant it. That
was my little jolly. Don’t you know jolly when you see it, little girl?
Where’ll you stay to-night? Lost all your money? Well, I’m losing
more’n I ever had over this old show. It ain’t my fault that you got
lost this afternoon along with your pocketbook, and didn’t get here
till it was show-time. Anyway I haven’t a thing for you at any hour
of the day. If I was you I’d go right home to my mamma. Here’s two
plunks--that’s all I can spare. So long, little girl.”
Betty stepped forward toward the voice just in time to be run down by a
frightened, tear-stained Frisky, clutching two silver dollars tight in
her hand.
“Miss Wales!” she gasped. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve got a carriage outside to take you home in,” Betty told her
quietly. “So you won’t need that money. Let’s give it back and then
go.”
At that the manager appeared, looking a little frightened, and
protesting stoutly that he “hadn’t never promised the kid a part.” And
when Betty didn’t offer to dispute him, he seemed much relieved and
grew obsequious and effusive, so that Betty was glad to remember that
Jim was outside. When they finally got out to him, past the bowing,
mincing manager, Jim tactfully fell into the rear of the procession,
and rode back on the box with the driver, so that Frisky, who was
hysterical with humiliation and relief, might have Betty all to herself.
Her story was just as Dorothy had told it. After getting to the
Junction she had experienced the same difficulty that Betty had in
finding the elusive Pratt Players; but not having thought of a cab,
and being without Jim’s effective methods of memory-jogging, she had
walked all the afternoon, losing her pocketbook in the course of
her wanderings, only to be told by one of her “encouraging” actor
friends that he had only suggested her joining the company as a bit of
harmless, pleasant “jolly.”
“I’d saved three months’ allowance, and sold my turquoise ring to
Josephine Briggs for three dollars,” sighed Frisky. “What will Miss
Dick say, Miss Wales, and what will she write home to my father?”
At the station Jim appeared with tickets and the cheering information
that the next train wouldn’t go for half an hour. So Frisky, who had
had a banana for lunch and no dinner, was persuaded to gulp down a
sandwich and a glass of milk, while Betty thanked Jim so fervently that
he took heart and boldly inquired when he might come to Harding to make
the call he had missed in the pursuit of Frisky.
On the train Frisky considered her future and dissolved in floods of
woe.
“I couldn’t stay without my money,” she wailed, “but I simply cannot
go back and face the awful scoldings I shall get. Miss Dick won’t let
me out of the school yard for the rest of the term, and I shouldn’t
wonder if she’d tell the whole story right out in chapel. If I hadn’t
been made to stay by myself so much and think, I shouldn’t have thought
of so many wrong things to do. I discovered the secret passage one day
when I was sent to my room to meditate. Who could resist trying to be
a ghost, Miss Wales, with that secret passage all fixed up as if on
purpose? I’ve felt awfully about Shirley----”
“And yet you did it again,” said Betty sternly, “to Dorothy, who might
have been just as badly frightened.”
Frisky wept afresh. “I know it. She made me cross, and I didn’t care.
Sometimes I don’t care what happens, Miss Wales, and other days I love
everybody, even Miss Dick and my stepmother. The worst thing is that
nobody trusts me. I meant to show them that I could be trusted to get
along all right alone. And then I--I--I--lost my purse,” sobbed Frisky
wildly.
Betty patted her shoulder comfortingly. “That plan was all wrong,”
she said. “Suppose you were to come and consult me about things the
way Dorothy does? I believe we could get to be good friends. I know a
good many stage people,” she added craftily, “the real kind, not the
make-believes like those dreadful ones in the Pratt Company.”
“But if ever I wanted to go on the stage you’d say no, Miss Wales,”
demurred Frisky.
“I should say that Miss Dwight knows more about it than either of us,”
amended Betty. “We are almost at Harding, Frisky. Shall I tell Miss
Dick to-morrow that I’m to be your special consultation committee from
now on, and that I’m willing to be responsible for your good behavior?”
“Responsible for my good behavior?” Frisky giggled, with a touch of her
old irresponsible gaiety. “But I’m always in hot water, Miss Wales. I
try sometimes, and sometimes I don’t, but it always ends the same way.”
“So you’re not to be trusted, then,” began Betty. “I thought you
said----”
“Oh!” Frisky considered it. “If I said I’d try all the time, and Miss
Dick promised to overlook some little mistakes, and I should talk
things over with you instead of with the other girls--I think sometimes
they stir me up on purpose to see the rumpus there will be. Well, then
you’d beg me off with Miss Dick. Is that it?”
“I’d explain to Miss Dick. I’d ask her to treat you as she does the
oldest and most responsible girls--to trust you.”
“She treats them all a good deal like infants,” murmured Frisky. She
turned to Betty. “Thank you, Miss Wales. I don’t know why you should
do so much for me. If you are looking out for my good behavior, I’ll
certainly try not to make you sorry or to get you in a fix with Miss
Dick.” Frisky laughed again.
Betty took the sleepy Francisca home with her, and risked routing
somebody up at Miss Dick’s to make her report. Miss Dick herself
answered her. “I found your note on my return,” she explained. “One
of Miss Fenton’s roommates had grown worried and spoken to me earlier
in the day. Miss Carson and I went down in the afternoon. No, we were
not provided with the company’s name, and we could not place them.
Miss Carson is staying all night--the detective reports to her hourly.
I shall wire her at once, of course. Miss Wales, you have done me an
inestimable service in helping me to fulfil my trust to the child’s
parents. In the morning you will come over? Certainly, Miss Wales.
Anything, anything! I am very deeply in your debt.”
Betty smiled, a little later, over the picture of the dignified Miss
Dick, the subdued Kitty Carson, and a perturbed detective pursuing a
phantom theatrical troupe and a pretty girl through the devious ways of
the Junction.
“But I didn’t find them,” she reflected modestly. “It was Jim. I’m
never the one that does things. It’s just my good luck and my good
friends.”