please! Ernie got the book from the public library Saturday, expecting
to read it herself; but, unfortunately, when she went to Sunday-school
yesterday afternoon, she left it lying open on the workshop table. Haze
strolled in, carelessly picked it up, and began to read. Naturally, when
Ernie came home a couple of hours later, she demanded her story,—but
pleadings and protestations were of no avail. Hazard would not even
answer,—apparently he was deaf to all remarks. So Ernie lost patience,
at last, and tried to snatch the book away; at which Haze rose, dazed
yet dignified, placed it on his chair, and calmly sat down on it.
“I think you’re too mean for anything,” cried Ernie, with flashing eyes.
“You haven’t any _right_ to take my story and keep it from me, just
because you are stronger than I am!”
“Don’t be a dog in the manger,” returned Hazard, loftily. “You can’t
possibly expect to read the thing while I’m sitting on it, can you? Go
away and find something useful to do. You’re only wasting both our time
here, and naturally, when I’ve finished it, I’ll give it back.”
Ernie stamped and fumed, quite unable to appreciate the fine logic of
this position; but Haze sat stolidly on, till at last she gave in,—she
is always a generous child,—and Hazard arose, resumed his story, and
read rabidly till bedtime. Even so, however, he did not finish the book,
and took it with him this morning to read on the trolley;—in consequence
of which he was carried seven blocks out of his way, and arrived a
quarter of an hour late at the office!
Mr. Bridges, who is something of a disciplinarian and determined to show
no partiality, “jumped on him like anything” he confessed to Ernie and
me this evening,—“And, of course,” says Haze, “though I objected to the
language he used, I was not in a position to resent it,—which comes of
being an office boy!”
“Never mind,” purred nice little Ernie, immediately forgetful of any
rancour she herself may have been cherishing. “Some day you’ll surprise
them all, Hazard. They don’t appreciate you yet, dear,—but we know,
don’t we, Elizabeth? Just let ’em wait a bit, and they’ll see!”
Thursday, December 18.
Tuesday I received an invitation from Aunt Adelaide to dine with them
yesterday evening. I was to bring my mandolin, and after dinner Meta and
I were to play from _Iolanthe_. The fairy music is very pretty on the
mandolin.
There were to be a number of guests: an Englishman and his wife, a
railroad president, and several others. Aunt Adelaide extends me one or
two such informal invitations each winter. I expect she considers it her
duty,—besides which it lends support to Meta, and two mandolins are
better than one.
Naturally, the first question was as to clothes. Aunt Adelaide sees to
it that two or three of Meta’s last season’s dresses are sent to me
spring and fall. They are always _chic_, always pretty, and as we are
very nearly of a size, they require little alteration. Yet, somehow, I
hate to wear them,—especially in their native habitat, where I am
perpetually haunted by the discomforting suggestion that they must be
fatally familiar to all. However, it is expected; and Ernie declares
that I ought to be grateful, since I am thus “provided with a wardrobe
far above my station.”
She is too young to understand that that is just what I do not like.
Last evening I wore a graceful little white surah frilled frock,
garnished with artificial forget-me-nots. The idea! for a girl who
expects to start in on the family-wash come Monday.
Uncle George’s house, as I have remarked before, is very imposing. There
is a magnificent display of plate-glass windows, a flight of broad stone
steps, and a really oppressive vestibule.
I was admitted by William, the coloured man, who took my instrument, and
told me that “Miss Meta was above stairs; would I please go right up?”
Such a charming room as Meta has,—all rose and mossy green, with soft
rugs, a desk, a bookcase, her favourite casts and photographs!
Everything individual and personal,—which seems to me the greatest treat
of all.
“Come in!” she answered to my knock, and turned half round before the
cheval-glass, a pout upon her pretty face.
“Oh, Meta!” I cried, “how charming!” For the dress of which she was
evidently trying the effect before the mirror was truly lovely,—a Nile
green rajah silk, with lace under-sleeves and a touch of amber fluff at
the throat.
“Do you think so?” returned Meta, “You haven’t really seen it yet. Come
and look how this shoulder pulls. Now wouldn’t that jar you!”
“There isn’t much amiss,” I answered. “The underseam wants to be let out
a little, that’s all.”
“I declare I’ll give Miss Murray fits,” returned Meta, her face flushing
unpleasantly. “It was all I could do to get her to promise the thing for
to-night, and then to send it home like this! She’s a big fake,—forever
working on mamma’s sympathies with that cough of hers! I’m going to
change, Elizabeth, see if I don’t! All the girls are going to Madam
Delahasset, now; and I don’t see why I should be made to look like a
frump, just because Miss Murray is delicate, and has a pair of aged
parents to support!”
“You’re exaggerating, Meta,” I returned. “There is nothing the least
frumpish about that frock. It’s the prettiest thing I have seen in
ages,—and as to the shoulder, that’s easily remedied, and might have
happened with any one.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Meta, uncertainly.
“Why, of course I do,” I replied. “And what is more, I think Miss Murray
is a wonder—always so _chic_ and original.”
“Well, I’m glad you like it,” admitted Meta, who is not difficult to
bring around if only one is firm enough. “Mamma believes in her; but
there is nothing that upsets me so much as a new frock. See,—won’t my
amber buckle be the very ticket with this girdle?”
“It’s stunning,” I returned, and threw my hat and gloves upon the bed.
“You look well yourself, Elizabeth,” continued Meta, turning, jewel-case
in hand, to sweep me an approving glance. “Somehow, I never appreciate
how nice my things are till I see them on you. Those bunches of
forget-me-nots, for instance, didn’t look half so cute when I wore them.
But, mercy, child—what have you been doing with your hands?”
“Dish-washing,” I was forced to admit. “Are they very bad?”
“H’m’m,” returned Meta, in dubious assent. “It wouldn’t matter so much
if we didn’t have to play. Don’t you ever use cold cream?” And then,
quickly, before I had time to reply,—
“How can you bear it, Elizabeth?—truly, now,—your life, I mean?”
“My life?” I questioned. “You want me to answer honestly? Well, first
place, it’s interesting; one never has a moment to be bored. Of course,
there are plenty of worries, and a good deal happens that one doesn’t
like; but the planning is exciting, and the sense of battle. Then, too,
there are such lots of _funny_ things! I’m convinced that nothing
develops one’s sense of humour like being poor,—and it teaches one to
love one’s family, and gives one plenty of chance to show it, too,
without being sentimental; and, oh,—it’s good training in other ways.
For instance, it would take a lot more than a new frock to upset me,
Meta, and——”
Here I stopped, amazed. Either it was pride that made me answer so, or I
had suddenly discovered that being poor is not altogether such bad luck!
I, who have kicked so determinedly against the pricks;—longing for the
luxuries we can’t afford;—resentful of Georgie because for him they are
afforded. Well, I must do better now. Since, among the thorns, there are
roses to be found, why not pluck and wear them?
Meta still stood before the mirror, trying the effect of the amber
buckle.
“I don’t understand a word you’ve been saying,” she confessed. “I’m
afraid you’re talking through your hat, Elizabeth. But, come on. Let’s
go down now—I’m ready, since you think my rags will do.”
And we proceeded to the drawing-room, where we found Aunt Adelaide and a
number of guests already assembled.
Geof did not appear till dinner was announced. He sat next me, and after
an unenthusiastic greeting began upon the oysters. It was evident he was
in one of his moods.
“How’s hockey coming on, Geof?” I asked, under cover of the general
conversation.
“It’s not coming on at all,” returned Geof, glumly. “Probably shan’t
play any more this season.”
“What!” I replied, for Geof is captain of his school team, a crack
player, fast, and wonderfully clever. “Not even the Lakeville match? I
thought you had it all arranged!”
“So we have,” muttered Geof, crumbling a bit of bread between his
fingers. “The match’ll come off, all right;—under a different captain,
that’s all.”
“Oh, Geoffrey!” I said; for I saw by his face and the nervous movements
of his hand how deeply the matter cut. “What has happened? You’re not in
trouble again at school?”
“I’d get on all right at school,” returned Geof, sullenly, “if only
they’d stop nagging at home. It seems the Governor’s not pleased with my
reports,—one can’t especially blame him for that,—and the ultimatum’s
gone forth that I am to give up athletics,—my place on the team and all.
He’s put up to it, of course. I’m sharp enough to know that.”
“But, Geoffrey,” I said, “if scholarship is the only difficulty, why
don’t you buckle down and study? Aunt Adelaide is really anxious about
you. Her motives are good,—and, after all, the matter rests in your own
hands,—it isn’t hockey, as _hockey_, that is objected to. You know
that.”
Geof turned from me. I saw that I would receive no further answer; and
yet I felt sorry for the poor fellow, stubborn and headstrong as I know
him to be.
When we returned to the drawing-room, Meta, Geof, and I retired to a
window-recess, where we felt ourselves screened from observation.
“Mamma’s evenings are so dull,” Meta began, plaintively. “One puts on
one’s best clothes, and then nothing happens at all! Seventeen is a
hateful age anyway, it seems to me. One is not grown up, and yet one is
no longer a kid. Fancy, Elizabeth! mamma says I am not to come out till
I am twenty! Did you ever hear anything so unjust? All this talk about
education makes me tired.”
“_Much_ you have to complain of,” jeered Geof;—“a fudge party every
other week, and girls so thick about the house one can’t move without
stepping on ’em!”
“Oh, I’m not trying to infringe your patent,” replied Meta, smartly.
“Did you know, Elizabeth, that Geof has taken out a patent on martyrdom,
since he’s been forbidden athletics? He has even got to give up his
beloved hockey. It’s a national misfortune, let me tell you.”
“That’s all you know about it,” returned Geof. “But who’d expect you to
understand, anyhow? You haven’t an atom of sport in your make-up!”
He raised an excited arm as he spoke, and as ill luck would have it
struck Meta rather sharply on the side of the head. I should have
laughed had I been in her place, for it was not really much of a blow,
and we were crowded so against the window-seat that accidents were only
natural. But she cried out,—
“Geof! stop that! You hurt me!”
And Uncle George, who was standing near enough to overhear the
exclamation, turned and rumbled in that heavy bass of his,—“Are you
teasing your sister, sir? Leave the room;—since you can’t conduct
yourself like a gentleman.”
Geof jumped up and looked at Meta, as if expecting her to explain; I
waited, too; but never a word did she say. Then Geoffrey, very red and
stormy, walked toward the door. How sorry I felt; for every one had
turned at Uncle George’s voice, and it sounded brutal,—the way one would
order a dog.
“Meta!” I whispered; “how could you? It was an accident—you know that
perfectly well!”
Meta raised her hand to her hair with an airy little laugh. “He mussed
my pompadour, all the same,” she explained. “And besides, Geof will
understand. He knows perfectly well that I owed him one.”
I turned away, shocked and disgusted, and presently Aunt Adelaide asked
us to play.
The music went well enough: people applauded, and declared it
delightful; but, so far as I was concerned, the evening had proved
anything but a success.
About half-past nine I made my _adieus_, and was conducted home under
the wing of the dignified and awe-inspiring William.
Well, I had not had a pleasant time, but I think I learned a lesson.
Meta’s question and my unexpected answer in return. Certainly, there
_are_ advantages in being poor;—for, under given circumstances, one
would have to be so very selfish to be selfish at all, that that in
itself is a safeguard.
Poor Geof! poor Meta! I lay awake and thought of them late into the
night. They waste so much that is good and pleasant, and are not nearly
as happy as any of us, whom they often pity, I feel sure.
Friday, December 19.
This morning, as Rose was sweeping the pavement in front of our house,
she was accosted by a small boy with ruddy cheeks and a red cap.
“Is he dead?” asked the small boy, his head interrogatively to one side,
a half-expectant, half-wistful light in his twinkling blue eyes.
“Dead?” says Rose, with a little skip. “Who?”
“Why, him,” specified the small boy, ungrammatically insistent. “The
little chap which used to sit in the winder and watch us play. I haven’t
seen him for three days.”
“Of course he ain’t dead,” answered Rose, indignantly, for, with all her
faults, she is very fond of Robin. “Ah guess he can stay in bed if he
wan’ster without askin’ you! Shoo! get along!” and she swished viciously
at the boy with her broom.
“Then give him this,” cried the red-capped one, hopping nimbly to safety
in the gutter; and rolled a great golden orange to her feet. “I bought
it with my own pennies to eat in school; but I’d rather he had it,—as
long as he isn’t dead.” And he walked whistling down the street.
It was Robin’s “chum” John, to be sure,—and how Bobsie _did_ enjoy that
orange!
“It isn’t everybody who has such good friends as me,” he remarked with
gusto, between unctuous sucks. “There’s Mrs. Burroughs, who sends over
chairs an’ things just when you least expect it; and Francis, who wants
me to have ’em (she said I might count him); an’ Georgie, even if we do
fight sometimes; an’ my chum John. It’s pleasant to have people love
you, isn’t it, Ellie dear?—and very comforting, too.”
In one instance, certainly, the comfort seems to be mutual. Mrs.
Burroughs has run in to see Robin several times this last week. They
laugh and chatter away together in the jolliest fashion. Indeed, it is
quite delightful to hear them; for Bobs has not a particle of shyness
with his new friend, while she seems to find an almost painful pleasure
in his society. The more we see her, the sweeter we think her; and there
was not a dissenting voice when Ernie declared this evening that “Mrs.
Burroughs is next door to an angel.”
Saturday, December 20.
Rose left us this afternoon with many protestations of affectionate
regard.—
“If ever you wan’ me, jus’ call upon me, Mis’ Graham,” she said to
mother. “Ah’m ready to come back any time, at $18 a mont’, and no
questions arst.”
I must say it seemed rather nice to have the kitchen to ourselves, the
closet shelves all tidy and ship-shape, and clean sash curtains in the
windows.
I was to get my first dinner alone, for poor little Robin had had a
wretched night, and been in so much pain during the day that we had
finally decided to send for the doctor. He was expected at any moment,
and mother had to be ready to receive him.
The potatoes were bubbling pleasantly away on the hottest part of the
stove, the steak was salted and peppered on the gridiron, ready for
broiling, and I had just run in to the dining-room to take a last survey
of the table before sitting down to cut up the oranges, when there
sounded a _tap-tap_ on the window-pane, and looking up, I saw Hazard’s
anxious face peering in at me.
Naturally I ran to the basement door to let him in.
“Is anything the matter, Haze?” I asked,—for he has a latchkey, and it
seemed odd that he should tap at the window.
“Hush, Elizabeth,” he answered. “I don’t want ’em to know that I’m home
just yet.” And he preceded me into the dining-room, threw his cap upon a
chair, sat despairingly down on it, and buried his head in his arms
across the chair-back.
“What has happened, Hazard?” I asked, anxiously.
Haze swallowed hard, looked up, and then let his head drop down on his
arm again.
“Do answer me, Haze,” I urged. “_What_ is the matter? You aren’t
dismissed, are you?”
“Not this time,” returned Haze, unsteadily, “but, from our point of
view, it’s all the same as if I were.” And then, in an ashamed and
broken voice, the poor boy started in to tell his story.
It seems that he was sent by Mr. Bridges this morning to collect a small
debt for the firm. Haze got the money without any trouble, and started
at a clip down the office stairs, because the elevator was several
flights up, and he wanted to break the record, so to speak, and
accomplish his errand in such short time that Mr. Bridges, whose special
hobby is promptitude, would be forced to notice and commend him. When he
reached the curb there was no car in sight, and Hazard happened to
remember that he had not counted his money. Of course he knew that it
must be all right, for the firm he was dealing with is perfectly
trustworthy and reputable. However, to make sure, Haze thrust his hand
into his coat pocket, drew out the little wad of bills, and proceeded to
verify them.—There were two tens, a two, and three ones, in all
twenty-five dollars, which was the correct sum.
Haze stood with the money in his hand, thinking how nice it would be to
have that amount to spend on Christmas, till presently a down-town car
came bowling along, Haze thrust the bills hurriedly into the outside
pocket of his overcoat, and swung on.
There was a fine-looking, white-bearded old gentleman standing on the
back platform. He caught Haze by the arm, and steadied him.
“Young blood will have its way,” he remarked, in admiring reproof. “Some
forty years ago I swung aboard the cars in just such style myself.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s all right,” says Haze, never stopping to think
that it must have been stage coaches the old gentleman swung aboard.
“Pleasant weather,” remarked Hazard’s new friend, presently. “Crisp, but
not too keen. I see you are like myself, and prefer the view from the
back platform here, to the stuffy atmosphere within. Oh, the poetry of a
great city!” he observed again. “There’s romance here as fine and true
as any hid away amid the snowcapped hills and sheltered valleys of my
native state. Judging from your physiognomy, my boy, you are of the
fibre to appreciate all that. The brow of a scholar, above the ardent
eyes of a poet!”
“Thank you, sir,” says Hazey again, blushing a bit, and thinking, I
haven’t a doubt, what a nice, appreciative old gentleman he had run
across. “I do like to watch the city, and listen to its hum. It’s like
wheels within a wheel. If you can keep your place, and pace, all
right;—otherwise——”
“Otherwise,” concluded the old gentleman, his eyes fixed abstractedly
upon the guard, who had walked the length of the car, and was fumbling
with the door handle,—“Otherwise, it is what one might call—_bum_!”
And then, much to the surprise of Hazard, he hopped lightly to the step,
swung himself off the car with a really amazing agility for one of his
years, and disappeared among the throng.
Haze was still staring blankly after him when he felt a touch upon his
shoulder. “Fare, please,” said the guard.
Haze felt in his overcoat pocket for the nickel, and turned pale. The
wad of bills was gone! He had been robbed.
“And the worst of it is,” added Hazard, “that I shall have to make good
out of my salary. That means I won’t be able to pay another cent to the
family for eight weeks, Elizabeth. And I’d planned what I was going to
give you all for Christmas,—and—and Mr. Bridges called me a _calf_
before the entire office! I can stand most things,” concluded poor
Hazey, with an angry sort of gulp, “but not, _not_ an ’ninsult!”
Of course I comforted him as well as I could, and told him I would break
the matter to mother. But, oh! it took all my courage, I can tell you,
when she came down a few moments later, white-faced, and so
tired-looking, after her interview with the doctor.
There was no use waiting, however, till after dinner. We should have to
wash the dishes then, and she would want to return to Robin. So I began
as cheerfully as I could, and mother listened, half as if she had
expected it.
“Who could ever suppose that three dollars a week would seem so much?”
she said, at last. “Well, we can’t have any Christmas spree, that’s all.
I’m sorry, dears, but I do not dare draw anything from the bank. There
is only $300 left,—and we may need it all, later.”
Somehow, in the back of my brain I have half a suspicion what mother
fears we may need that money for. But I am not going to ask her and make
sure. I haven’t the courage, that’s all.
“_Mother!_” protested Ernie, who had come down to the kitchen in time to
hear mother’s last words. “No Christmas spree! What will Robin think?”
“There, there,” said mother, almost harshly. “It can’t be helped,
Ernestine. Get the blue dish for the potatoes, and then ring the gong.
We mustn’t keep Miss Brown waiting.”
So dinner was served; but though Miss Brown was really very nice, and
said that everything was “delicious,” and she thought we should find the
new régime a real improvement on the old, I could not feel much pleasure
in her praise.
“Shall I tell you something?” asked Ernie, unexpectedly, as she set a
dish of milk for Rosebud on the hearth, after the table was cleared and
Miss Brown had gone upstairs. “Well, Uncle George is a devil. There!”
“Ernie,” said mother, turning in the doorway with Robin’s tray, which
she was about to carry to the nursery, “I don’t wish you to speak that
way. It is not right. Uncle George has been a good friend to us,
according to his lights, and in this instance the fault is entirely with
Hazard. He was foolish and careless, and we cannot expect an exception
to be made in his case. It was against my wishes that he took a
position,—now it lies with himself to make the best of it, and to try to
overcome those faults of character which prevent his being the comfort
and support to me that I have a right to expect.”
Poor Hazey, who was helping dry the dishes, blushed to the roots of his
hair, and dropped a cup and smashed it.
Oh, dear! I do feel so sorry for _everybody_! That big splash is a
tear;—and to-night there just _don’t_ seem to be any roses, so there!
Monday, December 22.
All last night the wind whistled and howled about the house. This
morning we woke to a snowstorm of almost blizzard proportions. And, oh,
but the atmosphere was arctic!
“You get up first,” says Ernie, poking her little pink nose above the
bed-covers.
“Indeed, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I answered. “It’s _your_ turn.”
“I thought you loved me, Elizabeth!” wailed Ernestine, reproachfully.
“So I do,” I answered, and hopped heroically forth to the glacial
matting.
Ernie followed with hysterical giggles,—and I can tell you it did not
take us long to dress!
Fortunately Miss Brown had gone to spend Sunday with a niece in
Flatbush, so we did not have her to worry about. Mother made the nursery
as comfortable as possible at the sacrifice of heavy inroads upon our
precious stock of coal, and there Haze, Ernie, Robin, and I passed the
morning. For Haze was taken ill Sunday night with a sharp attack of
laryngitis, and was still unfit for the office; and we did not think it
wise for Ernie to attempt to make her way to school through the
snowdrifts. But, though it is not often now that we have the chance of a
day together, it was not especially jolly.
Poor Hazey squatted on the register, very hoarse and gloomy, pegging
away at his eternal Cæsar; I darned stockings, and understood just how
it was that Rose had used to be cross on a stormy Monday; while Ernie,
hid in a corner behind a series of screens that she had contrived, sang
carols and asked ridiculous riddles, busy as she declared upon “a
secret.”
As for Robin, he sat in his shabby little grey flannel dressing-gown,
propped up with pillows in the middle of mother’s big bed, talking about
Santa Claus and the things he wanted for Christmas.—
“I’ve been good for three weeks,” he boasted vaingloriously. “I’ve taken
my cod-liver oil,—haven’t I, Elizabeth? And I’ve finished the First
Reader, and learned to spell _squirrel_! Hope old Santa knows about it,
’cause I want a lot o’ things!”
“Why don’t you write a letter, and tell him what you want?” suggested
Ernie.
Whereat, Hazard scowled at her over his Cæsar, and I shook my head
warningly; but it was already too late. Robin caught gleefully at the
suggestion.