is called “The Magnanimous Do-Withouts,” and this is the way it
happened:
There is never enough to go round at our table any more, though the
lowest shelf of the old mahogany bookcase is beginning to show some
quite distressing gaps, and naturally Miss Brown has to be helped first
and most liberally to everything. What she does not get is just about
enough for three,—and, unfortunately, there are five of us.
“It wouldn’t make so much difference,” complained Ernie the other
evening, “if only things could be managed with a little more fairness
and system. I look fat, I know; but that does not prevent my growing
hungry, and I’m tired of pretending that I have no appetite, and being
threatened with Robin’s tonic! Good gracious,—I’d like to know what
would happen if mother _did_ give it to me! I only refused macaroni this
evening because I knew Haze wouldn’t; and if we both took it, there
would be nothing left for you. Was it very good, Elizabeth?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “It was nice, dear.”
“And filling?” questioned Ernie. “Of course, I’m sure Haze doesn’t
intend to be mean. He has a cough, and a habit of looking sort of
pathetic, which takes awfully well with mother; but, all the same, it
wouldn’t hurt him to notice, and deny himself something once a week,—now
would it?”
“You must remember the wretched luncheons he has, Ernie,” I said.
“But he eats them in St. Paul’s churchyard,” retorted Ernie. “A very
pleasant spot. And reads the old epitaphs, and goes in to look at the
windows afterward.” Then she poured a little of Robin’s milk into a
saucer for Rosebud, and set it down on the hearth.
“No,” she soliloquised. “It isn’t fair, and I’m not going to stand it.”
The following day it happened that we were to have lamb stew with barley
for dinner. It set on the back of the stove and simmered gently all the
afternoon, while every now and again an appetising whiff would be wafted
to the dull cold nursery, where Ernie, Mary Hobart, and Robin were
gathered about the sewing table in the window playing “Old Maid” and
“Tommy-Come-Tickle-Me.” The tip of poor little Ernie’s nose was quite
red, her hands were numb and chilly as she dealt the cards. She did not
feel in the least convivial. Indeed, she confessed to me later, that,
judging from the symptoms going on inside her, she supposed she must be
starving, and had only a few hours more to live.
Robin also was restless and inattentive; but Mary Hobart, having lunched
comfortably at home, thoroughly enjoyed the game.
“Let’s have another deal,” she cried. “I’ve been Old Maid three times!
It’s a shameful slander, and I shan’t go home till my luck changes. Cut,
Ernie!”
“It’s getting pretty dark,” hinted Ernie, glancing through the window at
the beaconing streetlights. “Won’t your mother worry?”
“Oh, no,” returned Mary, disappointingly. “She knows where I am, and
expects me to be late.”
So Robin and Ernie played politely and hungrily on (that stew did smell
so good,—_um-m!_) till at last the gong sounded, and Mary was obliged to
go. But even then Ernie must help her into coat and hat, before she
could scamper down to join the family in the dining-room.
“Will you have a little stew, Hazard dear?” mother was asking, as Ernie
slipped with watchful eyes into her belated place. I had already been
served. There were probably three spoonfuls left in the platter. The
case was desperate. Ernie, realising this, leaned tragically over, and
gave one swift, violent kick beneath the table.
There resounded a smothered shriek from Miss Brown. The warning had
miscarried!
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” cries Ernie. “It was Hazard I _meant_ to kick!”
“What in thunder!” retorted Haze. Then, in a sudden burst of hurt
enlightenment,—“Ernie, you are a pig! I wasn’t going to take any of your
old stew.”
Mother quietly helped the two combatants, apologised to Miss Brown for
Ernie’s “awkwardness,” and dined upon dry bread herself. It was later in
the kitchen that we gave Haze a talking to,—Ernie and I. He was very
repentant, said he really had not noticed the scarcity before (!), and
thought Ernie’s idea of a “system” excellent. So the society was
organised. We are to take turns saying we do not care for things:—meat,
vegetables, or pudding, as the case may be. But,—would you believe
it?—this noon at luncheon Miss Brown actually refused a fishcake,
remarking that she believed she was suffering from “a slight plethora”!
Perhaps she has suspected all along?—perhaps we need not worry as we do
each Saturday morning? Oh, if this is true, what a _trump_ she has been!
For she talks politics and the latest novel in the most natural manner
in the world, neither complains nor criticises, and seems quite
oblivious to our many and obvious shortcomings,—the prim, generous,
tactful darling!
Saturday, January 24.
We have had to give Rosebud away, and Ernie and Robin are quite
heartbroken. It was because he drank so much of Robin’s milk.
“It seems pretty hard to have to regard a kitten as an extravagance!”
muttered Ernie, rebelliously, as she sat in the coal-scuttle this
morning, clasping Rosebud to an indignant brown gingham bosom. “Who’s
going to tell Bobs, I’d like to know? It’s all very well for mother to
say we can’t afford it. There are some things that people _ought_ to
afford.”
“He’ll be very happy with Mary Hobart, dear,” I coaxed. “And you know he
is growing up, and has an enormous appetite; and he won’t even try to
catch mice,—except Robin’s white ones,—and milk is eight cents a quart!
Don’t make it any harder for mother. She feels it as much as any of us.”
“Of course, Mary will be delighted,” continued Ernie, bitterly; “and
I’ll have to lie, and say it is because we want to make her a handsome
present. Chums are pretty disappointing, sometimes,—and I can’t
understand Geof, Elizabeth! A boy who has three dollars a week
pocket-money could certainly afford to offer to buy a little cat-meat
once in a while. Not that we’d let Geoffrey do it, of course; but it
would be nice to feel that he wanted to. He used to be so sweet and
sympathetic when I was in trouble; and he hardly seems to notice, any
more. Why,—he’s not been in to see me for over a week!”
“Perhaps he is busy at school,” I answered. “I’d be glad to think Geof
was really studying in earnest.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” returned Ernie. “He has extra tutoring, I know; but
he shirks it whenever he gets the chance, and slips off to keep some
appointment with that horrid Jim Hollister and Sam Jacobs. They are not
the kind of fellows he ought to go with.” Then, with a swift return to
the more immediate and poignant woe,—“Dear Rosebud! dear pussy! It’s too
ridiculous,—being so poor one can’t afford to keep a kitten!”
That was the part we found next to impossible to explain to Robin.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he sobbed, after the first outburst of
violent grief was over. “I like Rosebud to drink my milk, Elizabeth.
It’s good for him.”
“But it’s good for you, too, Bobsie dear,” I said. “And you are sick,
and Rosebud isn’t. Mother can’t afford to buy more than one quart a
day,—you know that.”
“What’s ‘afford’?” questioned Robin.
“It means that we haven’t the money. We are poor, dear.”
Robin looked at me out of wondering tear-wet eyes. “Poor?” he
echoed;—“like the people in stories? Oh, Ellie!”
Then he sighed, and soothed my hand, and was very sweet and patient all
the rest of the afternoon. He even bade good-bye to Rosebud with fond
stoical precision, patting the kitten on the head, and remarking: “It is
best that we should part!” Dear, loving, little fellow! I really believe
the information came to him as quite a shock. But fancy his having to be
told!
* * * * *
When Haze came up from tending the furnace to-night his face was even
more care-lined and anxious than usual.
“How much is there left?” I asked,—the inevitable question.
“If we’re careful it may last till the middle of next week,” returned
Hazard, grimly. “Then, I suppose, we’ll begin pawning the spoons. Odd
world,—hey?”
Certainly, it is hard for Hazey. One can’t blame him for occasional
bitterness. He is working faithfully and well in uncongenial
surroundings, and has not had a cent of pay for weeks; while Geof, who
is showered with the very advantages for which Haze so ardently longs,
seems sullenly determined to make no use of them. Oh, the contrast is
cruel! But mother says the struggle is bringing out a new manliness and
self-reliance in Haze that are a daily surprise and joy to her. Roses
again,—dear mother!
But something had _better_ hurry up and happen soon!
Wednesday, January 28.
He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk
Descending from the ’bus;
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
“If this should stay to dine,” he said,
“There won’t be much for us!”
We did not think it was a Banker’s Clerk, but a Boarder! Robin, sitting
in the wicker rocker in the window, spied him first.
“Hurrah!” he piped in his shrill little treble. “I just know that big
fat man is coming here! He is going to ring our door-bell, and engage
all the empty rooms! See, if he doesn’t.”—
And the prophecy came true! It was almost like the relief of Lucknow.
“All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout!”
For, oh! I don’t know how much longer we could have held out.
It was day before yesterday that it happened. I had wakened with a start
in the early, chill, grey morning, trying dully to remember how many
potatoes still remained in the bottom of the vegetable box, and whether
there was coffee enough to tide us through the week. It was certain that
the coal would not last. Should we begin pawning the spoons then,—as
Haze predicted,—or, maybe, mother’s watch?
And, suddenly, it seemed as if life were not worth living any longer. I
did not feel as if I could get up and make my way, candle in hand, down
the narrow kitchen stairs to an arctic basement, and a sordid round of
housework. It was Monday, too! The very thought made my back ache and my
head swim;—but mother must not suspect, because I had persuaded her that
the washing was not too much for me; in fact, that I rather enjoyed it!
And, to be sure, at the very beginning it had not seemed so bad. Novelty
lent spice. With the optimism of ignorance I determined that mind as
well as muscles should be exercised. While scrubbing I would learn
French poetry.
So, with sleeves rolled above the elbow, the soap-suds splashing in my
hot face, I rubbed, rinsed, and wringered, murmuring the while:—
O Richard! ô mon roi!
L’univers t’abandonne;
Sur la terre il n’est donc que moi
Qui s’intéresse à ta personne!
or in more romantic vein,—
L’aube nait et ta porte est close!
Ma belle, pourquoi sommeiller?
A l’heure où s’éveille la rose
Ne vas-tu pas te réveiller?
But this particular morning there was no enthusiasm left. My brain was
dull, my tongue stumbled and tripped over the most familiar lines, I
could not control my thoughts. Haze had a cough, and nothing but a sweet
potato sandwich for luncheon,—the struggle was too unfair, too
hopeless!—till, actually, I caught myself weeping into the washtub,
bedewing the family linen with splashing tears.
Certainly, things did look black. It was over a month since the Hancocks
had left us, nearly two since we bade farewell to Mrs. Hudson. Even
mother was beginning to show the strain. She looked worn and worried. As
for me, I was _tired_ of the dish-washing, the sweeping, the dusting;
everything to be done afresh each day. I had not touched my mandolin for
weeks. My hands, then puffed and scarlet, would be stiff and cracked on
the morrow. I held them up and looked at them.
Which brought the thought of Meta, and the old inevitable contrast. That
very evening she was going to a party;—a pretty, informal affair,
consisting of charades, a supper, and a dance. How care-free her life
was! How happily exempt from sordid considerations! She was surrounded
by attention, gayety, admiration,—_I_ would love such things, too!
A great fat tear rolled off the tip of my nose, and splashed down on
Robin’s little striped pajamas.
“Come, come,” I told myself. “This is ridiculous! Cheer up, child, and
repeat _Horatius_, if you can’t remember any French.”
But even Macaulay’s stirring lines, with which Haze and I have heartened
each other since nursery days, seemed to have lost their magic.
“Lars Porsena of Clusium,——”
I began; and ended on a sob. Till, quite unexpectedly, without the least
premeditation, I found myself murmuring instead:—
“O Lord, raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power, and come among
us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through
our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in
running the race that is set before us, Thy bountiful grace
and mercy may speedily help and deliver us;...”
It was the beautiful collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. There
seemed nothing incongruous in repeating it above a washtub, either!
Instantly I dried my tears. “Whereas, through our sins and wickedness,
we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us!”
_That_ was the whole trouble! Parties, indeed! attention! What did they
matter to a girl blessed with the dearest family in the world to love
and work for? My back stopped aching. I thought of little patient Robin
upstairs in the big rocker, “pertending” to play with his “friends,”—how
his pale cheeks would flush with pleasure if I could manage to hang out
the clothes in time to sit with him a few moments before lunch. It was
worth trying for! And so I did;—and it was that very morning, if you
please, that Bobsie, looking down the street, uttered his jubilant
shout:—
“A Boarder! A Boarder!”
His name is Mr. Lysle. He has a square, bland face, a portly presence,
and a heavy artillery voice. It was Ernie who dubbed him “the
Hippopotamus.” He has rented our three empty rooms at the biggest price
we have yet received for them; and he and his wife and his sister will
move in on Saturday! Oh, how beautiful!—that we should have been so
“speedily helped and delivered.”
“My brave little Elizabeth,” said mother to me late this evening, “you
have been such a comfort, such a support! But it is over now, dear. We
will send to-morrow for Rose to come back. We will order furnace coal,
and—we _haven’t drawn on our bank account_!”
Then she kissed me, and I blushed for very shame. For I have not been
brave,—you know that, old diary,—at least not _inside_. How I wish that
I might look back, and honestly feel that I have earned mother’s
precious praise!
Friday, February 6.
School politics have been exciting these last few weeks, though in the
stress and strain of home affairs I have had no time to report them. But
Ernie has taken them very seriously, and for her sake we are glad the
end has come. Yesterday the Sixth Grammar Grade was promoted, and the
prize-winner’s name read aloud from the platform. Can you guess who it
was?
Let me take the matter up where I dropped it. Though naturally much
discouraged and depressed by her sudden fall from grace that fatal
composition day, Ernie bravely determined to retrieve her shattered
fortunes. In this resolve she was supported by Mary Hobart, Hatty
Walker, and a host of other friends.
“It was nothing but a ghastly accident,” they urged, “helped along by
Lulu Jennings; and, though, of course, a couple of failures will pull
down your per cent., they need not entirely ruin it. You are cleverer
than Lulu. Look at arithmetic alone, and the Visiting Board’s problems!
She hasn’t solved one of them.”
“We can’t hold _her_ entirely responsible for that,” returned Ernie,
quaintly. “I am quite sure he never intended they should be solved.”
“But you have worked out answers to them,” retorted Mary.
“Yes,” Ernie admitted: “a different answer every day.”
The problems in question were certainly difficult. There were ten of
them,—ingeniously composed by “the Visiting Board”; and it was rumoured
among the girls that even Miss Horton, herself, could not obtain a
correct solution. They were intended for practice-work during the term,
on the express understanding that one of the set, no one could predict
which, should be included in the final examinations.
Naturally, they were the subject of much and anxious discussion. Lulu
Jennings, in particular, suffered agonies of apprehensive doubt.
Arithmetic is not her strong point.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” she declared. “He just meant to muddle us.
The idea of making up such stuff out of his own head! There isn’t any
key, or any way to prove ’em, and the answers are not even in the back
of Miss Horton’s teacher’s book. I know, because——”
“Because?” questioned Mary Hobart. And Lulu dropped her eyes, and
coloured uncomfortably.
It was after her public disgrace that Ernie wrote out the entire set of
problems in a blank-book purchased for the purpose, so that she might
study them quietly at home. And how the child did wrestle!—shutting
herself in the workshop Saturday after Saturday, till finally she
discovered the correct solution! There could be no doubt. Worked out
along certain intricate lines the problems could be proved!
The next morning, which happened to be the very day before examination,
Ernie carried her precious book down to school.
“_Coo-ee!_” she yodeled to Mary Hobart, who formed one of a group of
chattering girls on the second landing. “I have the answers!”
“Not to the Visiting Board’s problems?” returned Mary, excitedly.
“Yes,” Ernie replied, unable to repress her glee. “They are here!”
tapping the book as she spoke. “And they are right, too. They prove!—all
those I’ve had time for!”
At that moment Lulu Jennings brushed past the excited pair. Apparently
she was deep in conversation with a friend, and noticed nothing.
“If only she guessed!” chuckled Ernestine.
“Well, for goodness’ sake don’t tell her!” warned Mary, the cautious. “I
wouldn’t trust that girl with her own grandmother’s plated spoons.”
“Do you take me for a goose?” asked Ernie. “Let’s put our books up, and
perhaps we’ll have time to eat an apple before the bell rings. I have a
beauty in my blouse!”
So the two girls ran up to the classroom, where they found that Lulu had
preceded them, slipped their books into their respective desks, and,
returning to the schoolyard, divided the apple.
“I wish I could explain the problems to you, Mary dear,” Ernie said.
“But, of course, it wouldn’t be fair. It was quite by chance I hit on
the right way. You can imagine my joy! I have only had time to prove the
first six, but the others must be right. I’ll work on them at noon.”
However, long before noon, Ernie slipped her hand into her desk to take
out the beloved book, and reassure herself by a hasty glance through its
pages. She owns several blank-books; one for spelling, a second for
“home-work,” and a third for English. These were successively dragged
out, and hastily thrust back again. With a queer little shock it became
certain that the book containing the solution to the all-important
problems was missing!
Ernie was puzzled, startled, but, just at first, she felt no suspicion.
Perhaps she had not put the book into her desk, after all. Perhaps she
had dropped it on the landing in the hall. It was impossible to
communicate her loss to Mary Hobart, who had been sent to the blackboard
to demonstrate a proposition. So Ernie raised her hand and asked Miss
Horton’s permission to leave the room to look for something. The request
was granted.
Yet a hurried search of the stairways revealed nothing; and the more
Ernie reflected, the more anxious she became. She returned to the
classroom thoroughly puzzled and distressed.—When what was her amazement
to discover the missing book lying in plain view on her desk!
Ernie took it up incredulously,—and was instantly conscious of a faint
scent of musk.
She turned to Mary Hobart, who was just about to resume her seat, having
finished her work at the board, and fairly hissed:—
“_Smell of Lulu, Mary. Smell her! quick!!!_”
Mary looked at Ernie in bewilderment. “I don’t _want_ to,” she whispered
back. “Why should I, I’d like to know?”
“Go on,” commanded Ernie, too excited to explain. “Smell her! You must!”
So Mary, with a puzzled and somewhat resentful air, inclined her head
stiffly toward Lulu Jennings and began to sniff.
“Well?” questioned Ernie, with dilating eyes.
“Well,” returned Mary, crossly; “she smells of cheap perfume, as usual.
It’s musk to-day. I hope you’re satisfied.”
“Yes,” returned Ernie, quietly. “And so, I haven’t a doubt, is Lulu. She
has copied my problems! I’ll tell you after school.”
Certainly the evidence seemed conclusive enough, and Mary added still
other links to the chain.
“Don’t you remember?” she said. “Lulu was at her desk when we put our
things away this morning. While we were eating that apple, she must have
taken the book; and no sooner did you leave the room to look for it,
than she asked permission to put some stuff in the wastepaper-basket. I
noticed, from the blackboard, that she paused at your desk on her way
back. She must certainly have returned it then.”
Yet what was to be done? The affair was entirely too complicated to take
to Miss Horton, even if Ernie could have made up her mind to that
course.
“No,” she returned to Mary’s suggestion. “I just won’t. I’m no
tell-tale. I’d rather give up all thought of the prize, even if I have
worked so hard for it. If Lulu Jennings can enjoy the books earned this
way, she’s welcome to ’em!” And Ernie thrust the fatal blank-book into
the very bottom of her school-satchel, and snapped to the catch with a
click!
The next morning examinations began, with arithmetic first as usual.
Every girl in the class surveyed her paper anxiously, in search of the
famous problem. It was there,—the ninth,—one of the four which Ernie had
neglected to prove. At first this was rather a disappointment; but,
having given up all hope of winning the prize, Ernie quickly dismissed
the matter and set quietly to work, merely determining to pass as
creditably as she could.
The moments flew quickly by. Absorbed in her calculations, Ernie forgot
all feeling of pique or disappointment; nor did she again think of Lulu
Jennings till, having finished her paper, she passed it under final
review, when something struck her eye!
She gave a little bounce in her seat, and caught her breath sharply. The
answer obtained to the all-important problem was different to-day from
that which she had written out before!
She remembered distinctly what that other answer was, and went hastily
over the work before her to see where the mistake lay. But it was right.
It proved! Figure by figure Ernie followed the intricate proposition, to
which, without a doubt, she had at last obtained the correct solution!
What had been wrong before she did not know, nor did she much care.
Instinctively her glance sought Lulu Jennings, who sat with head bent
low above her desk. At the same moment Lulu raised her eyes. She did not
look at Ernie, but cautiously toward Miss Horton, who was standing at
the blackboard with her back toward the class. Lulu, seeing this, darted
a stealthy hand into her desk, and brought out a little roll of paper
which she placed in her lap, at the same moment throwing her
handkerchief over it.
Ernie did not wait for anything further, but, rising from her seat,
carried her paper to Miss Horton’s desk. No one paid any attention, as
it is customary for the girls to put up their papers when finished. On
her way back Ernie stopped beside Lulu just long enough to whisper,—
“I wouldn’t bother to copy that. It’s wrong.”
Lulu turned first white, then red. She clutched the paper in her lap.
Whether she heeded Ernie’s warning makes little difference. The mark she
received was not especially creditable; and Ernie, who passed a nearly
perfect examination, came out head, and was awarded the prize, after
all.
“Just think, Elizabeth!” she chortled. “Five dollars’ worth of books!
We’ll fill up the bottom shelf of the mahogany bookcase, again. I have
my list all made out:—_Water Babies_, for Robin; _The Conquest of
Granada_, for Hazard; Longfellow’s poems for you, dear,—and _The
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, for mother. The Visiting Board read
the titles aloud from the platform, and said it was ‘a remarkably
comprehensive selection.’”
“But, Ernie,” I expostulated, “what have you for yourself?”