TWO SURPRISES
At last Bob Parker had got what she wanted. Babe brought her up to
Harding for what they called “one last frisk,” in a big motor-car,
with a shiny hat trunk strapped impressively on behind, and the most
wonderful tea-basket to take off on the numerous picnics which were to
be the “frisk’s” chief feature, because Bob doted on them so.
“It’s a newsboys’ club to run just as I like,” Bob explained around
the festive board of picnic number one. “It has a splendid building in
town, and a farm for summers that I made father give me. How’s that for
little me?”
“But I don’t see how she’s ever going to get away for any more fun,”
Babe told them anxiously.
“I shall have my fun as I go along, silly,” Bob retorted promptly.
“When you find a job that really fits, you don’t need to worry about
vacations, do you, Betty Wales?”
“Why don’t you ask me?” demanded Madeline gaily. “I’m the one who’s
really perfectly crazy about her work.”
“I notice you take plenty of vacation,” Babe told her.
“That,” said Madeline, “is because I’m naturally idle and frivolous.
Bob, being naturally serious-minded and industrious, will do
differently, without sacrificing her happiness.”
“Calling one of the three little B’s industrious and serious-minded!”
mocked Babbie. “How absurd! But it isn’t any absurder, maybe, than the
way the three little B’s have settled down since they left college.
Just think! By next fall two of them will be staid married ladies----”
“And the third will be wedded to a great career,” Madeline took her
up. “Of course I’m always more interested in the great careers. It’s
dreadful to belong to such a marrying bunch as this is. Any day I
expect to find myself alone in the state of single blessedness.”
“You’re not worrying about that very much yet a while, are you?” Rachel
demanded laughingly.
“Not really losing sleep over it,” Madeline acknowledged. “So far
I feel that I can safely count on you and Christy and Roberta, and
Bob--though for all I know there may be a man behind her fondness for
newsboys’ homes. I have my suspicions that there’s a man behind Helen
Adams’ sudden enthusiasm for teaching, and I have my grave doubts about
Betty Wales. So far the two parties are about even, but the O. M.’s are
bound to lose out in the end, poor dears!”
“Well, anyway, we have enough weddings to arrange for this summer,”
sighed Babbie Hildreth. “I certainly think we ought to make out our
schedule of dates right away now, while we’re here together.”
“Do stop talking about that wedding schedule, Babbie,” protested Babe.
“It sounds exactly like a matrimonial bureau.”
“Well, what’s the matter with matrimonial bureaus?” Madeline came gaily
to Babbie’s rescue. “Aren’t we all disciples of Betty’s congenial
occupation theory? And isn’t marriage a congenial occupation for more
of us than any other one pursuit? I think that Betty ought to establish
a matrimonial bureau-department in her famous Congenial Employment
Agency.”
“I will,” laughed Betty, “if you’ll run it.”
“Oh, let me run it,” begged Babe. “I should love to make matches. Only
I’m not a bit businesslike. Father Morton says---- Good gracious! That
reminds me of something.” Babe’s face was a study in dismay. “Father
Morton had dinner with us the day I wired Bob about coming up for this
‘frisk.’ When he heard about it he said he’d come too, but then he
remembered he couldn’t, so he sat down at my desk and wrote a letter to
Betty. Goodness, how he did rage about my stub pens! He traced all the
troubles of modern civilization to stub pens.”
“And did he stop writing the letter because the pens didn’t suit?”
inquired Betty mildly.
Babe started. “I told you I wasn’t businesslike. I go off so on
tangents. Yes, he finished the letter with John’s fountain pen--which
he also raged at--and gave it to me to take to you. He said it was
important. It’s in my shopping bag this minute, just where I put it
when he gave it to me. We’d better go right back and find it--we ought
to, anyway, because it’s getting dark, and my man doesn’t know the
road. Wouldn’t Father Morton be up in the air if he knew I’d forgotten
his important letter all this long time?”
A search of Babe’s shopping bag disclosed no letter, important or
otherwise. A general shake-up of her luggage also failed to bring to
light the missing communication. Finally, under protest, Babe opened
the shiny hat trunk, and there right on top was the letter, fat and
imposing in its long, official-looking envelope.
“Oh, I remember now,” Babe confessed. “I put it in there on purpose, so
I’d be sure to see it when I took out my best hat. As if anybody ever
wore best hats, or any hats, in this lovely, comfortable spot! I’m very
sorry, Betty, though I always think it does Father Morton good to be
kept waiting.”
Betty laughed. “Then I shall put all the blame on you,” she said, and
took her letter and Madeline off to the Tally-ho, where a big dinner
with features for the following night made necessary a conference
between the manager and her chief furnisher of inspirations.
“May I just glance at this letter before we talk?” asked Betty.
“You’ll excuse me, won’t you, Mad? He probably wants me to kidnap you
and make you invent another ploshkin, whether you want to or not.”
As Betty read, her expression grew serious, then amazed, then almost
frightened. “What do you think now, Mad? He wants us to come and start
another barn tea-shop for him round the corner from Fifth Avenue--oh,
Madeline, in almost the very place we wanted when we started the
Tally-ho--only of course we never thought then of looking around for
a barn. And Madeline, what put it into his head was a letter he had
from a department store in Chicago, wanting us to plan a tea-room for
them,--with features. Mr. Morton thinks we’d better keep our ideas for
our own use.”
“Certainly,” agreed Madeline, as calmly as if opening a tea-shop off
Fifth Avenue was an every-day occurrence. “Tea-rooms aren’t like
ploshkins. If you make them too popular, you spoil them. We can call
the new place the Coach and Four.”
“Then you think we can really start it?” asked Betty anxiously.
“Easily,” returned Madeline. “We can manage the two places beautifully.
You’ll have to go down right away and get things going. We can have
our old Washington Square cook, I’m almost sure. When I’m in New York
I’ll manage to be there a lot, and--we shan’t open till fall, I should
say, so why not get Fluffy Dutton, who is planning to waste her talents
teaching the Young Idea, to come and do the Proper Excitement act for
the Coach and Four?”
“And Georgia, who is also going to teach, to do the hard, steady
grind,” added Betty.
Madeline looked at her quizzically. “The hard, steady grind that you’ve
always had to do for the Tally-ho,” she said repentantly. “I’m sorry
I’m such a flyaway, Betty.”
Betty laughed at Madeline’s woebegone expression. “I’m not,” she said.
“You’re a genius, and I rather think Fluffy is one too. I don’t mind
the hard, steady pulling. I rather like it--generally. But I can’t be
doing it in two places at once.”
Madeline nodded. “I know. There’s a lot of hard, steady grind to every
book I write--along with a pinch or two, maybe, of the queer thing
called genius. The grind in the books I do myself, because I have to,
and it’s fun--the long, steady pull up to that lovely stopping place
called Finis. I say, Betty, this old-maid business isn’t so bad. Just
think of all the fun we’ve had doing things, and all the fun we’re
going to have with the Coach and Four. Those others give up a lot for a
mere man.”
Betty smiled indulgently at Madeline’s declaration of independence.
“If it hadn’t been for a mere man named Morton, the Tally-ho would
have gone to smash long ago,” she reminded her. “Mary Brooks hasn’t
stopped doing interesting things because she’s married, and Babe could
do anything she liked--have half a dozen tea-shops, if she wanted them.
Mr. Morton would give them to her like that! Only of course you’ve got
to find the right man.”
Madeline said nothing to that; she only watched Betty’s face suddenly
take on its sober, far-away, grown-up look, and wondered what that
meant.
Presently Betty came out of her brown study.
“‘Coach and Four might do for name. Down Thursday with Miss Ayres
to talk things over and begin arrangements.’ Does that sound like a
businesslike telegram, Madeline? And will you surely go on Thursday?
You must promise fair and square, because Mr. Morton perfectly hates to
be disappointed. Well then, come with me to the telegraph office.”
“I wouldn’t give much for Jim Watson’s chances,” Madeline told Babe,
who was sharing her room, later the same evening. “She is too happy as
she is. I tell you, Babe, when a girl has found her niche, and it’s
as big as Betty’s is and is going to be, it takes an extra-specially
wonderful man to carry her off her feet.”
Babe sniffed. “It’s quite evident you’ve never been in love, Madeline
Ayres.”
“I’ve written some stunning love-scenes,” Madeline retorted with a grin.
“If you think that’s the same thing, you can just wait,” Babe told her
loftily.
“All right,” said Madeline. “I shall have to, I guess. Incidentally
I know something that will make you stare and be glad you know such
distinguished and brilliant old maids as Betty and me.”
“What?” demanded Babe, vastly excited.
“Can’t tell you yet a while.”
“Why not?”
“Because Betty said not to.”
Babe shrugged her shoulders with a fine assumption of indifference. “It
can’t be that she’s engaged, after what you’ve said; so I don’t care
much about knowing.”
“Wait till you see it.”
Babe was too proud to ask any more questions, but she lay awake for
hours trying to guess what It could be. Meanwhile Betty Wales was
dreaming wild dreams, at the climax of which the dashing Coach and Four
ran over Jim Watson.