PEGGY RAYMOND'S WAY
_Or_
BLOSSOM TIME AT FRIENDLY TERRACE
_The Friendly Terrace Series_
BY
HARRIET LUMMIS SMITH
[Illustration]
_The Girls of Friendly Terrace_ $1.65
_Peggy Raymond's Vacation_ 1.65
_Peggy Raymond's School Days_ 1.65
_The Friendly Terrace Quartette_ 1.65
_Peggy Raymond's Way_ 1.75
[Illustration]
THE PAGE COMPANY
53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: PEGGY RAYMOND]
_The Friendly Terrace Series_
PEGGY RAYMOND'S WAY
Or, Blossom Time at Friendly Terrace
BY
HARRIET LUMMIS SMITH
Author of "The Girls of Friendly Terrace,"
"Peggy Raymond's Vacation," "Peggy
Raymond's School Days," "The
Friendly Terrace Quartette,"
etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
FRANK T. MERRILL
[Illustration]
BOSTON [Illustration] THE PAGE
COMPANY [Illustration] MDCCCCXXII
_Copyright, 1922_,
BY THE PAGE COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
Made in U. S. A.
First Impression, August, 1922
PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY
BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I WHAT'S IN A NAME? 1
II A TELEPHONE PARTY 22
III A TRIUMPH OF ART 39
IV AN AFTERNOON CALL 59
V THE RUMMAGE SALE 69
VI PRISCILLA HAS A SECRET 85
VII THE FRIENDLY TERRACE ORPHANAGE 98
VIII THE LONGEST WEEK ON RECORD 113
IX THE MOST WONDERFUL THING IN THE WORLD 129
X MISTRESS AND MAID 143
XI QUITE INFORMAL 156
XII GOOD-BY 169
XIII PEGGY GIVES A DINNER PARTY 186
XIV AT THE FOOT-BALL GAME 201
XV THE CURE 215
XVI DELIVERANCE 230
XVII PEGGY COMES TO A DECISION 241
XVIII A PARTIAL ECLIPSE 252
XIX THE END OF SCHOOL LIFE 268
XX A SURPRISE 284
XXI A MISSING BRIDE 296
XXII A JULY WEDDING 313
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PEGGY RAYMOND _Frontispiece_
"'COME RIGHT IN,' SAID AMY WITH A MISLEADING AIR OF CORDIALITY" 9
"'A HUNDRED DOLLARS AIN'T ANY TOO MUCH TO PAY FOR HAVING YOUR
LIFE SAVED'" 127
"SHE RAISED HER EYES AND MET HIS" 184
"PEGGY LOOKED AT HIM WITHOUT REPLYING" 247
Peggy Raymond's Way
CHAPTER I
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
IT was the first day of the spring vacation, and Amy Lassell had
spent it sewing. To be frank, it had not measured up to her idea
of a holiday. Self-indulgence was Amy's besetting weakness. Her
dearest friend, Peggy Raymond, was never happy unless she was busy at
something, but Amy loved the luxury of idleness.
Yet although indolence appealed so strongly to Amy's temperament, to
do her justice she was generally able to turn a deaf ear to its call.
The first summer after America's entry into the war she had enlisted in
the Land Army along with Peggy and Priscilla, and then in the fall had
taken up her work at the local Red Cross headquarters, serving in an
unpaid position as conscientiously as if she had received a salary and
was depending on it for her bread and butter.
After a strenuous year with the Red Cross, Amy had entered college with
Ruth Wylie. Neither girl had expected to enter till after the close of
the war, and Amy was continually harping upon the respect which the
young and unsophisticated Freshmen were bound to feel for classmates of
such advanced years. But Nelson Hallowell's discharge from the service
had altered the aspect of affairs. Ruth had pledged herself to keep
Nelson's position for him till he should return, and Amy had promised
to wait for Ruth. The wound which had kept Nelson in the hospital less
than a month had nevertheless incapacitated him from military service.
Heavy-hearted, he had returned to his job at the book store, while Ruth
and Amy had immediately made their plans for entering college just two
years behind Peggy and Priscilla.
After her months of hard study, the first day of the spring vacation
found Amy at the sewing machine, which in itself was sufficient proof
that, whatever her natural bias in the direction of indolence, her
will was more than a match for that tendency. As a matter of fact she
was the only one of the Friendly Terrace quartette to spend the day
in unremitting industry. Peggy and Ruth had gone off with Graham for
the day. Priscilla was entertaining an out-of-town guest. But Amy,
resolution manifest in every line of her plump little figure, was
sewing for dear life.
Though the armistice had been signed months before, there still
remained foes to fight, as the girls had promptly discovered. The
reaction from economy and hard work had come in the shape of an orgy
of extravagance and frivolity. The high war prices were continually
going higher, as dealers realized that people would get what they
wanted regardless of price. The four Friendly Terrace girls, after
an afternoon of shopping which had ended in the purchase of a box of
hair-pins and two spools of thread, had returned home to hold a council
of war.
"The only way to bring prices down is to stop buying things," declared
Peggy, with all the authority of a college Junior. "I don't know as
I have anything to make over, but if I have, nothing new for me this
spring."
Amy sighed. "I'd just been luxuriating in the thought of a lot of new
dresses," she said mournfully. "Don't you know how after you've been
dieting, all at once you're hungry for creamed chicken and pineapple
fritters, and chocolate with whipped cream, and strawberry sundaes, all
rolled into one. And that's just the way I feel about clothes. But I
suppose it will end in my making over my blue taffeta."
"I've two or three summer dresses that will do very well if I make the
skirts scanty," said Ruth. "They're too full for this season."
They talked on seriously, planning their little economies as if they
expected unaided to bring down the high cost of living. They were
not the sort of girls who follow the crowd unthinkingly, nor had any
of them contracted the fatal habit of asking, "What can one do?" The
program they outlined would have resulted in a general lowering of
prices in a month's time if every one had agreed to it. And it did not
occur to them that public indifference excused them from doing their
little part toward combating a serious evil.
That was how it happened that Amy Lassell had spent the spring day
sewing. The blue taffeta had been ripped and pressed in anticipation
of the vacation leisure, and as soon as the breakfast dishes were out
of the way Amy had commandeered the dining-room table as a cutting
table. With the help of a paper pattern she had remodeled the taffeta
according to the latest dictates of fashion. Caution suggested that
it would be advisable to wait for assistance in the fitting, but
having basted the breadths together and surveyed her reflection in the
mirror, Amy had been so favorably impressed that she had gone to work
energetically stitching up seams.
Like many people whose natural tendency is in the direction of
indolence, Amy was capable of relentless industry, almost as though she
were afraid that if once she halted she might not get her courage to
the point of starting again. She swallowed a hasty luncheon and rushed
back to her sewing. Her eyes grew tired, her back ached. She became
nervous and hot and impatient, so that breaking a thread or dropping a
thimble seemed almost a calamity. And yet she did not stop.
It was after five when she laid her work reluctantly aside. Amy's
responsibilities for the day were not limited to the blue taffeta. As
in many another household, the domestic service problem had become
acute in the Lassell establishment during the last few years. Incapable
servants demanding preposterous wages, had been replaced by others
equally incompetent, and there had been interims when it had been
difficult to secure so much as a laundress. Amy and her mother had
learned a good many short cuts to achievement, and had accepted the
frequent necessity of doing their own work with a philosophy of which
they would have been incapable in pre-war times. On this first day of
vacation Amy was without a servant, and without a mother, as well;
for Mrs. Lassell had left home that morning not to return till nearly
bed-time.
At five o'clock the realization that she must prepare her father's
supper forced itself on Amy's attention. It was not a formidable
responsibility, for at breakfast that morning Mr. Lassell had informed
her that he was to take a customer out to lunch and would be satisfied
with very little for the evening meal. Amy meant to take him at his
word. There was cold meat, quite enough for two, she thought; and
some potatoes to fry, and her father did not care much for dessert.
Accordingly, Amy had waited till five o'clock before she laid down her
sewing, and then she realized for the first time how very tired she
was. A glimpse of herself in the mirror emphasized her certainty that
it was high time to stop. Amy's fair hair was disheveled, her plump
cheeks brilliantly pink. There were dark lines under her eyes, eloquent
of weariness. Amy regarded herself with extreme disfavor.
"Looks as if I'd taken up rouge in my old age. And I positively must
do my hair over. I can't ask even poor patient daddy to look at such
a frowsy head all through supper. O, well, he won't mind, if I am a
little late."
Encouraging herself with this reflection, Amy bathed her burning
cheeks, combed her hair hastily, and slipped into a little gingham
gown which, if somewhat faded and passée, had at least the merit of
being fresh and clean. It buttoned in the back, and by virtue of much
twisting and stretching Amy finally succeeded in securing the middle
button which for a time had defied her efforts. And just as she did so,
the door-bell rang.
[Illustration: "'COME RIGHT IN,' SAID AMY WITH A MISLEADING AIR OF
CORDIALITY"]
Amy went placidly downstairs. She had no apprehensions about the
door-bell. She took it for granted that it was somebody to collect for
the newspaper, or an old-clothes man, or else a friend so intimate
that she could ask her into the kitchen while she made her supper
preparations. As she reached the door she realized her mistake. Of
the two young people waiting admission she had met the sister several
times. The brother she knew merely by sight, for the family had moved
into the neighborhood only recently.
For a moment Amy's mood was one of unqualified dismay. She wanted to
turn and run. With lightning-like rapidity she compared her faded
gingham with the stylish frock setting off the girlish, graceful figure
of Hildegarde Carey. And Hildegarde's brother, Robert, if looking a
trifle bored, was immaculately attired. Amy recollected that in her
absorption with the blue taffeta she had neglected to dust the living
room that morning.
Amy opened the door with a smile that poorly concealed her anguish of
spirit. Her flickering hope that Hildegarde had made a mistake in the
number was dissipated by the composure of Hildegarde's greeting. The
two young people entered, as Amy realized, without waiting to be asked,
and in the hall Hildegarde performed the ceremony of introduction.
"Come right in," said Amy with a misleading air of cordiality. She
wondered if she had better apologize for the undusted living room, but
decided against it. Perhaps they would overlook it, though Robert Carey
impressed her as one who would notice the least little thing out of
the way. Amy decided that the young fellow's handsome face was almost
spoiled by its discontented expression.
Another shock came when she said to Hildegarde, "Let me take your
coat." She expected Hildegarde to reply that the coat was light and
that she did not mind it for the few minutes she had to stay; but on
the contrary she not only removed her coat, but slipped off her gloves,
unpinned her hat, and added it to the collection Amy carried into the
hall with a growing sense of stupefaction. "Any one would think," she
told herself, "that she was an old friend come to spend the day."
Perhaps Amy's perplexity partly explained the fact that the next half
hour dragged. Amy was not her usual entertaining self. She thought
of the dust showing gray against the shining mahogany of the piano.
She thought of her faded gingham. She heard herself talking stupidly,
unnaturally, and chiefly about the weather. Robert Carey looked more
bored than ever.
At half past six her father came in. He glanced at the group in the
living room as he entered, and Amy hastily summoned him. Her guests
must realize that when the man of the house came home it was time to
leave. Amy introduced her father, pulled out an arm chair invitingly,
and Mr. Lassell seated himself. It was from him that his daughter had
inherited her sense of humor, and on this occasion he made himself
much more entertaining than Amy had done. The conversation became
almost animated.
The clock in the hall struck seven, tolling out the notes sonorously.
Every one seemed to be listening to it, and Amy flushed. It was almost
as if the clock had said, "Time to go home! Time to go home!" And then
to her horror her father turned toward her inquiringly. "Hadn't you
better put on the supper, my dear?" he asked. "Your friends will be
getting hungry."
For an agonized half minute Amy vainly tried to think of something she
could say to soften the blow. She was magnanimous enough to acquit
her father of all blame. Seeing them sitting there at that hour,
especially as Hildegarde had taken off her hat, he had innocently
assumed that they had been invited to dinner. And of course his blunder
was equivalent to saying that they had stayed longer than was proper or
desirable.
Then Amy's head whirled again. Her guests did not spring to their feet
as she had expected them to do, protesting that they had not dreamed
it was so late. Instead they sat quite still, only murmuring a polite
disclaimer of being hungry. With the force of a blow the realization
came over Amy that they had accepted her father's tacit invitation.
They were going to stay to supper.
Amy rose, murmuring something unintelligible, and got out of the
room quickly. O, if Peggy were only home, Peggy who had such a
faculty for evolving something savory and appetizing from the least
promising materials. Amy's cooking until recently had been confined
to chafing-dish delicacies and candy. It was too late, she realized,
to add to her scanty stores. She must feed four people with what had
seemed barely enough for two, and must do it quickly.
Mechanically she lighted the oven of the gas stove. She remembered
there was a can of tomato soup in the house, and the cold meat, sliced
very thin, might possibly pass muster. She herself would refuse meat.
Luckily there was a generous plateful of potatoes. Creamed and with a
little cheese grated over them, they would be appetizing--and filling.
She could make baking powder biscuit,--Amy excelled in baking powder
biscuit--and there was honey to eat with them. For dessert she would
fall back on preserved peaches and some left-over fruit cake. It was a
queer, hit-or-miss meal, not a company repast in any sense of the word,
but the best she could do under the circumstances.
It was while the biscuits were browning in the oven, and Amy was
hastily setting the table for four, that her native common-sense
re-asserted itself. "After all," her thoughts ran, "if people take pot
luck, they can't expect to find things just as they would be if they
were especially invited. They've seemed real friendly and if they like
me well enough to stay to a pick-up supper, the first time they've ever
set foot in my home, I ought to meet them half way. I can't give them
much to eat, but I don't need to be quite as stupid as I've been for
the last hour."
And so it came about that when the guests were summoned to the dining
room, they encountered a very different hostess from the one who had
entertained them previously, a hostess who twinkled and sparkled and
kept them laughing. It seemed to Amy that, when she had removed the
soup plates and brought in the sliced meat and creamed potatoes, she
had seen an expression of astonishment flicker across Hildegarde's
face, but she resolutely put the thought aside and continued to make
herself agreeable. The baking-powder biscuits had risen nobly to the
occasion. Amy thought them the best she had ever made. And she saw with
relief that the bored expression had disappeared from Robert Carey's
face, and that he really seemed to be enjoying himself.
Then suddenly into the midst of all this gaiety, Hildegarde dropped a
bomb in the shape of a question. "What happened to detain Isabel?"
"Isabel?"
"Yes, Isabel Vincent, you know."
"I'm afraid," Amy hesitated, "that I don't know any one of that name."
Apparently the meal had come to a full stop. "Why," Hildegarde cried,
"the Isabel Vincent who attended the Pelham school when I was there."
She was so insistent that Amy unconsciously became apologetic. "I'm
sorry but I can't say I remember such a girl. Did she ever say she had
met me?"
"Why," Hildegarde almost screamed, "didn't you ask us here to-night to
meet her?"
"To meet Isabel Vincent! Why, I never heard of her."
"There's some mistake," exclaimed Robert. He had just helped himself to
a fifth baking-powder biscuit, but he laid it down unbuttered. "You've
made some mistake," he informed his sister.
Hildegarde ignored him and addressed herself to Amy. "Didn't you
telephone me this morning?"
"I--why, to tell the truth, no I didn't."
"Then it was a disgusting practical joke. Some one called me up about
eleven o'clock and said she was Amy Lassell, and that Isabel Vincent
was to stop here twenty-four hours on her way to New York from her home
in Chicago. And then she invited Bob and me to dinner to meet Isabel.
There wasn't anything in her manner to give me an idea it was a hoax."
But Amy had found the clew. "O, did Isabel come from Chicago?" she
cried. "Then I know. It was Avery Zall who telephoned you."
"But I don't know her."
"She went away to boarding school--yes, it was the Pelham school, I'm
sure. And I know she has a friend from Chicago visiting her. Probably
the Vincent girl spoke of knowing you, and Avery called you up. O,
dear!" groaned Amy with a sudden change of countenance.
"What's the matter?" demanded Bob Carey, still ignoring his biscuit.
"I've cheated you out of a regular feast. The Zalls have a wonderful
cook. You'd have had broiled chicken and fresh mushrooms and I don't
know what beside, and I've given you cold meat and--"
"You've given us the best biscuits I ever ate," said Bob, and buttered
his fifth, but his sister had turned pale.
"I don't believe any one ever did such a dreadful thing before. Here we
descended on you without warning and simply forced you to invite us to
stay--"
"Happy escape, I think," said Bob. "If there's anything I hate, it's
these social stunts Hildegarde's crazy about."
"The only dreadful part," said Amy, reassuring the distressed
Hildegarde, "is that you've exchanged a perfectly gorgeous dinner for a
pick-up supper."
"But what must Miss--Miss Zall think of me?"
"She must know there's some mistake. Probably they're not waiting
dinner any longer, for it's after eight o'clock."
"O," groaned Hildegarde, "I never was so mortified. What am I going to
do?"
"It seems to me you'd better finish your supper, such as it is,"
suggested Amy. "And then you can call up Avery Zall and explain your
mistake. She'll see that the names sound alike over the phone. And
after that there'll be plenty of time to see your friends."
"Seems to me," suggested Bob, "that as long as we've started the
evening here, we might as well put it through."
His eyes met Amy's with a twinkle that was like a spark to tinder. Amy
struggled for a moment, then gave way to peals of laughter.
"O," she gasped, when at length she could find her voice, "What must
you have thought of me, inviting you to dinner and then coming down in
this old, faded gingham."
"And what must you have thought of _me_," Hildegarde cried, "coming at
such an hour and calmly taking off my hat."
"The dust was thick over everything," giggled Amy. "I've been sewing
every minute all day long, and I warned father to expect a light meal."
"I should have known I had made a mistake," Hildegarde lamented, "when
you never said a word about Isabel. I don't know how I could have been
so ridiculously stupid."
But for all her dismay, she laughed. Indeed if laughter aids digestion,
there was little danger that Amy's biscuits would disagree with any
one, even Robert, who had dispatched such an extravagant number.
While Amy cleared the table and brought in the dessert, Hildegarde went
to the phone and explained matters to a young woman whose preliminary
stiffness melted as Hildegarde reviewed the situation. And then
Hildegarde hurried back to inform her brother that they must go over
as soon as he had finished. "She was as sweet as she could be, but she
said they had waited dinner an hour."
"So it's up to you to 'gobble and git,'" quoted Amy, dishing out the
preserves with a lavish hand.
"I'm not going to be hurried over that fruit cake," declared Bob. "It
carries me back to the merry Christmas time."
"It ought to, for it's a Christmas cake, but it's been kept in a tin
box with an apple and I hope it isn't dry. It was all I had in the cake
line." Amy paused to laugh again. "I really must stop," she exclaimed,
wiping her moist eyes. "They say that laughing at meal-time makes one
fat, and I don't dare risk another pound."
"Can't have too much of a good thing," declared Bob Carey with a
significant glance at the flushed face. Strictly speaking, Amy was
perhaps the least pretty of the four Friendly Terrace girls; but good
humor has a charm, and a face radiant with fun can hold its own
against discontented beauty any day. There was such frank admiration in
the look the young man bent upon her, that Amy's cheeks grew hot with
an unwonted self-consciousness.
The brother and sister left with evident reluctance. "Now we've had
dinner with you," said Hildegarde, "you must dine with us very soon."
"Oh, this doesn't deserve to be counted," Amy laughed. "I'll ask you
again some day and show you what I can do if I really try."
"No, don't," pleaded Bob. "Have us again when you're going to have
biscuit. It's so much jollier to be informal than to work the society
racket." And then Hildegarde carried him off, protesting that, if they
didn't hurry, Avery Zall would not believe a word of her excuse.
Amy found her father clearing the table. She put on her long apron and
joined him, chattering excitedly as she worked.
"No full garbage can to-night, Daddy. Every dish is scraped clean. I
suppose I ought to feel crushed over setting such a meal before people
I hardly knew, but somehow I don't."
Her father smiling, responsive to her high spirits, shook his head.
"It isn't much to set good food before folks, Amy. Any waiter in a
restaurant can do that. Give people the best of yourself and you don't
need to worry about your bill of fare."