THE FRIENDLY TERRACE ORPHANAGE
PRISCILLA'S engagement, instead of interrupting her intimacy with her
chums on Friendly Terrace, seemed to intensify it. Up to the night
that she had walked with Horace in the park, and he had claimed her on
the score of an affection dating back to Babylon, Priscilla had rather
enjoyed informing Peggy and others that she would be unable to join in
their plans for the evening, as she was expecting a caller. But now all
this was changed. Instead, when Horace called up to suggest coming out,
he was very likely to hear that his sweetheart of Babylonian days had
an imperative engagement with Peggy, or Ruth, or Amy, or more probably
with all three.
It was after an evening spent at a moving picture house that Peggy made
a suggestion destined to have more momentous results than she dreamed.
They had gone early to avoid the crowd which a popular film is likely
to draw even in the warmest weather, and at nine o'clock they were
occupying chairs on Peggy's porch, and discussing the heat. "How about
ice cream?" inquired Amy, fanning herself with a magazine some one had
left in the hammock.
Before any one could answer, Peggy had interposed with her astonishing
suggestion. "Girls, I move we adopt a French orphan."
Amy forgot her interest in ice cream. "A French orphan," she gasped,
"What for?"
"Well, there are plenty of reasons from the orphan's standpoint,
and several from ours, it seems to me. Do you know we're getting
extravagant."
"Oh, Peggy," Ruth reproached her. "Why, as far as clothes go, I never
got along with so few in my life."
"I didn't say we were extravagant in clothes. But do you know, we're
getting to spend lots of money for little, no-account things. How many
nights this week have we been to a movie?"
The question was a rhetorical one, as Peggy knew the answer as well as
any one. But nevertheless Amy replied, "We've been three times, but one
night the boys took us."
"It costs just as much, no matter who pays. There are four of us; and
at twenty-five cents apiece, that makes a dollar an evening. Three
dollars a week for movies, just for us four."
"Goodness," exclaimed Amy in as astonished a tone as if this very
simple arithmetical calculation had been beyond her. "That does seem a
lot."
"And that's not all," continued Peggy. "We've had ice cream, or ice
cream soda, or something of the sort, at least three times this week,
and these days you can't go near a soda fountain for less than fifteen
cents, and you're more likely to pay twenty or twenty-five. If we call
our bill two dollars, that's putting it pretty low. Five dollars,
altogether."
"That _is_ too much, Peggy," Priscilla agreed. "Unless you stop to
count up, you wouldn't believe how much you can spend and all the time
think you've been economical. But why the French orphan?"
"Well, it's awfully hard work saving by main strength, and it's easy
enough if you have something to save for. If I happen to feel hungry
for ice cream--"
Amy groaned. "Don't!" she said in a hollow voice. "If we're not going
to have any, for pity's sake don't talk about it."
Peggy heartlessly ignored her friend's protest. "If I'm hungry for ice
cream, it doesn't do me much good to tell myself that I had a dish
night before last. I'll just think, 'Oh, well, what's twenty-five
cents!' But if I'm saving up for something, it's a different matter. We
found that out when we were paying for our Liberty Bonds."
"Won't it cost a great deal to adopt an orphan?" asked Ruth doubtfully.
"Why, we won't have to pay all its expenses. But there are lots of
French children left without fathers and mothers, who have some
relative who can give them a home if they have a little extra to help
them out. I think forty dollars will do it."
"Forty dollars a year?" Amy exclaimed in amazement.
"I'm pretty sure that's it. Mrs. Alexander was talking to me about it
just the other day, and I'm certain she said forty dollars."
"Then let's adopt an orphan right away," cried Amy. "And we'll have
money enough left for sodas."
"Why, of course I didn't mean we should give up all our good times,"
Peggy exclaimed. "Only it seemed to me we were getting a little too
extravagant. Then if you all agree, I think I'll go and telephone Mrs.
Alexander that we'll take an orphan. She's worried because people
aren't as interested as they ought to be."
It was while Peggy was at the telephone that a small girl appeared,
carrying a large bundle. "I've brought home Mrs. Raymond's dress," she
said shyly, looking from one to another of the occupants of the porch.
"Mrs. Raymond isn't home, but Miss Peggy is. She's telephoning now, but
she'll be out in a minute," said Priscilla.
"You'd better sit down and rest while you wait for her," suggested Ruth
kindly, pushing forward a porch rocking-chair. The small girl accepted
the invitation and looked smaller than ever in the capacious depths of
the big chair.
Peggy came out beaming. "Mrs. Alexander is perfectly delighted, girls.
She says--Why, hello, Myrtle!"
"Hello, Miss Peggy," returned the girl with the bundle. "I brought home
your mother's dress. Aunt Georgie couldn't get it finished any earlier."
"Mother gave you up for to-night, Myrtle. She left at eight o'clock,
but I think I know where she put the money."
Peggy's conjecture proved correct. She brought out the amount of the
dressmaker's bill, and having counted it before Myrtle's eyes, she
folded the bills carefully and stuffed them into Myrtle's diminutive
pocket book. "Shall you be glad when school opens, Myrtle?" she asked
pleasantly.
"I'm not going to school any more, Miss Peggy."
"What! You're going to leave school?"
"Aunt Georgie can't afford to keep me any longer. Everything is so
high," sighed the child, with a worldly-wise air that would have seemed
funny had it not been so apparent that she knew what she was talking
about.
"But you can't be nearly fourteen, Myrtle," protested Peggy. "And you
were doing so well in school."
"I'm twelve in September, but Aunt Georgie can get permit for me to
work, if she can't afford to keep me in school."
"Would you rather work than go to school?" asked Amy, rather tactlessly.
The eyes of the little girl filled. She sniffed bravely as she fumbled
for her handkerchief.
"I like school better," she explained, a catch in her voice. "But I
don't like to be a burden."
There was a brief silence on the porch as the little figure went down
the walk, and then Priscilla murmured pityingly, "Poor child!"
"It's a shame," exclaimed Peggy warmly. "She's a bright little thing.
She's not twelve till September, and she's ready for the high school
already. If she could go to school four years more she'd probably be
able to earn a good living, but she'll never do very well if she stops
school now, for she's not strong enough for heavy work."
"It almost seems a pity," Ruth suggested, "that we've just adopted a
French orphan. It seems there are orphans right at home who need help
just as much."
Peggy sighed. "I'm not sorry about the French orphan. I suppose we
can't imagine the need over there. But I do wish we could do something
for Myrtle."
"Peggy Raymond," warned Amy. "Don't let your philanthropy run away with
you, and get the idea that we're an orphan asylum. One orphan is all we
can manage."
"Yes, of course," Peggy agreed hastily. "Only I was wondering--poor
little Myrtle!"
"Can't her aunt afford to give her an education?" Priscilla asked, "Or
is she stingy?"
"Oh, I suppose it's pretty hard for Miss Burns to get along with
everything so expensive. She's not a high-priced dress-maker, and
besides she's mortally slow; one of the puttering sort, you know. At
the same time," added Peggy, "I mean to see her and have a talk with
her about Myrtle."
Peggy was as good as her word. As postponement was never one of her
weaknesses, she saw Miss Burns the following day, and the faded little
spinster shed tears as she discussed Myrtle's future.
"Of course I know she ought to go on through high school," she sobbed.
"She's been at the head of her class right up through the grades, and
if she could finish high school, she wouldn't need to ask any odds of
anybody. But I've laid awake night after night thinking, and I can't
see my way to do it."
"If you had a little help, Miss Burns, I suppose you could manage,
couldn't you? What is the very least you could get along on and let
Myrtle stay in school?"
"Why she can't earn a great deal of course," said Miss Burns, wiping
her eyes. "She's not old enough for a sales-woman, and she's not
strong enough for any hard work, and she don't know anything about
stenography."
"And what is the very least you think you could take in place of having
Myrtle go to work?"
Miss Burns was one of the people who have a constitutional aversion
to answering a direct question, but Peggy's persistence left her no
loop-hole of escape. Cornered at last, she expressed the opinion that
she could do with a hundred dollars. For some reason not quite clear in
her own mind, Peggy had hoped it might be less, and her face showed her
disappointment. "You think that is the very least you could get along
on, Miss Burns."
"I'm afraid it is, Miss Peggy. Maybe I should have said a hundred and
fifty. Look at the price of coal."
"Oh, I know," Peggy agreed. "Well, perhaps something will come up so
Myrtle won't have to leave school. I'm sure I hope so."
Peggy repeated the substance of her conversation with Miss Burns to her
three chums that afternoon as they were on the way out to Amy's Aunt
Phoebe's. For in their efforts to circumvent the high cost of living,
the Friendly Terrace girls had begun making weekly or even semi-weekly
visits to the country. The season had been a favorable one for all
garden produce, but Mr. Frost was finding it difficult to get anything
like the help he needed. The girls went out into the garden, picked and
pulled what they wanted, paid a price which, compared with the charges
in the retail markets, seemed extremely reasonable, and came home
with loaded market baskets and a tinge of sunburn in their cheeks. The
weekly saving paid their car-fare many times over, and the fact that
they all were together lent a festive air to the enterprise.
Peggy's three friends listened silently to their story of her visit to
Miss Burns. Peggy's generosity was always leading her to attempt things
far too big for her. The girls had stood by her loyally in the matter
of the French orphan, but there they drew the line. A second orphan was
too much.
"I'm sorry," Amy said, with an air of dismissing the subject. "But I
don't see that we can do anything for her."
"You don't think, do you," Peggy hesitated, "that we could give a
little entertainment--"
"Oh, Peggy, people are bored to death with benefits and drives, and
to try to raise money for a little girl nobody knows about would be
hopeless, especially when she's no worse off than thousands of others."
"I suppose that's so," Peggy replied, and reluctantly dropped the
subject. Under her submission was a persistent hope that something
might happen to aid her in the matter she had so much at heart. But
the last thing she or any one else would have thought was that such
assistance would come from Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back.
Mr. Frost had been having an unusually hard time with help and was in
an exceptionally bad humor. He was one of the men who, when out of
sorts, invariable relieve their minds by criticism of the opposite sex.
He had heard the girls chattering as they picked the lima beans, and
doubtless that furnished the text for his ill-natured sermon.
"Women's tongues do beat all," he declared, as the girls came to the
house to pay their reckoning. "It's small wonder they don't count much
when it comes to work. They get themselves all wore out talking."
"I think we do some other things beside talking," declared Peggy,
dimpling in a disarming fashion.
"And I can't see that we say any sillier things than men do," added Amy.
"O, men can talk or be quiet, just as they please, but a woman's got
to talk or die. You couldn't pay her enough to get her to hold her
tongue."
"You could pay me enough," said Peggy with spirit.
"Me, too," Amy cried.
Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back sneered contemptuously. "Why, I'd give
you four a hundred dollars to hold your tongues for a week."
"Girls," cried Peggy turning to her friends, "I move we take him up on
that."
Had Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back been less disagreeable, less
contemptuous, the girls might have hesitated, for a week of silence is
an ordeal to the least voluble. But Mr. Frost's sneers, combined with
Peggy's enthusiasm, swept them off their feet.
"Yes, we'll take you up," Amy cried, and Priscilla and Ruth nodded
approval.
Uncle Philander was a little taken aback, and showed it. "You
understand when I said hold your tongues, I meant it. If there's an
_aye_, _yes_, or _no_ out of any of the four of you, it's all off."
"Of course," agreed the four girls in chorus.
Mr. Frost was plainly growing nervous. "Of course I haven't any way to
keep tab on you."
"Philander," cried his wife, bristling with indignation, "If you think
Amy or any of her friends would lie for the sake of money--"
"No, I didn't mean that," he half apologized. "I put all four of you on
your honor. Not a word out of you, not so much as an _ouch_."
"But we can write notes and explain to our families, of course," cried
Peggy.
"Of course," cried Amy, as Mr. Frost hesitated. "And talk on our
fingers. All you said was _tongues_."
"You can write all the notes you want to," conceded Uncle Philander
generously. Now that he had time to think of it, he was convinced that
the conditions he had imposed could not possibly be complied with. Who
had ever heard of four lively girls maintaining an unbroken silence for
a week? His hundred dollars was safe.
After some discussion it was decided that the week should begin the
following morning, to give the girls ample chance to explain their
singular undertaking to their friends. And then the four started off
with their heavy baskets, chattering excitedly, as if in the hopes
of saying in the few hours remaining before bed time, all they would
ordinarily have said in the next seven days.